CHAPTER SIX ROSCOE’S LETTER
CHAPTER
SIX
Roscoe’s Letter
After eight months at his job, Roscoe was dying to throw in the towel. The orange picking was bad enough, but the daily abuse from his hateful foreman crushed his spirit, and every time he got his meager paycheck he sank further into gloom.
On payday, Roscoe walked through the back roads of Mangrove Bay, relishing a crisp winter breeze that reminded him of late spring in Wales, and the time he and Megan had stood on a barren hillside, leaning into the wind.
His memories surfaced randomly like that, triggered by nothing at all, and his mood would swing just as unpredictably.
He would be okay, but then he’d think of his dead-end job with his sadistic boss, or his frigid marriage to a woman who barely cared for him, and his resentment would peak.
Post-war life had turned out just fine for Benny, with his white job and white house, and for Lee, with his new business bankrolled by his personal guardian angel – Drew Brooks.
But Roscoe had nothing, and to make it worse, he knew where to find everything he wanted.
But even if he could get back to Wales, he doubted Megan would still be waiting for him.
And if he abandoned Cora to find out, he’d be no better than his feckless father whose leaving started a disastrous ripple effect for Roscoe that had left him homeless at sixteen.
Good men stayed, and Roscoe was determined to be a good man, but his bitterness swelled to an outrage he found hard to contain.
He stopped into Fred’s Bar on his way home to take the edge off.
Three bourbons later, he began to level out.
He needed to get back for dinner, but he ordered a fourth to keep him loose.
Cora would be furious. She’d say he drank away his paycheck.
She didn’t understand that without a few drinks to smooth his corners there would be no paycheck.
By the time he pushed back from the bar, and stepped outside, nice and easy, he could smile again.
Who cared about that damn job, or that Benny had abandoned them to live large as a white man, or that Lee had turned into a fat-cat who could hire people instead of picking oranges for peanuts, or that Cora had become a nag?
In moments like these, Roscoe missed Jasper more than ever.
If he’d been there, Jasper would have understood.
He’d known about living a frustrated life.
Roscoe breathed in a lungful of air so clean it made him dizzy, and he took a minute to sit on a bench.
He tipped his head up to a sky full of stars.
He’d always liked stars. He liked how they were the same in Florida as they were in France.
Or Wales. Megan had called them by their fancy names like old friends.
Roscoe leaned back and found Cassiopeia and Ursa Major and Orion, then swiped at his eyes and blamed the water in them on the wind.
He didn’t think he was getting home more than an hour or so later than usual, but time must have slipped away from him somewhere, because when he got back to the house, Cora and Momma North had already eaten and had washed and dried the dishes.
‘Where’ve you been, Roscoe?’ Cora asked, when he’d barely stepped into the house.
‘Just made a pit stop on my way back.’ He tried to flash her a smile that felt droopy and stale. ‘I wanted to look at the stars.’
Cora folded her arms across her chest. ‘It’s not stars I’m smelling on your breath.’
‘Oh, here we go,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m a grown man, Cora. I can have a drink if I like.’
Momma North sucked her teeth and gave him a hard look that slumped his shoulders.
‘Cora held dinner for you,’ Momma North said. ‘We waited a whole hour before we gave up and ate.’
His eyes darted to the wall clock that showed it was already past ten and he hung his head. He’d thought it was closer to seven.
‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do,’ Cora said, ‘but you can’t just,’ she splayed her hands wide, ‘do this.’
Momma North’s face was lined with disappointment as she left the kitchen, announcing she was going to bed.
‘I know it’s been tough for you since you’ve been back,’ Cora said, once they were alone.
She pressed her lips together, blinking fast like she was fighting back tears.
‘Roscoe, I won’t hold dinner for you no more.
Whatever you’re doing or not doing that’s keeping you back, that’s your business, but I’m not gonna wait no more. ’
She pinned him with a look that made it clear this was about more than dinner.
‘Okay,’ he said, feeling two feet tall, knowing she deserved better. He needed to pull himself together.
‘Your plate’s by the stove.’
He glanced over to see she’d cooked rice and beans with fried tomatoes and a gravy that had cooled to a lumpy glop.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.
‘Aren’t you going to heat it up for me?’
Cora’s eyes flared. ‘No, Roscoe. I’m not.’ She turned and marched into their bedroom, slamming the door.
Roscoe sighed. He picked up the plate and saw that beside it, she’d tucked a letter.
His chest clenched when he noticed the bold, loopy handwriting spelling out the address in Hawaii where he’d been based after Europe.
Those lines had been crossed through and above them someone had written Cora’s address in block letters.
He put down the plate of food, his heart racing, and picked up the envelope, running his fingers over her writing.
He’d told himself that his time with Megan was war-time life, a temporary and crazy place where normal rules didn’t apply, and that with the war over, she’d forget all about him and he’d move on too – but seeing her handwriting made the longing echo in his bones, until his whole body rang with hollowness.
Roscoe lowered himself into a creaking kitchen chair and read. Her words transported him to happy days in Pontypool, a place that had welcomed him like he belonged, where a woman he loved with his whole soul still waited.
The air felt heavy in his lungs as he closed his eyes, remembering.
Sweet, sweet Megan. She wanted to know why he hadn’t returned to her once the Pacific war also ended.
She was praying that he was safe and well, but said that even if he’d been injured or disfigured in the last days of the war he shouldn’t stay away.
They could face it together if he’d just come back.
He felt a buzzing climbing up his chest and ringing through his ears. God almighty, the things she must have thought happened to him to keep him away. Keep him from writing in all this time. How could he ever explain?
‘Roscoe?’
Cora’s voice startled him. He hadn’t heard her come back in. She stood in the doorway in a thin nightgown.
‘It’s after midnight,’ she said, eyeing the letter in his hand and the untouched food on the counter. ‘Aren’t you going to go to sleep?’
Roscoe’s nerves frayed. He couldn’t be around Cora just then. ‘No.’ He got to his feet, folding the letter into a square. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Now? That’s crazy.’
The tight grip he tried to keep on his emotions slipped. ‘No, you know what’s crazy? This.’ He spread out his arms. ‘And this.’ He held up the paper clutched in his hand. ‘And this.’ He bounced his finger between the two of them.
‘Quiet down,’ she hissed, glancing back at her momma’s bedroom door.
His breath labored and his head pounded. The grief and rage that festered and boiled inside him wanted an outlet. If he stayed, he might lose control. ‘I need to go.’
‘I think you should sleep it off.’
He took a step toward her, balling his fists.
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ It shocked him how much he wanted to lash out and let his pain become hers.
He had to get away before he did something he couldn’t undo.
He shoved past her, pushing Megan’s letter deep inside his pocket, and stormed outside, desperate to distance himself from Cora and this house and everything he’d let his life become.