South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [125]
“Yes.” Who else?
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, this wind. My power’s gone out.”
“Mine’s on.”
Gladys grunted. “I wondered about those old apple trees in the yard. They’re so close to the dining room windows.”
“I think they’re okay. I didn’t hear anything. You want me to go check?”
“My dad planted those.”
“I’ll go take a look.”
“No, don’t. You’d have heard if a limb cracked off, I’d think. And what would you do about it, anyway? No, stay inside.”
“All right.”
Gladys was quiet then. Madeline tried to figure out what it was she really wanted. Maybe she was just Unnerved by the wind and the loss of her electricity. “Do you—”
“It’s just wind,” Gladys broke in, as if Madeline had been the one to call her. “A November gale. It was like this the night the Fitzgerald sank. I’m going to bed, goodnight.”
Do you want me to come up there? was what Madeline had been going to ask, but Gladys had already hung Up.
In the tiny hours of the morning, Paul stood in the street staring at a mishmash of shingles and rafters and two-by-fours and clapboard and tree limbs and branches. His pizzeria, his loved and hated pizzeria, smashed. He couldn’t get his mind around it.
“You okay?” John Fitzgerald asked. His face and gear were littered with sawdust. He’d been sawing Up maple limbs and branches for the better part of two hours, ever since Paul’d called the volunteer fire department in to help him make sure the tree that had come down wasn’t going to bring any other surprises, like a fire from downed wires. So far, so good, on that score. But as for Garceau’s—the kitchen, anyway, where the damage was the worst—it was a disaster.
Paul nodded, although he was not okay, not at all.
“You want to come stay with the wife and me for the rest of the night?”
Paul shook his head.
John considered this, and then he said, “I think you better.”
Two days later Paul called Jim and told him he’d be ready to start in a week. He gave his notice at the prison, put in a forwarding order for his mail, told his suppliers he’d pay them off as he could, put the Fairlane in storage, and notified the water company and the phone and electric and gas companies that Garceau’s was history. He hauled truckloads of debris and ruined equipment to the landfill in Crosscut, got a couple of guys to help him patch Up the roof and wall as best he could with plywood and tarpaper and tarps, and barred the doors and windows so no one could sneak in and get hurt. He was operating in a haze, but a methodical haze.
He avoided everyone while he made his arrangements, especially Greyson and Madeline. They tracked him down a couple of times, but he pleaded busyness, something pressing he had to do, somewhere he had to be, and shuffled them away before anything of consequence could be said, or asked.
It was a lousy way to act, but necessary. He was a turtle drawing into his shell. He knew it, he knew it wasn’t fair, but he had to do it. Turtles had shells for a reason. He saw himself now as a man who had been drowning gradually, sinking Under an ever-increasing weight. The mammoth old maple cracking through the kitchen roof and wall was the last stone on the pile; it put him Under.
He walked from John’s to the hotel on the day he was leaving, a sunny November afternoon, Unseasonably mild. It was hard to believe that just a week ago a gale had been blowing. Hard to believe that in a few minutes he’d be headed down the highway. He switched the thought off. Madeline and Greyson were sitting in rockers on the porch.
“Hello, Mr. Garceau,” Greyson said.
“Afternoon, Mr. Hopkins.” Paul tried a smile out on Greyson, but it fell flat. He couldn’t manage to make it real, and Greyson didn’t even pretend he was interested in joking around.
His expression was very serious. “I’m sorry about the wind blowing the tree down and wrecking your kitchen.”
“Me too, buddy. Me too.”
“What will you do?” Madeline asked. She had a shirt that must be Greyson’s in her lap, and it looked like she was trying to mend it.
“I’m