VERMONT

Her throwing the teapot is what ended the fight.

We’d been having problems for a few months and it all came to a head that afternoon. Our drinking had picked up but that was only part of it. I’d been seeing someone and I thought she’d been seeing someone too and it turns out I was right. We’d known for a while but it hadn't come to anything until now.

The teapot was ceramic and glazed almost purple. It wasn't the kind you put on the burner; we had another for that. This one was more decorative. We used it mostly when her mother visited. We’d boil the water in the tin kettle and then pour it into the ceramic pot that we set at the table in the morning for breakfast. Her mother liked it. Sometimes she’d use it for her afternoon tea. Said it made her feel fancy. I’ll admit it was kind of snazzy. It had a curved wooden handle and came with a little stand and a fitted lid and everything. I’m not sure what we’ll do with the stand now.

When she threw it at me I had to duck to keep from being hit and when I turned around I saw the teapot in pieces on the tile floor. The sound was like one out of a movie. That perfect shatter noise. I was surprised the drywall held up as well as it did. It was dented for sure, but I’d of thought it’d be more done in.

As soon as the teapot hit the wall it was over. The anger left her eyes. For a moment she stood there, frozen, like she was trying to undo what she did. Then she brought her hands to her mouth and started crying, sobbing almost. Then she fell to the floor. It wasn't a bad fall, she just kind of dropped. It reminded me of a child who had had enough fun for the day. I don't think of her like that, it was just the motion that made me think it is all.

This is our second stint at being married, Becca and me. We were in our twenties the first time. We were divorced five years before we decided to give it another go. Neither of us had married again in the years in between. We said we’d make it work. Love never dies, they say. We’ve been remarried for two years now.

When we decided to get together again we sat down and went through it all. What happened and why and who we’d seen while divorced and how serious it’d been. We agreed that it’d hurt but also that it needed to be done. We wanted to start fresh. If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it the right way. Keep nothing from each other, is what Becca said. You’re right, I said. This is our life. She smiled at that. Our life.

My confessions didn't amount to much though I guess from her perspective it might have been a lot. I’d seen a few women, only one of them serious. JoAnn was her name. She’s a hair stylist over in Bucksport. Well, she lives in Orland but works in Bucksport. We didn't live together or anything, but she did have a drawer at my place.

One thing that stood out to me about JoAnn was that she kept bees. A lot of them. And I’ll tell you, those suckers took more caring for than I would've thought. She was part of this beekeeping club and they would have these events called open hives. We went two or three times where the different beekeepers showed us their hives and how to care for them and how it all worked. They opened them up and went through them, explaining what they did as they did it. I thought to myself, That’d be really nice if it really worked like that. If there was a manual to things.

It was ten or a dozen hives JoAnn tended. She kept them behind the house at the treeline, these segmented and rectangular towers four and five and six feet tall, all painted white. One summer I helped her harvest a batch of honey and some beeswax. We jarred the honey and sold it at a produce market down in Stonington. We sold some at the Blue Hill Fair too at our own small booth. Twenty or twenty-five gallons or something like that that we put in quart-sized jars. The honey with sections of the honeycomb in it sold quickest and it was more expensive too. People like that sort of stuff, is what JoAnn told me anyhow. Then—and this is the damndest thing— she showed me how she made soap and lip balm with the rendered beeswax. It was her great aunt that had taught her, she’d said at some point. She sold out of all of her products in less than a month. She shipped some of it out of state too, which surprised me. Of course, it was not enough to live on, not even close, but people know her for it and bees are considered livestock so it’s a tax write-off. It’s a whole thing. I hear she’s a good hair stylist too.

It was a Wednesday in November that I went and told her Becca and I were giving it another shot. We were sitting at her kitchen table. I could see the beehives out back through the window above the sink. She’d put the entrance reducers on the hives, but I didnt ask her about the winter feeding patties. It had been a relatively warm autumn. My knowledge on the subject surprised me. So strange, who the hell would believe that I was thinking about bees? I realized then I’d learned a lot from JoAnn. Anyway, at the table she’d said she was fixing to make us a pot of coffee, but when she saw my face she brought out something stronger. She took the bourbon I liked from the counter and brought it to the table. She liked canadian whisky best, especially a brand that sold a peach flavor— I could never give much credence to such a drink; whiskey should be whiskey in my mind and adding flavors to it somehow takes something away, but then again I wasnt drinking it so I never said anything to JoAnn on the subject. Bourbon is one of those things the Southerners get right. When she found out I liked bourbon she started keeping it at her house. That night we drank the bourbon straight with sections of honeycomb in it. JoAnn liked the taste of honey in her liquor— especially that peach canadian whisky I was talking about earlier— and every honey harvest she kept some honey and some comb for herself. The comb she kept in the freezer and she only took it out when she needed it. Most times you want to pour the whisky over the comb to share the flavor and the cold from the freezer but that night we forgot until we were already started. So instead she got some comb out of the freezer and dropped it in our glasses and we drank that first glass without much taste of the honey. We were there sipping when I told her and me and Becca. She was real quiet for the most part.

Are you sure about this? she asked when I was done.

No, Jo, I’m not. But I’ve made a decision. This is my wife we’re talking about.

She nodded. Your ex wife.

And my wife again.

You two have a real story, she said. She was breathless, like she’d lost the big race. I tapped my fingers against my glass waiting for her to say something else. I was listening to the slow ticking of the grandfather clock she had mounted on her kitchen wall. Each tick went slower and slower. I’m thirty-four, she said. I cant wait forever. If you figure out you’re wrong, you need to do it quick.

Dont wait, I managed to say.

I’ve waited for a long time, she said. I thought now I was done with it.

JoAnn had never married. She’s been engaged twice, once in high school and then again at twenty-five, though both times through different circumstances it came to nothing. Her first fiance got work out of state after graduation and she decided not to follow him and the second guy was just bad news by the way she tells it. She told me their names, but I wont mention them. That wouldnt be right of me. I dont know the whole story. There was relief for her, at first, when the engagements fell through, but over time, like a coming storm, it was replaced with dread. The panic hadnt come until it was right overhead. The drops already beginning to fall.

I looked at her sitting there, her blonde hair and simple earrings. The backs of her hands dotted with sunspots, the long footbones starting to show through her skin. I couldnt bear it, this woman, her life. I had one more drink before leaving. I could feel her watching me through the window above the sink as I backed out of the driveway.

She was my big confession to Becca, JoAnn was. My God, that’s been over two years now. I still feel JoAnn’s eyes on me. I still think of that kitchen table sometimes. That awful sound of the grandfather clock ticking, her cat meowing suddenly from the other room, the bottle of bourbon we drained, the look on her face.

I told Becca of the others, but they didnt matter so much to me or her. Her confession came next. Her’s was a guy who worked at a resort in the Green Mountains of Vermont named Chuck. Chuck was a handyman there who did a lot of the maintenance at the place. Their busy season was winter when all the skiers booked stays, but there was reasonable work in the summer too. They even had a pool and a golf course, the perfect getaway it seemed like. Becca cleaned rooms and did the resort’s laundry and drove the beverage cart around the golf course during the warmer months. She said she enjoyed it well enough. It was easy work, just time consuming. She and Chuck lived in his little house that the resort provided. Apparently he was good at what he did. I imagine he has wide, strong hands and I hate that.

Becca was in the Green Mountains for nearly three years before she moved back and we started up again. What was it? I asked her. What made you think to come back here?

It was fixing to be a slow season and Chuck’s drinking had gotten out of hand again, she said. Until you called I hadnt really considered it very strongly. But you sounded so good on the phone and you said you wanted to give it another go. I heard something in your voice. I heard that you were better and that we could be the us we used to be. It was like I was jolted back somehow.

I know what you mean, I said.

Things did go well for a while. Real well.

A week after our confessions we had the pastor of the island’s Episcopal church wed us. His wife, the music director, and Becca’s younger brother and mother were our witnesses. We had rented our current house near the village and cranked up our life, not as it had been, but as it was then, with a new understanding of who we were and what our plan was. She works down at the seafood market on N Main Street, and I work with a local heating oil company. We do some plumbing now and again too, septic tanks and things, but it’s mostly heating oil, installing the tanks and filling them and repairing furnaces. In the winter I plow the roads before dawn. We do all right.

One night early on over dinner she said she felt giddy. It’s like I’m a teenager again, she said. I said I knew what she meant. I told her I agreed. It’s like we’re floating, I said to her. She smiled at me. Dinner that night was nothing special, just roast chicken and rice and vegetables, but I remember it well.

And then life got normal again. Our feet made it back to earth. It’s not a bad feeling, of course, but it makes you want to chase the bliss. You keep jumping in the air hoping you’ll stay off the ground.

As always seems to happen, our drinking picks up in the colder months. She has fewer shifts at the market and gets antsy sitting around the house. The grocer calls her occasionally to work the deli or a register, but it’s too inconsistent for her liking. It’s that and the dark. When it gets dark at three-thirty in the afternoon it seems like a good idea to be drinking early. And with as beat as I am coming in from our winter work, I’m happy to get started that early too. We were lucky that the first winter it was just the drinking. Our second one, this one, it was the infidelity on top of the drinking.

I’d been seeing this woman whose furnace I fixed. The thing wasnt shutting off and was going through fuel like crazy. Their bill was ridiculous and that’s why they called us. They didnt mind the extra heat until it was time to pay for it. The afternoon I fixed it we were alone in the house. I dont know what made me do it, but I did. I will say she came onto me, but that doesnt mean much when it’s all said and done. For the last few months I’ve been making three or four stops a week at her house. She meets me at the back door. Just checking on the furnace, I’d say, and she’d smile. Then one day her husband came home unexpectedly.

It was about this same time that the innkeeper Becca's been seeing came clean to his wife. The two of us were the talk of the town, although we stayed quiet hoping the other hadnt heard anything. Think of that. We knew we were cheaters and we knew the other was cheating, but we held our tongues in favor of some fantasy.

Then today I’d just had enough of that feeling. Becca, I said. That’s when the yelling started. Insults, accusations, all that stuff. After a few minutes I threw my hands up. Becca, I said, this time more exasperated and condescending than I’d intended. Just stop, I said. That’s when she took the ceramic teapot from the counter and threw it past my head into the wall.

After she dropped to the floor I stood still there for a moment. I was unsure what she might do next. But she just sat there and sobbed. I noticed the kitchen tiles needed to be cleaned. I’ll mop the floor after I pick up the pieces of teapot, I thought. And I’ll fix the drywall this weekend. It wont take but a couple hours. And Carrie will be none the wiser— Carrie’s our landlord.

I sighed. Then I joined her on the floor. I put my arms around her. She only tried to push me away once. When she stopped crying we shifted over a few feet away from the center and sat with our backs against the cabinets. There was that loud wintertime silence around us. A silence so strong you can hear it. Through the sliver of window visible to me from the bathroom I saw that it had started to snow. I’ll probably get a call soon to plow the roads in the morning, I thought.

For a few minutes we sat there just like that, neither of us talking.

Patrick, she said.

Yeah, I said. Then she went quiet again for a moment.

I’m gonna go and live in Vermont. Chuck said he could get me my old job back. It’s been a good season so far, he told me.

When you’d talk to him?

A couple days ago.

I nodded without comment. You dont want to live in Vermont, I said.

Why’s that?

Becca, I said. Let’s not do this.

But we have done it. We’ve done it and what we’ve done is exactly what’s gotten us here.

That’s why I’m saying we shouldnt do it.

I’m tired of this place. I’m tired of you.

You’ve made that clear.

When I said that she laughed just a little. Then I did too. Then we laughed a little harder. I cant say much, I said. But what I can say is that I dont want you to go. I’m not sure how else to say it, how else to show you. I want you to stay is all.

Becca nodded and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. I think I’ll make some coffee. You want some? I could use it.

Yeah, but not yet. Let’s just sit here a minute.

Okay.

We sat there looking at the cabinets across the way for some time before we spoke again.

It’s snowing, she said.

Yeah, it is.

Do you remember our honeymoon? The real one, the first one, I mean.

Yeah, I do, I said. Pensacola.

Yeah. Pensacola. Neither one of us had been to Florida before.

I’d never been on a plane before that.

That’s right, Becca said. God, it was hot down there except for some of the mornings.

Yes, those were cold mornings but only before the sun came up. And we had our own air conditioning when the afternoons got hot. Remember, we had to ask the property manager how to use it. We rented that room across the street from the beach. We could hardly see the water from the room. We had just that one column of it between those two condo buildings.

Becca nodded. Every morning we’d put that rum in our coffee along with the cream and sugar and we’d make love at sunrise. The tile floor was so cool in the mornings too.

Yeah, it was, I said. That one morning you put socks on your feet you were so cold.

She laughed. I’d forgotten that, she said. And then I kept them on in the bedroom.

That’s so funny, I said. I remember that too. They were those big fluffy red and yellow ones. Do you still have them?

No, they wore through a long time ago.

That’s a shame.

It was all so wonderful. So easy. In the afternoons I remember we’d split a can of coke and have it over ice with that coconut rum we had. We drank it on the patio while our towels hung over the railing and dried in the evening sun. I remember we’d drink and listen to the gulls, the cars. I remember everything from that trip. The dinners, the dolphins, driving the coast, the way all those Southerners talked— all of it.

As she spoke I was looking at Becca’s eyes, and I saw she was in another world. When she was done I said, I’ll bet you cant say that about Vermont, surprising myself and her with my quick thinking.

Becca quickly opened her mouth and half-turned to say something but nothing came out. Her lips came together slowly as she thought. In another moment she began to say something else but again stopped herself. Then we just sat against the cabinets for a while. The house was almost dark before we finally picked ourselves up off the floor.

Jackson Davis is a teacher and writer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he lives with his beautiful wife and two daughters. His work has been previously published in NCTE's English Journal and is forthcoming from Midcult*.