A Peculiar Grace (34 page)

Hewitt raised his glass of water and saluted his sister. Her persistence and certainty. And knew she was wrong and knew it didn’t matter. He went up to bed.

J
ULIE DROPPED BY
. Unannounced late in the afternoon with a boned leg of lamb for the grill, a sack of young beets, scallions, and tiny squash to wrap in foil to roast along with the lamb and two bottles of Lynch Bages. Hewitt could always gauge how things were with her depending on what wine she brought. She always brought the wine. This not a matter of miserliness on his part—just a ritual never discussed.

Hewitt was in the forge when he heard the truck come into the yard and waited to see who it was but some time passed and no one
called out. So he finished the tightly wound scroll with the two inches of stock extending, cooled it in the brine and left it across the smaller anvil, then went up the stairs, pulling on a shirt as he went. Then out the open door and saw her truck.

Ah, he thought. The yard was quiet but faint music came from the house. Jessica had finished her job with Roger a few days before although it seemed likely he’d call her again when he needed grunt labor. She was happy all the way around—she’d held up well, the work had been horrible and the money under the table the best wages she’d ever earned.

The two women were at the table, the food spread between them. The wine unopened but Julie had helped herself to a beer. Jessica held her hands on the table. They both turned as Hewitt came in. The music was a woman singer-songwriter unfamiliar to Hewitt, just loud enough to be heard and nothing more.

“Hey Hewitt,” Julie said, her eyes bright upon him. “I’ve been working down to Grafton a few days and thought I’d stop and eat supper with you. How’re you doing?”

Hewitt thought This should be sort of interesting. He said, “Julie. It’s good to see you.” He walked over and leaned to hold her shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. “I see you got a beer. And you introduced yourself to Jessica here, isn’t that right?” And looked to Jessica and back to Julie. Jessica was watching this with her neutral faintly interested face, the one that would slide into a pretense of boredom if she became unhappy with how things were going. Julie had resisted his kiss just slightly. Hewitt knew no Charlie expected her home tonight—if nothing else the wine was proof of that.

Julie said, “Jessica says you two are related someway.”

Hewitt grinned. Maybe a bit larger then called for but he felt like it. “That’s right,” he said. “It’s one of those just barely connect the dots sort of things.” He glanced at Jessica and did not grin but smiled at her and hoped she saw the difference. He went on. “Yup, her family and mine go back, Christ over half a century now. To
my dad. Yet we never laid eyes on each other or even knew about it all until a few weeks ago. Hey, Julie, it’s good to see you. Life is full of surprises.”

Jessica stood up. Hewitt knew she’d understood the subtext of this conversation, most likely before he even walked in the door. She said, “Might be I should leave you all alone.”

Hewitt looked at her. “Why?” he asked, his timbre plain: he wanted her to stay. She was where she belonged. She studied him and sat again.

Julie drank some beer and looked at Hewitt. She said, “I’ve got some steel in the back of my truck I’m having a hard time working with. You want to walk out and take a look at it?”

“Why sure.” He moved forward and prodded among the packages on the table. Then turned to Jessica and said, “Can you start a fire in the grill?” What they called a grill was a stonework firebox with a chimney that burned hardwood. It took at least an hour of feeding in the held-back apple sticks to get a bed of coals large and hot enough to cook over. Jessica said, “A course. It’s the same wood in the shed you used the other night, right?”

“That’s it.”

She nodded and said, “Go on. I can make a fire.”

As Hewitt suspected there was no steel in the back of Julie’s truck. He walked on down the stairs of the forge. The big doors were open and light appeared to strike the sky and reverse and fill the room. Julie was right behind him. At the bottom of the stairs he turned and reached for her but she pushed him back and came down so they were both on the same level. She was in gray Carhartts, steel-tipped boots and an old T-shirt once maroon now washed to near pink. Her honey sun-streaked hair was pulled back into the long single braid she’d worn ever since he’d known her. Her face beginning to show lines along her jaw and bird tracks running from her eyes toward her temples. Those eyes green as waterglass. Stark upon him.

She said, “You want to fill me in here? Couple three weeks ago you nearly fucked up my life by calling me in the middle of the night. And Hewitt, you did not sound good.”

“I wasn’t good.”

“Shut up. I worried over you and worked my schedule so without being too obvious I could get away for a few days down this way, earning enough money in the deal so Charlie knew it wasn’t bullshit. It’s very important to me that Charlie trust me. We fit just fine, Charlie and I do. Except on this one thing. A long time ago I knew I could never go through life loving only one person. But there’s a cost Hewitt. The only way I can explain it is deceit’s not a pretty thing but it’s less ugly then the alternatives. But that phone call, that was downright stupid and sloppy. I expect better from you, Hewitt.”

“You deserve better. It won’t happen again.”

“You want to tell me what brought on that brain fart of yours?”

“No.” He held her gaze and then said, “Maybe sometime.”

She eyed him, her mouth a tight screw. Then she nodded and said, “So are you fucking her or is her story true?”

He paused long enough so her eyes settled on his and held there, waiting. He said, “It’s true.”

“About your father?”

“And then some. Quite a bit. Oh, hell, Julie.”

And he told her of Emily and where and why his phone call to her had come from. As best he knew. It was not a long telling but by the end he was sweating and had stepped back to sit on the big anvil, his feet planted apart and his hands on his knees, his elbows feeling like rusting joints. When he was done they stood looking at each other in long silence. After a bit Julie came to him and ran her hand over his head slowly in small gentle circles until he brought his hand up and lightly held her forearm. They remained that way. He could feel the muscles in her forearm and the improbably soft skin over those muscles and the fine hair of her arm.

Finally she said, “Let’s go see if there’s a cooking fire ready yet. And drink some of that wine.”

I
T WAS AN
interesting evening. Julie and Jessica talked mostly to each other, the sort of small probing gentle talk that women undertake with each other and not once mentioning Hewitt who busied himself preparing the food. Then inside to eat with the second bottle of wine and Jessica announced suddenly, “I was a vegetarian until I met Hewitt.”

Julie carefully maneuvered her grease-smudged wineglass down to the table and said, “He does that to people.”

Hewitt sat and watched these two women laughing. Understanding as a great gulp of wine that they were not laughing at him but at all of life and the unpredictable slam one person brings to another and where that may lead and how no one ever knows until it happens. And he was filled with sadness. Within minutes he was not back all the way but returned enough to smile at the platter of ends of blackened food and faces and hands charred and slippery and the buoyant heat of the wine mixing evenly with the warm night and he made a note to himself that perhaps he should drink more wine and less beer.

Julie stood up. She said, “Jessica? Would you be happy to pile all this shit in the sink and then finish this bottle of wine?”

Jessica was steady, her eyes red splotches. She said, “I do believe I could manage that. Although I’m not sure I need the wine.”

Julie said, “Of course you do. Because you’re going to want to go sit on the screen porch or in the garden or wherever you want. But I’m going to take this man upstairs and he’s not even going to have a chance to wash his hands.”

Hewitt said, “Hey now.”

Jessica said, “Do it.”

* * *

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
sleek in the goldenrod light of midsummer evening Julie said, “What’s the matter?”

Entwined side by side, her leg brown as the rest of her lifted over him. Through clenched teeth he said, “Nothing,” and thrust harder and turned his mouth to her breast and then slipped out of her. He lay still a moment and rolled on to his back, one hand resting on her breastbone, the other crooked at the elbow so his palm was under his head. They lay silent, Hewitt feeling the harsh rise and fall of her chest measured against his own even breathing. Then he stood from the bed and walked to the window and looked up the hillside, his penis slick and slack. Through the open window came evening birdsong: meadowlarks, orioles, different warblers from the woods or orchard. And through the house, seeping up through floors and walls, beams and joists, floorboards, plaster and lath came his old vinyl thump
Let It Bleed
.

From the bed Julie said, “Hey, baby, it’s okay. We can slow down.”

When he didn’t respond she said, “Why don’t you come back over here?”

He inhaled and his shoulders lifted, then fell as he let out the silent sigh. He wanted to get dressed but turned and went back to the bed and slipped down beside her, lying on his back with his ankles crossed. He reached to draw her close. She stiffened before she relented but wouldn’t rest her head on his chest, instead propping up on one elbow to look him face to face.

“Is it because Jessica’s downstairs?”

Hewitt waited, feeling the flush of a great unexpected peace come over him, buoyed by the glow and his own certainty but was in no hurry to speak, knowing once he did there was no reversal. So instead of answering her, he gently pushed her elbow away and pulled her down tight against him and held her a long moment, both breathing together, his arms around her familiar back and as he held her he felt something give way in her and she relaxed against him and they held each other.

Without letting go he said, “No. It has nothing to do with Jessica. Nothing at all.”

“Well, if it’s not little babycakes, what is it then?”

He said, “Julie, I care for you a lot. You know I do. But—”

She reared up away from him and said, “You sonofabitch you bastard,” and began to pummel his chest, swatting also at his head. She had strong arms and the blows hit hard so he wrapped his head with one arm as he reached and felt and then his other hand rested against her chest and he pushed hard, not a blow but straight-arming her away long enough so he could scramble from the bed. She was up and after him and he danced backward as he grabbed his pants with one hand and an old cane-seated chair with the other, the wood light and easily lifted and held between them as he struggled into his pants, dancing, the chair bobbing and he almost laughed, the cruel absurdity combined with the ridiculous fear that she might splinter the ancient chair. Then he spun quickly away and settled the chair against the wall, snagged the button on his jeans and turned to face her, ready to bearhug her and tackle her back to the bed if that’s what it took. But she was standing center of the room, upright, bold, naked and defiant, her sneer aimed at him. He thought a laugh might be hidden there but wasn’t sure. He kept his ground and said, “Can we just settle down and talk like normal people?”

“Go ahead, normal person. Go ahead. I want to hear it straight from your mouth.”

“Aw, Jules.”

“Don’t fucking
aw
me.”

“It’s hard for me too, you know.”

“It didn’t seem so hard.”

“Do you have to be nasty about this?”

“It just came to you midpoke, is that what you’re saying?”

“Julie. Shut the fuck up.”

“I’ll tell you what. You talk and I’ll get dressed. I feel like an idiot standing here, hung out to dry.”

He briefly wanted to stop—to go back to her and gather her and kiss all of her, to travel her body with his mouth and hands and feel her come to and then under him, to ride her sweet lusty generosity once more, or not only once more but to take it back, all the way back to the ground they’d gained and maintained for more years then he could count. But she was already pulling the ragged T-shirt on and he knew he’d taken it this far and had to go the rest of the way—that she already knew the pith if not the words of him.

He said, “I guess I already told you. Down in the forge. About Emily. You know it didn’t go very well. But—”

“Hey, Hewitt, save it, okay, man? I got the picture. No more friendly pokes with Julie. Because if you’re pure then maybe God will notice and give you marks for good behavior.”

“Come on, Julie.”

“I’ll come on. I’ll come right the fuck on. Hewitt, you’re one serious head case.” She lifted a hand to stop him. “A lot of people might disapprove of what I do but at least I’m fucking alive. But you, you might as well eat mothballs or something. I’m sorry, I’m genuinely sorry for you. Although you’ll be fine. You’ve got your little foundling, your little pint of pain from the old days that will never come again but you can latch on to her and do the good Samaritan shit, however that works, and if you don’t watch it you’ll turn right into a fucking saint. Saint Hewitt of the Long Lost. But you know what, buddy? It doesn’t mean diddly-shit to me. So just go fuck yourself Hewitt.”

He was short of breath. Then, tone quiet but deadly he said, “Julie? Get out of here.”

“Oh poor Hewitt. Snared like a rabbit by his one and only true love. What horseshit!”

“Get out.”

“Fuck you! Oh shit this is so stupid I can’t believe it. Listen Hewitt. If you ever, and I mean ever, call me again I’ll drive down here and use your head as a fucking anvil. You got that? Dickhead.” She turned and stalked out of the room and down the stairs.

He stood a long moment. It was silent below. No music, no voices. He heard the slap of the screen door and then her truck start up. She idled a moment and then backed around hard and ground gears and popped the clutch. He walked over to the window but by the time he got there she was already gone from sight. He watched out the window and then in a low voice said, “It wasn’t like I had it planned.”