Chapter 15 Peggy
When I return home from the library Drew is outside training on the towpath. He is doing pull-ups on a low tree branch, the vein in his forehead protruding, pulsing.
“Planning to tell me?”
“Tell you?”
He drops down and steps closer, his sneakers splattered with muddy droplets of water that he will painstakingly clean away with a rag later this evening.
“Boat was different when I got back from the scrapyard. Something off about it.”
“What was different, love?”
“Been someone on my boat, tell me there hasn’t.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, that. It was just the detective came around. He was checking on Jeff Turner’s boat. We got to talking and I offered him a cup of coffee, that’s all.”
“You offered him,” he says, sweat dripping off his chin, “a cup of coffee.”
“He’s from the sheriff’s office, Drew.”
“He’s a man on my boat.”
I step back a little. There is no one else around for miles.
“Ten minutes, that’s all it was. Coffee, one sugar. Took it black. Don’t think he trusted our milk. Talked about Sammy awhile, about how he worked for Jeff Turner, helped him out.”
The sinews of his forearms flex and bulge.
“What did he say, this man?”
“I think he was mainly checking on his boat. Making sure it was secure and locked up. Mentioned they were looking into whether he was alone on his boat. Establishing a timeline.”
Drew sets his jaw. “Did he look at you?”
I frown.
“I said did he look at you.”
“We talked. Must have been less than ten minutes.”
He crosses his arms and looks me up and down.
“Were you wearing that at the time? Or something else?”
I look down at my jacket and jeans and boots.
“Sorry?”
“He touch your hand, anything like that? Console you for the sudden and tragic loss?”
“Don’t be silly.”
His breath steams out of his nostrils and hangs in the air between us. A jet plane high overhead. Silence.
“Did he try anything on with you, this fella?”
“He’s a detective, Drew.”
“I know who it was. Electrician on a bicycle and now another one. Did you sleep together, you and him?”
His grinds his teeth.
“We talked,” I say, not making eye contact. “He said they were running some tests on the body. I don’t know what happened to you today, but you have nothing to worry about. We just talked. Five minutes.”
“Ten minutes, you said before.”
“Something like that.”
“Something like that.”
He wipes his face on his bare forearm.
“I’m getting cold.”
“Did he touch your hands?”
“Sorry?”
He steps closer, breathing, frowning. His shoulders are tensed.
“Don’t have a coronary,” he says, loosening his torso, smiling, transforming. “Anyone’d think you were about to get a beating. What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, nothing,” I say, stepping toward our boat. “I’m tired, I guess.”
“From all that heavy work down at the library, all the index cards.”
I step onto the boat.
He goes back to his training.
Inside, the boat is as wide as Drew is tall.
The dinette is set ready for supper and the kitchen is not far removed from a decrepit trailer or squat.
The only thing that is in perfect working order is his corner.
Mahogany bureau desk rescued from a dumpster.
Each shelf and drawer meticulously sanded and repainted out on the towpath.
Each one locked with its own padlock, with its own combination.
He dusts it with spittle and a tattered T-shirt he keeps for the task.
A desk with a fifteen-year-old award sitting on top, taunting him, propelling him.
Not one speck of dust. No verdigris on his prize trophy.
The Hugh Higgins Memorial Prize. Andrew Jenkins. Most promising writer.
He was charming before we married, before Mom died, before Sammy arrived. He was a focused but considerate man. Over time, he has steadily hardened.
Samson comes home with wet pants and a wet jacket and a wet schoolbag.
“You fall in the river? It hasn’t been raining, has it?”
“I tripped.”
“Come here.”
I pull him into myself and kiss the hair on top of his head.
Soon he will be taller than me and that will be concrete proof, if I ever needed it, of the passage of time.
He hangs on to me. I squeeze him tighter, and he says nothing but he holds me like mammalian young have done for a thousand generations.
“Better get those clothes off. Put something warm on and I’ll dry them by the fire.”
He walks to the bathroom, dripping as he goes.
I know he has not eaten his Milky Way yet. It is still in his pine storage box under the dinette cushions. I have not had my Twix either.
The boat’s motor starts up, so I jog through to the bedroom.
Drew is there on the other side of the door by the tiller.
“Are we heading back to the marina?”
He does not bend forward to answer me.
I cannot see his head from down here, just his chest, legs, boots.
“Are we heading back, Drew?”
“Incorrect.”
“What then?”
He steps down. There is a fine cut near his ear, a shaving nick.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Are we going back?”
“You want to?”
“Closer to the marina would be nice, don’t you think? Closer to the road, the store, the bus. It’s a lot of walking.”
“Topping up the batteries,” he says. “Closer to that marina, that electrician? I’m thinking of heading the other way. Build some distance between us and Jeff Turner’s boat.”
“How would we get to town?”
“We’ll find a way.”
“What about the dog?”
“What about it?”
“The food’s on his boat. All her things, her leashes.”
“Not my problem.”
“I know, but…”
“The way your brain’s wired. You’re not thinking straight one day to the next.”
“Sammy’s attached to little Amber.”
“Attached?”
I make supper but the propane is running low, I can feel it.
I will not raise it with Drew tonight. As I stir the pork and beans in the saucepan I think about the rejection letter I received at the library, the look on Mrs. Appleby’s face as I opened it.
The misplaced hope. Like she is personally invested in the possibility of me securing a private victory.
We regret to inform you that we must pass on your manuscript at this time.
We wish you luck with future submissions.
I knew in my heart it was not good enough.
The opening needs work and I am not sure there is a clear theme in the whole novel.
We sit at the dinette, Drew in his denim shirt and Sammy in his gym sweatshirt, and we eat our beans.
“How’s football, son?” Drew asks, his food untouched.
“All right,” says Sammy.
“All right, is it?”
“Yeah.” He puts down his fork. “Shelby scored three touchdowns last week. Rumors of varsity already. Talked about it in front of the class.”
“Nice for Shelby’s father, that. Real nice. What about you, Samson? What’s there for your old man?”
“I’m playing OK.”
“Are you? Because we never hear anything of it. No match reports, no stories from you, no tournament invites. It’d be nice to come along and watch you on the gridiron one time, the money your cleats cost.”
“Andrew.”
He ignores me and keeps staring down at Sammy.
“Are you on the team? School team?”
“You know I’m not.”
“Reserves, then? If someone’s injured do you get to play?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Not at the moment, is it? You’re training, though. You’re looking for a spot? Fighting for a place, are you?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Yes, Dad.”
Drew slowly, almost imperceptibly, shakes his head, and begins eating his beans.
“There was a soft boy in my school, tougher school than yours, and he got knocked around every day and never fought back. Lazy kid, he was. Pansy. Never helped himself. Big baby, he was. Bent nose. Blond hair and dimples. Until some of the guys pinned him down and shaved his head with a straight razor.” I can see the beans on Drew’s tongue.
“Don’t ever be a victim, Samson. I will not have a victim for a son. ”
Sammy finishes his food and thanks me and asks to leave the table and I tell him he can. He places his plate in the sink and goes to the bathroom and locks himself in.
“Go easy on him.”
“If I go any easier he’ll melt.”
“He’s settling in. The assignments are tough.”
“Life’s tough. You call this supper?”
I frown.
“Overcooked, Peg, is what this is. Look at it. Soggy beans. Might as well put my dinner in a blender for all the texture we’ve got here. Slop.”
“I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Slop,” he says again.
I watch the tendons in his hands. His grip tightens on his cutlery.
“Sludge for my supper.”
“Sorry.”
“After the day I’ve had.”
I say nothing.
“What did the fella look like?”
“Pardon?”
“Detective. What did he look like? Would I know him?”
“Fair hair, short. Thirty, maybe. Looked Irish.”
“Redhead, was he?”
“I don’t know, Drew.”
“You do know.”
“He just asked me some questions.”
“You tell him we slept together that night?”
“No, of course I didn’t.”
He chews his pork and beans. I watch his jaw move, bulge, his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows, the knife and fork cartoonishly small in his hands.
“Why not?” he asks. “Why didn’t you mention it?”
“None of his business, is it? I never would…”
“Should have told him, love. Jeff Turner fell in the canal, slipped, shouldn’t have been on a houseboat at his age, too old he was, and you and me were in bed. Best the detective knows that. Next time the redhead comes around for a tea party you tell him what we did.”
“I can’t remember…”
“You can’t what?”
“That we…”
He motions to smash his fist down on the dinette table but then, at the last moment, his skin almost touching the wood, he flattens his palm and places it down gently. Controlled.
“Please, Andrew.”
He imitates my voice. Whispers, “Please, Andrew.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Have I ever hit you, Peg?”
I pause. “No.”
“So why are you shaking?”
“I’m confused.”
“You are, yes.”
“You want me to tell him about that night? I’ll tell him.”
“What I want,” he says, lifting one side of his plate, tilting it, bean juice pouring off, then probing each pork sausage with a stiff fingertip, “is for you to get your head straight and tell the truth. Not rocket science, is it?”
“I just felt…”
“Are you trying to ruin my book, Peg?”
“What? Of course not.”
His eyes change. His voice deepens. He booms, “Are you trying to ruin my new book, Peggy Jenkins?”
And then Samson walks out from the bathroom and his hand is covered in blood.