The Best of Me(12)

Leaning against the car, she wondered what Tuck would have made of her musings. Tuck, who ate eggs and grits at Irvin’s every morning and dropped dry-roasted peanuts into the glasses of Pepsi that he drank; Tuck, who’d lived in the same house for almost seventy years and had left the state only once, when he’d been called to serve the country in World War II. Tuck, who listened to the radio or phonograph instead of watching television, because that’s what he’d always done. Unlike her, Tuck seemed to embrace the role that the world had laid out for him. She recognized that there was probably wisdom in that kind of unflinching acceptance, even if she’d never be able to achieve it.

Of course, Tuck had Clara, and maybe that had something to do with it. They’d married at seventeen and had spent forty-two years together, and as Tuck talked to Amanda, she’d gradually learned the story of their lives. In a quiet voice, he’d told her about Clara’s three miscarriages, the last of which came with serious complications. According to Tuck, when the doctor informed her that she’d never be able to have children, Clara had cried herself to sleep for almost a year. Amanda learned that Clara kept a vegetable garden and had once won a statewide competition for growing the largest pumpkin, and she saw the faded blue ribbon that was still tucked behind the mirror in the bedroom. Tuck told her that after he’d established his business, they built a small cottage on a small plot of land on the Bay River near Vandemere, a town that made Oriental seem like a city, and they spent weeks there every year, because Clara thought it was the most beautiful spot in the world. He described the way Clara used to hum to the radio when she was cleaning the house, and he revealed that every now and then he used to take her dancing at Red Lee’s Grill, a place that Amanda frequented during her own teenage years.

It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people’s lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were. She knew Tuck understood that more than anyone.

“With Clara, it was always good,” was how he’d once summed it up.

Maybe it was the intimate nature of his stories, or maybe her growing loneliness, but over time, Tuck became a sort of confidant to her as well, something Amanda could never have predicted. It was with Tuck that she shared her pain and sadness about Bea’s death, and it was on his porch that she was able to unleash her rage at Frank; it was to him that she confessed her worries about the kids, and even her growing conviction that she’d somehow made a wrong turn in her life somewhere along the line. She shared with him stories about the countless anguished parents and impossibly optimistic children she met at the Pediatric Cancer Center, and he seemed to understand that she found a kind of salvation in her work there, even if he never said as much. Mostly, he just held her hand in his gnarled, grease-stained fingers, soothing her with his silence. By the end, he’d become her closest friend, and she’d come to feel that Tuck Hostetler knew her, the real her, better than anyone in her current life.

Now, though, her friend and confidant was gone. Missing him already, she ran her gaze over the Stingray, wondering if he’d known it was the last car he’d ever work on. He’d said nothing to her directly, but thinking back, she realized that he’d probably had his suspicions. On her last visit, he’d given her an extra key to his house, telling her with a wink “not to lose it, or you might have to break a window.” She’d tucked it in her pocket, not thinking much of it, because he’d said other curious things that night. She could remember rummaging through his cupboards, looking for something to make for dinner while he sat at the table, smoking a cigarette.

“You like red wine or white wine?” he suddenly asked, apropos of nothing.

“It depends,” she answered, sorting through cans. “Sometimes I have a glass of red wine with dinner.”

“I got me some red wine,” he announced. “Over yonder, in that cabinet over there.”

She turned. “Do you want me to open a bottle?”

“Never did much care for it. I’ll stick with my Pepsi and peanuts.” He tapped ashes into a chipped coffee cup. “I always got fresh steaks, too. Have ’em delivered from the butcher every Monday. Bottom shelf of the icebox. Grill’s out back.”

She took a step toward the refrigerator. “Do you want me to make you a steak?”

“No. Usually save those for later in the week.”

She hesitated, unsure where this was leading. “So… you’re just telling me?”