She’d pushed him away as they stood under the trees like he was some monster or something. It was a simple thing he asked of her. Just locate a few of those handworked canvases the old lady had stitched—the ones that were bringing those fancy prices at auction. But she was backing away from him, pleading for him to give up their plans. He was doing this for her too—to give them a fresh start together.
Somehow the people of Stony Point had turned her against him, especially that Annie Dawson with her high and mighty ways. Jem dug his fists deeper into his pockets. Tara, Tara! After all he had given her. He’d befriended her when she was all alone and bought her pretty things. He was nice to her. And now she was backing out of their deal.
He kicked at a stone in his path and felt its sharp contours against his toe. He felt suddenly like crying. He wanted to bawl like a hurt child. He thought of Tara’s soft arms around his neck, her wild curls crushed against his chest, and he felt the pain all the way down to his sore toe. They were good together, he and Tara; they had good times. She would always be his, wouldn’t she? He thought of her lips, gentle against his own, of the way she cared for him when he was sick or tired. And yes, when he was drunk.
Wally was right about one thing. He had to go easy on the booze. It made him a little crazy. Once he’d shoved Tara so hard that she’d fallen against a table and cut a gash in her arm. He could still hear her cry of pain and see the hurt in her soft brown eyes. She hated it when he drank, but a man had to do something to forget. He had to find the strength to face the world. She’d always understood before, even when he’d struck her without thinking. He never meant to. She had to know that.
But she was turning against him now. Just like everyone else. Ever since he was a kid, people had shut him out.
“Didn’t you ever think about me?” Wally’s sad voice as they drifted in the borrowed dory echoed in his ears.
Yeah, he’d thought about Wally and about the weak old man who’d wrecked his fishing boat one stormy afternoon near Butler’s Lighthouse. He thought about old Homer Swenson and the stinking hay he had to pitch all summer long in the heat of the sun. Swenson pretended Jem was getting off easy working like a dog in the August heat—all for one falling-down old barn. Oh yes, he thought about them all more often than he cared to admit. But they’d all shut him out.
People said kids are tough, that they get over things, but they didn’t know how a small heart could break and how it could be replaced by something hard as stone that weighed down every step you took and never eased up.
“Your ma ain’t coming back,” Pop had said, slurring the words. He’d been half drunk, and his eyes were red-rimmed. “You might as well face up to it like a man.”
His mother was dead. Alive one moment, the next propped up in her coffin. He was ten years old, and he didn’t know what a man should feel like. Wally used to hear their mother’s voice calling to him on the water. Jem had never heard anything but the gulls mocking him as they swooped overhead, screaming for bread.
As for Pop, all he really wanted was a set of arms to help haul his traps. When things went wrong he always took Wally’s side—the baby brother. Jem hated lobsters—those scraggly, creepy things with their beady eyes and hairy feelers. He hated the tourists who spent a fortune for them. He wasn’t going to spend his life depending on lobsters for his livelihood. He’d show them all! He’d make a name for himself and come back with enough money to buy the whole town.
He didn’t have the money yet, but he would. They’d beg him to come back to Stony Point. Maybe they’d even make him their mayor instead of that haughty Ian Butler who acted like he owned the whole town. Had Butler recognized him that day at The Cup & Saucer? He sat there drinking tea with Annie Dawson and watched everyone in the diner like they were his personal property or something!
He walked on, approaching Petersgrove and the trailer park. He was glad for the growing cover of darkness. He wanted to get inside his camper where he could think. He just had to play it smart. He had to get what he’d come for and be on his way. He thought he’d keep a low profile and maybe hang around Petersgrove for a little while. But then, he had to keep an eye on Tara. He seemed to be losing control of her now, and he wasn’t sure what she would do.
Her words needled him. “Showing up at Grey Gables like that wasn’t smart.”
Sure, he hadn’t been to college like the high and mighty Ian Butler, but he was smart enough. He gotten this far—stayed alive—because he had brains. He’d show Wally too. His resolve wavered as a thought flashed across his mind. Wally had already made a name for himself; he’d found a pretty wife who loved him, and he had a child who looked up at him like he was some kind of god.