South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [118]
“What’s that called?” he asked.
Paul smiled down at him. “ ‘Maple Leaf Rag.’ I learned this one to impress girls, back in junior high.”
“Did it work?”
Paul grinned. “It wasn’t the worst idea I ever had.”
“Harmonica, piano, what else do you play?” Madeline asked, and he looked Up at her while his hands kept moving.
“Guitar. That’s my real love. Used to play all the time, it’s all I ever did.”
“How can you stand not playing now, then?”
“I don’t know.” The thoughtful look settled on his face as his hands went still. “There aren’t enough hours in the day anymore, I guess.” He shoved his glasses Up with his wrist and then sat with his hands dangling between his legs. Thinking. But Greyson poked him and said, “Don’t stop,” and Paul started playing the melody of “Yellow Submarine,” very slowly, saying, “Come on, you know this one,” giving Greyson one note to play in the bass.
For that night they’d been a family. She wished Paul could go trick-or-treating with them now, but he was working. Always working.
The trick-or-treaters began to arrive, the little ones brought to the door by their parents, the older ones covering the streets with their friends, the girls and adults sheltering themselves beneath Umbrellas, the boys getting drenched beneath ball caps and sweatshirt hoods. There were ghosts and witches and ballerinas, monsters and psycho killers and cowboys and Indians. A steady stream of children came to the door and Madeline hoped she wouldn’t run out of candy.
She was going to take Greyson out as soon as Gladys and Pete and Arbutus arrived to man the door. He was impatient, running to the hall every time someone knocked, sighing in exasperation when it was only another batch of children. He’d been dressed since four, as a clown in huge shoes of Paul’s and a polka-dot jumper Arbutus had sewn, with circles of rouge from Randi’s makeup case on his cheeks.
At last Pete and Arbutus came; Gladys had stayed home to hand out candy on her own porch. Wanting to practice being on her own again a little, maybe. “Let me get your coat,” Madeline said, and Greyson said, “No! It’ll ruin my costume.”
“Yes. It’s cold out there.”
“Madeline!”
“Greyson!” She rummaged in the closet for something she remembered, a big old suit jacket with a patched elbow. She held it Up. “A clown coat, just like at the circus.”
“Excellent choice,” Pete said. “It makes the costume.”
Greyson flicked a mistrusting look at them but then sighed and said, “All right.”
Madeline put the jacket on him and adjusted the ruffed collar of his costume and dropped a candy bar into his bag. “Seed candy,” she said solemnly.
“Thank you, Madeline.”
“You’re welcome. Ready, then?”
“Ready!”
Madeline pulled her lime green polka-dotted hat on, and a rain coat, and they ventured out. She felt so tender. Even if things went terribly wrong, he’d still have this. He’d have these happy times when he dressed Up as a clown on Halloween and got given a Snickers bar at the Hotel Leppinen. For now his world was small and as safe as it could be, all things considered. It wasn’t perfect, but it was what they had, and it was good.
26
The judge was senatorial and yet twinkly in his office the morning of the wedding, and did not rush through his speech about how moving it was to see two people vow to love and care for each other at any age. Arbutus wore a new suit in soft pink wool with a frilly ivory blouse beneath, and sensible shoes in a darker shade of pink. Pete stood nearly strangulated with feeling beside her in a trim blue suit. His voice caught as he said, “I do,” while Arbutus’s rang out clear.
“He’s a wonderful man, your dad,” Madeline whispered to Pete’s daughter.
“He is,” Marion agreed. She was slight and unremarkable-looking except for the startling sapphire eyes she’d inherited from him. She had a wonderful laugh.
“She’s just like my Eunice,” Madeline heard Pete tell Arbutus after the ceremony was over, gazing