Chapter 17 #2
“I mean, because you’re staying with me and all,” Morgan said, his thoughts flittering around in his head. “Look, all of this is new for me.”
“New?” Jack asked. He licked his lips and pressed his finger to the china plate to gather up the remains of his scone. Riveting Morgan’s attention.
“This town. This life.” Morgan shook his head and drank some of his coffee, then nibbled at the cookie and put it down again. “When I first got here, all I wanted to do was leave—but right away, everyone I met insisted I couldn’t. And the longer I stay, the more this town puts its hooks in me.”
“That such a bad thing?” Jack tipped his head to one side and smiled at Morgan as though the answer was obvious. “I’ve been worse places. Nicer ones, too, but this town is better than a lot. It’s quiet, for a start.”
Morgan sipped his coffee and waited, sensing something shifting beneath Jack’s skin.
“Know what a Janney coupler is?” Jack asked.
“No.” Morgan bit into his cookie and thought that maybe it wasn’t too sweet; it was just sweet enough.
“It’s the—” Jack stopped and clasped his fingers, making like he was pulling them apart, but they held fast. “It’s two ends that connect the train, one on each car, and they curl like half fists.
There’s a well, a little shelf, over those couplers, and that’s where you sit.
And the couplers, they jag and jiggle and clack all the time.
They’re meant to move and adapt to the trucks going along the rails; that’s what Star said.
They’re never silent. You hear them in your sleep.
I’m still hearing them, though they’re getting quieter now. ”
No wonder Jack had looked so tired when he’d arrived, hair wet with snowmelt, circles under his eyes, skin beneath the grime paler than it should be. Wearing clothes that needed to be replaced—and Morgan should do that, get him something warmer to wear. A real coat, for starters.
“That’s good,” Morgan said. “Your friend Star must know a lot.”
“He knows a lot about a lot of things,” Jack said, then shook his head. “But he’s not my friend.”
Morgan remembered Jack saying something similar before. They’re no friends of mine.
“How can you travel with someone if they’re not your friend?”
“We met in Chicago a while back,” Jack said, “but that day, the train started, and I was still on the ground. Asked them to throw me my stuff, but they didn’t. Everything I had. They kept it. So, no, they’re not my friends.”
The sadness was plain to see in Jack’s green eyes, and all Morgan wanted was to fix it. Only he didn’t know how.
“Never mind.” Jack shook himself, standing up as he polished off the rest of his coffee. “We need to get you ice cream, and then Mabel awaits us.”
“‘Awaits us’?” Morgan teased, standing up as well, reaching for his cane, and patting his pockets for his keys before he realized Jack had them. That Jack was driving. That the spell of the coffee shop was over, and they had errands to run.
Jack drove more slowly down Elliot Street as they made their way to the Hays Market, perhaps because he now had his favorite coffee in his system and bags more of it in the truck bed, tucked beneath a frost-edged bit of tarp.
At the market, Jack parked as close to the front doors as he could, which wasn’t all that close, as it seemed everyone else in town was also there.
Staying by Morgan’s side, Jack was attentive as they walked across the snowy parking lot and inside to the warmth and bustle of people stocking up on milk and bread.
“Well, lookit who’s here,” a voice said, and Morgan steeled himself, turning to see Ambrose, Maurice, and Neville, all bundled against the cold in puffy down jackets, fuzzy Canadian tuques standing up on their heads like they were about to pop off, their half-filled carts all in a line.
They rallied around Morgan as if he needed them to protect him from the crowd in the produce area. “And who is this?” they asked in unison, looking at Jack.
“This is my friend Jack Foxley,” Morgan said. “He’s come to help me.”
“We could help you,” Ambrose said.
“You don’t need to anymore,” Morgan replied.
Silence fell as the three men looked at Jack and then at Morgan. Their expressions showed a kind of betrayed sadness. They weren’t old geezers; they were simply three retired gentlemen with not much to do and a desire to be kind to the newcomer in town.
Morgan had been a jerk all over again. Would he ever learn? He needed to fix this, and fast.
“We’ve had plenty of wood, thanks to you,” he said, somehow desperate and irritated at the same time. “But Jack’s building fires every night, so we’re going through it at a clip. Is there a better place to get it than here at the market, or—”
Their faces brightened in unison at being asked for help.
“They’re all out at the moment,” Neville said. “But we’ve got extra and could bring you some more, Mr. Malone.”
“It’s Morgan,” Morgan said. “And would you?”
“We bought coffee,” Jack put in. “Plenty of it. And there’s a new coffee maker we’re setting up, so we’ll have coffee and donuts waiting for you.”
Morgan held his tongue and nodded. Only days ago he would have been up in arms about someone issuing a blanket invitation like that so cavalierly, but Jack was making him look at the world through different eyes.
Maybe Jack wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he was doing it. Morgan could adjust his attitude, or he could go on feeling like an asshole, being mean to three older men simply because their presence was an inconvenience.
“We’re stopping at Mabel’s first,” Morgan said. “But we’ll be back after that, if you wanted to come by.”
“Sounds like a plan, Morgan,” Ambrose said, his smile wide, wrinkling all the way up his face. “We’ll have plenty of wood for you.”
As the three men wheeled their carts away, joyfully entering the throng of shoppers dithering over that season’s apples, Morgan turned to Jack. “What if they’re out of donuts?” he asked. “They don’t have a very big bakery section here.”
“They won’t be,” Jack said with utter confidence. “They’re baking for the storm. Besides, you said we’re on our way to pick up most of Mabel’s rhubarb crumble, and I bet they’d enjoy that instead of donuts in a pinch.”
Of course Jack would care that the old guys would be happy. Morgan reminded himself to go along with it and pushed the cart while Jack piled it high with food Morgan was sure they wouldn’t need.
The bakery did indeed have a robust selection of donuts, so they got a dozen cake and a dozen glazed.
When Jack eyed the raspberry bismarks, they got half a dozen of those as well.
After Morgan paid and everything was bagged, he let Jack bring the truck around so Jack could load it up and they could make their way to Mabel’s, even as clouds were piling high on the western horizon.
“Another storm,” Morgan said, glad to be sitting in the truck, sitting still, even though he’d have to endure a stop at Mabel’s.
He’d been so rude to her before, and now he’d accepted an invitation to sit in her kitchen and take her food and be nice to her dog. It was just about too much, but the happy smile on Jack’s face as they pulled up to the snowy curb in front of Mabel’s little gray house almost made it worthwhile.
Mabel met them at the door, the steps freshly scraped, presumably courtesy of Jack. She held her dog in her arms. Mister Rocket was pert and alert and staring at Morgan like he might be the enemy.
“Come on in,” she said brightly, as if it had been ages since she’d seen another human being and they were her favorites in all the world.
It was how she’d treated him before, he had to admit, other than scolding him about the state of his store and the need for humane traps. Like she liked him. Maybe even cared about him. And all he’d done was snap at her.
“I know you want to get home before the storm comes, so I’m all ready to make hot chocolate, and I’ve got the rhubarb crumble wrapped up so you can eat some right away and freeze the rest.”
Morgan didn’t know the last time he’d had hot chocolate. Or the last time he’d been so grateful to step out of the frosty brightness of late afternoon and into the warmth of a small house.
Which, as Jack had reported, was cozy and clean—and not overly fussy, as Morgan had imagined it would be. The walls were pale yellow in the kitchen and a faded lilac seemingly everywhere else. And the couch, rather than being covered in plastic, was draped in old quilts.
“Come into the kitchen,” Mabel said, putting Mister Rocket down. “And make yourselves at home.”
With Mister Rocket scurrying ahead of them, nails scrabbling on the linoleum, Morgan and Jack sat at the wooden farm table that looked like it had been cut down to fit the room.
Morgan watched Mabel bustle about her incredibly clean kitchen and was astonished when Jack leaned down from his chair to pet Mister Rocket and then pulled the dog into his lap.
The dog panted happily as Jack petted him and scratched under his collar, fondling his ears.
Mabel made a tsk tsk sound. “He’s not supposed to be up at the table like that, Jack,” she said, scolding them both. “He’s allowed on the bed and the couch and such, but not at the table. It isn’t sanitary.”
“I’ll hold him,” Jack said, looking perfectly content to be getting dog hairs on his grease-stained jeans. “He’s fine. We’re fine.”
Mabel handed him his mug of hot chocolate along with a warning that chocolate was bad for dogs and he shouldn’t be tempted to share it with Mister Rocket.
The smile on Jack’s face was so filled with light and joy that Morgan could barely look away to drink his own hot chocolate. Which, from the very first sip, was excellent.
“Did you make this from scratch, Mabel?” he asked, looking at her counter, where the cocoa powder and carton of whole milk, vanilla, and sugar sat all in a row on that freshly wiped counter.
Behind her were the sink, and a window framed by soft white curtains, through which the sunlight streamed gold and blue.
“Young man,” she said, just about looking down her nose at him. “I make everything from scratch.”
But of course she did. If the hot chocolate was this delicious, then the rhubarb crumble would be something to look forward to. And watching Jack inhale it would be something to look forward to as well.
When they finally left Mabel’s, the rhubarb crumble held safely on Morgan’s lap, Jack drove back to the feed and grain slowly. Smiling at nothing, at the world, at Morgan, he said, “You see? Hysham is a nice place.”
Morgan had to agree. He didn’t want to, and only a week earlier he would have vehemently argued the point, but Jack was right. As he tended to be.