Chapter 3 Peggy
You’d better set off for the scrapyard, Drew, or you’ll be late.”
He turns to me and smiles.
“You telling me when to leave now?”
“Didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’ve changed my hours. I told you I did.”
“Oh.”
“Told you yesterday. Mind like a sieve, you’ve got. Like a leaky bucket.”
I wipe down the windows one more time and wring out the cloth into the sink. Canal water that condenses inside only to be returned to the canal for the endless cycle to begin again.
“What are your new hours?” I ask.
“Is there any peace?”
I do not say anything to that. There is a family of ducks outside the window, seven in total, each chick with a dash of dazzling orange on its beak, and they look like they exist in harmony.
Floating lightly atop the water and watching out for each other.
Their feathers shine in weak sunbeams and I enjoy how they seem to constantly check in with each other, keeping the group whole and safe.
“Working ten till three for now. You want me to write that down for you?”
“But, I mean, can we afford that?”
He walks toward me, his bulk filling the space between the slowly rotting kitchen cabinets and the dinette, and then, gradually, he comes to a halt in much the way a houseboat would: gently, inevitably, culminating at my face.
“You ever missed a meal under my roof?”
I shake my head.
He breathes slowly. Controlled exhalations.
“There you go.”
I do the dishes. Scheming. Scent of Dawn dish soap. Plotting what might come next. Coping mechanisms and strategies; tapping into another stratum of resilience I never knew I had. Plans. Ways to keep Sammy happy until he’s old enough to do it for himself.
“You’ll have to be mindful of water from today. No more splashing it about like you’re doing now in that sink. We’ll be down to the boat’s tank from now on. No public water. You and the boy will have to watch yourselves.”
We have been watching ourselves for years.
Me watching him and him watching out for me.
I pull on my long jacket.
“Goodbye then.”
He sits at his desk.
“Might walk you back home later.”
So he can keep an eye on me. Monitor who talks to me. Who looks at me.
“How will I know where the boat is, Drew? Later today, I mean, in case you don’t come collect me at the library.”
He looks up from his desk and holds my gaze.
“You’ll open your eyes, Peggy. Walk along the canal. The exercise will do you good.”
“Bye then.”
Walking away from him.
Leaving.
I am minded to keep on walking and never look back, but I know by now that I always look back eventually.
Not because he has the bankbook or the boat in his name, it’s not that.
It is because of what he told me all those years ago.
It is because of the man he is deep inside that Sammy and I stay tethered to him.
It is Samson who would suffer if I was to disappear, and he is not built for that challenge.
He is hardly built for what we have now.
Along the towpath. Up the hill. The sweet scent of wet, brown earth. Pigtail moss and decaying leaves. The landscape slowing down into the cold, still months.
Past the railroad footbridge and on to the bus stop.
I like this time of day. The schoolchildren are all safe in their tidy classrooms by now and the workers are busy in their offices and stores.
It’s me riding with five senior citizens and a new mother.
I help her with her stroller and we exchange a tired look of solidarity and understanding.
No words needed. The bus engine drones, and as the fields and transmission towers blur outside I ponder what I will write about on my lunch break.
He lets me volunteer.
Lets me.
If it wasn’t for Sammy I would leave in a heartbeat. Set up someplace else and never look back. I could clean houses in Missouri and keep my head down. But there’s no good that comes from thinking that way. I have to set my boy free first and then I can think about myself.
The small concrete library is crammed between a community health center and a dollar store.
Four computers, thousands of books, one photocopier, three librarians, and me.
This building is the opposite of our narrow boat.
Not that it is square, though it is. But it is heavy and rooted; wedged securely between two other buildings like it’s never going anyplace. Quiet and warm, a modern-day church.
I hang up my jacket and start work on the children’s area display. Picture books and props. A broken toy ship with a pirate flag.
Fred comes in.
“Good morning, Peggy.”
“Morning, Fred. Cold out there.”
“Bitter.”
His fingernails are black and his hair is clumped into accidental dreadlocks. He has pockets full of plastic bags and there is no gentler man in the whole county. I give him five minutes to settle in and then I sit down opposite.
“What is today, Fred?”
“Chuzzlewit.”
“Again?”
“Third time, that’s all. I favor Martin Chuzzlewit in the wintertime when the nights are drawing in. It’s good and familiar.”
He flinches.
“Your mouth?”
He nods.
“How’s DeeDee?”
“She’s moved on to the next town. Said she’d had enough of this place.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, Peggy. Me too. I worry for her in that big town. There’s meanness over there by the interstate. I never did like it.”
I leave him to read like he does every day. Warming up takes time. By lunch he will be outside again with his paper cup and his flag, holding his piece of cardboard detailing his war record, thinking about the story he read, the characters and dialogue, hoping for God knows what.
Entering the new members’ details onto the computer takes a little more than an hour.
When I type their names and addresses I wonder who they are and what they might be dealing with.
They will have their own mailboxes in their own front yards whereas all our mail is sent to the scrapyard office. I never have a chance to see it.
Mrs. Appleby approaches.
An old-fashioned perfume with notes of vanilla, notes of rose.
“It’s about that time. Go on, be away with you, I know you’re itching. It’s nearly done, isn’t that right?”
“Last two chapters.”
“We launched a poet’s collection here before your time. An anthology.” When she smiles she has dimples. “Poet from Poplar Bluff. I told you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Mrs. Appleby.”
“A dozen or so in the audience. We put out chairs, borrowed some from Chuck at the health center. Platters of home-baked oatmeal cookies. Questions and answers, it was a good night. We’ll do the same for you, Peggy, if you want, when the time comes. Be nice to meet your family.”
I shiver at the thought. “Thank you.”
My usual computer is taken by a tall man still wearing his military surplus hat so I take another one.
I manage to write for a solid hour even though people ask me for books or sections or simply drop by to chat.
I don’t mind the interruptions, not like Drew.
He says his style of prose demands complete focus.
He will not compromise. Ironically, that is one of the things I was attracted to when we met.
The other guys back then were half-hearted and directionless, whereas Drew knew exactly what he wanted.
He says he will not write anything less than that which he is capable of.
No room for weakness. Whereas I seem to write about the same with or without interruptions.
I save my chapters to a floppy disk and go back to work in the children’s area.
The afternoon passes with me still pondering the climax of my book.
Worrying about it. I had not planned what would happen and now I regret that.
By the end of the week I will need to have it clear in my mind.
Then, when it’s the right moment, I will build up the courage to tell Drew what I have been doing.
I will not jump the gun and talk to him until it is complete.
If I manage to sell it one day he’ll be relieved to have some extra cash coming in.
Him liking the story does not worry me because I am quite certain he will not.
It is not his kind of writing. He says he only really has time for Hemingway these days.
As if we didn’t already know.
In some ways I write to escape, to travel, to live other lives. But I also write to confront what might be around the next corner, to visualize and prepare myself for it. I have found no better way to deal with anguish and pain than to write straight through it.
I would love to drop a quarter in Fred’s cup, but he does not expect it from me.
I would still like to do it, to surprise him.
I know if it wasn’t for us inheriting Mom’s bungalow we’d be in trouble, but Drew sees to all the details.
When we moved onto the boat the smell of mildew was overwhelming.
That night, after scrubbing the boards with stiff brushes and Clorox, we ate cold take-out pizza by the fire and all in all it was a hopeful moment.
Samson made a root beer toast to his Nanna Ruth, thanking her for our boat, and at that point Drew fell quiet.
A face as hard and unmoving as basaltic rock.
He stopped chewing and he turned to me and asked, What’s been said?
I told him nothing had been said. He asked Samson to stand up.
Then he stood up himself to face our boy, and looked down on him, and explained how this was our boat and that was that.
For the family. Nothing to do with Nanna Ruth or anybody else outside.
He provided the boat for us from his work at the scrapyard, the dairy, and the construction site, all cash in hand.
Later that night, his shoulder turned away from me, I asked him if the leftover money from Mom’s bungalow helped a little with the boat and he ignored me and stayed still as a statue in a crypt.
Since then he’s mentioned the old mortgage and other bungalow repair costs.
He says the boat was paid for out of his labor and it’s for his family.
Us against them. Nothing is straightforward living with Drew, it never has been.
He is a man of artistic integrity, his own words, and that isn’t easy.
But his writing is genuinely extraordinary.
The story he submitted when we were dating is still the most achingly beautiful work I have ever read.
It haunts me to this day. There was never any doubt in my mind he would win the Hugh Higgins Memorial Prize.
The $500 check and the bronze paperweight mounted on black granite.
There was never any hesitation. But his brilliance comes at a steep price.
His art can sometimes turn our home life into a waking nightmare, and it is my job to navigate us through those periods for the sake of Samson.
It is not always plain sailing when you are fourteen.
I remember those days. The hormones and self-doubt.
The endless reimagining of yourself, your reality, and your dreams.
I am just grateful he likes his new school as much as he does.