Chapter 10 - Clear Lake in Spring
The snow fell hard that winter. By mid-January, the drifts along Route 18 were higher than the cab of my Freightliner, and Norb and I were running six days a week from sunrise to long past dark, keeping the tanks topped off for the cattlemen and the folks living off the gravel spurs.
Dad had his bypass down at Mercy in Mason City on the second Tuesday of January.
I took the day off. Norb covered my route himself, which was the first time he’d driven a truck in three years. Maeve and I sat in the surgical waiting room on the fourth floor for six hours while the machines hummed through the acoustical tile ceiling.
Mom was there. She sat on the far side of the waiting room, clutching a plastic purse in her lap, staring straight ahead at a framed poster of a lighthouse. Jared wasn't with her. He was down in Des Moines—for real this time. The farm store had transferred him to an inventory logistics warehouse near Ankeny after Alyssa’s father, who sat on the county agricultural board, made three phone calls to the corporate office.
When the surgeon came out in his green scrubs and told us Dad had pulled through with a strong rhythm, Mom broke down into her handkerchief.
I didn't say anything grand. I walked across the linoleum, sat down in the plastic chair beside her, and set a cardboard cup of black coffee on the low table by her knee.
She didn't look at me, but she reached out, her fingers trembling, and pulled the cup toward her chest.
""He's going to need help with the wood this spring, Dane,"" she whispered, her voice cracked and small, stripped of all that loud, defensive certainty she’d carried for thirty years.
""I know, Mom,"" I said. ""I’ll bring the truck down on Saturdays.""
She nodded once, wiped her eyes, and didn't mention Jared’s name. She never mentioned him to me again.
By April, the ice on Clear Lake began to honeycombed and break apart under the southern wind. The smell of thawing soil came off the fields, rich and heavy with the promise of corn.
The divorce papers had been filed in March, quiet and clean. Alyssa stayed in the small house in Ventura.
One Saturday morning, while I was backing my pickup into the driveway with a load of garden topsoil, a white sedan slowed down along the shoulder. The window rolled down.
Alyssa was behind the wheel. She wasn't wearing scrubs; she was wearing an old denim jacket and a baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes. She looked thinner than she had at Thanksgiving, but the haunted, humiliated look had cleared from her face.
I put the truck in park, stepped out onto the gravel, and leaned my forearm against the tailgate.
""Dane,"" she said, resting her chin on her hand through the open window.
""Alyssa.""
She looked past me toward the little ranch house, where Maeve was out on the porch setting out pots of yellow pansies along the railing.
""I wanted to say it to her,"" Alyssa said, her voice steady and clear against the morning wind. ""And to you. I should have checked the call log five years ago. I should have known you wouldn't leave a girl sitting at the Brass Lantern for a broken pump.""
""You didn't know,"" I said. ""Jared's good at what he does.""
""He is,"" she agreed, giving a small, wry smile that looked like the girl who used to count her grandma’s cash twice on the propane counter. ""He’s real good at it until the receipt shows up.""
She looked up at Maeve on the porch. Maeve saw her, paused with a watering can in her hand, and gave a slow, respectful nod across the yard. Alyssa nodded back, then put her sedan in gear.
""Tell your wife the pie was good,"" Alyssa said, touching the brim of her cap. ""Mom said it was the only thing on the table that didn't taste bitter.""
""I’ll tell her,"" I smiled.
She drove off down the section line, her tires humming softly on the clean, dry asphalt.
I walked up the three steps to the back porch. Maeve was kneeling by the wooden flower box, pressing the rich black soil around the roots of a blooming violet. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, her cheeks flushed pink from the spring sun.
""Who was that?"" she asked, without looking up from her dirt.
""Just a customer,"" I said, leaning down to kiss the crown of her head, smelling the clean soap and the fresh earth on her skin. ""Paying up on an old bill.""
Maeve smiled, wiping her forehead with the back of her dirty garden glove. ""They pay in full?""
May you like
""In full,"" I said.
I picked up the five-gallon bucket of water, tipped it gently over the new flowers, and watched the clear stream soak into the dark Iowa ground, washing every bit of the winter dust clean away."
