“A lot was taken from my sons. Their father. Their inheritance. Their boat. Their fishing ground. Their fishing gear.”
“I know,” Ruth said, and she felt a rush of guilt, as she had for years, whenever she thought of her father on his boat with Mr. Pommeroy’s traps.
“I wish I could have another son for you.”
“What? For me?”
“To marry. I wish I could have one more son, and make him normal. A good one.”
“Come on, Mrs. Pommeroy. All your sons are good.”
“You’re sweet, Ruth.”
“Except Chester, of course. He’s no good.”
“In their way, they’re good enough. But not good enough for a bright girl like you. I’ll bet I could get it right, you know, if I had another go at it.” Mrs. Pommeroy’s eyes teared up again. “Now, what a thing for me to say, a woman with seven kids.”
“It’s OK.”
“Besides, I can’t expect you to wait around for a baby to grow up, can I? Listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“I’m talking crazy now.”
“A little crazy,” Ruth admitted.
“Oh, things don’t always work out, I guess.”
“Not always. I think they must work out sometimes.”
“I guess. Don’t you think you should go live with your mother, Ruth?”
“No.”
“There’s nothing out here for you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Truth is, I like having you around, but that’s not fair. There’s nothing here for you. It’s like a prison. It’s your little San Quentin. I always thought, ‘Oh, Ruth will marry Webster,’ and I always thought, ‘Oh, Webster will take over his dad’s lobster boat.’ I thought I had it all figured out. But there’s no boat.”
And there’s barely a Webster, Ruth thought.
“Don’t you ever think you should live out there?” Mrs. Pommeroy stretched out her arm and pointed. She had clearly intended to point west, toward the coast and the country that lay beyond it, but she was pointing in the dead-wrong direction. She was pointing toward the open sea. Ruth knew what she was trying to say, though. Mrs. Pommeroy, famously, did not have a great sense of direction.
“I don’t need to marry one of your sons to stay here with you, you know,” Ruth said.
“Oh, Ruth.”
“I wish you wouldn’t tell me I should go. I get that enough from my mom and Lanford Ellis. I belong on this island as much as anyone. Forget about my mother.”
“Oh, Ruth. Don’t say that.”
“All right, I don’t mean forget about her. But it doesn’t matter where she lives or who she lives with. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll stay here with you; I’ll go where you go.” Ruth was smiling as she said this, and nudging Mrs. Pommeroy the way Mrs. Pommeroy often nudged her. A teasing little poke, a loving one.
“But I’m not going anywhere,” Mrs. Pommeroy said.
“Fine. Me neither. It’s decided. I’m not budging. This is where I stay from now on. No more trips to Concord. No more bullshit about college.”
“You can’t make a promise like that.”
“I can do whatever I want. I can make even bigger promises.”
“Lanford Ellis would kill you if he heard you talking like that.”
“Hell with it. The hell with them. From now on, whatever Lanford Ellis says to do, I do the opposite. Fuck the Ellises. Watch me! Watch me, world! Look out, baby!”
“But why do you want to spend your life on this crappy island? These aren’t your people out here, Ruth.”
“Sure they are. Yours and mine. If they’re your people, they’re my people!”
“Listen to you!”
“I’m feeling pretty grand today. I can make big promises today.”
“I guess so!”
“You don’t think I mean any of it.”
“I think you say the sweetest things. And I think, in the end, you’ll do whatever you want.”
They sat out there on the porch couch for another hour or so. Opal wandered out a few more times in a bored and aimless way with Eddie, and Mrs. Pommeroy and Ruth took turns heaving him onto their laps and trying to bounce him around without hurting themselves. The last time Opal left, she didn’t go into the house; she wandered down toward the harbor, to go “downstreet to the store,” she said. Her sandals flip-flopped against her soles, and her big baby smacked his lips as he sat, heavy, on her right hip. Mrs. Pommeroy and Ruth watched the mother and baby descend the hill.
“Do you think I look old, Ruth?”
“You look like a millions bucks. You’ll always be the prettiest woman out here.”
“Look at this,” Mrs. Pommeroy said, and she lifted her chin. “My throat’s all droopy.”
“It is not.”
“It is, Ruth.” Mrs. Pommeroy tugged at the loose flesh under her chin. “Isn’t that horrible, how it hangs there? I look like a pelican.”
“You do not look like a pelican.”
“I look like a pelican. I could carry a whole salmon in here, like a ratty old pelican.”
“You look like a very young pelican,” Ruth said.
“Oh, that’s better, Ruth. Thank you very much.” Mrs. Pommeroy stroked her neck, and asked, “What were you thinking when you were alone with Owney Wishnell?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. Tell me.”
“I don’t have anything to tell.”
“Hmm,” said Mrs. Pommeroy. “I wonder.” She pinched the skin on the back of her hand. “Look how dry and saggy I am. If I could change anything about myself, I’d try to get my old skin back. I had beautiful skin when I was your age.”
“Everyone has beautiful skin when they’re my age.”
“What would you change about your appearance if you could, Ruth?”
Without hesitating, Ruth replied, “I wish I was taller. I wish I had smaller nipples. And I wish I could sing.”
Mrs. Pommeroy laughed. “Who said your nipples were too big?”
“Nobody. Come on, Mrs. Pommeroy. Nobody’s ever seen them but me.”
“Did you show them to Owney Wishnell?”
“No,” Ruth said. “But I’d like to.”
“You should, then.”
That little exchange took both of them by surprise; they’d shocked each other. The idea lingered on the porch for a long, long time. Ruth’s face burned. Mrs. Pommeroy was quiet. She seemed to be thinking very carefully about Ruth’s comment. “OK,” she said at last, “I guess you want him.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s weird. He hardly ever talks-”
“No, you want him. He’s the one you want. I know about these things, Ruth. So we’ll have to get him for you. We’ll figure it out somehow.”
“Nobody has to figure anything out.”
“We’ll figure it out, Ruth. Good. I’m happy that you want someone. That’s appropriate for a girl your age.”
“I’m not ready for anything stupid like that,” Ruth said.
“Well, you’d better get ready.”
Ruth didn’t know what to say to that. Mrs. Pommeroy swung her legs up on the couch and put her bare feet on Ruth’s lap. “Feet on you, Ruth,” she said, and she sounded deeply sad.
“Feet on me,” Ruth said, and felt a sudden and sharp awkwardness about her admission. She felt guilty about everything she’d said: guilty about her frank sexual interest in a Wishnell, guilty about leaving her mother, guilty about her weird promise never to leave Fort Niles, guilty about confessing that she’d never in a million years marry one of Mrs. Pommeroy’s sons. God, it was true, though! Mrs. Pommeroy could have a son every year for the rest of her life, and Ruth would never marry one of them. Poor Mrs. Pommeroy!
“I love you, you know,” she said to Mrs. Pommeroy. “You’re my favorite person.”
“Feet on you, Ruth,” Mrs. Pommeroy said quietly, by way of reply.
Later that afternoon, Ruth left Mrs. Pommeroy and wandered over to the Addams house to see what the Senator was up to. She didn’t feel like going home yet. She didn’t feel like talking to her father when she was blue, so she thought she’d talk to the Senator instead. Maybe he’d show her some old photographs of shipwreck survivors and cheer her up. But when she reached the Addams house, she found only Angus. He was trying to thread a length of pipe, and he was in an appalling mood. He told her the Senator was down at Potter Beach again with that skinny goddamn nitwit Webster Pommeroy, looking for a goddamn elephant’s tusk.