50
Mitch, the first-chair violinist, doesn’t play Vivaldi; he plays Mark Knopfler and Sting. I think he does that for me. We’re on the road by nine and, unlike the day I went to find Artie, the drive is smooth sailing—no delays, no traffic, a Sunday, not a busy weekday. We chat. We are quiet with our thoughts. We hold hands every now and then. My heart thumps with excitement every time I think that by the end of the day, I’ll have my dog back. I can almost feel the tickle of his fur beneath my chin, the weight of his little thirty-pound body in my arms, the wriggle of his happiness as we are reunited.
My heart thumps when I glance at Mitch, who’s tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel to the percussion-heavy music. I try not to think that he’s the first decent guy I’ve hooked up with in a long time. Maybe forever. I try not to think of it as “hooking up.” I try to simply enjoy the feeling. For now. After all, all we have is the now. I know this feeling all too well; the sense of novelty and romance inevitably grows contentious and regretted.
I’ll never follow another guy. Not even this one. I learned my lesson the hard way.
Then Mitch takes hold of my hand again and squeezes it gently. Violinist’s hands, and they played me last night like a virtuoso.
Before we reach the Pike, I apologize for being on my cell phone in the car, but I have to call Saundra and Candy. I wish that I could get them both on the phone simultaneously, so that Mitch doesn’t have to hear my girlie squealing as I breathlessly go over the steps leading to this drive, this moment. I wish he wasn’t in the car, because I hate discussing him with my pals. “Yes, he’s the guy who got me from Cleveland Heights to Erie … well, Conneautville. Why is he here?” I give Mitch a sideways glance. “I don’t know. Just is.”
Mitch gives me a smile and keeps thumping out rhythms on his steering wheel.
Saundra is far less interested in human relations, just cries and tells me that Sambucca, her husky, sends her love to Mack and can’t wait to see him.
The Parmalees haven’t called me yet, so I call them again, leaving the same message. I’m starting to get worried, but Mitch won’t let me. He shakes his head and says that we’ll sit outside their house if we have to.
I shut my phone finally and bask in the warmth of knowing that I am within miles of seeing my dog, of getting him back. I feel myself tearing up and then feel Mitch’s hand on mine. I marvel at the warmth of this undeserved friendship.
There is one more call I have to make. I pull the little florist’s card out of the pocket of my fleece vest; “In deepest sympathy, Anthony Marcone.”
* * *
Tony fought with me about being sent to his father. “He doesn’t want me. You’ve always told me that. Why would he want me now?” He begged and pleaded, called me names, but I was obdurate. I couldn’t do this alone anymore. I was exhausted with living every day waiting for the next crisis, the next rebellion.
The air between us was charged with resentment and anger and distrust—on both sides. Anthony’s offer was my best chance at being a good parent. Besides, it was only for the summer, a little time to decompress and start fresh in the fall. Mr. Sanchez was right: The boy needed a father. He’d never had anyone to show him what it meant to be a man: be kind, work hard, take pride.
As good as his word, Anthony sent us the money for airfare, and the day after school let out we flew to New York. Watching Tony walk up to his father in that airport arrivals lounge was like watching the young Anthony meet with his adult self. No one could deny that Anthony was Tony’s father, and it was enough to break the ice between them. If this was going to work out better than I had hoped, it was also going to break my heart.
* * *
I dial my son, who now calls himself Marcone, and, for once, he answers.
“Thanks for the flowers, Tony. They were beautiful. Adele was pleased.” The last bit is a lie; Adele never mentioned them, but it would be awful for him to think his expense went unnoticed.
“Sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks. He left me the house. The triple-decker.”
“Cool.”
“I own it. Can you believe that?”
“Will you live there?”
“I don’t know. It has tenants already.” I could never be the kind of landlord that doesn’t renew a lease. But the second-floor tenants are a young married couple; surely they’ll be moving in a year or two. I don’t ask, “Would you want me to?” I don’t want to hear the answer.
* * *
“Justine, I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but Tony wants to stay here.” Anthony sounds equally apologetic and pleased.
“I want to hear him tell me that himself.” It is the day he’s supposed to arrive home. He should be on a plane right now. I have cleaned the apartment like a frenzied housewife and bought every snack food the boy likes. I haven’t had but one phone call from him since I left him in Brooklyn, and that one was curt and a request for a CD he left behind.
“Mom. I want to stay here. I can finish school without having to worry about moving again.”
“I won’t move again; I promise.” I haven’t told him that I have a new job, a good one at a health clinic. We can start looking for a new place when he gets home. I want to surprise him.
“Yeah, right. Just like the other times.”
Tony’s sardonic words pierce like a harpoon into the heart of a woman just trying to do the best she can.
* * *
Tony never came back to live with me. The next summer, he was too busy working in Marcone’s Grill, learning the business, and then he was in college. For spring breaks and holidays, Anthony flew him back to Seattle, but the bond we’d had when Tony was little and still sleeping with his Donald Duck pillow was gone. Tony had finally found the stability he’d needed. A permanence that I had never been able to provide.
* * *
Moodyville is one of those forgotten Massachusetts towns, not quite mid-state, not quite the Berkshires. Pretty in a rural way, not a suburban way. Train tracks bisect the country route we find ourselves on, the Albany to Worcester line no doubt. Freight, not passengers. We go over tracks and then, oddly, go under a trestle as the road curls and winds away from the Pike. I feel like I’m on a carnival ride as the road rises and swoops, narrows and straightens. We pass a golf course, a lone foursome playing a midafternoon game. The road flattens out and there are little mill houses lining the slightly wider road, antique duplexes with asbestos shingles and spartan single-family dwellings with narrow porches, all overlooking the road.
We come to a four-way stop. A gas station, a coffee shop, a post office, and a utilitarian brick rectangle that is the town’s administration building. Welcome to Moodyville. The coffee shop is open, and I suggest we stop and regroup, which is a euphemism for needing to use a bathroom.
“Maybe there’s a phone book in the coffee shop.” Mitch pulls into a convenient parking spot and we both climb out, a little stiff from the ride.
Two burly guys sharing a Sunday Globe sit at the counter, one stool in between. Mitch and I take a small booth that looks out at the parked cars. The waitress brings coffee and mugs, two menus tucked under her arm.
“Do you have a phone book?”
“Sure.” She fishes one out from behind the register and brings it, along with the creamers, on her next trip by our table.
Mitch opens it and quickly finds what he’s looking for. “Edward Parmalee, twenty-nine Old Path Road. Same number, and there’s only one Parmalee listed in Moodyville.”
Suddenly, I’m famished, and we both order the Hungry Man Special. I feel like I’m delaying Christmas with this, but we haven’t heard from the Parmalees yet, and I feel for Mitch, who has driven all this way on the strength of one cup of weak hotel coffee.
The waitress is quick with our order and is back in no time with platters of eggs and bacon, then freshens up our coffee.
“Can you give us directions to Old Path Road?”
“Sure. It’s easy.” She begins to outline a route that has more twists and turns than a video game.
One of the counter denizens chimes in. “Lil, they don’t have to go down Creighton; they can take the right at the old mill.”
“Either way, they have to end up on Cemetery Road.” This is from the second guy. “You folks going to hike the old path? You can start at the mill if you want.”
“No, we’re looking for Ed and Alice Parmalee. They found my dog.”
“Oh, that’s a cute dog. Ed brings him here every morning.” Lil drops the check on the table. “I make sure there’s a little bacon to take out to him.
I’m quicker than Mitch in grabbing the check. Ed takes my dog on rides.
“Ed says Alice is real attached to him. It’s helped.” The guy on the right-hand stool folds up the paper and spins around to face us.
“Helped with what?” I hand Lil the check and a ten.
The room goes quiet. We are, after all, strangers. Then he shrugs, as if he realizes that what he has to say isn’t a secret. “They lost their daughter a few years back. Alice took it pretty hard.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Lost how?”
He clams up again, and I recognize a good old-fashioned New England reticence.
The other guy speaks up. “Drowned. Right there in the millpond.”
“That’s so sad.”
“They thought she’d run away.”
“How old was she?”
“Fifteen. Right, Lil?”
“Yeah, sophomore.”
Lil leans toward me and lowers her voice. “No one likes to say, but it was suicide.”
“Jesus. A child?”
She nods and drops the change on the table, where I add another couple bucks to it for a tip. The joy that’s been festering under my rib cage all morning is tempered now, diminished a little. I can’t help but think that it would have been preferable for the Parmalees’ daughter to have run away. They could have survived that. What a tragedy. No wonder Alice has found comfort in Mack. He excels in that.
Mitch slides out of the booth. “Okay, so right past the mill, left onto…” He rehearses the directions until everyone in the room is satisfied that we will find Old Path Road and my dog.
I buckle my seat belt before I can say what is on my mind. “It may be hard to get him back from them, if they’ve gotten that attached. What if they won’t give him back?”
Mitch takes my hand. “Justine, they can’t keep him. He belongs to you.”
The road tucks up again and for a little while follows the slow S-curves of a muddy brown river. We go over a noisy two-lane bridge, and there is the abandoned mill that must have given rise to the little mill houses. There is a millpond behind the brick factory, a spill of river water sliding over the lip. The maple and oak trees on the far side are reflected in the water; I’m sure that in a few weeks it will be a dazzling display of color, but right now it’s just a pretty image. And then I remember what the guy in the coffee shop said. It’s still a pretty image, but I look away.
I’m on a mission and we keep moving, hunting down the next series of signs that will lead us to the road called Old Path.
They still haven’t called me back. It’s enough to make me think crazy thoughts.
“Right on Creighton Road.” I’m down to the last two turns of this complicated backcountry drive. “Quarter mile, right on Owen Farm Road.” We’re passing pastures and woodlots, a state park, and empty farm stands. We pass the only commercial building we’ve seen, a manufacturing plant, but I can’t tell what they manufacture.
We’re finally on Cemetery Road. We pass the cemetery, one stone pillar flaking white paint and the other scraped to the brick. And just beyond, there it is: Old Path Road. My stomach leaps with excitement. I’m within minutes of getting Mack back.