“Ho ho,” said Kathryn, “now you’re going to have to hire us back at wages to get any help cleaning up.” We opened all the windows and let the breeze draft through. Gabby and Del yanked some weeds, and Tom and Doc and I walked up the ridge trail to look at the beehives. Tom cursed at the sight, but they weren’t that bad off. We cleaned up for a bit and went back down to the house on Doc’s orders. Smoke billowed white as the clouds from the stove chimney, the big front window was scrubbed clean, and Gabby was balanced on the roof with hammer and nails and shingles, hunting for that leak and shouting for instructions from below. When we went in Kathryn was on a stool, thumping the underside of the roof with a broom. “That’s it,” Tom said, “bust that leak right out of there.” Kathryn took a swing at him with the broom, overbalanced and leaped off the falling stool. Kristen dodged her with a yelp and quit dusting, Rebel took the kettle off the stove, and we gathered in the living room for some of Tom’s pungent tea: “Cheers,” Tom said, holding his steaming mug high, and we raised ours and said back cheers, cheers.
That evening when I came home Pa said that John Nicolin had come by to ask why I wasn’t fishing anymore. My share of the fish was our main source of food, and Pa was upset. So I started fishing again the next day, and after that I went fishing day in and day out, when the weather allowed. On the boats it was obvious the year was getting on. The sun cut across the sky lower and lower, and a cold current came in and stayed. Often in the afternoons dark clouds rolled off the sea over us. Wet hands stung with cold, and hauling net made them raw red; teeth chattered, skin prickled with goosebumps. Hoarse shouts concerning the fishing were the only words exchanged, as men conserved their energy. The lack of small talk was fine by me. Blustery winds chafed us as we rowed back in the premature dusks. Under the blue clouds the cliffs turned brown, the hillsides were the green-black of the darkest pines, and the ocean was like iron. In all that gloom the yellow bonfires on the river flat blazed like beacons, and it was a pleasure to round the first bend in the river and see them. After getting the boats up against the cliff I huddled with the rest of the men around these fires until I was warm enough to go home. As the men warmed (hands practically in the flames), the usual talk spilled out, but I never joined in. Even though I was happy the old man was well and home, the truth was that it didn’t do much to cheer me in the day to day. I felt bad a lot of the time, and empty always. When I was out fishing, struggling to make cold disobedient fingers hold onto the nets, I’d think of some crack or curse Steve would have made in the situation, and I longed to hear him say it. And when the fishing was done, there was no gang up on the cliff waiting for me to join them. To avoid climbing the cliff and feeling their absence I often walked around the point of the cliff to the sea beach, and wandered that familiar expanse. The next day I’d take a deep breath, push myself into my boots and go fishing again. But I was just going through the motions.
It wasn’t that the men on the boats were unfriendly, either. On the contrary—Marvin kept giving me the best of the fish to take home, and Rafael talked to me more than he ever had, joshing about the fish, describing his latest projects (which were interesting, I had to admit), inviting me by to see them… They were all like that, even John from time to time. But none of it meant anything to me. My heart felt like my fingers did when the fishing was done, cold and disobedient, numb even next to the fire.
Somehow Tom figured this out. Maybe Rafael told him, maybe he saw it himself. One day after the fishing I clawed my way up the cliff path, feeling like I weighed as much as three of me, and there was Tom on the top.
I said, “You’re getting around pretty well these days.”
He ignored that and shook a knobby finger at me. “What’s eating you, boy?”
I cringed. “Nothing, what do you mean?” I looked down at my bag of fish, but he grabbed my arm and pulled it.
“What’s troubling you?”
“Ah, Tom.” What could I say? He knew what it was. I said, “You know what it is. I gave you my word I wouldn’t go up there, and I did.”
“Ah, the hell with that.”
“But look what happened! You were right. If I hadn’t gone up there, none of it would have happened.”
“How do you figure? They just would have gone without you.”
I shook my head. “No. I could have stopped it.” I explained to him what had happened, what my part had been—every bit of it. He nodded as I got each sentence out.
When I was done, he said, “Well, that’s too bad.” I was shivering, and he started up the river path with me. “But it’s easy to be wise afterwards. Hindsight et cetera. You had no way of knowing what would happen.”
“But I did! You told me. Besides, I felt it coming.”
“Well, but listen, boy—” I looked at him, and he stopped talking. He frowned, and nodded once to acknowledge that it was right for me to reject such easy denials of my responsibility. We walked for a bit and then he snapped his fingers. “Have you started writing that book yet?”
“Oh for God’s sake, Tom.”
He shoved me in the chest, hard, so that I staggered out of the path and had to catch my footing. “Hey!”
“This time you might try listening to me.”
That stung. I was round-eyed as he went on. “I don’t know how much longer I can take this sniveling of yours. Mando’s dead and you’re partly to blame, yes. Yes. But it’s going to fester in you not doing you a bit of good until you write it down, like I told you to.”
“Ah, Tom—”
And he charged me, shoved me again! It was the kind of thing he used to indulge in only with Steve, and at the same time I was getting ready to punch him I was flattered. “Listen to me for once!” he cried, and suddenly I realized he was upset.
“I do listen to you. You know that.”
“Well then do as I say. You write down your story. Everything you remember. The writing it down will make you understand it. And when you’re done you’ll have Mando’s story down too. It’s the best you can do for him now, do you see?”
I nodded, my throat tight. I cleared it. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t try, just do it.” I hopped away so he couldn’t shove me again. “Ha! That’s right—do it or face a beating. It’s your assignment. You don’t get any more schooling till you’re done.” He shook his fist at me, his arm a bundle of ligaments under skin, skinny as a rope. I almost had to laugh.
So I thought about it. I got the book down from the shelf, where it had been propping up a whetstone holder with only two legs. I looked through the blank pages. There were a lot of them. It was as clear as a stonefish is ugly that I would never be able to fill all those pages. For one thing, it would take too long.
But I kept thinking about it. The emptiness still afflicted me. And as the days got shorter the nights in our shack got longer, and I found those memories were always in my mind. And the old man had been awful vehement about it…
Before I even lifted a pencil, however, Kathryn declared it was time to harvest the corn. When she decided it was time, all of us who worked for her worked dawn to dusk, every day. Right after sunup I was out there with the others slashing at stalks with a scythe, then carrying stalks to the wains, pulling them over the bridge to the barrows and warehouses behind the Marianis’, stripping off the leaves, pulling off the husked ears.