Good-bye and Amen Page 13

  Monica Faithful Al drove the propane truck right out himself and filled the tank up. I asked him how could that have happened, didn’t we get regular deliveries? I’d never known that to happen, ever. He said he couldn’t tell, maybe the bills weren’t paid, maybe somebody took us off the schedule by mistake. Cressida would know, but she was down in Boston visiting their daughter. Who were they sending the bills to? Al didn’t know.

  Al Pease You know, propane doesn’t have a smell. You add that smell to it so people will know it if there’s a leak. When you get to the bottom of the tank the smell is pretty much what’s left so it gets stronger. Doesn’t anyone in this family know when to call the plumber?

  Monica Faithful Edith and Nora had gone out sailing with Bobby and El, to help Bobby keep her out of our way. They got back to Leeway at about six, said that El was having a shower. She thought Bobby was taking her to dinner down on Little Deer. People started arriving at six-fifteen—they all had to park down at the Gantrys’ or wherever they could, so the driveway wouldn’t be full of cars. I even made them hide the catering truck. Upstairs Adam and Alison and Edie were rushing in and out of bedrooms, borrowing toothpaste and hair dryers from each other. So much fun. The puppy was entirely overexcited by all the people in the house and had to be locked in the laundry room. Norman said he couldn’t handle it and went down to the gazebo with a beer and a book. We gave him Marta for a dinner partner.

  Bobby Applegate My biggest problem was going to be keeping El from going in through the kitchen, the way we always did. If she saw the catering stuff the jig would be up, because Nika would never ever give a big party without inviting her sister. What I finally did was, I stopped the car at the front porch and went, “Ohmigod, did you see that?” And jumped out and ran to the lawn. Of course El followed me, saying, “What? What?” I told her I’d seen a bobcat. There have been sightings this summer, but not on the Point. So then there we were at the front stairs and I took her elbow and took her up to the porch.

  Monica Faithful Edie was on the watch from the upstairs bedroom. She ran down to tell us when the car turned into the driveway. So here we were all crammed together in the living room, trying not to sneeze or giggle or rattle our drinks. I was nearly dead from excitement. I’d never done this before, pulled off a surprise. It seemed to take forever for their footsteps to come up to the porch. Then finally the door swung open and there they were, framed in the doorway with the light behind them, and everyone yelled, “Surprise!”

  Eleanor Applegate I was absolutely appalled.

  Monica Faithful And she looked at us and then burst into tears. Adam went and gave her a kiss and said, “Happy birthday, Mom.” He was so pleased. And she looked at him as if she couldn’t understand who he was or what he was doing there. Everyone was asking, “Were you really surprised?” and Eleanor just spluttered. Finally, she said, “Totally.”

  Marta Rowland Dinner was pretty late, owing to the propane fiasco, so everyone was well oiled by the time we sat down, but only Homer Gantry was completely plastered. The children and Bobby all made charming speeches, and Eleanor rose to the occasion. Uncle Homer made a toast about lovely Eleanor and her lovely parents that made no sense at all, but his children made him sit down. How on earth has he lived to be that old, still drinking like that? I got along all right with Norman and learned a great deal about where Thomas à Becket’s bones aren’t. I guess all preachers are actors. He enjoyed booming, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

  Cinder Smart I had Rufus Maitland for a dinner partner, so I had a wonderful time. Who wouldn’t? He doesn’t know I know about him and Eleanor.

  Marta Rowland El would have run off with him. It was Rufus who wouldn’t let her, even though he adored her. In fact, I guess that’s a measure of how much he adored her. He knew something about himself that she didn’t.

  Cinder Smart How did Bobby forgive her? I have no idea. I’ve known women who have done it, but never a man.

  Marta Rowland I’d say it’s partly because they never told anyone else. Bobby doesn’t even know we know. But when Eleanor thought she was going to leave the children she had to talk to someone. I said if she talked to me, she had to tell Cinder too. I could promise not to tell my husband, but I had to be allowed to tell someone.

  El and Bobby’s was one of those marriages that everyone counts on and looks to. The one that proves marriage can work.

  Cinder Smart I was stunned at the time. Looking back, I think I understand it. When we were at school, she and Rufus were like Hansel and Gretel or something, they were practically children when they fell for each other. There’s nothing quite so pure as that feeling but in a way it’s unbearable. She was plunged into despair if he didn’t write. The whole dorm was excited when he came to call on her, hanging out the windows to watch them going off on their walk, poking each other and laughing as if they were bear cubs. He was such a romantic figure, even then, the handsome bad boy. Of course it couldn’t stand up to real life. Of course they broke up about six times. Then she fell for Bobby, and that was real.

  Marta Rowland I thought the problem was she was so innocent when she married Bobby. He was her first…you know. So when it was all so easy and smooth she began to mistrust it. The view of marriage she’d grown up with was anything but. I mean her parents were polite, they always behaved, but even a child could see how much work it must have been for them, they were so different, so that’s what she thought marriage was really like. Difficult. And then every summer, there was Rufus, the one who got away. What had she lost, what had she missed? And he was lonely. He’s chosen a lonely life.

  Cinder Smart It was terrible when he gave her up. You might think the love of two good men would be a great thing, but I never will again. It’s horrible to be divided like that. I feared for her sanity, I really did.

  Marta Rowland And Monica doesn’t know. That stuns me. She was in Oregon or Colorado while this was going on, but not all the time, and there was a lot of pain. A lot of tears. How on earth did El keep that in the box when her sister was around? Of course she had to…I mean, if she was staying with Bobby, the family couldn’t know. But I wonder why Monica thinks Eleanor and Bobby started having babies again, after all those years.

  Cinder Smart That was Bobby’s deal. New babies, a new start. That and silence. And obviously, they’ve stuck to it.

  Norman Faithful I’d say the party was a great success, if you like that sort of bunfight, and don’t count the fact that the well went dry.

  Josslyn Moss Nobody used the Porta Potti. Every single person there had been in and out of Leeway all their lives and thought, Well, this PLEASE KEEP OUT sign in the bathroom can’t mean me…

  Monica Faithful We had no idea about the well, until the caterer’s girl came to tell me there was no water so they couldn’t wash the dishes. I went out to the kitchen and sure enough…I told them to stack things and we’d deal with it in the morning. They cleared up and went home. In the living room, the band was roaring and everyone was dancing. The children were mostly dancing out on the porch until Rufus Maitland came in and said to me, “You know, that porch is a hundred years old—I think you may have a critical load out there.” I said, “Oh dear,” so he went out and told the children either to come in or dance on the lawn, and of course they didn’t mind that at all.

  Rufus Maitland I’d been at a party down the Neck where the porch steps tore right off the deck, just as three old ladies were coming down the stairs with plates in their hands. Aunt Gladdy must have fallen five feet. Three of them ass over teakettle, all in a heap and covered in crab salad. No bones were broken and nobody sued, but that was a miracle.

  A little while later I was dancing with Nika and she said, “And of course now the well’s gone dry too.” We’d all had a lot to drink, so she was cheerful about it. I said, “So you’ve turned the pump off?” She boogied along for a while and then she said, “What pump?”

  Jimmy Moss Rufus Maitland and I ended up in the pitch-bla
ck crawl space underneath the house with flashlights, creeping around on damp ledge and spiders and worse, trying to find the circuit box. It’s in the far corner, under the kitchen. Someone had labeled the switches in the dim past; it’s Pop’s writing, I think, but some labels were missing. I tried one, and from the sudden silence upstairs, followed by pandemonium, we knew we’d hit the power to the living room. I flipped it and the music started again. Rufus said, “That was kind of fun.” Finally we found the switch for the well pump and turned it off, but Rufus said he’d be pretty surprised if we hadn’t burned it out, and of course, come the dawn, we had.

  Bobby Applegate In the car on the way home, Eleanor said to me, “Can you make me a promise?” I said, “What?” She said, “That you won’t ever let anyone do that to me again, ever?” I said, “Yes, I can do that.”

  Eleanor Applegate When I was about nine, Mother gave me a surprise party for my birthday. She invited all her friends’ children and some houseguests’ children nobody knew. There were too many people, too many ages, she planned games we were too old for and none of them was fun, the houseguests’ children cried, and the birthday cake was cheesecake and everybody hated it. Amelia’s job was to take me off to the library or something and then bring me home at the right moment. It took me weeks to forgive her. Oh, and, Mother didn’t want the houseguests’ children to be embarrassed they didn’t have presents for me, so no one was allowed to bring presents. I was miserable. What I wanted to do on my birthday was choose three friends and go to Union to see a movie. Or have a slumber party. Not games. Not strangers. Not creamed chicken and peas. She did it to me two years in a row. When you grow up with a parent who can blow up without warning, you don’t like enormous changes at the last moment.

  It always seemed to me that the people who yell “Surprise!” the loudest are the ones who like you least.

  Bobby Applegate I don’t blame Monica. I know she was trying to do a good thing. Some people love surprises. I didn’t know for sure Eleanor wouldn’t like it. If I didn’t, Nika didn’t. And El was very happy afterward, to have all her children and Cinder and Marta with her.

  Eleanor Applegate Where was Monica for those birthdays? In camp? She has to have been there. Did I not tell her how much I hated it? How could she not remember? Was she just so glad that Mother was doing something horrible to someone besides her that it didn’t register?

  Monica Faithful It was the party of the summer. Some years there just is one, and for sure this year it was Eleanor’s surprise party. When a party like that really comes off, and even the helpers are beaming and the whole house roars with happiness, it’s all worth it.

  Shirley Eaton I came in the next morning and it looked as if every plate and cup in the house had been used and left for me to wash. There were stacks all over the kitchen and pantry. I said to Mr. Faithful, “What am I supposed to do about this, with no water?” He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea,” and went off down the lawn. Never much help, that one.

  Jimmy Moss I loved the party and so did the children. Though we all got up late and the kids did seem to have hangovers, they’d had so much sugar and excitement, which Josslyn wasn’t best pleased about. I called Al Pease and told him about the pump being burned out and asked him if he knows where the pump is. He said it’s down in the well, buried out on the lawn, and he’d send his son Jeff out to dig it out.

  Jeff Pease I had the well uncovered by the time Jimmy Moss wandered out. It was a hot day and that was not pleasant work. The wellhead was old and weighed about a ton, and I’d given it a couple of heaves without moving it. Jimmy put down his coffee and got down in the hole with me and we both heaved. By the time we got it off and started pulling the pump up a hundred and forty-seven feet Jimmy’s wife come out in her bathrobe and she says, “Jimmy, you be careful you don’t put your back out.”

  What about my back? I’m older than he is.

  Josslyn Moss They got the thing out, finally, and the plumber drove away with it, and Jimmy went upstairs and took four Advil. We were supposed to play tennis that afternoon. There went that idea.

  Al Pease I drove to Bangor for a new pump that would fit that system, while Patty took Jeff to the hospital for a cortisone shot. He had to lie down in the back of the truck to get there, but the shot fixed him up, at least so he could walk.

  Shirley Eaton The well finally filled back up and I had water by the next day. I’d carried most of the dishes home with me to wash. Monica filled jugs at the town pump for their drinking water and they ate lunch and dinner out. We all used the Porta Potti that day, except the children kept forgetting, so the upstairs flush got stopped and we had to call Al Pease again. Being a plumber’s a wonderful life, don’t you think?

  Josslyn Moss I didn’t know what the bills were going to look like, but I knew I wasn’t going to pay them. It wasn’t my party, and it certainly wasn’t me who didn’t have the sense to turn the pump off. Why didn’t anyone tell me the well was dry? What is it, I don’t live here too?

  Cressida Pease I sent the bills to Norman Faithful. The Applegates don’t use Leeway and I don’t have Jimmy Moss’s address, what else was I supposed to do? And nobody paid them, so I took them off the delivery schedule. Al’s some irked with me. I know, I should have called someone. But I couldn’t abide Sydney Moss and I didn’t relish being treated like that by another generation.

  Eleanor Applegate When they had the water back on, Bobby and I went down to Leeway for lunch on the porch with Nika and Norman. Shirley brought everything out on trays, and we sat side by side looking down to the bay, the way Mother and Papa used to do. I don’t know if the others were thinking of them, but they were very much with me. How much they both loved this view. The flag was on the breeze, the gardens were gorgeous. Jimmy’s children were playing down in the field the way we used to. If Papa were here, he’d be getting ready to go out on the Stone to watch the sailing races in the afternoon. I said, “Since so many of us are in town, shouldn’t we make plans to take the ashes out and let them go?”

  Monica Faithful I’d been thinking the same thing. Only Sylvie and Sam were missing, and Edie could stay another day. Norman could do the prayers. We’d take the ashes out to the middle of the bay, where Papa used to take us to troll for mackerel when we were little. And Mother used to yell at us how to trim our sails when we were racing Turnabouts.

  Jimmy Moss “Trim! Trim! Trim, Monica!” you could hear Mom shouting all over the fleet. It still makes us laugh.

  Monica Faithful El and I played golf in the afternoon, and made a little list of who should come with us. Aunt Gladdy and Uncle Neville, of course. The Henneberrys. The Gantrys wouldn’t come, but we’d ask them.

  Eleanor Applegate I thought we should ask Papa’s poker group, Mutt Dodge, Al Pease, and so on. It would make the group too big for the Stone, but the Maitlands’ boatman would probably come along in Woodwind. That boat could take a few dozen.

  Monica Faithful Most of the people we wanted to include were at the club that afternoon, as they were most afternoons, so we didn’t have to make many phone calls. The oldies were up on the porch playing bridge or watching the croquet. The others were on the golf course or playing tennis. Aunt Elise said Of course about Woodwind, so we put the word out that we’d leave the dock at two the next afternoon, and anyone who wanted to come was welcome.

  Eleanor Applegate After dinner that night at Leeway, I was going through Papa’s poetry books looking for something to read. His favorite poem in English was “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” which was all too appropriate, but we decided to save it for the gathering afterward. Monica was trying to write something for the service. Nora was sorting through her boxes looking for just the right pictures of Mother and Papa to take along, when Norman took a phone call.

  Monica Faithful He came back in and announced he had to go home. He’d booked the early flight out of Bangor. I was upset, I really was. Apparently there was going to be an intervention on one of his parishioners, Rebecca Vogelsang.
I didn’t even know she drank. But Norman said her husband and children all agreed, and they all thought he had to be there. I said I didn’t see why—Lindsay Tautsch could handle it. He said it wasn’t like that. It had to be all the people the person really cares about, saying the same thing at once.

  I pointed out that tomorrow was important to this family too. He was going to read the prayers. These were my parents. He said he was very, very sorry, but there was a life to be saved, and he had to go.

  Eleanor Applegate You know what? I thought, Good. Go away. Hugh Chamblee really loved our father; I’d rather have him do it anyway. Monica was terribly disappointed, though.

  Elise Maitland Henneberry It was a body blow to me, losing Sydney and Laurus. Of course Sydney hadn’t been herself for some time, so I suppose you could say it was a release for her, but I never felt she hated what had happened to her mind, as so many people do. At the end she had a sweetness she’d never really shown before. She trusted Laurus to love her and make good plans for them both. And she enjoyed the sun, and her food, and seeing familiar faces. She had an appetite for life still. And Laurus! How I loved that man. Sydney made mistakes in her life, but she got the most important thing right when she married him. They are missed. So of course I was glad the children asked for Woodwind.