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I picture a dog’s flank punctured by sharp points and wince. “I’m sorry,” I say, annoyed that my speech has turned into an apology. “Is he okay?”
“Tough as nails, that one. He’ll be fine.”
“What kind of dog is it?” I’m imagining a brute of a Rottweiler with a spiked collar.
“Jack Russell. Funniest little pup you’ll ever meet.” He takes a phone from his pocket and scrolls through some photos. “Here he is, before the barbed wire.”
Joe stretches out his arm to show me. I take one step closer and peer at the picture of an adorable little terrier dancing on its hind legs.
“He’s cute.”
“Here he is now.” He scrolls to another photo, holds it out. The dog is shaved to pink skin and pocked with knotted black threads.
“Poor thing.” Now’s the moment I should tell Joe I won’t be needing him to mow my lawn. “What’s his name?”
“My wife named him Bruce, after Springsteen, ’cause he’s such a little showman.” Joe pockets the phone. I take a step back. “Everyone calls him Boo-Boo, though. Guess the name fits, now.”
We stand in silence for a moment. My anger has died down, but I still have my principles. “Listen, Joe, I’m grateful for you mowing this evening, but—”
“About that.” He lifts the cap and runs his fingers through crew-cut gray hair, dislodging some grass clippings. “This one’s on me, to welcome you to Ridgetop Road. I mowed and sprayed the bricks, too, to keep that moss from getting slippery. This time of year, you’ll need the lawn mowed weekly, but we’ve got a lot going at our place so I can’t promise exactly which day I’ll come back. You can just leave a check for me in the mailbox, in case I stop by while you’re out. Fifty dollars is my special rate for neighbors.”
“Okay,” I sigh. What difference does it really make what stickers the guy puts on his truck? Unless I get my own riding mower, I’ll need his help, and it doesn’t seem worth it to find someone else who’d probably charge more and share the same politics. “Well, good luck to Bruce.”
“Thanks. My wife, Nancy, wonders if we might see you in church come Sunday?”
“I’m basically Jewish, so, no.” My mother really was born Jewish, so I’m not lying, but I only say it because it seems like an easier way to let the man down than telling him I was raised without religion. I barely knew my mom’s parents, who moved to Florida before I was born. They came to her funeral, of course, but most of that day is a blank. I do remember them inviting me to spend that summer with them in Miami, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. He’d put his strong arm around my small shoulders and said the two of us needed to stick together. When my grandparents asked who’d look after me while he was working, Dad said I was going to become his apprentice. Was it my imagination, or were they relieved? I’ve never been sure. Since then, they’ve been little more to me than names on birthday cards—which reminds me, I ought to let them know my new address.
“What’s that, Joe?” He’s been talking. I wasn’t listening.
“Nancy apologizes for not stopping by sooner. She was going to come with me the other day, but then Boo-Boo got himself hurt.”
“Maybe next time, then.” Having failed to fire the man, I’m anxious now for Joe to be gone.
He doesn’t take the hint. Instead, he looks back at the house, its windows shimmering gold in the fading light of this long summer day. “Nancy and I would’ve bought the place ourselves, for the land, you know, but Rhonda said it had to go to someone who wanted to reopen the bookshop. It’s an awful lot for a young lady to take on by herself. I can recommend some good guys, if you’re looking for help fixing up the place.”
I picture Evelyn in Burgess Hardware, arguing about fixing her roof with yet another man who assumed women don’t know how to do things for themselves. I open my mouth to tell Joe about everything I learned from working with my father, but instead of words, a sob rises in my throat. I manage to croak, “I’ll let you know.”
Determined not to let him see me cry, I run past Joe into the house, slamming the door shut behind me. The rush of tears today has caught me off guard. In some magical-thinking corner of my mind, I must have believed that by coming to a place I’ve never been, to live a life so different from the one I had with David, I could somehow evade my sadness. Yet here I am, hundreds of miles from the last place I saw my husband, and a glimpse of a man’s earring was all it took to clobber me with grief.
My pocket vibrates. I pull out my phone. Confronted with an unknown number, my thumb wavers between answering and declining.
“Hello?” I say, hoping my sniffles aren’t audible.
A feminine voice asks, “Yes, hello, is this Audrey Beacon?”
“This is she,” I croak, bracing myself for a nurse to announce that David’s things have been found, that his lost jewelry is in the mail, that there’s nowhere on this earth I can hide from the losses of my lifetime.
Chapter 13
February 14, 2015
Schuywich, New York
My darling Evelyn,
That first column you wrote about buying the house made it sound easy, but the president of Schuywich Savings and Loan was so skeptical of selling to a single city girl that Daddy had to come down to the bank to vouch for you before they’d take your five thousand in cash in exchange for a clear deed. That skepticism was nothing, though, compared to Mother’s reaction to the news that I’d be renting a room from you.
“Renting what?” she said. “That old house doesn’t have anything worth paying for.”
