Clean Slate

Chapter 6

The sun was setting in a blazing ball of fire into the treeline on the western horizon as Mac and his dad finished their crocks of five-alarm chili on the deck on the north side of the old family farmhouse seven miles east of the village of Wild Rose. Without conferring about it -- for they did not have to -- the men were breaking just about every one of Marie McGladrey's mealtime rules. Unhealthy food washed down by ice cold beer, eaten someplace other than the dinner table, and way too late for "normal" people. Even less approved would have been the large irregular Moonshine Crooks cigars that Mac lit up with a big wood match, handing one to his father, who nodded and puffed and smiled. "What a treat."

"I'll say," Mac said, sitting back down. In front of them spread the meadow, stretching a quarter mile to a forest that rose swiftly to a ridge in the distance, dark against the cobalt sky. "It was fun, doing the Sunday thing back at your house today."

"Even though your mother roughed you up pretty good?" his dad asked.

"No surprise."

"True."

Silence, except for distant birds. No man-made sounds at all. Wonderful. But Mac could not fully enjoy it, not with the big issue, the Big Question, upon which hung his entire future, waiting to be asked. If his dad sensed something of that magnitude in the offing, he gave no sign.

"Is it just me," Mac said, sipping his beer, "or was Mom riding me especially hard today?"

"She had a year's worth of catching up to do," his father answered, a smile in his voice. "But if your real question is how did you earn that treatment, the answer is that, unlike the rest of us, you slipped the leash."

"I did?"

"You were her first child," Nick reminded. "She was hell bent on making a project of you. But from day one, practically, you refused to stick ‘with the program.' You weren't an open rebel, like Tina. You didn't get into those shouting matches, like Julie. You didn't woo her with hugs and tickles and silly games, like Todd. You just always quietly steered your own course, made your own decisions. Your mother tried everything. But she could never get a handle on you. She'd think she had you in a hammer-lock, and suddenly realize her hands were empty and you'd skipped off doing your own thing. Frankly, you've always driven her nuts." His dad was looking directly at him now, Mac knew. "And you know it."

Mac chuckled. "Maybe sorta."

"Uh-huh." Nick shifted in his chair, puffed at his cigar. "We got a new scanner a couple months ago, it turns 35 millimeter slides into pictures. You've seen one of those?"

"Uh, where I was in Cambodia, they're not real up on technology, Pop."

"Well, it's been interesting for this old retired fart with lots of free time. I've been converting all our old slides into pictures. Looking at shots I haven't seen in 20, 30 years. And you know what jumps out at me?"

"What's that?"

"Just about every family shot, we're all in this tight close grouping. At least nine of us. But in just about every case, you're just a little bit apart from the group. Off to the side. And usually behind somebody else. There's this --" Nick gestured with a big gnarled hand – "unity among the rest of the family, and then there's you, with us but not completely with us. You know what I mean?"

"Frankly, no," Mac said. He was mystified. But he realized that his father, in his own way, was telling him how much he had missed him. That stung Mac like a barb to the heart. I ran away. I missed a whole year with my dad.

The old man adjusted himself in the chair, tapped ash over the deck edge onto the lawn. "What I think it was, was," Nick went on, "when you were born, and became aware of things, you looked at your two parents. And you saw how different we are. And you tried to square those differences. But that was impossible. So you, in your own way, dealt with it. By checking out."

Mac looked at his dad. "How do you deal with it?"

Nick laughed. "Oh, Miss M doesn't treat me anything like how she treats you kids. She's still my babe. I loved her the first time I saw her at Great Lakes 50 years ago, and I love her even more now." He drank some beer, probably, Mac thought, to hide the sudden slight hoarseness in his voice. "Those Chicago gals, they're raised tough as bark up there. All these years down here, and she's still not gentilified; not my Yankee girl. And she's tried to bring y'all up to be just like her."

"And failed miserably, at least in my case," Mac said.

"You're plenty tough."

"I ran away, Pop."

"You did what you had to do. And now you're back."

"Yes, sir."

"But not," Nick said carefully, "for the reason you been advertising. Not because your leave of absence is ending. There's some other reason."

"Well." Okay, Mac thought, let's get to it. "It's about my share."

Nick snorted. Tapped some ash, studied the glow-end of the cigar. "Really. You told me once you wanted no part of that."

"That was then."

"All right. Ask the question."

The words were hard to get out. Mac always had trouble asking for things for himself. But this was where the rubber met the road. "Is it still available."

"You mean," Nick asked, "did I carve your share up amongst your siblings? Since you turned me down flat? The answer is no. Of course not." Nick was nodding. "They all got plenty. Your brothers especially. Besides Julie, you're the only one who hasn't treated me like the First National Bank of Dad."

"Then I'd better not start now."

"This is different!" Nick retorted. "Your share is what you're entitled to. It was the deal from the get-go. It would give me pleasure to hand it off to you."

The old man really meant it. Mac felt humbled. There seemed to be no limit to the size of his father's heart. Well, he reflected, maybe there was after all. Mac had not gotten to the bottom of things yet. Groping for words, he said, "Thing is, what I want is. . .not the way the others went about it. You know what I mean?"

"Just tell me," his father suggested.

Mac took a deep breath. "What I want," he said, gesturing around, "is this. The farm." Mac paused, braced for a reaction, and got none. "I know it's probably a lot bigger chunk than the others got," Mac said hastily. "What I figure is, we'll get it appraised, and you apply my share to it, and I'll get a mortgage for the rest."

Nick McGladrey sat silent for several long moments more. Mac thought: He's thinking up a way to turn me down. But when his father finally spoke, what he said was: "I can't think of a better solution."

"Pop --"

"Your mother has wanted me to get rid of this place for years," Mac's dad said. "‘Too much expense and trouble, not enough income.' But now!" He slapped his knee. "This is perfect. It stays in the family, your mother has nothing more to say about it --"

"Mom? Not say anything?"

"Well --"

"This is your wife we're talking about?"

Forced to smile, Nick conceded, "I get your point. But her name isn't even on the place. That's how much she hates it. So it's all my call." Leaning toward Mac, he reached out a hand. "Done!"

"Done," Mac answered faintly, shaking his father's hand.

"Big question," Nick said after a moment, "involves not so much Miss M. It's your wife."

In the euphoria of the moment, Mac had not even thought about Suzanne. "There's a lot to work out yet, between us."

"The time away help you?"

"Some. The work especially. But it was all on hold; nothing got solved."

"What do you think needs solving?"

Mac inhaled some cigar, and all at once it tasted bad. With a flick of his finger he cartwheeled the stogie out into the damp grass where the meadow began. Flying sparks competed with the pinprick stars emerging in the deep blue sky. I can see the Milky Way here, Mac thought. Most Americans don't have that privilege anymore. "It probably sounds ridiculous to you," Mac said. "But that day in Detroit – I need to know where Suzanne really was."

"You don't buy her explanation, then?"

"No."

"Your evidence?"

"None."

"Then what makes you --"

"My gut."

"Not always reliable."

"True. But I've turned it over and over and over, thousands of times. I've gone away and thought about it. I've put it out of my mind and come back to it. I've second-guessed and played what-if with it. I've kept trying to push it off. But it's still there, like an oozing sore that won't heal." Mac paused. "Plus, I know offenders."

Nick's tone was gently reproving. "Hell of a thing to call your wife." Mac said nothing. His father sighed. "I haven't been where you are. So I'm not qualified. But have you thought about -- what is it you think she was doing?"

"I don't know, Pop."

"What's the worst possible case?"

Mac felt feelings welling up in him like acid, his throat tightening, his eyes filling. With great effort, for a long long minute, he quelled it all down. But evidence of his struggle was obvious in his voice as he said, "If what you're asking is, do I think Suzanne took and picked Nicholas up and chucked him out that window -- no, I don't think that's what she did."

The old man gasped – a wholly uncharacteristic sound: full of shock, dismay. Getting to his feet, he locked his arms in front of him, went to the edge of the deck. "Oh, Mac," he said quietly. "You are so filled with rage. I can feel it, it's killing you a piece at a time, from the inside out." Mac could not have put it better. His father turned to him, face nearly invisible in the darkness. "You know," he said quietly, "I always thought. . .medication might do you some good."

"Sorry, Pop. No crutches for me."

"Just like your mother," Nick sighed. "Give me strength. . . . Well, son, the important thing is to put this to rest. I suppose that means. . .getting at the truth, whatever it takes."

Later, after his dad disappeared up the gravel road in his bright red Dodge Ram with the cab-mounted spotlights, Mac sat out on the deck alone. The painful storm that had swept through him – only the third or fourth that day – had retreated. Over the 15 months Mac had become skilled at taking those things and locking them up into mental compartments; without that skill, he knew, he'd have long since lost all ability to function. Besides, he was determined to be present in this moment. He saw it as an incredibly precious gift, being at this place at this time. The breezeless air was warm and sweet with the scents of fields in cultivation and wild flowers blooming. From the forest to the north he could hear a steady remote din of animal sounds. The stars were bright now, and the pale silver moon sailed up above the trees, casting grayscale shadows across the lawns from the towering pines and maples. Mac felt a little high from the two beers he had drank. He had not taken alcohol since leaving home a year before, determined to embrace the pain, all of it, full strength. Tonight he found what little alcohol he'd had to be a balm. A rarity, for him, these days.

Steeped in the silence, Mac felt completely relaxed.

Hey, how about this, he thought.

I'm really home.

---

Monday morning, 7:30: the great city of St. Marys throbbed to life in its berth in the curving valley of the Sabbath River, surrounded by the seven hills of legend. Mighty oil-fired locomotives pulled unimaginably heavy freight cars up and down the gleaming steel lines of the MCCO railroad. Powerful tugs pushed barges of coal, iron ore, timber, scrap metal, and other raw materials up the river, leaving white foamy V's in the strong current. Passenger jets cruised prescribed patterns in the hazy summer sky, dropping dropping dropping with death-defying hissing slowness, to touch ground unerringly with a shriek of rubber and a puff of tire-smoke at the airport southwest of the river. The freeways teemed with vehicles, most passenger cars, most of these occupied by one person, already starting to back up from the choke point at Brookwood Station downtown, and paralyzed on the circumferential at Spaghetti Junction. Coming from the south – unlike most of the commuter traffic, which surged into town from the "more desirable" northern suburbs – Mac experienced nothing like that kind of congestion on his 50 mile run in from Wild Rose.

It felt odd to him, this same old routine, picked up again after a year away. Up at six, shower and dress, pack a sack lunch, jump in the car. Old Kennesaw to Lock Two, bear left to Bennett's Switch Road, winding along the old right-of-way to 27, and then northwest on that as it grew from two to four to six lanes, up the big rise through Fort Polk and then down the Big Cut through Belle Terre, as, on the other side of the cobalt blue Sabbath River, the city of St. Marys spread out before him. Traffic slowed at the Suspension Bridge -- badly in need of replacement, but too much of an institution to tear down, at least for now – and positively crawled as Mac negotiated the clover leaf exit and motored beneath clusters of thundering overpasses to the parking lot of the stadium.

Sack lunch in hand, Mac walked north up Fourth Street, across Thomas Jefferson Way, and up the hill into downtown-proper. His stride was long and easy, arms swinging loosely, wavy reddish blond hair fluttering in the breeze, and, when he didn't give way first – as he usually did – people deferred to him. As office buildings rose, and pedestrian and street traffic thickened, Mac felt himself snap back into urban mode, which felt quite odd after his year away. Kicking in already was his old habit of making the day's mental hit list. Of immediate concern: buy a cell phone, some new clothes, and groceries for this week. Of early but not so immediate importance: get some kind of computer for the house, and a real bed – the old canvas army cot, a temporary measure acquired during his initial at-home estrangement from Suzanne, would be consigned to the burn pile. He needed new wheels, too. The '51 Ford was his hobby car, was never meant for everyday transportation, and even if Mac had liked his Jimmy – which he never had; like the Montcalm house, "his" SUV had in fact been one of Suzanne's exercises in spontaneity – he wasn't about to ask her for it back. It was not important enough to fight over, if in fact what they were doing was fighting, and even that, as of this morning, was unclear. During the night, as he slept, Suzanne had called and left him a tearful message: "I'm so sorry. I take it all back. Let's do what we said, and keep working on us. Please."

Which he fully intended to do.

Question was how.