A Peculiar Grace (43 page)

“It might not be so simple. If her mind slips.”

“Things are never so simple as we’d like to think. But I’ll wait until that day and see what happens. Maybe I’ll call you for advice.” He smiled.

She shook her head, not a negative but like a horse shivering itself into waking. She said, “You were right—that was good pot but it didn’t last.”

“It’s just getting old.”

“That covers a lot of territory.”

“What do you think, should we walk up to the house?”

“I guess so.” She paused and then said, “Thanks, Hewitt.” Standing from her chair. “It’s something we should’ve done a long time ago.

He slipped down from the bench. “We just let it slide a few years, Beth. But don’t you ever fuck with my tadpoles again.” He started up the stairs. “Are you ready for them?”

“No. But let’s go see what mischief Mother’s cooked up.”

And Hewitt hesitated, a shiver of prescience within him.

H
E CAME INTO
the living room just in time to see Meredith standing by her mother, leaning a little as she held before her a photograph, saying, “Isn’t it the most amazing thing? How much Jessica looks like her? And Gram says you never even knew.”

Hewitt stopped, inside the door. Only his mother was facing him, in the wingback chair across from the bookshelves. She was waiting for him, her face set, her mouth that tight little line, eyes cold and hard. As if daring him to condemn her for this breach. It was decades old and one she’d initiated but once Hewitt turned things around, when
Jessica arrived in Hewitt’s life and he’d welcomed her, this, then, in Mary Margaret’s view was the same as a betrayal. For what had been secret and therefore binding between mother and son was gone. Gone and not only that but she’d been displaced. The niece of her dead husband’s long-dead first wife was living here under what had once been her roof. And not just welcomed but held a bond that didn’t threaten as much as circumvent her own bond with her son.

At that moment Hewitt despised his mother. At the time his sister had finally come to him, she was being taken away. And Hewitt wondered to what extent his mother had been working quietly all those years to make clear to her daughter that she would never, could never, meet her father’s expectations. Add to that, this, using the innocent enthused teenager as messenger.

But Beth was saying, “So this is her. Oh, and their little girl.” She turned to Hewitt. “And God, Dad looks so young.”

Hewitt stood silent, holding rage, waiting.

And Beth said, “It was never your idea to keep this secret, was it, Hewitt? No, of course not. That had to be Mother.” And her moment of soft wonder gone, the muscles of her face locked and her eyes brittle as hoarfrost. She turned to Mary Margaret and said, “It wasn’t difficult to learn about. A surprise, certainly, and one that cast him in a whole new light for me. But Mother, really. I let you have your little secret but the winter after he died I spent a bunch of time in the libraries at Duke and UNC. It was easy to find the old articles about him, even the ones that predated the fire. Did you think I was so lacking in interest or curiosity or love for my father that I wouldn’t dig a little bit? Did you really think I wouldn’t want to learn more about the grand old hermit painter stuck back in the hills with the little Irish goblin hissing at the gate? I mean, Mother, look at yourself.”

She turned to Hewitt and said, “Where
is
Jessica? I’ve waited a long time to have this out with Mother but right now, she’s the one I’d like to talk to.”

Mary Margaret stood trembling and her face working. “There is nothing I did that was not in your best interests.”

Beth swung back and said, “That’s rich.”

Hewitt looked at Meredith. She was pulled up, fascinated and stricken at once. Hewitt said, “Do you have your driver’s license?”

The girl’s face moved through questions but she sensed the swelling and tightening of the room and said, “Of course I do.”

“Then you and I are going to take a ride. This business is pretty simple except it’s been made more complicated than it needs to be and it’s up to your mother and grandmother to work it out. But they need privacy. So, are you ready to go?”

She said, “Let me run get my purse.”

He said, “I’ll be by the car.”

Beth said, “Wait a minute.”

Hewitt said, “Meredith, go. Now.”

She looked at her mother. When Beth was quiet she looked at her grandmother and back to Hewitt and then walked slowly from the room. The three listened to her hit the hall running, her feet flying up the stairs.

Hewitt did not look at his mother or his sister. Instead he looked out the window at the dying of a long day. He spoke to that day. “When I come back.” He started over again without pause. “When we come back I want this all explained and settled. Every bit. I’m sorry, Beth. I have a share in the blame going back to the night Dad died. Goddamn it I wish I’d figured that out earlier.”

He turned to his mother and said, “I don’t know why you did any of this. Then or now. But it’s out now so let’s see what you’re really made of. You tough old bird, you.”

Mary Margaret looked at him. She said, “What should I say if your little friend returns while you’re gone?”

“Tell her the truth. All of it. You’re not the first person she’s discovered that lied.”

No sound in the room but some collective loss of oxygen. The walls grew closer.

Then they heard the toilet flush upstairs.

Hewitt said, “I’m going outside to wait for Meredith.”

Beth said, “Where’re you taking her?”

Hewitt paused at the door. He said, “For the moment, a better place than here.”

H
E WAS OUT
by the Saab, his arms folded atop the passenger side, when the screen door slapped and his niece came down into the yard. In sandals and jeans faded just right and a man’s white dress shirt with the collar and a couple buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up. Her face composed and set, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He knew she was all over the place and he thought briefly of driving but the Saab with its North Carolina plates was too strong a magnet. And he figured if she drove she might become more comfortable, the rush of anxiety releasing into the job of pushing that car out along the roads.

She said, “So, what’s going on?”

He said, “I guess we go for a ride.”

He slid into the passenger seat and watched her fold down into the driver’s side and power the quiet engine to life. She glanced over at him. Hewitt said, “Out the drive and then right.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Just one.” He grinned over at her.

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She said, “So that woman in the photograph was Grandfather Pearce’s first wife and she also was Jessica’s aunt which is where the picture came from, but Mom never knew anything about all that?”

“Clearly your mom did know. And that’s all you need to know right now. Your mother will fill you in on the rest of it. But not tonight. Tonight is between the two of them.”

“Wait though. If Gram knew about her, the first wife I mean, and it’s clear you did too, why was it kept a secret from Mom?”

Hewitt took his time. Finally he said, “You know, Meredith, sometimes people make decisions that seem best at the time. But life is quirky, and things revolve around in a way you never expected and you come to realize the earlier decision wasn’t such a good idea after all. And that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject for now. There’s big hash for your mother and grandmother to work out this evening so I thought maybe you’d rather be out riding around than sit and listen to them. Because my guess is once they get going, there’s going to be a rumpus.”

“You kidding? She’s gonna be righteous pissed. And, you know, a part of me would like to hear what all they have to say.”

Hewitt said, “What your grandmother and mother have to discuss goes well beyond who knew what and who didn’t. And sometimes it’s best if it’s just the people involved trying to work a mess like that out.”

“So what’s the plan? You want some tunes?”

They were coming down into Lympus and before Hewitt could respond with the suggestion of going out to dinner which was the only thing he’d thought of so far, he saw the green Beetle parked before the store.

At the same time Meredith said, “Hey. Isn’t that Jessica’s car?”

M
EREDITH WAITED IN
the car without question, as if knowing Hewitt’s long day had started well before she and her mother returned. So he was alone as he stepped on to the porch of the store and met Jessica coming out, a large paper sack clutched to her chest. She glanced at the car and back to Hewitt.

He said, “Hey, Jess.”

“So how’re things back at the ranch?”

He nodded. “Right at the moment, the ranch is sorta tense.”

“So what are you and Meredith doing? Escaping?”

“Yup. What’s in the bag? Supper?”

She grinned and said, “I got a twelve-pack of Bud and two bottles of goddamn-break-the-bank zinfandel in this sack here.”

“So you could tie one on?”

“Hey, Hewitt? What’s the date?”

“It’s the tenth of Aug—Aw, shit. Nort and Amber’s party. I forgot all about it.” He paused. He’d had his mind set on treating his niece to a nice dinner but it was an easy guess she’d prefer a party. He looked at Jessica. “You mind if Meredith comes?”

Jessica grinned again. She said, “Think about it, you rascal. What a fucking entrance you’d make.”

He paused and studied her. He said, “For a girl with a long difficult day, you seem pretty full of yourself.”

She said, “After I got done pretending to run away it was still too early to come back to the house so I went and visited a friend. One of the guys I worked with for Roger. That smoothed me out a little bit.”

Be damned but Hewitt felt his face flare. Jessica saw this and shook her head and said, “Oh, Hewitt, you love too much. You need to work on that.”

“Hey, fuck off.”

“Will you grab this sack? I’m about to lose the bottom off it. And all we did was cop a buzz and go swimming. So here’s the thing, do we ask your niece—”

“Meredith.”

“Right. Do we ask Meredith if she wants to go to a party or do we just kidnap her?”

“A party? Christ, Jessica, she’s seventeen years old. She was ready to go anywhere. A party’s just what she needs.”

“Well then. Let’s saddle up and ride.”

They left the Volkswagen at the store. Parking would be hard enough at the party and then there was the question of how many vehicles they wanted to be responsible for come the end of the evening. Jessica piled into the backseat of the Saab and before they’d even backed out from the store had popped the tops on three beers and handed
two up front. Suddenly Hewitt felt like the old man, the responsible one. Then told himself Fuck it, the party was an institution and the only cop around was Pete who’d already be there and as long as no one pissed him off would leave everyone be. It was a party, for Christ sake.

From the backseat Jessica said, “Nice car. Music?”

“What do you like?”

“I don’t care. Something loud. Something nasty. Something that says The party has arrived.”

So Hewitt rolled in as passenger, the cars parked along the road disregarded as they went straight up the drive and parked on the lawn, the two young women screaming back and forth to each other over the seat back, the car awash with sound that seemed impossible for a mere automobile. Bass notes rumbled through his body as if he was standing five feet in front of a stack of amplifiers one side of a stage. He had no idea what they were listening to. And didn’t care. It’s all rock and roll, he thought.

People peeled away from the careful array of grills and tables set out on the lawn spreading evenly on the graded hillside behind the house as the car came in but once it was stopped they came close to see who exactly had invaded. Hewitt was first out of the car, a vague notion of apology in his head but then the girls came out behind him and somebody yelled, “Goddamn, Hewitt Pearce finally found a better ride than that old Farmall, idn’t that so, Hewitt?”

H
E INTRODUCED
M
EREDITH
to a handful of friends and drank a couple of beers. Then Hewitt found a plastic cup and poured it mostly full of Jessica’s wine and he wended slowly through the groups and clusters of people and made his way up where the lawn grew steep in a stand of mature paper birches. Here he found a nice place to sit where he could watch the group below him, his back against the smooth trunk of a birch. Unlike so many August evenings this one was still warm and Nort and Amber had flanked the lawn clearing with citronella
torches and candles in buckets, the thin odor dispelled over the people. Everyone he knew in Lympus was there, those he knew by name and long association and those he knew by face and perhaps name but always family affiliation. There was a cluster of younger people he was less clear about, but guessed a good number were among those who jeeped up through his pastures on to the network of old roads that ran like the last relics of memory of a people over the land. It was a good place to sit and observe. He wanted to sit alone with his wine and watch the people of his life having fun. Sometime later he might go down and join the group. But for now, aside from the peace of the spot, he was where he wanted to be.

A couple of young men had settled around Jessica and he studied them briefly trying to determine her secret lover and then gave that up as a foul old man’s sport. For her part Jessica was holding up well and he watched her move through the gathering and was mildly surprised by how many people she stopped and talked with, not simple exchanges of greeting but chunks of conversation. He felt not only somewhat at ease but comfortable, even a pleasant tenderness with the idea she was not holding close to him but reaching beyond, perhaps beginning to make something of a life here.

The fireflies of late summer were out and a few stars could be seen over the valley. Someone had stuck speakers out on the deck and the party tapes that Amber was famous for were playing—mostly rock and roll and most of that from the sixties and seventies but a good sprinkle of old country and new country and stuck in here and there strange little things she’d dug up, television theme music or a single song from a musical,
Mary Poppins
which went right into Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” into Pete Seeger singing “Kumbaya” into the Stones’ “Salt of the Earth.” Amber made good tape.