Wintertide: A Novel Read online

  I turned when I heard my mother coming down the hall. She stopped in the doorway. It dwarfed her with its height. With her coat off, I could see clearly that she had put on weight since I’d last seen her.

  "I think Seth Cooper is home for the holidays. You might want to give him a call."

  I started pulling hopelessly wrinkled clothes from my bag. "I don't think so. We haven't talked in a while."

  "Well I saw his mother in the supermarket and told her to let Seth know you would be home for a few weeks. It wouldn't hurt for you to be nice to him. That family has gone through a very difficult time."

  "You can say the word, Mom. Lots of people get divorced."

  She gave me a cross look. "Just because everyone is doing something, that doesn't make it right. We're living in a throwaway society now. Values just don't seem to mean anything anymore."

  Throwaway society. I wondered which talk show she had heard that on. "If two people are unhappy with each other, they should get divorced rather than live the rest of their lives being miserable," I said pointedly.

  Her eyes widened. Then she looked away and pretended I was speaking hypothetically. "Well I still say it's not right. If you're not prepared to make a lifetime commitment, then you just shouldn't. That's all there is to it."

  For the first time I noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She turned to leave and said, "I've made your favorite butterscotch chip cookies. Come downstairs when you're ready."

  Three weeks suddenly seemed like a very, impossibly long amount of time.

  I called Professor Sheffield that afternoon after I had some of the insisted upon milk and butterscotch chip cookies. We had agreed that I would phone him when I arrived home. His calm, familiar voice improved my mood. He told me to enjoy some time at home, and then let him know when I was available. I assured him that I was free immediately. He gave me directions to his house, which was about twenty minutes away. It was decided that I would start tomorrow.

  As the daylight waned, Mom traveled from room to room switching on lights. When she entered the small kitchen again, I was sitting at the table pulling a few more cookies from the neck of the orange Garfield cookie jar. She replaced the head, scooped the jar up off the table and brought it to the counter. "That's enough. You won't be hungry for dinner."

  There was a chicken roasting in the oven. The tangy aroma filled the room. The grey sky was slowly darkening through the kitchen window. Suddenly, I was struck by the silence. In the city, there was always the sound of traffic, car horns, loud motors, but here it was completely quiet. The isolation seemed overwhelming, no cars, no planes passing by overhead. In the winter there wasn't even the sound of birds or crickets. There was only Maggie Hiller, bustling about in her kitchen, humming softly to herself. I thought how lonely it must be for her now that I'm gone. I was hit by guilt again. I watched her silently, wondering what she had been like before she’d met Dad.

  She felt my eyes on her and grinned at me.

  "What time is Dad coming home?" I asked, glancing away.

  She turned back toward the pot she had cooking on the stove. "Well it could be pretty late. I think we should just eat, and he can get something for himself when he comes in."

  "He's working late?"

  She hesitated, the spoon she was stirring with stopping for a brief moment before beginning to move around in a circular motion again. "Yes, or he may be meeting Tom and some other friends for a drink."

  "Does he know I'm home?"

  "Of course he does.” She continued to talk with her back to me. "He just needs to unwind after work." Then she busied herself with setting the table.

  After dinner, I sat on the couch in the living room and watched the end of Casino Royale. There was a twenty-four hour James Bond marathon on. At around ten o'clock, Mom kissed my cheek lightly and said goodnight. I had the lights turned off, and the glow of the television flickered around the room bringing the walls to life around me. My dad's old leather chair sat in the other corner against the wall. The outline of his body was worn into the scuffed surface. The numerous tiny crystal figurines, a swan, a delicate horse, a tiny dog, that covered every available surface, glimmered blue in the dull light. Gradually, the sounds of the movie, a tinny cadence through the old television speaker, became softer, and I must have dozed off because when I looked up again, there was my father standing over me, one half of his face illuminated by the TV screen, the other half hidden in shadows.

  Momentarily startled, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. He placed a hand on my shoulder. His face appeared old with deep creases, covered by rough grey whiskers. He had on a navy baseball cap.

  "Daniel, it's good to see you," he whispered. "Has your mother gone to bed?"

  I nodded sleepily. "A few hours ago.”

  He glanced at the television, standing silently for a moment. I wondered if he was going to sit down beside me. He made no move to do so. "Well," he said turning to look down at me again, "how has school been going? I understand you've been making those good grades we're used to."

  My neck started to ache from looking up, so I stood. I was a few inches taller than him. He was eye level with my nose. He seemed a bit surprised as he looked up me. "Those young college girls must be chasing after you," he said with a smile.

  I thought I detected a certain amount of pride in his words. "I have to beat them off with a stick," I acknowledged with a perfectly straight face.

  He laughed for a moment, flashing his yellow teeth, patting me lightly on the back. "Well, it's late. I'd better head up to bed. You coming upstairs?"

  "No, I think I'll stay down here a while longer."

  "It's good to have you home, son.” He glanced at me one last time. Then he said goodnight and left the room.

  The smell of whisky lingered in the air after he had gone. Before I left for school, Dad at least came home for dinner every night and reserved his drinking for weekends and holidays. I waited until I heard the bedroom door close upstairs. Then I turned off the television and quietly went up to my own room. I changed in the dark. My mattress was as old as I was. It sagged uncomfortably in the middle. As my head sank down into the pillow, the smell of the crisp white sheets, that musty mothball scent, engulfed me and plunged me back in time. I propped myself up on my elbows and peered out the window into the darkened woods across the way. There was no moonlight, and beyond the first row of trees the world dropped off into black nothingness. Stored pictures of moments I’d spent there flashed through my mind.

  How was Eddie, I wondered? Seth, Eddie and I would spend hours out there with beer Eddie had gotten using a fake ID. What had we talked about? Seth's parents, my parents, girls, Eddie's father. Our conversations always came around to Eddie's father. Eddie often had bruises on his face and body, some new and red, others old and purple. His father beat him. It was no secret. Yet no one ever did anything about it, not his teachers, not his neighbors, not me. His mother walked out a long time ago. Our discussions usually ended with Eddie describing a fantasy he had about his father dying in some horrific manner. Seth and I would become silent at that point, uncomfortably glancing at each other with downcast eyes. Then Eddie would start laughing and rolling around drunkenly in the grass. We would laugh along with him, grateful that he was no longer being morbid.

  Seth and I were always somewhat in awe of Eddie. He started school late and was held back a year in high school. He was two years older than us. At that age, the span between sixteen and eighteen seemed tremendous. Technically, he was an adult while we remained children. As it turned out, the opposite was true.

  You didn't become friends with Eddie. Either he let you be around him or he didn't, and being around him increased your status considerably. He had never even talked to Seth or me before that afternoon in the parking lot behind the high school. When you're sixteen, you have to fit into some sort of category, have a specific label. But neither Seth nor I did. We were somewhere in the middle, just sort of there.

  One afternoon b
efore study hall, Seth pulled me aside and flashed a red and white pack of Marlboros that were hidden in his shirt pocket. He’d stolen them from his dad. Before that day, I had never skipped a class or smoked a cigarette. But I was angry at my father about something, and I was in the mood to be rebellious.

  We snuck out back to the parking lot and ducked into a shadowed corner. It was early spring, and the gravel was wet with melting snow. We huddled together conspiratorially, throwing furtive glances at each other. Seth pulled a cigarette out of the half empty pack and stuck it between his lips. I started laughing. He looked too ridiculous. He grimaced at me. Then he gave me one. He took out a book of matches with a familiar green and black convenience store logo. Carefully, he lit first his and then mine. The burning ends crackled and glowed orange. We glanced at one another and each took a long, deep drag. Within moments we were bent over coughing, attempting to stifle the noise with cupped hands over our mouths. My eyes were watering, and my throat burned. As our hacking began to abate, someone said something from behind us. "First time, huh?” We wheeled around, and there was Eddie McKenna, with his long dark hair, red flannel shirt, ripped jeans, and scuffed black combat boots. He wore a knowing smirk as he looked us over, the burning cigarettes in our hands.

  He walked over to me. I stood there silently, wiping at my eyes with my sleeve. He took the cigarette from my hand, put it to his own lips and inhaled deeply. I was mute as he stood there confidently. A moment later he smoothly exhaled the white smoke through his nostrils. "See, you've got to breathe it in slowly," he said, his brown eyes peering at me with amusement through thick dark lashes. He handed it back and motioned for me to try again. I brought it up to my lips and inhaled a lesser amount of smoke this time. I only coughed a little, but no white clouds emerged from my nose, despite my lame attempts.

  Eddie laughed. He looked over at Seth. "Hey, aren't you in my history class?"

  "Yeah, third period," Seth confirmed.

  The next day before study hall, Seth told me that Eddie spoke to him in history and wanted us to meet him in the parking lot out back again. We stood out there in the cool spring sunshine and smoked a pack together that Eddie had provided, Seth and I eventually becoming more adept at it. "A couple of real Marlboro men," Eddie said jokingly, maybe condescendingly.

  Eddie started stopping in the hallway between classes to say hello to me. A sudden rush of pride swept through me as the other kids noticed that I was on speaking terms with him. Walking down the hall with him meant instant celebrity. People who had never talked to me before were suddenly saying, "Hey, Dan. How's it going?"

  We went from a twosome to a threesome. Eddie knew we idolized him, and I think it made him feel important. The fact that we both had stable homes and parents who seemed interested in our lives also intrigued him at first.

  He seemed dangerous. A quality that I certainly did not possess. If my life was pale and dull, Eddie's was glaringly bright and alive with drama. To say I was naive would be a gross understatement. Eddie's life was far from something to be envied. When I think back, I realize that it wasn't his life that I wanted, only the excitement I imagined it held. My own parents, my house, my town seemed as boring as could be. Eddie was the only thing that ever piqued my interest at all. Those first few months, having him like me was the most important thing in the world. It took a while before I realized that I didn't like him.

  three

  Dad, looking uncomfortable dressed in old wool trousers, a white shirt, and a red tie, was just heading out the door as I came into the kitchen the next morning. He spotted me from the doorway and seemed somewhat annoyed, as though he had been trying to make a clean getaway before anyone awoke. "Morning, Daniel," he said with his hand on the doorknob. "Did you sleep all right in your old bed?"

  "Like a baby," I lied noticing his impatience to leave. Actually, I had tossed and turned all night, the smell of mothballs causing my nostrils to twitch.

  He glanced out at his truck and then back at me. "Well, what are you planning on doing today?"

  I took a new package of bread out of the refrigerator as I answered. The cool air seeped out over my bare ankles and feet. "I'm going to be working all day."

  "Oh that's right. You're working for a professor over your vacation. Your mother told me, but I must have forgotten."

  I put two pieces of bread in the toaster oven. "Is she still asleep?" I asked surprised. My mother was always up puttering around the house long before I awoke for the day.

  "Your mother's not as young as she used to be. But then who is?” He smiled. "Well, I'm off. You have a nice day now. Don't work too hard."

  I would have said the same to him, but I didn't think it was necessary. I settled for "bye" and "you have a good day, too."

  He closed the door and walked out to his truck. I watched the white cloud that trailed after him from the exhaust pipe as he disappeared down the road.

  I used to imagine that there had been some ghastly mix up at the hospital, like the ones you sometimes read about in the newspaper, and I had been given to the wrong parents. Some boring young boy with mousy hair and dull blue eyes was living somewhere in Boston with the fortune five hundred businessman and the dazzling socialite hostess that were my real parents. All the time, this wealthy man and woman wondered why their son wanted to do nothing but stay in his room all day eating TV dinners and collecting crystal figurines.

  My father was always a mystery to me. But I believe that I seemed much more mysterious to him. As he’d told me several times, he was never much of a student. He didn't have any obvious ambitions. Leaving South Seaport was always my goal. To me, achieving good grades and going to college was the only way to get out. In a small town like mine, it didn't take a great amount of effort to rank in the top ten of your class. I sometimes wondered if South Seaport was home to a secret nuclear waste dump. That would certainly explain a lot, like why most of the kids in my class thought getting a degree had something to do with becoming a weatherman. I was ranked number two in my class. My father couldn't have been more surprised by that fact. He claimed that he was proud of me, but I believe he was actually shocked. He assumed that since he had never amounted to very much, neither would I. He treated me like an oddity, the bearded lady at the circus, not quite knowing what to say, commenting on how proper my English had become. I had purposely lost my Boston accent. It seemed that the more I spoke, the less he did. So we both stopped speaking.

  The bread popped out of the rusty metal toaster. I glanced down at my watch. It was nearly eight. I never knew Mom to sleep so late. She had left the car keys on the kitchen table for me, and I saw no need to wake her. I ate my warm toast, showered and dressed quickly, and stepped outside into the brisk morning air.

  Professor Sheffield's house sat atop a hill at the end of a treacherously narrow roadway. It took several passes to even find the correct street, and now I was a good fifteen minutes late. I parked the Buick in the driveway of the quaint blue house, next to an expensive Mercedes. This house was typical of many other upper middle-class models in the area, roomy, but not ostentatious, with simple landscaping. At the front door, I rang the bell and waited. I rang it again, hearing the chimes echoing within...and I waited...and waited.

  I knocked loudly on the wooden door as I checked my watch. Surely he hadn't left because I was a few minutes late. I began to wonder if I had the correct house. I walked back to the car and glanced at the small white paper resting on the dashboard upon which I had scribbled the address, 832 Hillside Terrace. I followed the cement walkway back to the door. The correct numbers were fastened to the wooden exterior in brass. I rang the bell again.

  Immediately, I heard footsteps approaching this time. The door opened wide, and there stood Professor Sheffield. Gone was the familiar tweed jacket and in its place he wore a navy wool sweater with khakis.

  “Hello, Mr. Hiller,” he greeted me warmly. "Did you find the house okay?”

  “Sure,” I smiled, feeling no need to reveal
my inability to follow directions.

  He ushered me inside, and I curiously looked around. The house had high ceilings and hardwood floors with lots of light wood and flower patterned furniture. I followed him into the airy living room. There were three large cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. A long desk piled with books and papers stood against the far wall next to a large red brick fireplace. More books and notepads were scattered around the room, resting on the couch as well as every other available chair and table. Several ashtrays were filled with the familiar round red and white peppermints.

  Professor Sheffield stood in the middle of the room and glanced around in a circle as he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Where to begin," he said.

  Just to make conversation I asked him why he hadn't answered the bell when I first rang it.

  He glanced at me and seemed suddenly worried. "I only heard it ring once. Are you saying you rang it more than one time?"

  "I think I rang it about three or four times."

  "Really? How strange? I have been in here the entire morning. I should have heard it. Don't you think?"

  "I suppose so," I answered, amused at his reaction. Maybe he had a hearing problem he was paranoid about.

  "Mr. Hiller," he said walking toward the entryway, "you stay here, and I'll go outside and ring the bell. Come and open the door when you hear it.”

  He walked outside and closed the door behind him. The high pitched bell sounded a moment later. I opened the door, and the professor's eyes widened when they saw me.

  "Ah-huh. Now you heard it chime right away, didn't you?"

  I nodded that I had.

  He came back inside, rubbing each arm with the opposite hand to ward off the outdoor chill. "It seems to work fine," he stated with a shrug walking back into the house.

  I followed him quietly into the living room.

  "Well," he began, his tone indicating that the doorbell issue was over, "I must say I was very pleased when you called me last week. I do remember you from class. In fact, I thought that your final paper was very creative."