UNTYING her apron and tossing it onto a hook, she said, “Red, I’m taking off.”
Red didn’t seem to have any objection. He was as impassive as ever, but Ariane could read his immobile face better than others could, and she thought she saw some small annoyance there.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she said, “but there’s something I’ve got to do.” She thought of trying to explain, but gave up. “There’s just something I’ve got to do.”
“That’s okay,” said Red. “You’ve been gone for the last couple of hours anyway.”
“I have?”
“Miles away. Far, far, far away.” He picked up a glass and wiped it absentmindedly, imitating her faraway look.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess I have. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Forget it. Go on.”
She left the bar and walked through the parking lot (which was uneven and unevenly lit and made everyone who walked across it look like a drunken sailor). She walked between the warehouses of corrugated metal, between the looming hulks of boats out of the water (quite a few of them waiting for repairs that would never be made). She walked onto Bearberry Street, turned to the right, where it curved toward the village, and walked along it to Sinkhole Road, where she took the shortcut, an archway cut through a hedge, to Sinkhole Lane, and walked to the tiny circular green. She stopped there, beside the pole that held the purple martin apartment house. She could see my grandfather’s house just across the way. She heard the voice of caution again. She shook her head and tried to ignore it. She crossed the green and turned right, headed for Grandfather’s side yard, where she would be able to see into the window. When she was in front of the house, she heard the metallic creak of the glider on the porch and she realized that he must be sitting there, in the dark. The night was quiet, so she supposed that he would have heard the sound of her footsteps on the pavement, might have looked up at the sound and seen her emerge from the archway in the hedge and cross the circle. What should she do now? Should she wait for him to speak? What if he said nothing? What if he just let her walk by? Then they would both know that the possibility of her saying something to him had passed without her saying anything. That would be hard to overcome. She would probably never approach him again. Her idea would die.
She decided in an instant. She turned and walked straight up his front walk, up the stone steps to the front porch, and tapped lightly, ever so lightly, respectfully, on the screen door.
(Grandfather had made that screen door when he was a boy, under the guidance and watchful eye of his father. The screens were held in place in the frame by half rounds of wood, and Grandfather had done all the work by hand: cutting the wood, assembling the door, stretching the screens, hanging the door and truing it. And every year—or at least every year since I first noticed—he would scrape the loose paint and touch up the bare spots, painstakingly painting the half rounds that held the screens in place, slowly, so slowly, so that he wouldn’t get paint onto the screens themselves, teaching me—but only by the way, without a word—that some work not only takes time, but needs time, as if it were alive, and had its needs.)
“Come in,” said Grandfather.
For a moment, Ariane thought of pretending that she hadn’t known he was sitting there, but as soon as she tried it out in her mind it felt wrong, like getting off on the wrong foot.
“I heard the glider creak,” she said.
“I know. You looked up.”
“I did?”
“You almost did. Started to, then thought better of it.”
“I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone. Left alone.”
After a moment, my grandfather said, “Well, I don’t know either.”
Ariane told herself to just go ahead and say it, and to her surprise she plunged ahead. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. “It’s about—how I can help you. I can help you with Eleanor—Mrs. Leroy.”
“That’s nice of you—but—”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “Please don’t say that. Look, I don’t mean—like a nurse or anything—I know she can’t see me—” She lowered her voice suddenly. “I mean, I know she mustn’t see me. She has to keep thinking she’s on a voyage—” She moved closer to Grandfather. “She can’t hear me now, can she?”
“She’s asleep, but—”
“Maybe we should go walk down the street for a bit. Please just let me tell you my idea.”
He was puzzled. She saw it in his wrinkled brow.
“May I sit here?” she whispered. Quickly she sat beside him on the glider. She felt that she had to say it all, quickly, or lose the chance. Whispering, she said, “I was thinking about what you told me, about the trip. To Rarotonga. I mean that I’d like to help you. I can run errands for you. Go shopping. Clean the house.”
It wasn’t what she had wanted to say. She had wanted to say, “I want to come along. I want to sign on for this voyage. I want to be part of the crew. I could be the cook. I could be the first mate.” She had wanted to put her hand on his arm and say, “Please, John,” but sitting there beside him, looking into his eyes in the dim light, an unfamiliar primness came over her, and she found it impossible to tell Grandfather what she really had in mind.
[to be continued]
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🎧 719: Untying her apron . . .