Adrift

Chapter 49 Peggy

Snow floats gently from a featureless sky.

Flakes settle on the dinette windows, join together, obscure the empty landscape.

“You’re back early, Peg,” he says, stepping onto the boat. “Snowing out there. Like Alaska.”

How would you know?

“I need to talk to you, Drew.”

“Talk to me?”

“We need to talk, Andrew.”

“Full day working out in this weather, trudging home through slush, and I come home to: We need to talk, Andrew. How about a coffee?”

I do not put the water on.

“Have it your way,” he says, pulling off his jacket and his hat. “Have out with it, I haven’t got all day.”

Instead of slinking away I will confront this head-on. If I don’t he’ll just track us down and I can’t put Sammy through that. I won’t.

“Sit down, Drew. Please.”

He frowns and keeps standing.

I stay seated on the dinette cushion and he moves directly in front of me, staring, his gaze boring down into me.

“All right, then,” I say. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Look out. She’s been thinking.”

“This is nothing spontaneous, you understand. I’ve been thinking on it for a while now.”

He clenches his teeth.

“It would be best for us all if we go away for a while.”

“Best for us all?”

“Just for a while.”

He smiles. “Go away?”

“It’s not working out, Drew.”

“What isn’t?”

I bite my lip. “I’m going to leave.”

“Course you are, princess.”

“I mean it.”

“Oh, she means it.”

“Please.”

“You want me to call the hospital? I’ve got a doctor’s direct number in my desk. I can call her up, have you looked at. You want that? Little break to get your head straight again. Might work this time. Longer stay. Might fix your hysteria, your emotions.”

He says emotions with venom, spitting out the word.

“I need to go. Sammy and I need to go.”

“Not likely.”

My heart races.

“We’re going to go, Drew.”

“Incorrect.”

“Drew.”

“Not even a cup of coffee after a day like I’ve had. Not even a hot drink to come home to. My mother would turn in her grave.”

“I don’t want any shouting. Sammy’ll be back from Phoenix’s boat soon. Fixing something on the roof. I don’t want him to hear us argue.”

“There’s nothing to argue about.”

“As long as you understand.”

“No, as long as you understand.”

“It hasn’t been good for a long time.”

“It is what it is, Peg. Fifteen years. You two aren’t going anywhere, mark my words.”

“He’s thinking ahead to his SATs, college maybe.”

“Samson? Samson Jenkins, that who you’re talking about? He thinks you’re deranged, Peggy. His own mother, incompetent, should be institutionalized. He thinks you’re a lunatic, love. Knows it, in fact. The boy and I work well together these days. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I think…”

He raises his index finger, silencing me. “It’s not about what you think, Peggy, love, we’ve been over this before. It never has been about what you think in that skull of yours. It’s about what is. And what is, is the three of us getting on with it without all this nagging. All right?”

I shake my head.

He raises his finger again. Lowers his voice. “Not another word.”

I pull out the eulogy from under a cushion.

He stares at it. Blinks.

“I found this.”

He squints. “You found it.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been looking through my papers? What was going through your head, woman? Private papers, locked up. My work. What were you thinking?

“I was thinking I might take this to the sheriff.”

He looks agitated. Moving on the spot. Biting the inside of his mouth. “St. Mary’s. Electric therapy, I expect. He’ll put you back in St. Mary’s before he’s finished reading the first paragraph. Where you belong.”

I shake my head. Try to stay calm.

“What did you have planned for me? I’m curious. An accident, was it? Like Mr. Turner’s tragic fall into the canal? Like Amber eating poison? How many more of these accidents before you get taken in?”

“Planned, for you? I wouldn’t waste the paper, love. Not worth it.”

“Samson and I are leaving tonight.”

He smiles and scratches his lower eyelid. “Again, incorrect.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“I’m not arguing neither. Nobody’s going. What’s for supper?”

The snow intensifies. Pristine beauty outside these rotting walls.

“You can make your own.”

He nods six or seven times and says nothing. Keeps on nodding.

“You want to finish up like your mother?” he says, finally, quietly. “Ending it alone with nobody to talk to, nobody liking you. Alone in the world. You want to end up like your mom?”

“You made her that way.”

“You’re delusional. Mental age of a minor.”

I take a deep breath. “I don’t want Sammy seeing this. I’ll make us some hot food; he’ll be chilled to the bone. I’ll make supper and then we’ll go quietly. I’ve done most of the packing. You can’t stop us, Drew.”

He snorts. “I can’t?”

I close my eyes for a few seconds.

When I reopen them he seems to have grown in stature. His torso widens and his jaw swells.

I smile.

This is almost over.

“Don’t you smile at me like that. Wipe that grin off your face. Wipe it off or…”

I stop smiling.

“We’re going, Drew. I’m not frightened anymore. Just exhausted. We’re leaving.”

He nods to himself over and over.

“You wrote a eulogy, for God’s sake.”

Now he’s the one who smiles.

“How could you?”

“It’s an epilogue,” he says, quietly. “Get it right.”

“What?”

“Read it again, Peg. Take your time with it and engage your brain. It is an epilogue. Means the end part of a novel.”

“I know what it means. But this says eulogy.”

“Read it again, Peggy. Carefully. Take your time with it.”

His handwriting is sprawling, almost illegible. I suppose it could say Epilogue. I don’t think it does, but it could say it.

“You sure?”

“Am I sure?” he says, softening, pointing to it. “That’s creative writing, that is. My own work. That’s the end of a story I wrote a while back. Prose. Fiction, Peggy. Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with any of us.”

I can feel the chill from the windowpane.

“It has my name in it.”

He nods. “I often use your name, or mine, or Samson’s, as a placeholder. Don’t read more into it. That’s fiction.”

“We’re still leaving, Drew. Either way.”

“Listen.” He sits down gently on the dinette bench.

His facial features loosen. “Listen, Peggy, love. You’ve been through a tough year, tougher than I can imagine, really.

The things you’ve seen in that hospital.

Well, it’d change a person, wouldn’t it?

Any person. And I know adapting to life on the canal has had its ups and downs.

I understand that. Maybe I should have been more understanding.

My failure, that, not yours. I should have listened to you. ”

I let out a breath. “You should.”

“But that’s not a eulogy. What a terrible thought. I don’t even know what you mean by it. That’s a story, the end of one, not my best work but you can read the rest if you don’t believe me. I’ll get around to draft two eventually. It’s the end of a story.”

I am exhausted.

So many blind turns.

“OK.”

“You want to read the whole thing?”

“No.”

He closes his eyes for a long time.

“Our boy will be home soon, Peggy. Our boy. You remember the way he’d try to push himself up as a newborn in the maternity ward, after his health cleared up, trying to do a little push-up, and again when we got home to the bungalow.

Little tyke. Used to try to push himself up on his arms at a few days old. You remember, Peg?”

I don’t trust him. “Yeah.”

“Little guy thought he was superman. Still does some days.”

“We need some time away, Drew. I’m sorry. Maybe not for long, but I need to get my head straight.”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose.

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“I haven’t made it as easy for you as I should have.”

We look at each other.

“Remember the old days, Peg?”

I dig my thumbnail into the soft flesh of my index finger. “We’re leaving tomorrow, Drew. We’ll write you.”

“You’ll write? To me?”

“We will.”

“Give me another chance, Peggy.”

He never talks this way.

The ground is shifting.

He rubs his hands over his smooth head.

“One last chance, then.” His voice cracks, weakens.

“Is that too much to ask after fifteen years of marriage? The vows, the hardship we’ve struggled through together, the son we made.

I don’t want you to throw it all away on a whim, Peggy.

And I know you’ll say you’re thinking clear but are you still taking the tablets? ”

I nod.

I’m not taking anything.

“Well, there you go then. Who knows what you’d be thinking without all the chemicals.

Peggy, love, for the sake of our boy, for little Sammy’s sake, give it one last chance.

Don’t tell him you’re going yet. Don’t leave tomorrow.

Give me one more day. One day is all I ask for, so I can make an effort.

Everyone deserves a second chance, wouldn’t you say? ”

“We need to go.”

His eyes are shining.

He furrows his brow. “You can go. Look, if I haven’t changed the mood, my manner, the boat, our way of life, by tomorrow night, I’ll help you both pack and I won’t come looking for you.

Can’t say fairer than that. I’ve been thinking about it, too, you know.

How we can make home life a little more comfortable.

I was the one who wanted to speak to the shrink at the health center.

Remember that, Peg?” He looks so desperate.

“Maybe I’ll change my writing routine to weekends.

So we can have more family time in the evenings.

And now the boy’s working we can go out for Chinese buffet every now and then at the place by the Dollar General.

I’ll cut back on my paper, on my stamps.

Maybe take a trip once a month to the movie theater. ”

I rub my eyes with my fingertips and take a deep breath.

I am so tired.

Worn down.

“Sleep on it, Peg. I don’t want to push you into a decision. Take your time. Sleep on it. I’ll tell you what. I’ll make supper for us. Spam and eggs, and you take it easy. Be a shame to mess up the boy’s education when he’s almost done. You can decide tomorrow after your shift at the library. Yes?”

I can see Sammy outside the boat.

He draws a smiley face in the snow on the window with his gloved fingertip. Encloses it within a triangle sign.

“Yes?” Drew asks again.

I still need to persuade Sammy and pack his belongings.

“Fine,” I say, drained. “One more day.”