By T.M. Spooner
It was nearly seven when Edward
Rainey sluggishly pulled himself and his sixty something body with its mild
aches and amusing creaks from the warm sheets. As he passed into the hallway,
he took a moment at the upstairs window where the pale winter light greeted his
already wan complexion, adding to his cadaverous January look. He appraised the
wooden building out back where he housed the rabbits, and in the distance the
piled, ashen clouds fell away making room for what would be a cloudless winter
day.
Near the cottage the garbage cans
were upright and in their appointed places. Last week, Edward had been awakened
about four in the morning when an angry flock of crows cawed frantically from
behind the cottage. Startled, he rose to discover a black bear had come near
the place and toppled the cans. Edward sprang from the cottage, shooing wildly
and scaring off the intruder, while the crows swooned for the booty. The
warning, he felt, (the rabbits had been undisturbed) had earned them the
scattered feast and in a tender act of justice he allowed them to pick at the
trash. From the kitchen window he had watched as they plucked and gorged on
banana peels, potato skins, coffee grounds, and discarded fat from the previous
night’s pot roast.
There was no such early arousal this
morning and so he had slept until nearly seven. Petrine, Edward’s wife, who had
awakened earlier, already had the coffee going. Making his way down the narrow
staircase and guiding himself along the thick banister, built by his own hands,
he paused against the mediocrity and predictability of thirty some years of
marriage, sixty something years of rising, of long winters, late springs, and
brief summers.
Without looking up Petrine doled out
her thin-lipped “good morning, Edward.”
“Morning,” Edward replied in his pronounced
drawl, so much so that Petrine swore he hadn’t been born but rather slow
cooked.
“Coffee’s ready,” Petrine said
without expression, a trait Edward attributed to her second-generation Scandinavian
heritage.
After pouring a cup of strong coffee,
(Petrine took it that way and Edward had grown to accept it) he sat across from
her at the kitchen table. Petrine looked away in thought or distraction.
“We’re having such a mild winter,”
she commented, gazing through the bay window at two squirrels feeding at the
bird feeder. A corn-speckled block of suet, beyond their reach, hung nearby.
“January and barely more than a dusting of snow.”
“The snowmobilers have been terribly
disappointed,” Edward said. “The cottages have been empty. Bob Shawl says
business is way down this year on account of the mild winter.”
“Knowing Bob, he’s likely not making
much of a fuss. He’s probably drinking up the excess supply,” Petrine quipped.
It was true that Bob, the proprietor of the Swedish Tavern, had a reputation
for drink and was usually happy by noon and slurring drunk by four.
Edward earned his living as caretaker
for several cottages in the area, owned by people from St. Paul or Duluth, who
came up for weekends and for a few weeks during the summer. These were real
getaway places nestled in Bayfield County, deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s
North Woods. It was a far cry from the city and suburban, mall riddled byways
and provided a place where a family could swim and fish in the summer and
snowmobile and cross-country ski during more normal winters. Edward and Petrine
were two of an ever-decreasing breed of year-rounders. They had both grown up
in the area, near Hayward, and had long past given up on journeying elsewhere.
Their life was here and whatever dreams they had once had, like having children
or running a bed and breakfast over in Door County, had all but vanished.
“What is it?” Petrine asked, noticing Edward reacting
to something she hadn’t heard.
“A car in the drive.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Your senses
are as keen as an old hound dog’s.”
Edward went into the front room where
through the window he could see Bob Shawl’s white pickup rolling stiffly up the
gravel drive. The truck was no longer white, dirtied by the season and stiff
from the cold.
“Who is it?” Petrine asked, coming up
from behind.
“Bob Shawl.”
“Well, speak of the devil.”
Bob left the truck running while he
made his way to the cottage. By the time he reached the front door the tips of
his ears and nose were as red as summer tomatoes.
“Morning, Edward,” he said, smoke
trailing his words.
“Morning, Bob. What brings you so early?”
“I was on my way down to the tavern.
Have to clean up before opening. I noticed something strange at the Conrad’s
cottage.”
“Strange how?” Edward asked.
“A broken window on the east side of
the house. Looks like nearly the whole pane was blasted out. Figured you’d want
to know so you could check it out, aye, Edward?”
The Conrad place was just up the hill
from Edward’s cottage. A nice piece of property overlooking the lake.
“Conrad’s place,” Edward muttered.
“Yep. I figured they weren’t up here
since no car was in the drive and no fresh tracks.”
“No, they haven’t been up since
September.”
“I figured as much. Maybe some drunk
kids come through. Just thought I’d let you know, Edward.” Bob noticed Petrine
behind Edward and nodded an acknowledgment. “Petrine.”
“Hello, Bob.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Bob. These
days you can’t be too careful.”
“Sure enough,” Bob said, before hustling back to the truck.
From a hook near the door Edward grabbed a barn coat lined
with a hooded gray sweatshirt. Gloves filled with smooth lambskin were stored
in the pockets and he slipped his warm hands in.
“I’m going up to have a look,” he
said. “Probably just kids. Horseplay.”
“Don’t you want your breakfast
first?”
“This won’t be a minute,” he said, as
he buttoned the coat up close to his neck and pulled the earflaps down on his
plaid hunting cap. Edward didn’t hunt but owned the hat and the orange vest for
when he walked the woods during deer season. Just because he didn’t hunt was no
reason to get splayed full of buckshot.
“Just the same, watch yourself,”
Petrine said before returning to the kitchen.
If Edward’s sanctuaries were the outdoors
and the barn with the rabbits, hers was the kitchen. From her Swedish lineage
she had inherited a natural desire for efficiency and order and her kitchen ran
like a finely tuned production line.
Edward went out into the empty
January morning, nothing at all to hold the sun’s warmth. The day was bright
and silvery and although snow had been scarce this winter, cold had not. The
frozen earth was unforgiving and immediately a chill clawed through his body.
He could drive up to Conrad’s but quickest just to cut through the congregation
of trees, following the hardened path to the back of the place. The Conrads,
Doug and Nancy, were fine people. They had two boys whose names Edward couldn’t
recall, one in braces and the other not far behind. The couple had been coming
up here for years, even before the boys were born.
Nothing unusual was in the air as
Edward pushed up the incline toward the cottage. Smoke piped from his mouth and
nostrils, the cold penetrating and working his lungs. His feet crunched the
earth, only a thin layer of snow with grassy hairs piercing through. It was
unusual for January. Normally this time of year he’d be trampling through two
feet of it.
Edward slalomed between the final
stretches of trees. At first glance nothing looked unusual and as he drew
nearer the cottage, he could make out a brilliant reflection of sky and pines,
like a painting, shimmering in the front window. Sadly, no matter how hard he
strained and hoped, it was never a Cézanne, only a disappointing Kincaid.
At the front door, Edward paused,
listening intently for anything unusual. There were only winter sounds, sharp,
quiet air, high up creaks from tall, swaying timber, snaps as animals or wind
cracked twigs, and faint echoes far off. Edward held no great affection for
winter but up here there was no getting around it and was something you just
accepted and didn’t squawk about. Edward preferred the spring, when the bunnies
were born and things were new and green and hopeful.
By now Petrine would be on her second
cup of coffee, he thought. The fleece robe he had given her for Christmas tied
snugly around her waist and drawn high at the neck. One hand pressed close to
her chest, beneath the robe, while the other remained free for the coffee. How
well he knew her routine. How much he disliked it.
The key to the Conrad’s cottage,
dangling with a jumble of others, was well marked with a strip of masking tape.
As he opened the door he thought of Mr. and Mrs. Conrad and how disappointed they
would be in him for allowing this to happen. They had hired him to keep up the
place and to see that things like vandalism didn’t happen.
The cottage’s great room was cold.
The furnace was running, struggling to keep up with the cold nosing through the
broken glass. Nearby, in the dormant fireplace, a defeated pile of burnt wood
and gray-black cinders filled the hearth. Across the room was the broken
window. Edward started over, across the Navajo rug, near the rustic, but plush
sofa. Mrs. Conrad, a serious student of the day’s decorating magazines, had
decorated the room with impeccable details. She had accomplished the lodge-like
motif that her husband requested, but also managed a warm and cozy feel. Behind
the sofa, resting on the hardwood, was a large stone. Nearby was a little scuff
and indentation from the impact. Edward picked up the complicit stone and eyed
it.
“Nothing but kids,” he muttered under
his breath.
The window’s upper pane was
undisturbed so only the lower pane would require replacement. A jagged gap
remained and Edward decided to remove the loose pieces of glass holding
uneasily to the frame. For the time being he could tape up the gaping hole.
Later he would go out for a new sheet of glass and replace it entirely this afternoon.
Before starting the work, he took another glance around the room, thinking that
Petrine could take a lesson from Mrs. Conrad. She knew all the right touches
and accents.
As Edward began with the window the
tiny shards came out easily. The small job was going well until he came across
a larger, more stubborn piece of glass. It was well intact against the frame
and the broken side jutted out like a slimming peninsula, finishing with an
angry point. While struggling to release it he lost his grip and cut his wrist.
It happened in an instant. He was surprised to see it had punctured one of
those blue, prominent veins, ones that people who wished to end it all spliced
hungrily into.
Immediately blood appeared on his
wrist and on his hand where a small piece of stray glass had severed two of the
long lifelines that meandered across the shallow valley of his palm. A drop or
two hit the floor before Edward had wrapped his white handkerchief around the
wounded hand. As he clenched his fist, he noticed the handkerchief absorbing
blood, nearly the color of the paint he had used on the Whitcomb’s cottage two
summers ago. Funny to think of that, but
that’s what came to mind - the Whitcomb’s cottage.
He would have to finish up here
later. He’d get home to tend to the cut and get the bleeding under control
before he made more of a mess of the Conrad’s cottage. Good thing Bob stopped
by this morning, Edward thought. The Conrad’s gas tank would be empty soon with
the furnace working so hard. Outside the cold reached Edward’s aching wrist and
the bleeding slowed as it thickened in the frigid air. In the sunlight the
blood was brighter than in the cottage, as bright red as the seed membrane of a
pomegranate.
Retracing his steps back to the house
he glanced below at the frozen lake, now the color of a dirty nickel. An
intermittent path of blood led from the Conrad’s, over the hill, all the way to
the Rainey’s property. If there were more snow it would have been brilliant,
almost dramatic, to see the bright red against the pure white snow. The
contrast was still remarkable and made Edward think that little things seemed
big sometimes, like an owl’s cry, autumn’s vermilion colors, heaps of snow,
early spring crocus, or a spring rain. He grew weak as he neared the house. His
empty stomach churned and his brow sweat. No longer did he feel the cold.
Edward clenched the wounded hand into a tightly balled
fist. Pressure would stop the bleeding. He had learned that in a first aid
class twenty years earlier, but he knew that was nothing special because
everyone knew that. That part he remembered – apply pressure and lots of it.
Keep it up. If that didn’t help apply a tourniquet, but that would cutoff blood
flow to the entire hand. Edward was shaky now and faint. As soon as he opened
the cottage door he called for Petrine. He couldn’t recall the last time he had
called his wife for something other than banal reasons like the supper menu or
more toilet paper.
“Petrine,” he called shakily.
She was still in the kitchen
straightening up after breakfast. The unusual tone of his voice alarmed her.
Hearing her name in a call of desire or need made her rush from the
kitchen.
“What is it, Edward? God, you’re
pale. What’s happened?” Draining of routine, her face quickly filled with
concern and worry. Looking at him closer than she had in years she realized he
was older, weak, and genteel against the cottage’s heavy door.
“I’ve cut my wrist pretty badly. On
the broken glass up at Conrad’s.”
“Oh, Edward,” she said, coming
closer. “How bad?”
“Bad enough,” he said, presenting the
injured wrist. Petrine looked on at the blood- soaked handkerchief and then to
his face.
“How did it happen?”
“Just clumsy, I guess,” he answered
in his self-deprecating style.
“You’re sweaty. Sit on the sofa.”
She took Edward’s arm and gently let
her body against his, guiding him to the sofa. Edward felt her warmth feed
through his body.
Inside the warmth of the home the
bleeding resumed. Petrine brought a clean hand towel and threw out the soaked
handkerchief. She placed a 911 call, realizing he would require more medical
attention than she could provide.
“Stay calm,” she told herself as she
wet a washcloth and then brought it to the sofa. “Stay calm.” Edward grew
sleepy and she urged him to stay awake, placing the wet cloth across his
forehead. “I’ve phoned the ambulance. They’ll be here soon. Stay awake until
then. Keep me company.”
Edward nodded his head lazily,
blinking his heavy eyelids. A tiny smile curled from one side of his mouth.
“That feels good,” he said groggily.
“I’m so sleepy.”
“No, stay awake, Edward,” Petrine
insisted. “Talk to me. Talk to me like you used to, like when we first met.”
Petrine was sitting next to Edward,
her body against his side, holding firmly and applying pressure to the wrist
beneath the bulky towel. It was filling quickly with blood. Edward’s eyes
closed again.
“Keep me company, won’t you?” Petrine
asked. “What happened up at Conrad’s?”
“Just kids,” Edward whispered. “Just kids throwing rocks. The poor Conrads.”
“Just kids,” Edward whispered. “Just kids throwing rocks. The poor Conrads.”
“It’ll fix,” Petrine assured him.
“Don’t worry about that, Edward.”
“The floor was scuffed and took a
dent.”
“That’ll fix too.”
“Too bad for Mrs. Conrad,” he said.
“She’s fixed it up so nice. They’re good people.”
“Yes, they are. But you’ll fix it,
Edward. After you get better. Remember all the things you fixed in our first
house?” Edward smiled, now from both sides of his mouth.
“Why you could have built a new one
with all that work. You made it so nice, Edward. Did I ever tell you that?”
Edward didn’t answer. “I’m sorry if I didn’t. Real sorry, Edward.”
Edward could feel Petrine’s breath
against his face as she leaned over to adjust the pillow beneath his head and
inspect the washcloth.
“It needs dampening,” she said.
“No, stay here,” Edward said quickly,
clutching her forearm with his healthy hand. He squeezed with the force of
longing and memory. “Stay with me.”
The warmth of her body, the briny
scent of her breath, and gentle touch was something he had missed. All at once,
in one giant swoop, he realized he had forgotten Petrine’s softness. Edward
didn’t know if it had gone away from her, escaped, or grown out of her. Or had
it been forgotten for lack of use, like a second language not spoken, or like
anything not tended to? And then Edward thought that it must have been there
all along but he just hadn’t looked hard enough or asked for it. How foolish he
had been.
Again, he teetered toward
unconsciousness, swaying in and out, Petrine’s face there and then gone in a
confused and slippery state of wakefulness.
“Stay awake, Edward. Talk with me.
They’ll be here any minute. Tell me again, like when we were young, how your
dream was to be a sea captain. All seven seas you said and me waiting in every
port. Remember? You never did it, Edward. You never did it.”
“This was my other dream. Owning a
cottage and raising rabbits.”
“Oh, that’s it, Edward. Think of the
spring and the little bunnies with their pink noses twitching and you all in
the yard. Hippitty hop, hippitty hop. Think of that now, Edward. Think of
that.”
Edward smiled dreamily as he imagined
an early spring, a yard full of clover, and a good crop of bunnies. He dreamed
of a summer full of weekenders and the Conrads and the two boys fishing at the
lake. Maybe he could join them this year. He’d show the boys how to cast a line
and where to land the big ones. He knew the part of the lake where the big fish
schooled in the early morning and at dusk. Mrs. Conrad and Petrine would become
close friends and Petrine could learn about the latest decorating fashions and
how best to dress up the cottage. She’d be a great student. It would be a grand
summer.
“Do you wish we’d had children?”
Edward asked.
“No, not anymore, Edward. Not now.
Years ago, I did wish for children. It’s just us, Edward. Always has been and
that won’t change.”
“It won’t be forever,” he said
through shallow, uneven breaths.
“Forever isn’t today, Edward. It
doesn’t end here. Think of the bunnies and the clover.”
“No, not today,” he whispered.
“Bob Shawl should learn to mind his
own matters. You’d still be here having breakfast.”
“My clumsiness isn’t his fault,”
Edward replied, dozing off again.
“Edward!” Petrine called, shaking his
shoulders. “Edward!” His eyes opened again, uneasily. “There you are, Edward.
Stay awake now.”
“Just sit with me, Petrine.”
“I’m here, Edward. I’m here.”
“Will it be a good spring?”
“Yes, a grand one, Edward. With this
mild winter it should come early this year. Before long you’ll be out in the
yard.”
Edward smiled weakly as Petrine
adjusted the cloth. Soon through the dense quiet of morning came the far-off
sound of a siren. The sound hurled through the trees and emptiness, peaking and
then fading. The peak and fade were distant, distinct and separate, like a
flash of lightning and then the chasing thunder.
“Sounds like they’re near the
tavern,” Edward said. “Bob will wonder what in God’s name happened up here,” he
said, his voice fading.
“Let him wonder,” Petrine snapped.
Edward said something that Petrine didn’t hear. “What did you say, Edward?” Her
face came close to his.
“Maybe the Conrads won’t have to
know,” he whispered, barely audible.
“What do you mean?”
“We won’t tell them. I’ll fix the
floor and the window and they’ll never know. Just like new. I’d hate so to
disappoint them.”
The ambulance wheeled into the drive
and Petrine hurried to the door. The driver killed the siren. The lights were
red and chaotic. They lit the cottage front and the nearby snow, making it soft
and downy pink, vintage in its display.
“He’s on the sofa.”
Two men entered with a stretcher and
prepared Edward for transport. The nearest hospital was fifty miles away.
“I’m riding with him,” Petrine
insisted.
“Of course, Ma’am.”
Edward was wheeled outdoors, raised
and positioned, strapped, covered, and fussed over. Petrine gathered her coat
and gloves. Edward trembled heavily beneath the blankets. Petrine climbed into
the back of the ambulance to find Edward fighting sleep’s powerful draw. She
dampened his lips with the cloth.
The ambulance rolled from the drive,
and when it reached the county pavement the siren came again and the sound
peaked and faded all at once, on top of them, not like it had sounded from a
distance.
“The Conrads won’t have to know,”
Edward said.
“No, I promise, they won’t have to
know, Edward.”
“They’re good people,” he whispered
as the ambulance sped past the Swedish Tavern, where Bob Shawl, clutching his
second drink of the morning, stared in wonderment through the front window.
“Yes, Edward, they are.”
Copyright 2007 Todd Spooner