Chapter Thirty-four

Keller has arranged things so that part of the garage looks like a bedroom—the cot, the bureau, and mirror—and part looks like a sitting room. He has a radio plugged in on what doubles as his workbench and he can listen to the baseball games that Rick refuses to listen to. Keller rescued an easy chair from a neighbor’s curbside trash and he’s positioned it with an upended ammo crate for a footstool so that he can comfortably drink a beer and listen to the game or read a few pages of Le Morte d’Arthur under the light from his new pole lamp. With his first paycheck, he sprang for the radio and lamp, and in a couple of weeks he’ll find himself a rug remnant so that when cooler weather comes, he won’t be walking on cement. In his whole life, Keller has never before enjoyed having a place of his own, the privacy of an empty room. He’d been in isolation, sure, but that wasn’t solitude; that was punishment. A windowless room at the top of the third floor in the administration building, no light, no food, no blanket. This is privacy. No one to interfere with him, no one to bully him.

His experience of women hasn’t been one of maternal care and kindness; his aunts were resentful of his extra mouth and the extra work, more quick to slap him than to praise him. He learned to keep out of the way, stay in the corner, not ask for more. Matron Willis at Meadowbrook looked the part of a kindly lady, a bit overstuffed, never seen without her apron, loose bun twisted on the top of her head; however, she was anything but. She and her husband, whom the boys called “Willie Whiskers” behind his back due to his walrus mustache, were the houseparents of his dormitory at Meadowbrook. Fifty truants and thieves, miscreants and the dispossessed lived in each of the four buildings charmingly called “cottages” by the founders of Meadowbrook School for Boys. There was nothing parental about their oversight. Matronly Matron Willis had a quick hand with the wooden spoon, and more than one boy was deafened by a blow to his ear with it. The boys were treated essentially as prisoners, and corporeal punishment, or being locked up in isolation, was the rule of the day.

Francesca takes care of him, making sure that he gets enough to eat, and that if he has a favorite, she cooks it. She brings him clean sheets every Monday. She seems happy to do it, even though he’s said he is fully capable of washing his own sheets. It makes her seem like a landlady, as if this is a boardinghouse, except that they’re paying him to be here. He’s stopped her from actually making up his bed. He makes sure he joins her in the backyard when she’s bringing in the sun-dried clothes. He carries the basket in for her.

Keller never entirely closes the door between his space and the breezeway, and at least for now, while it’s still warm, the house door is also kept open so that he can be summoned at a word. The open doors don’t diminish his sense of happy solitude, but it’s nice to be within call of people who seem to want him to be there.

Pax comes in, tail wagging gently. “Hey, bud. Time for a walk?”

Roof.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Keller ties the undone laces of his shoes. As he does every night, he heads down to the beach so that he can throw sticks for the dog. Tonight, the simple exercise of heeling off leash is the only reminder of their war work. The dog sticks like glue to his left leg, sitting as Keller waits at the curb for traffic to pass; never allowing himself to be distracted by the admiring glances of passersby. They pass Ray’s Clam Shack on their route and Keller thinks about what he told Francesca about wanting to take advantage of the GI Bill and go to college.

Keller pulls a thick stick out from under a set of cement steps leading down to the beach from the sidewalk promenade. It’s a particularly good one and he keeps it hidden so that they have it every time they walk to Squantum. He puts Pax in a sit-stay and then flings the stick as far as he can into the water. “Get it.” The dog bounds after the stick, snags it, and crashes through the shallow water back to Keller. Imagine how much the dog would enjoy the cove below Clayton’s house. Keller shakes off the thought. This city beach is just fine, thank you. The idea of going back to Clayton’s house still has the power, after all this time, to squeeze his heart with dread.

The truth is, he hadn’t really thought about going to college; it wasn’t something that had ever been suggested to him as a goal. Not even Miss Jacobs had ever suggested that he apply, probably because she knew Clayton would never approve of such a lofty ambition. She was lucky to get him to allow Keller to finish high school. Keller can hear Clayton’s voice in his ear, as if the old man were standing behind him: Don’t be getting above yourself, boy. Fisherman don’t need no college.

Francesca had beamed at him, asked him what he might want to study, encouraged this crazy out-of-the-blue idea. Saying it, that he wanted to go to college, wasn’t anything more than a ploy to ensure that he can stay where he is, here with Pax. The money is scant, true. But the alternative would mean that he’d have to fight over Pax with the two people he’s come to feel responsible for. He can’t do it to them or to himself. Or to Pax. The dog is so content. All the months they spent during the war, and yet he never saw the dog’s tail wag so much as it does now. Oh, there were times when a mission was accomplished and everyone could relax and the big dog would get a little silly. But they were never 100 percent safe, and so, never 100 percent relaxed. Neither one of them slept a full night until now, although Keller knows that Pax makes the rounds from room to room a couple of times a night. Still, it’s a home-front kind of patrol. No real threats.

Francesca’s reaction to his plan had been so genuine, as if she’d been worried that he might leave them. He’s become necessary and welcome. Keller suddenly blushes at the thought of his grabbing Francesca’s hand to run across the street last night. There wasn’t even any traffic bearing down on them. It was impulsive, and the memory of it judders through him. Her hand wasn’t as smooth as he had imagined. Her fingers linked through his were stronger than he might have expected from such a little woman.

“Pax, get it!” He whips the long stick as hard as he can. It tumbles end over end, and the rocketing dog is nearly there when it hits the sand.

She hadn’t pulled it away in horror; she’d laughed and run with him like they were little kids. Maybe they looked like sister and brother. Keller finds himself smiling at the softheaded idea. She’s so small and fair, and he’s not. No one would take them for siblings.

Funny, Rick’s insistence that they go out to dinner last night. It wasn’t so much that he wanted them to leave him alone, but more like he hoped they’d work a little on improving their own association. He was right. Even in that short time alone—without the buffer of Rick or the dog—a little of the reserve that Keller and Francesca keep between them was sanded off.

It’s getting dark so early these waning days of summer. Looking away from the glow of Boston in the night sky, he sees a sprinkling of stars has emerged. Keller can pick out Sirius, the dog star, always at the heel of his master, Orion.

Pax bounds up to Keller, shaking the stick as if it’s a living creature whose neck he wants to break.

“Leave it.”

The dog places the heavy stick at Keller’s feet.

“Time’s up, Pax. Let’s head home.”

Home.