“I want to put my life back together. For better or worse, Jo’s part of that.”
Molly’s eyes narrowed on him for a moment, then she pulled away and went to the cupboard. She grabbed a mug, and swung back toward him. “What do you expect from me? A blessing? Or maybe you think if things don’t work out, I’ll just throw the door open and you can waltz back in here. Well, you can’t, Cork.” She tugged at the lid of a canister that held tea. The lid flew off and hit the floor with a tinny clatter. She just stood for a moment, staring at the lid on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Molly.”
She shoved the canister back on the countertop. “To hell with the tea.” She reached up into the cupboard and took down a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“You don’t drink,” Cork told her.
“I do on special occasions.” She poured liquor into the mug and drank it down. “What are you waiting for? You’ve said what you had to.”
“I’m just wondering what you ever saw in me anyway. I’m a decade older than you, getting heavy, going bald. I smoke.”
“Whatever I thought I saw, I guess I was wrong. It doesn’t matter now anyway.”
The tea kettle began to whistle. Molly made no move to take it off the flame. Cork left. Outside he could still hear the cry of the tea kettle growing thinner and thinner as he walked away.
After Cork had gone, Molly went down to the sauna. In the changing room she took off her clothes and laid them neatly folded on the wooden bench. She stepped into the sauna itself, sat down in the darkened room, and let the heat draw out of her the anger and the hurt.
She’d almost told him she loved him. So many times, she’d been on the edge of letting the words spill out, but her past had kept her cautious. And now she was glad, very glad, she hadn’t. Let him go back to a woman who didn’t care. Molly didn’t care either. What ran down her cheeks and tasted of salt wasn’t tears but good cleansing sweat. It poured from every part of her body. When she finally stood and ran outside, she trailed steam like a thing that had been through fire. As she dropped into the hole she’d cleared of ice, the bitterly cold water of the lake squeezed her hard, wrung her out, and left her wonderfully empty.
20
After church, Jenny and Anne went with Cork to Sam’s Place. While he retrieved his dark suit, the girls spread out the corn for Romeo and Juliet.
“What’s that for?” Anne asked when they got back into the Bronco.
“It’s what I dress in to say nice things about a bad man.”
“Are you going with Mom to the memorial service for Judge Parrant?”
“I am.”
“You didn’t even like him,” Jenny pointed out.
“I like him better now,” Cork said.
Jenny smiled, then actually laughed.
At home, Cork put on his suit. While he was slipping on his tie, Anne knocked and came in. She sat on his bed and ran her hands over the bearskin. “Where’d this come from?”
“It belonged to Sam Winter Moon. He left it to me.”
“Is it a bearskin?”
“Bingo.” Cork leaned near the dresser mirror, took the two ends of his tie in hand and worked on a Windsor knot.
“Why’d he leave it to you?”
“He knew it would mean a lot to me.”
“What does it mean to you?”
Cork finished the knot. He sat beside Anne, took the bearskin, and laid it across both their laps. The skin was large and spilled onto the floor.
“It came from the biggest black bear I ever saw. Biggest Sam ever saw, too, and he’d seen plenty. We hunted it together when I was about your sister’s age.”
“You shot it?”
“Sam did.”
“Poor bear,” Anne said.
Cork nodded his agreement. “He was a magnificent animal.”
“Why’d Sam shoot him?”
“To save my life.”
“The bear was after you?” Anne looked up at him, eager for the story.
“In the beginning, we were after the bear.”
“What happened?”
“We followed him all day, into the Quetico-Superior Wilderness. That’s what the Boundary Waters used to be called. We were in a part of the forest not even Sam knew.” Cork rubbed the fur of the great skin and remembered. “We camped by a stream and talked late into the night. Next morning we were up early and tracking the bear again. By then Sam had decided not to kill it, but we both wanted to see it. Just to see such a creature.”
“You knew it was big?”
“Oh, yes. And smart. We didn’t know how smart. We tracked it to rocky ground, to an area full of boulders. After a while it became clear that we’d lost the trail. There wasn’t anything to do but turn back. We were both disappointed. Sam, especially, because he prided himself on his ability to track, but the bear had got the best of him.”
“If you lost his trail, how’d you kill him?”
“I’m coming to that part. In the late afternoon we came to a clearing, an old logged-over area full of sumac with a huge brush pile in the middle. We’d passed by before when we were tracking the bear, but this time Sam looked at the clearing and it was like he smelled something. He told me to wait and he disappeared into the sumac.”
Anne’s eyes were huge, staring up into his face. “Then what?”
“I waited like Sam said. I waited a long time. I began to get worried. Then I saw the sumac rustling, and I thought Sam was coming back. But it wasn’t Sam.”
“It was the bear,” Anne jumped in.
“A monster of a bear,” Cork said. “It had circled and come back around behind us. I don’t know if Sam scared it, or if it had planned to attack, but there it was, charging at me out of the sumac. I was so scared I didn’t even think to run. I just stood watching it come at me. When it was as close to me as you are right now, it stood up on its hind legs. Black bears are usually small, but this one towered over me. These claws you see here were ready to rip me apart. I was petrified. Absolutely frozen with fear.”
Cork paused, fingering the long, sharp claws that were still the color of pearls.
“What happened?” Anne demanded.
“Sam shot him. I didn’t even hear the shots, I was so scared. At first nothing happened. The bear just wavered a little. Then it staggered back and fell. Sam came running out of the sumac. The bear tried again to get up, to defend itself, but it was hopeless. Sam looked sad. He spoke to the bear, said something in Ojibwe that I didn’t understand, then he finished it.”
Anne was quiet a moment, petting the soft, black fur. “It’s sad about the bear,” she said. “But I’m glad he didn’t kill you.”
“Me, too, honey.” Cork hugged her.
“Lucky for you Sam was a pretty good shot.”
“For you, too, or you wouldn’t even be here.” He laughed. “Will you help me roll it back up? I think it’s time to put it away again.”
As they rolled up the skin, Anne said, “I miss Sam.”
Cork said, “I miss him, too.”
The memorial service for Judge Robert Parrant was held at Reedemer Presbyterian Church. Although the judge hadn’t been a man much loved, the church was crowded. The people who packed the pews were powerful-politically and financially. The state caucus was well represented. The Honorable Jim Galsworthy, whom Sandy would replace in the Senate, was there. The governor himself sent a telegram, which Sandy read, praising the life work of Robert Parrant. It was bullshit, Cork knew, but the sombre congregation nodded their collective agreement.
There was a gathering at Sandy Parrant’s home afterward. Cork, who’d insisted on driving Jo to the church, insisted on driving her to Parrant’s as well.
“Why are you going?” she asked. “You didn’t even like Bob.”
“Nobody liked the judge. Don’t pretend you did.”
“He was a business associate,” she said. “I have to go to these things.”
“Whither thou goest.” Cork smiled.
Jo didn’t appear at all amused. “Father Tom talked to me today after church.”
“Oh?” Cork tried to sound surprised.
“Cork, I really don’t see any point in discussing our marriage anymore. With Father Tom or anybody else. I’m trying very hard to make a good end of it. So far it’s been amicable, all things considered.”