Authors: Elizabeth Strout

The Burgess Boys (42 page)

BOOK: The Burgess Boys

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A kitchen chair scraped back, and Mrs. Drinkwater almost turned to go back to her room, but then water ran in the sink, and stopped, and they were talking again. Bob was telling Susan that someone he worked with knew a woman who was raised poor and always bought her clothes at Kmart, and then she married a really rich guy and still, after all these years of being married to a rich man, bought her clothes at Kmart. “Why?” said Susan, just as Mrs. Drinkwater was wondering the same thing. “Because it’s familiar,” Bob answered.

“I’d get myself some beautiful clothes if I was married to a wealthy man,” Susan said.

“You think that,” her brother said. “But you might not.”

A pause arrived that was long enough for Mrs. Drinkwater to consider retreating. Then Susan’s voice: “Jimmy, do you want Helen back? Because when Steve left, my friends said all the stuff people say: Oh, you’re better off without him, all that. And as much as I went around stacking up his faults, I’d have let him come back. I wished he’d come back. So if you want her back, I think you should beg.”

“I think you should beg,” Bob said.

Mrs. Drinkwater almost fell down the stairs, leaning forward. She wanted to call out, I say you beg too, but discretion stopped her. It was their time together.

“You don’t like Helen,” Jim said.

And Susan answered, “Don’t do that, Jim. She’s fine. Don’t turn this on me. Maybe you weren’t totally comfortable being married to a rich WASP, but that’s not Helen’s fault.” Susan added, “For the longest time I didn’t even know
I
was a WASP.”

Bob’s voice: “When did you find out?”

“When I was twenty.”

“What happened when you were twenty?”

“I went out with a Jewish guy.”

“You did?” This was Jim’s voice.

“I didn’t know he was Jewish.”

“Oh, well. Thank God for that. You’re excused.”

Mrs. Drinkwater thought Jim was being sardonic; she liked Jim. She’d liked him years ago when she saw him on television each night.

“How’d you find out he was Jewish?” Bob asked.

“It came up. He said somebody just thought of him as a Jew-boy, and I thought, Huh, he must be Jewish. I didn’t care. Why would I care? But then he started calling me Muffy, and I said, Why are you calling me Muffy?, and he said, Because that’s what WASP girls are called. Finally I figured it out.”

“What happened to him?” Bob asked.

“He graduated. Went back to Massachusetts, where he was from. The next year I met Steve.”

“Susie has a history,” said Jim. “Who knew.”

A scraping chair again, the sound of dishes being stacked. “You guys, I’m so nervous I feel sick to my stomach. What if Zach doesn’t like me when he sees me?”

“He
loves
you. He’s coming home.” This was Bob’s voice, and Mrs. Drinkwater went back to her room.

They sat in the bus station, which was not the Portland bus station of their youth but a newer one stuck in what seemed to be the middle of a huge parking lot. Through the large windows could be seen a few taxi drivers, sitting in their cars—not yellow—waiting for the buses to come in. “Why didn’t Zach take a bus to Shirley Falls?” Jim asked. He sat slumped in his plastic chair, not looking around.

“Because he’d have to change buses here, and wait for hours, and that bus gets in to Shirley Falls really late,” Susan said. “So I offered to come get him here.”

“Of course you did,” Bob said. He was thinking of Margaret. How he would tell her all of this. “Susie, don’t freak out if he’s awkward and doesn’t hug you. He probably feels very grown up these days. I’m expecting he’ll shake my hand. Just don’t be disappointed, is all I’m saying.”

“I’ve thought of all that,” Susan said.

Bob stood. “I’m getting a cup of coffee from that vending machine. You want anything?”

Susan said, “No, thank you.” Jim said nothing.

If either one saw him go to the ticket counter, they did not mention it. There were buses going to Boston, New York, Washington, and also to Bangor. Bob came back with his coffee. “Did you see the taxi drivers? A couple are Somali. In Minneapolis, some couldn’t get hired because they didn’t want to take people that have alcohol.”

“How would they know if someone had alcohol?” Susan asked. “And is it any of their business? I mean, if they want a job so bad.”

“Susie-Q, Susie-Q. Keep these opinions to yourself. Your son is able to come home because of one Abdikarim.” Bob raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Seriously. The guy who testified at his hearing. He’s very respected in the Somali community. He took a real interest in Zach—campaigned for him with the elders. If he hadn’t, the DA probably wouldn’t have filed the case, and you’d be facing a trial right now. I talked to him yesterday.”

Susan couldn’t take this in. She kept frowning at Bob. “That Somali man did that? Why?”

“I just told you. He liked Zach, he reminds him of his son he lost years ago, back home.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Bob shrugged. “Well, you know. Keep it in mind. And eventually we need to educate Zach.”

Throughout this conversation Jim was quiet. When he stood up, Susan asked where he was going. “To the bathroom. If you don’t mind.” He walked across the station, stooped and thin.

Susan and Bob watched him. “I’m awful worried about him,” Susan said, her eyes staying on the back of her brother.

“You know, Susie—” Bob put his coffee onto the floor by his feet. “Jim told me he did it. That I didn’t.”

Susan waited, looking at him. “Did wha—
That?
Seriously? Oh, wow. But of course he didn’t. You don’t think it’s true, do you?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

“But he thinks he did?”

“He seems to think he did.”

“When did he tell you?”

“When Zach was missing.”

They watched Jim come back to them across the station. He did not seem tall, as he always had, but old-looking, and gaunt, in his long coat. “You guys talking about me?” He sat down between them.

“Yes,” they said in unison.

Over the loudspeaker came the announcement that the bus for New York City was now boarding. The twins glanced at each other, then at Jim. Jim’s jaw twitched. “Get on the bus, Jimmy,” Susan said gently.

“I don’t have a ticket. I don’t have any of my stuff, and the line’s too—”

“Get on the bus, Jim.” Bob flipped the ticket to his brother. “Go. I’ll leave my phone on. Go.”

Jim sat.

Susan slipped her hand beneath his elbow, and Bob took his other arm; all three stood up. As if he were a prisoner between them they walked him to the door. Susan, watching him move to the waiting bus outside, had a sudden stabbing of despair—as though Zach was leaving her again.

Jim turned. “You say hi to my nephew,” he said. “You tell him I’m glad he’s back.”

They stood while he boarded the bus. Through the tinted windows he wasn’t visible. They waited until the bus had pulled away, then went back to their plastic chairs. Bob finally said, “You sure you don’t want coffee?”

Susan shook her head.

“How much time?” he asked, and Susan said ten minutes. He touched her knee. “Don’t worry about Jimmy. He’s got us, if it comes to that,” and Susan nodded. He understood they would probably never again discuss the death of their father. The facts didn’t matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

“There it is.” Susan hit his arm. Through the station window they saw the bus, like a friendly oversize caterpillar, pull into the lot. The wait by the door was interminable, then swift, because all of a sudden Zachary was there: hair falling over his forehead, tall, and shyly grinning, Zach.

“Hey, Mom.” And Bob stood back while his sister hugged her son, they hugged and hugged, swaying slightly back and forth. People stepped around them politely, some smiling quickly as they passed by. Then Zach hugged Bob, and Bob felt a sturdiness to the young man. When he pulled away he held Zach by his shoulders and said, “You look
great
.”

In fact, of course, he was very much Zach. A sprinkle of acne ran across the top of his forehead, visible as he ran his hand again and again through his hair. And while he had gained weight, he still gave the appearance of awkward skinniness. What was different was how his face flickered with emotion. “Weird, man. Weird, right? So weird,” he kept saying as they walked to the car. What Bob had not counted on—and probably Susan hadn’t either—was the fact that he talked. And talked. He talked about people paying lots of taxes in Sweden, his father had explained this, but then people had everything they wanted. Hospitals, doctors, perfect fire stations, clean streets. He talked about people living closer together, taking care of each other a lot more than here. He talked about how pretty the girls were, you wouldn’t believe it, Uncle Bob. Gorgeous girls just everywhere, at first he felt like a loser, but they were always nice to him. Was he talking too much? He asked this.

“Heavens, no,” Susan said.

But the house caused him to hesitate, Bob saw that. Scratching the dog’s head, looking around, Zach said, “It’s all the same. But it’s not.”

“I know,” Susan said. She leaned against a chair. “You’re not obligated to be here, honey, you can go back any time you want.”

Zach scraped his hand through his hair, gave his mother his goofy grin. “Oh, I want to be here. I’m just saying it’s
weird
.”

“Well, you can’t stay here forever,” Susan said. “It wouldn’t be natural. And nobody young stays in Maine anymore. There aren’t any jobs.”

“Susie,” Bob said. “You’re sounding crispy. If Zach goes into geriatric medicine, he can work here forever.”

“Hey,
you
guys, what happened to Uncle Jim?”

“He’s busy,” said Bob. “Real busy, we hope.”

Night had fallen hours earlier across the Eastern Seaboard. Across the coastal town of Lubec, Maine, the sun set first, then the town of Shirley Falls, then quickly down the coastline: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York; dark for hours by the time the bus carrying Jim Burgess pulled into the cavernous Port Authority, dark as he stared out a taxi window riding across the Brooklyn Bridge. Abdikarim had completed his day’s final prayer, and was considering Bob Burgess, who must be home with the dark-eyed boy, the boy who, in fact, turning to his mother, had just said, “Man, we have to paint this room.” Bob had gone downstairs to let the dog outside, and stood now on the porch in the cold. The sky had no moonlight, no stars. He could not believe how dark it was. He thought of Margaret, with wonderment, and with a heart that understood its fate. He had never—never—expected to return to Maine. For a few moments he felt shivers of apprehension: thick sweaters worn day after day, snow kicked from boots, cold rooms entered. He had run from this, and so had Jim. And yet, what lay before him did not seem strange, and life was like that, he thought. About Jim there was no thought—only the rushing sweep of sensation as large as the dark sky. He called to the dog and went inside. When Bob fell asleep on Susan’s couch he held in his hands—held on to it all night—his phone, set on vibrate, in case Jim needed him, but the phone remained unmoving and unblinking and it stayed that way as the first pale light crept unapologetically beneath the blinds.

To my husband,
Jim Tierney

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the following people who were enormously helpful in the writing of this book: Kathy Chamberlain, Molly Friedrich, Susan Kamil, Lucy Carson, Benjamin Dreyer, Jim Howaniec, Ellen Crosby, Trish Riley and Peter Schwindt, and Jonathan Strout, as well as the many, many people who were so generous with their time in helping to bring forth an understanding of an immigrant population.

BY ELIZABETH STROUT

Amy and Isabelle

Abide with Me

Olive Kitteridge

The Burgess Boys

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ELIZABETH STROUT is the author of the
New York Times
bestseller
Olive Kitteridge
, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the national bestseller
Abide with Me;
and
Amy and Isabelle
, winner of the
Los Angeles Times
Art Seidenbaum Award and the
Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine and New York City.

Elizabeth Strout is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact the Random House Speakers Bureau at 212-572-2013 or
[email protected]
.

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