Read Online The Bully of Order by Brian Hart - Free Book Online Page B

in the yard the land was still as raw as the day it was born. No garden, no fence, no clothesline.
    The freighters carried our things inside while we sat on the porch. I thought we might be able to sell some of the timber.
    â€œNobody else lives here?” Duncan said.
    â€œWe live here.”
    â€œBut nobody else. It’s lonely.”
    â€œNot if we’re here.” He was right, though. Looking out at the swampy bottomland and the dark forest—it was lonely. If there was ever a place that could make you feel exiled, this was it. We needed to leave this coast, but I didn’t know how. Standing at the front door, I thought I could just hear the river whispering through the trees.

    Duncan got an ear infection from running around in the wet and mud. When I took him to see Dr. Haslett, the doctor took pity on us and offered me a job, and I accepted. I was to buy his groceries and cook his dinners three nights a week, but the other woman, Miss Falvey, would still do the cleaning and keep the house. I also agreed to help him in his work if needed. Jacob had taught me some things regarding nursing.
    Dr. Haslett was nearly the same age as my father. The idea of this sometimes lodged in my mind and put an awful chill on me. We were both adults with children, and we should’ve, a long time ago, resolved ourselves to our roles. It would be a huge mistake, wouldn’t it? But Jacob was gone, possibly dead, most likely dead. Dr. Haslett’s wife had left him too. She didn’t even want money, is what he’d said about her. A judgment on all women. I didn’t immediately understand the loathing in his voice, that it’d be better if she did want something from him. To have no use for him at all was the strongest insult she could muster.
    Most mornings I felt alone and completely forsaken. The fallen women crowding the balconies of the Line couldn’t feel as wretched as I did. At times I felt so small that I would look at Duncan and want to ask him what path I should take. Your father left us, and we don’t have any recourse. The strange thing was that the longer he was away, the more I believed that I might not have ever loved him. What was he doing, and where? I began to see what a withering kind of life Jacob and I had shared, small and without purpose. Then I started to dislike him, not for abandoning me but for being who he was—a weak and transitory man who had been spoiled as a child—and my dislike grew into disgust and eventually into hatred. I thought it would all be much easier if he were dead, and more than once I wished he were.

    Duncan was old enough to know that Dr. Haslett and I were acting strange, but not nearly old enough to assign guilt. On the nights I cooked dinner, we stayed over. It was too far to walk alone in the dark. Duncan and I shared a room off the kitchen. The room was small and cramped, with a partition and a Dutch stove. Duncan never stirred when I’d get up during the night, and when I returned his breathing was always there for me, steady and deep and in him as if the sound of the ocean could be in him.
    Mornings, I woke him in the dark and we began our walk home before the sun came up. Miss Falvey would’ve started rumors. The ferry didn’t run until it was light, so we usually walked. Passing through the empty streets of town, we measured our steps between the gaslights and counted the boards by threes, three-six-nine-twelve, and Duncan would hold out three fingers and bless them like a priest. Sometimes the mills were between shifts when we passed by; the lights were on, but the engines and the blades were quiet. Through the sawdust and steam-glazed windows I could make out the shadows of the workmen inside and hear the saw sharpeners filing away and mechanics tinkering like an orchestra tuning up. And on the days when the rain had yet to start we would take a moment to watch the ships in the harbor, where they rested perfectly at