Stop Here (3 page)

• • •

The bus plows through the night. Occasional headlights streak the darkness. The wide aisle is now littered with paper bags, candy wrappers; an empty soda can rolls desolately past her feet. No one sits beside her and she's grateful. A talker would have shattered whatever is holding her together.

She keeps glancing at his photograph, her son's face caught in the light of a waning sun. Is he wishing she'd come or is he too busy, too happy to remember her at all? For several weeks after her husband was killed, she took Bobby into bed with her, kept her arms around his tiny sleeping body. Protecting him made her feel safe.

The driver's voice interrupts her thoughts. “In a few minutes we'll be arriving at the bus terminal. You have fifteen minutes to stretch your legs, get a cup of coffee,” which his tired voice sounds in need of.

The bus pulls up in front of a small depot with a dirty plate glass front. She stares out the window. She can just make out a ticket counter inside and the uncertain flicker of fluorescent lights. Two soldiers bring their coffee outdoors and watch the bus as if it might take off without them. She wonders if they're bound for Afghanistan. The last time she saw her husband he was in uniform. They'd spent that week in San Francisco huffing and puffing up the hills, eating and drinking and making love like there was no tomorrow.

Two magazines are stuffed in the mesh pocket of the seat ahead. There is no way can she digest other people's stories now. She remembers Mila saying that diners are a better source of gossip than beauty salons because salons don't include men's input. Rosalyn disagreed, saying men talk half as much as women, and even then you can't believe a quarter of it.

She checks her purse for the tenth time, one hundred dollars and a credit card. She also has her checkbook and a roll of quarters in case her cell phone doesn't work.

Back on the road, the bus picks up speed. But for one or two reading lights, it's dark again. Outside, though, there are glimmers of light in the sky. Across the aisle the two soldiers are asleep, something tender in the way their heads nearly touch. Almost two days, now just another few hours and she'll be there, and she still doesn't know if what she's doing is right.

Loneliness, she'll say, not used to Bobby being gone. Mark will understand her decision to take him back with her. By next summer her trust will be complete.

• • •

For a while the taxi drives along the same highway as the bus, then turns sharply to begin a gradual climb on rutted dirt roads. Lemony sunlight opens the morning and the beauty of it all silences her. She'll arrive there at breakfast time and wonders what Bobby's face will do when he sees her.

The cab drops her off at the foot of a long driveway leading to a white stucco ranch house. Blue wildflowers march uphill like toy soldiers. She walks slowly between trees in summer glory. A dog barks. Maybe she'll say hello and go home. If she feels Bobby's safe, why rob him of this?

Through a picture window she sees a woman. No sign of Bobby or Mark. What if he gave her the wrong address?

She knocks. The woman is in her early fifties, sturdy build, blond hair pulled back from a broad-boned face. Jeans, T-shirt, sandals, her arms deeply tanned. Two rings circle her fingers, one pearl, the other a band of gold.

“Hi, I'm looking for the Dobson house.”

“This is it,” the woman says huskily, like a smoker.

“I'm Bobby's mother.”

Just for a second, the woman's expression freezes. “Oh my goodness, hello. I'm Lydia, Mark's wife.” She opens the door wider and yells out, “Mark! Bobby!” Her eyes settle into a gaze, a calculation. “Come in,” she finally says in a near whisper. They stand in absolute silence. Not a bird sings, not a dog barks. She feels eerily calm. She already knows the problem here isn't her son's. It's been hard enough for her, why should she make anything easy for any of them?

Suddenly Lydia begins speaking far too quickly.

“What a great son. I know you've heard that before, but he's so smart, so easy to talk to, such a pleasure. He and Mark just came back from camping. The three of us plan to go sailing later. Will you join us?” Her words are friendly, but her gray eyes are hesitant. And why shouldn't they be? No doubt Mark told her Bobby is some needy kid whose poor, overworked mother couldn't give him anything. Certainly not that she's the woman he bedded down with all these months.

Lydia pours her a cup of coffee at the table. She can't remember the last time anyone did that for her.

Feet drum across wooden floors. Entering the kitchen, they both stop.

“Well . . . hello . . .” Mark says. He licks his lips and manages a smile. “You're a long way from home.”

“Mom, did something happen?” He's alarmed as if caught somewhere he shouldn't be.

“No, honey. I had some days off and decided to see some of the country. I was near enough to save Mark a trip and pick you up.”

Mark leans against the counter, ankles crossed, arranging himself in a pose—no doubt familiar to his wife—she's never seen.

“But I've only been here a few days.” His words are half-apologetic, half-accusing.

“Yes, I know. We never did decide how long the vacation would last, did we?” And she touches his cheek.

Sensible words but her brain flashes another headline: duped, betrayed, his sweet talk, endearments, promises, all lies. Never mentioned a wife, did he? Her skin stings. Man needs a son to play with and takes hers. This weird kidnap, isn't that what it is? Her roiling mind searches for a way to upend this ludicrous reunion. She's a cop's daughter, taught to take action. She won't allow Mark to violate two women. Only Bobby's puzzled gaze causes her to hesitate.

“But Mom, we have so many plans. Me and Mark, I mean . . .”

“Won't you reconsider,” Lydia asks with little enthusiasm. She must be wondering who this younger woman is.

“No, but thank you. Bobby, pack your stuff. We'll talk more on the bus.” Or not, she thinks, because he's so upset by now that his lips are quivering, his eyes narrowing against the tears. She can't allow his disappointment to reach her. If he stayed the summer, he wouldn't be mistreated. But it would be like stealing, wouldn't it? Stealing her trust and then her son. Stealing what only money can't buy. Why should Mark get the pleasure of her son?

“Mom, listen, I have an idea,” Bobby's jerking her arm as if to shake some sense into her. With his pale skin and wheat-colored hair, he could disappear into any cornfield.

“I'm listening,” she says gently.

“How about if I stay for July? Then you and me can have August together. How about that?”

She can feel it and she's strangely touched. He's trying to negotiate her happiness as well as his own. She stands there in a circle of calmness that nothing in this situation justifies or explains. She knows her job as well as she would if she were working the diner. She has to reassure Bobby that none of this is his fault. And Mark hasn't said a word, doesn't dare to influence the moment one way or the other. If they go on much longer, Mark's reticence will hurt Bobby even more than her insistence.

“I have some plans for us, a surprise, but you need to pack up now.” And what would that be, she wonders, but it doesn't matter. Surprises are the easy part. She'll send him to sports camp and worry about how to pay later. He's about to try one last time, but she adds with all the emphasis a mother can bring to bear, “Bobby, go do it, please.”

After he's clumped out of the room, she sips her coffee. The fury of a bird's flapping wings speeds past the window.

Mark stands there, a poster of the good husband. Why shouldn't his wife know the truth?

Lydia wipes the table and places the milk carton in the fridge. Nothing left out. Dishes, cups, tumblers in glass-fronted cabinets. A rack with every kind of condiment. A microwave, a Krup's coffeemaker, a Magic Chef stove, all shiny new and ready to come to life at the press of a button. The micro-pearl lights above the white sink sparkle. A room with a view approved by
Good Housekeeping
. It's nothing like the bare-bones kitchen where Bobby eats his breakfast without her or the diner where she dishes up the eggs and hash each morning; where not so long ago she dished them up to Mark and took him into her home where except for the small window above the cracked sink, there was no view. Now Bobby has a comparison. And just like that she realizes it isn't to Lydia she owes the truth.

She'll make it simple. Mark lied to her to spend time with him. Mark lied to his wife to spend time with her, which makes him untrustworthy. Mark was good to him, which convinced her that he was a good man, but anybody who'd lie so easily is without a conscience and a man she should never have left him with. Bobby won't like hearing it, but he'll get it.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she says to Lydia. “Would you mind calling a taxi? I'll wait outside for Bobby.” Without a glance at Mark, she gathers up her purse and traveling bag and heads for the door.

Facing the alley of trees that leads to the road, she remembers a story about a slave child whose mother beat her methodically for five nights; on the sixth morning the mother escaped. When the master took a cane to the child to learn where her mother had gone, the child hardly felt the blows. That's her. Her disappointment must be profound, yes, but it doesn't hurt like when her husband died. And isn't that a relief?

Orange suede plateaus surround her. A bittersweet scent pierces the thin, crisp air. She's never seen the depth of an open sky before. It does make her wonder where she might be next summer.

 

3

Imaginary Friends

Just the way he likes it. Packed booths, a cacophony of voices, clanking dishes, the sizzling grill, the breakfast smells. Any time of day, Murray knows what's cooking in the kitchen. Ava moving smoothly from counter to tables, wonderful. He's changed her hours several times; he likes her there for the morning rush. He hangs up the wet coat, takes off his boots. Everything has a trade-off, though; he learned that from his father. Even marrying Sylvie?

He remembers it like it was yesterday. She appeared at the diner asking for directions back to the city and then lingered at the counter with coffee and a muffin for a good hour. He was intrigued by how she explained things, so energetically. Her light brown hair shot through with golden strands swept around her face whenever she moved. He remembers being amazed that she wasn't married—and then wondering how come.

He glances outside; snowflakes fall rapidly. Still, he worries: a man of fifty-two has his habits, and marrying late has its inconveniences. It's not like he never dated. He enjoys women; they're good listeners, natural nurses for whatever ails you, and a man needs caring. Until Sylvie, though, the women he met . . . well . . . too soon the cream dissolved.

He deposits several rolls of quarters in the register. He counts the bills, jots down the amount and the time. Okay, he's not thrilled with her theatrical past—the looseness of actors. Her appearance, though, that's something else. Those wild green eyes. The woman needs no makeup. She adds to his presence. Five seven, the last time he checked, with shamefully small hands and feet, although it'd take a boulder to fell him.

Of course it's not quite a year; they're still in the honeymoon phase. Beginnings are like that, filled with talk and a little mystery, but everything becomes routine, and how she'll behave when it does, he's not sure.

He notices the regulars are here despite the storm. A good sign.

Never a generous man—who did he have to spend it on?—he's now the owner of a home in East Hampton, a mansion by anyone's standards. With Ava taking over some of his chores, he's easing up on evening hours.

Black watermarks pool near the diner's entrance. If anyone slips it's a legal problem. He hands the mop to Ray, who is young enough to be his son. It is too late for children of his own—and he does regret that—though he's devoted to his Dobermans.

Ava has the pies out on the counter the way he likes it. He sorts and arranges the bread in several bins, then heads for the kitchen. The dishes are stacked properly; sponges lined up on the lip of the sink, the surfaces clean. A good cook and kitchen person is the heart and soul of a restaurant. Nick is the best, much cleaner than Bruce. Where is Bruce anyway?

“How's it going?” he asks Nick.

“Fine.”

Nick talks to him the least. Rosalyn says he probably believes bosses are the enemy. Well, this is America; he can believe what he wants as long as he keeps it to himself. He hands Nick the empty paper bread sack, watches him discard it. He could've done it himself but the order of things is important, and Nick's in charge of the kitchen.

• • •

“Sumptuous” is the word Sylvie comes up with because labeling a thing is as important to her as a handle on a teacup. Still, what's she doing in a house with cathedral ceilings? A velour couch—gray like an impending storm—stretches ridiculously long across one living room wall, green club chairs protect each side of a teak coffee table; the lamps have silk shades. It's all too fresh, too precious. New paintings waiting to be hung, prints she could never have afforded. Was it wrong to leave her job when there's nothing more for her to do but walk the spacious floors and marvel at the strangeness of the architecture?

One windowed wall faces the beach, but she can only watch the wheeling gulls for so long. She eyes the dogs near her feet. Wherever she goes, they tail her. It's oppressive. She dislikes their names as well as their menacing snouts.

She told Murray she isn't fond of animals. They're like children, he responded, give them love and food and they'll offer unqualified devotion. Is that true of her marriage too?

She may not be totally honest with her husband but she is with herself. A woman of forty-one, still single, no savings, moving through life at a decent but unremarkable pace, meets a man who wants to give her everything. How could she not? She flashes on a passing remark from Shelly outside the diner. It was one of those late autumn afternoons when the last rage of sun drenches houses in a golden light. With eyes closed she lifted her face to the warmth. Take what you can when you can where you can, Shelly said, the words odd but Shelly's tone neither mean nor sarcastic, just certain.

The dogs follow her to the kitchen, a room crammed with devices she has no use for. The trash disposal makes a loud sucking sound that upsets her and the dishwasher fills so quickly she's sure it will flood. Where she grew up, clothing was washed in the bathtub, and the scruffy field next door was where she spent her time with imaginary friends, who unlike her dreamy, alcoholic mother, attended to her every wish.

Taking a bowl from the cabinet she begins kneading ground beef. Some of it spatters on the floor. The dogs lap it up, then one licks her hand. That's a first. She tosses each a meat patty, watches the food disappear, feels their heavy warm bodies sidle past her the way cats would. Raw meat, she thinks, the key to their miserable hearts.

Suddenly she's not in the mood to cook and shoves the bowl in the fridge. She grabs her jacket and, wrapped in a scarf, slips on boots and fur mittens, ready to brave the weather. The dogs wait at the door. Murray warned her not to leave them home alone. She has a vision of them wading into the ocean and being carried away.

Together they trek the wet beach, snow-blown wind in her face, gulls screaming into the roaring of the waves. In the snow-veiled distance she can just make out a figure. Curiosity or plain boredom keeps her moving toward what turns out to be a man dressed in a long coat and woolen hat. A backpack is slung over one shoulder.

“Hi!” she calls into the wind. And the dogs begin barking. Damn! She shouts at them to stop but they don't listen. Undaunted, the man lets the dogs sniff his fingers and offers them crackers from his pocket, which quiets them. A youthful handsomeness is apparent in his craggy, ancient face. He's tall and lanky, white hair streaming from under his hat.

“Can't hold a conversation here!” he shouts. “I have a lean-to up the beach!” Without another word, he leads her to a tarp barely held aloft by shivering poles and battened down with bricks. An unzipped sleeping bag covers the sand; an easel is set up nearby. Coals smolder in a fire pit.

“My winter lair. Have a seat.” And to her amazement she does. He tucks the edges of the sleeping bag around her. It's ridiculously cozy. After tossing the dogs more crackers, he seats himself in front of her as if to block the wind with his delicate body.

“Liam, here, I live on Jessup Road.” Outside the howling wind is but a breath. His voice is soft, courtly, so unlike Murray's rough-edged tones.

“I'm Sylvie. We're new here and I haven't gotten my bearings yet.”

“Yes,” he muses, “bearings, very important . . . I must admit it took me years.”

“So you've been here a while?”

“Since I retired from business and . . . well, so many other things . . .” Something confessional lurks here and she finds herself unexpectedly embarrassed. She points to his backpack.

“Can I see?”

He hands her a bunch of paintings as easily as if they were sandwiches at a picnic. Winter beach scenes. White, gray, silver without a drop of color, yet they shimmer. Could these be the landscape she finds so forbidding, cold and untouchable? She catches him staring at her.

“Too bleak for you?” he asks.

“No. The opposite. Is that how you really see what you see out there?”

“There's no metaphor for the ocean, only how I feel when I try to capture it.”

“In this one the waves are ferocious. They're filled with warning . . .”

“Because my fingers were stiff and my knees hurting, the waves spoke to me of what's impending.”

“Was that depressing?” Is she probing?

“At my age death is a comrade, a way of leaving, an exit.”

“I don't believe everyone your age feels like that.” Nothing about him seems tired or worn, though he must be near eighty.

“Maybe not. But there isn't much I'll miss. I love the beach, but I'm alone now. Do you have children?”

“No.”

“I had a son killed in
1970
, in that dirty war.”

The sea, the sky, his death, his son's. He says it all in the same matter-of-fact way.

“How awful,” she finally says.

“It was worse than that.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“You're born, you die. Everything in between is mostly illusion, but there are still sins. The avoidable deaths of young people is one.” He gathers up the canvasses and slides them into the worn backpack. “It's no mystery how the dinosaurs disappeared. War kills the young and it's the beginning of extinction.”

“You sound pretty certain.” She's thinking of Murray, who believes war is a way to keep what you have.

“I did go on, didn't I?”

“Oh no, not at all. Not in the least.”

• • •

For the third time Murray punches in the number, his eyes on the snow mounting outside the diner in the empty parking lot. She's supposed to drive in but it's not a good idea. He'll take the train home. Buy some flowers from the guy on the platform. He enjoys bringing her presents; it's a new sensation. So is knowing she'll be waiting for him. Sharing space is easier than he thought. Each night her chatter and that creamy body. It couldn't be finer. He adjusts the thermostat. The windows are steaming up, the snowy world vanishing. He does what he can but the weather is beyond him. He dials the number again.

“Hi?” She sounds breathless.

He imagines her anxious to get to the phone.

“The wind is something else.”

Is the woman crazy? Yesterday, too, she was out walking. “Where'd you go?”

“Just along the water. I can't always tell where I am until I look back and see our house.”

“The dogs must be frozen.” The coffee urn, he notices, is low, the floor beneath the corner stool gummy.

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah, you'd be surprised how delicate they are.” He wiggles a few fingers at Rosalyn, who's stamping her boots on the rubber mat. Her dark, piercing eyes beneath heavy brows take in the scene.

“Okay, I'll keep an eye on them.”

“So pick me up at the station at eight, it's too dangerous to drive in.” He hangs up and draws water for the urn. Who goes for walks in the middle of winter? It's not like anything out there changes.

“Work half-day,” he says to Rosalyn, without looking at her. “It's going to be slow.” Paying hourly help to sit around irritates him.

“Murray, I drove here in a storm. Unless you close shop, I'm doing full-day.” Rosalyn enjoys combat more than a marine.

“Well, don't blame me if you're bored.” He wonders if she'll mop the gummy floor without being asked.

“So how's Sylvie?”

“You should see how beautifully she rearranged the living room, a real show.”

“Nice of her to pick you up every night. I wouldn't.”

He laughs. “Me or anyone?”

“Any man who could drive himself, to be exact.”

“Can you take care of that spot on the floor?”

• • •

The train station looks quaint beneath a mist of falling snow. He spots the dogs in the backseat and then kisses Sylvie's cheek, cold and smooth. The promise of a warm house and dinner excites him. “How's it going,” he asks, taking over the wheel, not really wanting an answer. It's been a long trip.

“Murray, you never told me why you weren't in the army.”

She surprises him constantly. “What brought that up?” Cars are pulling out of the station at a slow, careful pace. He waits his turn impatiently.

“Reading about Iraq, Afghanistan . . .”

“Yeah, I wanted to go . . . badly, but they found a TB spot on my lung.”

“TB?”

“I caught the bug somewhere but it never infected me. Happens, I'm told.” Actually it was flat feet that did him in.

“How strange. TB may have saved your life.”

“It was frustrating. My father thought I was some kind of misfit.” He waits for a word of sympathy.

“You must've been relieved. I mean, who wants to go to—”

“Sylvie, war's a man's sport like hunting, no more no less.” He maneuvers the car onto the road. The snowplow ahead forces him to reduce his speed to a crawl. Hell.

“So it has nothing to do with patriotism.”

What's she nattering on about? Something challenging in her tone annoys him. “It has everything to do with it, everything to do with this great country of ours. And what's all this about anyway? Why are you so interested in stuff that happened a million years ago?”

“Listening to the news . . .”

“Well, read a book.”

• • •

Just as he expected, the house is warm and cozy.

“Sylvie,” he calls from the bedroom, “let's eat where we can watch the storm.” She doesn't respond. “Sylvie,” he calls even louder.

“Please don't shout.” She appears in the doorway, startling him.

“Let's eat—”

“I heard, okay, we'll do that.” She turns to leave.

“Wait.” He grabs her arm, nuzzles her ear, sniffs vanilla or maybe something else, he can't tell. He wishes the flower guy had been at the station. “You smell delicious.”

“Must be the cooking oil.”

Watching her walk out, he pats the bed and both dogs jump on; after wrestling with them awhile, he says, “Okay, boys, down. Now!” They obey, which makes him stupidly happy.