Sylvie watched Scott standing there, his face the face of a man, yes, but also the face of the baby she’d nursed, the boy she’d laughed with, the suddenly tall boy who still cried when he was hurt or when it thundered. Her Scott. Her boy.
It was because he was only a little older than Scott that she’d felt so inclined to help Isaac, she’d realized. He was just a boy too and when he’d told her how hungry he was and why he’d been living in the woods, she’d felt an urge to take care of him, despite how mad she knew Hugh would be if he found she was giving away good food.
And how jealous he would be if he knew she was talking to a strange man.
Hugh must have seen them talking. It was the only thing she could think of when he’d started screaming at her that Sunday evening, the evening of the fire. It had started with him asking what was for supper and when she said she had made tomato pie, he had raged that she must have given away all the meat in the freezer because it was shameful that she’d feed him tomato pie when he knew there was meat. Other people had meat for supper, other people had proper Sunday dinners. Other people had better farms and better land and better wives. He had dissolved in a fit of jealousy without a precise target.
His jealousy had seemed to consume him lately, his obsession with the fortunes of other people so all-encompassing that he couldn’t think of anything else.
And then he’d found the box of food she’d been putting together. He’d found the package of bacon she’d included.
“Did it go to the man I saw you consorting with?” he’d asked and when she’d turned to him, bewildered, not sure what he meant, she saw something there she hadn’t seen in a while, a deep pain and humiliation that entered his eyes when he spoke about his family, or about Jeffrey Sawyer.
He was very drunk, she realized. And that was dangerous too.
“Was it the man from Dartmouth, the poet?” he taunted her. “Is that who you were talking to? Is that who you give food to, who you visit in the woods?”
“Hugh, please.” The boys were right outside. She didn’t want them to hear.
“He liked your poems, did he?” he asked. “I bet he liked you too. Is that why he came up to visit you? To see your poems?”
“Hugh, please,” she’d whispered. “The boys.”
And she must have put a hand on her belly then because his eyes lit up and he said, “Ah, is that the way it is? Is it even mine or is the baby his? Is that why you’ve given him the food?”
She didn’t say anything. There was no arguing with him when he was like this.
The memory was all confused now, touched by what had happened after, but she knew that he had gone over to the window and pulled from it one of her poems, tearing the paper where it was taped to the window. “Is this it? Is this the one he liked?” he screamed at her. “I don’t know why! It’s nonsense! Stupid, illiterate nonsense. It’s not really poetry, it’s nothing but words! It doesn’t even sound like poetry.” He started ripping it up and that was what moved her to action.
“Stop that,” she told him, reaching for the torn paper. “Stop it, Hugh. Why don’t you go out to your office and I’ll bring you some dinner.”
But he’d ignored her, and taken another one from the window, holding it above his head.
“Please, Hugh,” she’d called out. “Please don’t.”
And that was when she’d looked up to find Scott watching them, standing there in the low light from the kitchen lamp, just the way he was standing there now, listening to her and Warren.