August was over. In a few more days my new school would start. I dug a few of my clothes out of the boxes in the yard. It had rained a couple times already and the boxes were getting soggy. I knew that if anything was really important I had to get it now. Preston and I had dragged the most important stuff down to the bunkhouse. Dad’s books were sitting in the yard. It was eerie to walk down after I parked the truck past the boxes. I knew I had to keep making good decisions as I went forward. I knew I couldn’t make sense of any of it yet. I didn’t try.
At night I lay in the narrow pink bed and prayed to the only God I knew. I sang myself into fitful sleep on the Liturgy from my childhood in the Lutheran choir, “O Christ, thou lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us … ”
I would wake in the night wondering if I had made the right decision. I prayed that I’d be safe and would fall back to sleep. Brandy lay out on the sofa all night keeping watch.
During the day I was going through the motions, going to work, working as many hours as they’d give me. When I had free time I picked up new songs on my guitar. I wanted to learn many Bob Dylan songs so I could sing them easily by memory. That was all I wanted.
Jay was the one who had introduced my family to Bob Dylan. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I knew that by now he would have gone back to town where his family had their other house. Jay had become more of a drinker and smoker over the summer. I didn’t like stuff like that at all. I hated being around people who were drinking. I hated it. Jay came by once before Preston left and they smoked some marijuana together and drank a lot of beer. I was very unhappy. Their giggling laughter, so unlike both of them, made me feel sick inside. When I walked past them on the porch they mocked me for not joining them. I hated that. Preston apologized the next day. But Jay was going back to town and I didn’t care whether I saw him again or not. Now that I was alone, I wanted to believe he’d be there for me if I needed him like he’d been there for my mom when she first came up on the bus. So much had changed since last April.
My mother called one morning. She said she was coming up over Labor Day weekend to see me and to check on things. I was so relieved. But I also dreaded her arrival. I looked at the cabin and tried to remember how it was supposed to look. I knew everything was a little dingier than when my mom was around, but I couldn’t quite tell what wasn’t right. I put away anything that wasn’t supposed to be sitting out. I brought in armloads of wood and stacked the wood box high. I brushed Brandy and washed his bowls so they looked fresh. I put away all the dishes, even the clean ones in the drying rack. I went to work, came back home and went to bed, all the while waiting for my mother’s arrival.
In the late afternoon, when I was sitting close to the fire with Brandy, playing my guitar and writing a song idea in my notebook, I heard a horn honking. I went out to the porch. Brandy barked and ran up to the driveway. I saw the wet boxes and cringed. I saw my mother get out of the passenger side of a car I didn’t recognize. Then a man stood from the driver’s seat and I realized it was Seymour Hoffman, driving my mom. Damn.
From that moment my head was swimming. I lost all my bearings. Everything I had been handling with confidence was swept out from under me. My mother’s eyes were on everything. She looked at me, not at me but at my body, my clothes, my hair.
“Sidney, what are you wearing? Where do you go looking like that?” and as I looked down to figure out what was wrong, and to try to remember what I had on my body, she followed with, “You remember Mr. Hoffman?”
Of course, I remembered Mr. Hoffman. I wished so badly that Preston was there right then. “Yeah, of course.” I mumbled.
“Well, aren’t you going to say hello?”
“Hi.”
“Brandy, oh my God, I can’t believe how heavy he’s gotten. He’s all bloated. What have you been feeding him? You know he has heart trouble. Have you walked him at all? Oh God, I should have known. I should have known.”
I tried to answer that Brandy was fine. I watched my mother’s face.
She looked at Seymour with an “I don’t think I could face this without you” look. She walked over to him and took his arm. I looked at the two of them standing there arm in arm and I thought I would cry or burst into flames or vomit. The Mr. Hoffman I remember would never have been wearing a cotton turtleneck and a leather bomber jacket. Never in a million years. He was the kind of guy who wore old door-to-door salesman kind of clothes even when he wasn’t at work. She had him all dressed up. I couldn’t look at them.
I thought to myself that my mom and I should have hugged by now, but I decided I wasn’t going to try. It was too late already.
I turned and headed toward the cabin. I heard them following me through the fallen leaves.
“No one’s even bothered to pick up a rake. And these boxes, how am I supposed to move them now, look at this, these waterlogged books? I can’t believe this.”
My mind was racing ahead, my eyes darting, trying to guess what else would be wrong. I couldn’t guess. I felt bad about Brandy, but honestly, he didn’t look different to me and I just fed him normal dog food. My mom always made rice and ground beef for him from scratch but we hadn’t been doing that ever since she left the first time. Who was going to make that? There was no way. Brandy didn’t seem to care.
I walked inside the cabin and my heart sank. I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong but I knew it didn’t look like it did when my mother was in charge. She came in and took off her coat and just started changing everything. I was glad. I was relieved. Mr. Hoffman said he’d go back outside and see about moving the boxes.
I couldn’t deal with any of it. They had some bags of groceries and they came back in with those. My mom got mad about the old milk in the refrigerator. I said I had to go to work.
She said, “I suppose you’re just going to hop in that truck and drive off. Boy have you been spoiled. That’s my truck and it’s my only means of transportation up here. You better get an attitude adjustment little missy and stop thinking you own this place. I can see I didn’t come back a moment too soon.”
I drove to the resort in the truck. I went into the warm kitchen. Margaret was there. I went over and stood by the stove. My eyes were filling with tears. Margaret was watching me.
“You okay, Sidney?”
“My mom came back.”
“And I take it that’s not a good thing necessarily.”
“Well, I thought it would be.”
“Do you want to take the night off? You’ve been a real hard worker all summer. There won’t be many diners tonight. You could go home.”
“Please don’t make me go home.”
I lifted my eyes that felt swollen with tears. I looked straight into Margaret’s stern honest face. She straightened her shoulders and wiped her hands on her apron. “No. Okay. That’s fine. You stay and work. Let’s see. I know what. Maybe tonight’s a good night to get some extra cleaning done in the back room. I’ve been meaning to get you on that job. What do you say? It’ll take quite a while and once we start we can’t quit ’til it’s all put back in order. How does that sound?”
I smiled. I loved her right then. I was fighting to keep the tears from coming to my eyes as I answered, “Okay, yeah, great.”
My heart was filled with gratitude as we headed back to the big walk-in pantry and switched on the light.
That night I got home very late. The cabin porch light was on as was the one in Preston’s room. It felt good to know someone else was there besides just me. Brandy met me at the door. I gave him a hug and he headed through the living room toward the master bedroom. I was afraid that Mr. Hoffman was sleeping with my mom and I was horrified to see his shoes as I got inside the kitchen door. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed his car. I went back outside to check. He had driven his car down into the grass and parked it by the woodpile where you couldn’t see it from the road. They didn’t want people to know he was there. No. Neither did I. It’s not like a lot of people were driving by our cabin now at the end of the summer, but if someone wanted to drive out to see what was going on with my family, a strange car would be of interest for sure. I got ready for bed and went to sleep in my little room with the door closed. I dreaded the morning.
The next day, Mr. Hoffman was already awake and dressed when I got up. “Hello, Sidney. What do you have planned today?”
I liked the way he asked me.
“I have to work but not until about four.”
“Your mother tells me you’ve enrolled in the school here.”
“I have a couple of ideas to help you get this place ready for the winter. Your mother and I are going to town to buy a wood stove today. They fit right into the fireplace. I’ll have to fit some kind of seal around the opening once we get the stove in place. It’ll make all the difference in the world once the cold sets in.”
“Okay, cool.”
“Yes, well, warm I’d say.” He gave a friendly chuckle. “We’re going for heat, right? While we’re in town, we’re going to order an extra supply of wood, already split, really great burning stuff, it’ll get delivered and stacked and we’ll get a tarp for it. It’s going to take a lot of wood to keep this place going all winter, but it isn’t impossible.”
“Okay. Good.”
I was not used to anyone talking to me about what was happening. And he wasn’t mad at me and he didn’t look at me funny, like he was judging me. I was starting to like him in spite of myself.
I went out to the kitchen where my mom had the oven going and something cooking already. It was cinnamon rolls.
“Hi Mom.”
“Oh Sidney! I made your favorite. And there’s scrambled eggs too. And bacon. Help set the table for all of us will you please.”
This was so weird and wrong but I really was grateful, so I went along with it.
I ate quickly, my mother eyeing my plate to see what I’d eaten and how much of the cinnamon roll I’d eaten compared to the scrambled eggs. I hated her scrambled eggs. I loved her cinnamon rolls. I could have eaten the entire pan of eight rolls. I could have vomited from eating even a forkful of the eggs. The bacon was great. I drank some orange juice and stood up announcing that Brandy needed a good long walk.
No one could argue with that so I hooked on his leash and took off. When Preston and I had gone through the boxes before he left, we had found the bright red down vest and light blue down coat he had promised me. I was already starting to wear the vest and I was glad I had it when Brandy and I turned up onto the road. The trees were getting just a tinge of yellow to their leaf tips. The sumac that jutted out in the midst of the undergrowth along the edge of the road was turning red. Wild grapes were dark purple, the vines turning yellow and brown and red where they had been only green a few weeks ago. Field mice, blind moles, chubby chipmunks all dashed across the road in front of us, their mouths filled with seeds, fruit, nuts to be stored for the winter. I thought of the time we arrived at the cabin in the early summer and my mother was so guilty and saddened when she showed me how the mice had carefully made neat little separate piles of grains and seeds of many varieties, including the bright blue pile of the tiny mouse poison pellets. I vowed that no mouse would be killed during this winter when I was in charge.
That made me think about what was happening with my mother and Seymour Hoffman. Were they staying? It didn’t sound like it. Was my mother understanding that I wasn’t going back with them? I resolved to have a talk with her when I got back.
I walked into the cabin and my mother had her makeup on and was wearing her jaunty denim trench coat, so they were heading out.
“Mom, I don’t really get what’s going on. Are you guys staying here? Is Mr. Hoffman staying? Are you guys going back soon? I mean, I just want to know. Do you know that I signed up for school here?”
“Oh Sidney, do we really need to get into all this right now? We’re just heading out the door to go to town. We’re going to buy one of these wonderful wood stoves. Did you see the brochure? They’re really terrific.”
“Yeah okay. Mr. Hoffman told me.”
“I think he wants you to call him Seymour … Seymour? Is that right?”
I looked at him, but tried to not look into his eyes. I focused my eyes on his turtleneck sweater collar, as he answered, “Yes Sidney, I think you should call me Seymour.”
I couldn’t stand any of this. “Okay. Seymour. Fine.”
“Well good, so we’re going to town. Will you be here when we get back, to help?”
“I have to leave for work at four.”
“Oh Sidney, really, we’ve been here less than twenty-four hours. Don’t you think you could take time off to help when your mother is here?”
“I need the money. I mean, that’s what I’m trying to ask. Do you guys have a plan? Do I just go ahead with what I have planned at this point? I mean, does anybody know what’s going on?”
“Sidney! I’ve been through so much. You have no idea. And don’t you talk that way to me. And Seymour has done nothing but try to help.”
“Okay, so I’m starting school in like two days okay?”
“I think we understand that.”
“Okay, and how long are you guys staying? Is Seymour staying? Are you staying?”
“I have to get back to Chicago. Your father has left us in a terrible situation and Aunt Evelyn really can’t be left alone right now either. Her health is not good at all since all of this, you know that. No. I will be here as long as possible, but I have to get back if there’s any hope of getting any resolution with all of this.”
“Okay, just asking.”
I went in my room and closed the door. I heard them walk off the porch and up to Seymour’s car. I heard them pull out and head down the gravel road. The day was coming, and it was coming soon, that they’d pull out and I’d be alone.
I got home from the resort early that night and the two of them were in high spirits. The new wood stove was burning bright. Seymour showed me how to use it. He pointed out how the iron was pressed with whimsical designs; the figures dancing in relief, hand-in-hand wearing woodland garb. He pointed out the deer facing each other with matched racks of antlers, the tall pines lining the trim around the base. The stove had a glass window in the door that allowed you to watch the fire and check its progress. The rest was all black cast iron. Seymour showed me the trivets that sat on top for warming a pot or a kettle. He demonstrated how you used the wired handle to unlatch the door, hopefully without burning your hand, and how you had to carefully fit the logs in so the door would shut. The stove had its own narrow metal pipe chimney that went through a hole in the asbestos liner, which Seymour had fitted over the mouth of the stone fireplace.
I made a joke about us all dying of lung cancer and Seymour answered, “Well, without the asbestos you’ll freeze to death long before you could ever develop the cancer, so at least this way you’ll make it through ‘til spring. You know what they say, we can make it to spring if we can just get through the mattress.”
“Nobody says that.”
“How do you know?”
I was beginning to like Seymour.
The next day Seymour and my mom had a handyman from the town come to help out. He knew how to “take up the dock” so he did that first, with Seymour’s help. I watched as they first went down to the water and hoisted all the wood pallets, which made up the decking, up onto the shore. They fastened hooks and metal cables that were in the woods on the old winch. Then they cranked the frame on its big iron hinges until the dock hung suspended over the water at a forty-five degree angle.
I felt sad. My decision was closing in. It was only the beginning of September. Why were they doing all this so soon? I would no longer be able to bring the canoe down and get it in the water. The stone steps were inaccessible with the dock cables in the way.
I went to my room and strummed my guitar. I thought about what kind of song I could write to express the way it was all going down. But then I heard Seymour and the handyman right up on the porch by my window so I went out to see what they were up to next.
“What are you guys doing now?”
“We’re putting plastic up on all the windows to keep the heat in better.”
“Does everybody do that?”
The handyman answered, “Yep, if you want to have any kind of comfortable feeling in this place, this has gotta be done.”
I watched for a while as they stapled plastic sheeting that really wasn’t completely see-through, and then they tacked wood strips all around the edges to hold it in place. I went back in my room and it felt like I was in a goldfish bowl that hadn’t been cleaned in a while.
Luckily, they decided to leave the picture window that looked out over the lake uncovered. From there you could see the big thermometer that Grandpa had used to chronicle his winter experience. He had a journal that sat by the window and wrote about any birds he saw and what the temperature was on each day. He recorded that the thermometer bottomed out a few times because it only went to forty below. Only went to forty degrees below zero. Fahrenheit. I couldn’t imagine it. I knew that people and animals lived through it every year. I knew my eighty-year-old grandfather did it for several winters in this very house. I was so excited about the little school and the new kids, and so glad I didn’t have to return to Chicago, to the scene of the crime, that I was happy to tough it out.
I was excited. I liked bundling up. I liked ice-skating. Ice-skating. I went out on the porch, passed the two men working on the windows, walked up to look one more time through the soggy boxes in the yard. Didn’t Preston hold up an ice skate and laugh? I dug through. There. Very pretty white leather ice skates. They weren’t mine. They must have been my mother’s from a long time ago. I brought them down and closed the door to my room. The laces were white too, very new, like nobody had ever worn them before. They were hard to slide into at first but once I got them on it was like they were made for me. I stood up with them on and looked at myself in the dresser mirror. They were great. I held up each foot behind me to see them better. Cute! I wondered when the lake would freeze. I wondered if I’d be able to find a way to get down to the water easily enough to put skates on. Another thing to look forward to. I took off the skates and hung them tied together by their laces on a nail on the knotty pine wall. This was going to be so cool.
That night Seymour said goodbye after dinner and headed out to his car.
“Where’s he going?” I asked my mom.
“He’s found a place to stay in Virginia. He doesn’t want to upset you by staying out here. He thinks you are disapproving.”
“Mom. You’re still married to my dad right?”
“Well, the divorce is in process.”
“I don’t really get why you and Dad aren’t going to try to get back together. He always said he’d love to live up here and teach law at the community college. Remember that?”
“Sidney, what’s wrong with you? You’re the one who put me on that bus and had me shipped out of town. You’re the one who had me leave my own home. Now you’re trying to take it all back? It’s too late for second thoughts.”
“Mom, are you kidding me? I’m seventeen. You’re like forty-five. You’re blaming all this on me?”
“Well who was it that just had to get me on that bus, just had to push me out?”
“Oh my God. I was trying to help you! He said he was going to kill you! I ran over to the neighbors to try to get help for you! You were crying all the time! Waking me up at night with fighting!”
“All right that’s enough. After everything I’ve been through, how dare you? I wouldn’t have ever talked to my mother this way. My mother died when I was your age. I had no one. You have no idea what hardship is. And Seymour has come all this way to help us, to help you. And this is how you act? You’re just impossible. Everyone’s done everything they can for you.”
I went in my room and shut the door. I got out my guitar, but I didn’t want her to hear me playing it. If she got mad enough she might try to take it away. I lay on my bed looking out the blurry darkened window at the evening sky. It was getting dark earlier each night.
I saw the headlights of a car come creeping along toward the cabin on the road. I thought maybe Seymour had changed his mind. I thought I might even have liked that because I got along better with my mom when he was around. I felt safer with him there. I watched, expecting to see him get out. But, no. This car was long and black. Both the front doors opened. Two men stood. My heart dropped. My father.
My father was standing in the driveway. On the driver’s side, Tommy my cousin. I watched as Tommy stretched his arms over his head and looked around. I wanted to run away. I wanted to hide under the bed. My heart was pounding in my chest. The two men walked down the path to the kitchen door. I thought to warn my mother, but was too afraid to speak. I could see them clearly now; absurdly, improbably, dressed in tracksuits, my cousin in green, my father in black. Both had loose silky jogging pants with white stripes down the sides. Both had a zipper jacket of the same fabric with stripes down the arms. I had never seen my father dressed like that in my life.
They banged on the door and my mother’s gasp was audible through the wall. I couldn’t let her take them on alone. I went out there, stood in the living room looking into the kitchen. Oh God, how the hatred welled in me as I laid eyes on Tommy! He looked bigger, more muscular, more suntanned, his fake hair standing on end like a cartoon version of a professional wrestler. My disgust was stronger than my fear and I could feel it rising in me. My righteousness too. I was afraid to look at my father, afraid we’d make eye contact. I saw him standing in an aggressive stance. I saw that his eyes were red, his face flushed. I saw him look at us as if he had caught us doing something wrong. What we were doing was not wrong. We were left with these circumstances by his dishonesty. His brutality. We were trying to have peace. We were trying to live without trauma and fear. I stood in my spot in the living room with my head held high.
My mother was pleading, “Please, we just want to be left alone. Haven’t you done enough damage? Haven’t you hurt everyone enough? What do you want here? We have nothing. We don’t have anything for you. We have nothing. You always called this place ‘your dad’s shit hole of a cabin,’ well this is our home now. Please, please just leave us.”
My dad began with, “I’ve told my daughter that I want her to come down to Florida with us and go to private school. Sidney. You know your mother’s crazy. You know she’ll abandon you up here. You can’t survive this. I know you think you’re so tough but this is insanity. Tommy and I are on our way to the relatives in Florida. Sidney can go to a good school and graduate on time. Get your things together, Sidney.”
“I can’t, Dad. I already signed up for school here. I don’t want to go to Florida. I don’t trust you or Tommy and I’m not going with you guys. I’m staying here. I have a job and I’m starting school.”
“Don’t tell me. Don’t you stand there like some goddamn privileged little bitch and tell your father what you’re not going to do. Get your ass in gear. Get your things. Your mother can stay here and freeze. And where’s that coward, that loser, that old man you’re fucking, Ingrid? Where is he? Hiding in the coat closet?”
My dad lurched across the room and flung open the rickety closet door, which slammed to the wall.
“He’s lucky he wasn’t in there, I’d have killed him right now with my bare hands.”
My mother was in the living room now, crying, wiping her eyes on her apron she still had around her waist from doing the dishes. She came over and put her arm around me. I felt good that she was standing with me that way, until I realized that Brandy was slowly walking toward the two men.
Brandy was walking over to see Dad. He loved Dad. He had realized it was him and was wagging his tail and approaching him.
That’s when my dad said, “Tommy, grab the dog. Grab his collar. Get him out of here. Take him up to … ”
“Dad, no!”
Tommy was afraid of Brandy, I knew. He was hesitating. My mom started wailing. I had to think fast. They couldn’t take Brandy. He’d die. They wouldn’t know about his heart problem. I turned my body, looking for something, I don’t know what, when I had an idea. I threw myself suddenly to the floor, flat down, letting my head hit hard. I lay flat on the living room floor, unmoving.
My mom went nuts. She started screaming, “Look what you’ve done! Oh my God! Look what you’ve done to her! Let go of that dog. You get out of here! Both of you! We don’t want you here. Get out!”
My mother was crouching by my head stroking her hand over my hair, “That’s right! Get out! Get out of here and leave us alone with your terrible bullying! You’ve hurt us all enough now. Oh my God, she’s fainted.”
I heard Brandy’s collar and I felt him licking my face. I felt my mom’s hand on my back. I heard the old wooden bells that hung on the door start chiming.
And then the kitchen door slammed.
Two sets of heavy footprints on the porch floor.
Two car doors slamming.
The engine starting.
My mother went to the window to be sure they were gone and said, “Sidney honey, you fainted. Are you okay? That was so frightening, I don’t blame you. Oh, they’re driving a Lincoln Continental. I can’t believe him. That’s so like your father and his tricks. What a terrible scene. Are you okay?”
I was sitting up on the floor, hugging Brandy.
My mother came over to me and looked down into my face. “You were so frightened that you fainted and fell to the floor.”
I smiled then.
“No I didn’t. I did it on purpose,” I was smiling bigger now, a big wide mischievous grin was taking over my face as I said, “I faked it.”
My mother plunked herself down on the upholstered ottoman and untied her apron. She looked at me with awe.
“You are really something Sidney. I never would have thought to do something like that. No one would have. What made you think of that right then?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t think. I just went for it. I couldn’t let them take Brandy. I wanted to tell you I was okay when it was happening but I was afraid you’d blow it.”
“I probably would have, you’re right! Good thing you didn’t. You mean like if your hand reached out and touched my ankle or something? I probably would have just screamed or something stupid and ruined the whole thing. It was really an Oscar-winning performance all around. Absolutely incredible. You should be an actress. An unforgettable performance.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
The next day was the day before school was to start. The school bus that drove out to the Indian reservation had added me to its route. I was looking forward to the bus coming down the gravel road for me. I was supposed to walk down to the turnaround at the old lodge so the bus could easily turn and head back to town. I felt like things were really falling into place.
Around noon, Seymour came to see how things were going. He and my mother asked me if I wanted to ride with them into Virginia, the biggest nearby town, and see if there was anything I needed for school. I jumped at the chance. We all rode in Seymour’s stodgy salesman-looking sedan, but hey, I wasn’t picky about anything any more. The fact that Seymour had a reliable car and that he was a kind person, was beyond my expectations. On the way, I got to talk about my dad and Tommy showing up and how scary it was and how they tried to take me and then, Brandy, but I freaked them out by pretending to pass out on the floor. Seymour seemed very concerned at first but by the end of the story I had him laughing. I liked him and I didn’t care any more what it all meant.
We went to the mall in Virginia. My mother said I needed better shoes. I’d been wearing flipflops or running shoes all summer. I had the red down vest, which fit me well, and the light blue down coat, which was big but would go over the vest perfectly when things got really cold. I picked out some cute shearling-lined hiking boots with bright red laces. I put them on and put my running shoes in the box and wore them out of the store. I felt like a lumberjack in a very good way, like I could take on anything. We went to a teen clothes store and I fell in love with a white cotton flannel blouse that had a Victorian look with a high collar, white lace trim, and buttons all down the back. It was a perfect prairie girl kind of thing. I spotted a bright-red wool sweater that had two white reindeer facing each other and a white snowflake pattern knitted in to the sleeves. My mother suggested I get a plaid flannel shirt as well so we did. We walked out of the store with all three items and I was elated.
Lastly, we went down to the far end of the mall to the Fleet Farm store, which had workmen’s supplies. I picked out a women’s one-piece wool long underwear, a union suit, in red. I didn’t need it then, but Mom and Seymour said I’d be needing it soon enough. They sprung for chopper’s mitts, which were a set of oatmeal colored rag wool mittens fitted into tan leather outer mittens. You could wear them together or separately. Just before we left Seymour laughed about the big fur trapper hats near the check out counter. But I wasn’t laughing. The store had small, medium, and large and the small fit perfectly, so we added it to the pile. I was going to be the cutest Northwoods girl ever. I loved all of it.
Seymour took us to Mr. Steak, a restaurant by the mall, and I ordered the fried shrimp and steak combo. It came with a cheesy twice-baked potato and a salad.
I was all smiles. Life was beautiful. I was ready for anything. On the way out of town we stopped at a drug store and I bought a three-ringed notebook and a big package of loose paper with holes punched in it; a package of two Bic pens; and a set of pencils with their own erasers and a sharpener. I was ready for school.