VANESSA WAS WAITING FOR him in the front lobby of the sanatorium, her two suitcases packed. Finn carried her bags to the truck, loaded them in the back seat, helped her inside. When he was by her door, she turned to hug him, and he had to force himself, literally and physically, not to stagger back from her.
“I’m so happy to be coming back, darling,” she said as they got going.
“Yes, everyone’s excited to have you home,” said Finn, his eyes on the traffic signs ahead, on the road, on the trees. “But tell me what happened. When I saw you last month, you didn’t even mention this was a possibility.”
“I didn’t think it was,” she said. “But my doctor died.” She burst into tears.
That was awkward. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, darling. Very sorry.” She sniffled for a few minutes. It seemed to Finn like a lot of emotion to feel for the passing of a doctor. Perhaps he was excellent. Perhaps she was cured. She did manage to walk out of the building and to the parking lot without clutching him—very different from when Finn first brought her there. “My sympathies. He must have been quite good.”
“He was the best doctor. He had lung cancer. He was sick for a year and never told me.”
“Perhaps because you were not his doctor?”
Vanessa wiped her face. “Shiba told me only after he was already gone. That wasn’t right. He should’ve told me. I would have liked to see him one more time, to thank him. He helped me so much.”
Finn didn’t know what to say next.
“With Crawford gone and his last report on me so optimistic, Shiba and I agreed it was time for me to return to my life,” Vanessa said. “You probably could use another pair of hands. Harvest season is coming up. Has it helped to have Bertie around?”
“He’s fine. He never shuts up, though, and unfortunately he can’t do more than one thing at a time. It’s either talk or work with him.”
“Are they planning to move out on their own?”
“I don’t know,” said Finn. “Your sister wants to move back to the city. But she married a fisherman, so we’ll see how that goes.”
“Mother and Daddy are well?”
“Your dad is hanging in there, the old critter.”
“And your parents?”
“Very good. Dad’s stronger than ever. He’s in the fields before I am.”
“And the girls? Are they excited I’m coming home?”
“Yes, they helped me clean our room.” Finn smiled. “I don’t think I’d mopped once since you’ve been gone.”
“Finn!”
“I’m joking, joking. Of course I have—once.”
He didn’t need to mop. He was never in there. Finn gripped the wheel.
They didn’t chat as much on the way back as they had on the way to Austen Riggs two years earlier. Finn ran out of things to say, even small things. The big things were too loud. Just before they got to the house, Vanessa put her hand on his leg.
“Darling, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I did a lot of things wrong, and I want you to know I acknowledge it. I wasn’t a very good wife, and for that I deeply apologize. I know now how much you needed me and how I let you down. I couldn’t see it before. I hope you can forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Finn said.
“There is,” she said. “I was selfish and unkind. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself, I forgot to think about you.”
Even when I reminded you of me for years? Finn wanted to say, but what he said was, “I hear what you’re saying.”
“I’m apologizing now, darling,” she said.
“And I hear you, I said.”
“No point in being testy, is there? In reopening old wounds?”
“The wounds are not as closed as you think, Vanessa.”
He pulled through the open gate into their drive, stopped the truck, and turned off the ignition.
“The house looks nice,” she said. “Freshly painted?”
“Yes. We planted new apple and peach trees in front.”
“And put up a fence and a gate, I see. That must have been expensive.”
“Your father is growing enough wheat to compete with Iowa.”
“What are all these vehicles in our front yard? Are we having a party?”
“No, they’re ours,” Finn replied. “You’re in my new truck. Bertie’s got one too, and we have two sedans.”
“What about our old Model B over there?”
“I gave it to Isabelle. That way she can drive herself to Mickey’s stables.”
“She drives now?”
“Yeah, since last year.”
“Did you teach her how to drive?”
“She practically taught herself,” Finn said. “But yes, I taught her the rest.”
They both clammed up.
Through the front windshield, he saw commotion in the house, heard Junie’s excited voice.
“I did what I could with myself, my darling,” Vanessa said. “I hope this can be a fresh start for us.”
Finn couldn’t say a word. “Look, the girls,” he said.
Junie ran out of the house. Mae followed more slowly. They embraced their mother, held her hands as they guided her up the porch steps, now painted in glossy blue. Finn trudged behind them carrying the suitcases.
Dinner was on. They were having a sunset cookout—chicken and steak and salads galore, apple pie and beer and wine and Isabelle’s raspberry moonshine. The radio played. The family greeted her warmly, Bertie the warmest of all. That man was always trying too hard.
Isabelle came forward to the center of the room, almost precisely to the spot where she blew the vagabond out the front door and blew Vanessa all the way out to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “Hello, Vanessa,” said Isabelle with a smile, a dishtowel, and spatula in her hands. “Welcome home.”
“Hello, Isabelle,” said Vanessa.
It was a good thing music was playing on the radio, Finn thought, as he pushed past them to carry the suitcases into the bedroom. Because a hush fell over ten people, a hush like a collective held breath, as if everyone in the room tried to stop making all noise so that they might hear better what happened next.
What happened next was nothing. Isabelle brought Vanessa an iced tea, asked if she wanted anything stronger. Vanessa declined—with a whiff of disapproval, as if just because it was legal to drink didn’t mean it was a good idea. While Olivia and Isabelle got dinner ready, everyone else crowded around Vanessa.
“Vanessa,” Isabelle called from the kitchen, “we set the outdoor table for dinner, I hope that’s all right.”
“Yes, that’s absolutely fine,” Vanessa said. “There’s no problem with that whatsoever. I see someone is using definite articles now?”
“Hit and miss,” said Isabelle.
“Hit or miss,” Finn said, sweeping by her.
“Unlike your shooting, Isabelle,” said Monty. “You never miss.”
“Monty!” Lucy exclaimed.
“I meant at the Fireman’s Fair, Grandma!” Monty said defensively. “I didn’t mean the other thing. Yeesh.” But to Isabelle he whispered, “Maybe a little bit the other thing.”
“Monty, shh, please go get more wood for me,” Isabelle said, squeezing the boy’s arm.
“Monty seems to be doing well,” said Vanessa. “He’s lost weight, grown tall.”
It was Isabelle who answered instead of Eleanor. “Yes, he’s turning into a fine young man,” she said with a whiff of pride.
While she mixed the potato salad, Finn walked by her to get himself a drink from the fridge. His body brushed against her dress, his bare arm bumped hers. “You okay?” he said quietly.
I’m fine, my love, she whispered.
When Finn looked across the house, he saw Vanessa watching them.
The family filtered outside, arranged themselves around the table and poured the drinks. There was some awkwardness about where Vanessa would sit. In their old house in Beacon Hill, Finn and Vanessa had sat at opposite ends of their long dining table, but here on the farm, Finn asked Vanessa to sit by his side. “I haven’t had you by my side for so long, my dear,” he said to her, hoping to make her feel better about the fact that Isabelle would be sitting across from him, in the spot Vanessa once occupied.
And because Vanessa didn’t immediately say it was fine, because she said nothing for a moment or two, Isabelle stepped in as she carried a tray of toasted buns to the table. “I get up a thousand times,” Isabelle said, “which is why I sit where I sit, but Vanessa, of course you’re welcome to take whichever seat you prefer. You decide. Next to Finn or across from him.” She said it so calmly, so directly that Finn didn’t have a chance even to shake his head.
But somehow Isabelle managed to checkmate Vanessa in view of everyone without saying a single improper word. Either you sit by your husband’s side or you sit at the head of the table as the lady of the house. Either way, I take the seat you don’t want. What will you choose, Vanessa?
“By Finn’s side is fine,” Vanessa said, planting herself on the bench.
The sun was going down, but the overflowing fields in the back looked so full and lush and green that even Vanessa, who had cared nothing for these things, noticed. “Look at that!” she said. “You almost can’t see to the tree line by the river. It’s all growing so beautifully. Must be hard to irrigate.”
“Easier than ever,” Finn said. “We got connected to the town main last year. We have running water now.”
Many improvements had been made. They’d rebuilt the corn crib to make it bigger, and bought a small metal granary to store their wheat. The fields were divided into separate areas and each crop was fenced in with tall chicken wire and a little gate.
“How is Nate’s new ship?” asked Vanessa. “My doctor was impressed you got Electric Boat to donate a whole vessel for your cause, darling. That’s an extraordinary gesture.”
“They’re a real good company,” Earl said. “Their president impressed us. Walter, you would’ve liked him. He ran a tight ship, pardon the pun, during the worst years when there was no money, slashed the budget, and is now coming out of it with new contracts to build ships and submarines for the U.S. Navy. And they were so impressed with my boy, they even offered him a job!”
“They did?” Fake-casually, Vanessa put her hand on Finn’s arm. “Oh, that’s wonderful, darling!”
Finn pretended to reach for something at the table to extricate himself from her touch. “It would’ve been a terrible fit. I know nothing about the financial health of a shipbuilding company or how to grow that business.”
“But you’ve always liked the submarines,” said Vanessa. “It’s very encouraging.” She paused. “I guess there’s been no news about Isabelle’s husband and children?”
“Not yet,” Finn said. “But Nate just left Constanta for Brindisi with a new manifest, so we’ll see. With every ship we get a few more from that part of Ukraine. We’re still hoping.”
“Of course we are,” said Vanessa. “Most certainly are.”
Finn sat with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and stared across the table at Isabelle with a drink in her hand and a cigarette in the other. They blinked at each other in silence.
Vanessa helped clean up and wipe down the tables and counters, excusing herself around ten. “It’s been a fulfilling but long day for me,” she said. “Thank you all. It’s good to be home. Finn, are you coming?”
“I’ve got some work outside,” he said. “I’ll be in soon.”
Finn and Isabelle sat outside on their bench and shared a cigarette.
“Mae is reserved with her mother,” Isabelle said. “Not like Junie.”
“Well, Mae is thirteen now,” Finn said. “She feels things keenly—like the absence of her mother.” Lightly he smiled. “You were practically married at thirteen.”
“Hold your horses right there, mister. Whoa to all of them. I was a very old nineteen.” She inhaled deeply. “Probably better for everyone to be like Junie. Like a puppy. Loves everyone and everything.”
Drawing her close, Finn kissed her, stroked her hair, her face. “Are you worried about Vanessa?”
“I’m not not worried.”
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I’ll take care of it.”
She pinched his arm, held on to him for a moment. “Look at you, big guy, taking care of things,” she said fondly, deep tenderness in her weary voice. Her gray eyes glistened. They kissed, open and true, before he left to go inside.
In the bedroom, Vanessa was sitting up in the bed, in a negligee, the covers in her lap. He nodded to her with a tight and twisted mouth, stared at the empty space next to her. His heart aching, he undressed and got into bed.
“Are you tired?” she said, reaching for his hand.
“Very,” he said. “And tomorrow we must clear the eggplant before eight. We made a deal with a local supplier; he buys nearly all of it from us for a good price, but he’s coming early.” He squeezed her hand and forced himself to lean over and kiss her goodnight.
In response she leaned back against the pillows invitingly. “Anything else?” she whispered.
“It’s been a long day,” he said, patting her and turning away.
After a few minutes, he heard Vanessa’s tremulous voice. “Do you want to talk about—anything?”
“We can talk tomorrow.”
“But tomorrow you’re going to be in the fields all day,” she said.
“You can come outside,” he said. “Like you said, we could use the help.”
“It’s not about whether I can help. It’s about us having some private time. To talk. To—whatever.”
“We’re going to take this one step at a time,” Finn said.
“Isn’t the first step some private time?”
Finn remained silent until the light went off, and he heard her turn away. Sleeplessly he lay, facing his open window, through which he heard the soft sad sounds of Isabelle’s trilling balalaika, and her whispering alto singing his song for him. Take me to a faraway land . . . where love reigns . . . where peace reigns . . . where there is no suffering . . . where there is no pain . . . kak lyublyu ya vas, kak lyublyu ya vas . . .