Quabbin - 7. Chapter 7

There was no point pretending I wasn’t going to the Kohlers’ Wednesday night. I didn’t plan to stay long, the funeral being the next day. But it would’ve been rude for me not to stop by, especially since I lived so close.

I got there around ten, earlier than Tuesday, so there were still lots of people around. Mainly older relatives I’d known for years, who used to stay at the Founder’s House, visiting. This time, they were all staying in motels.

“To give Eileen and the children their privacy,” Kohler’s mother had explained, and, the way I was treated, I felt like a child. I was mainly expected to sit and look sad, but not to speak.

Still, by eleven, they’d all gone, and when Bob went to drive his girlfriend home, it left Carrie, me, and her mother. It was the first time I’d been able to talk with Eileen Kohler.

“I’m really sorry,” I began. But she cut me off.

“You look good,” she told me instead, and it was like being with Denny again. She was in shock but didn’t want to talk about it.

“Do you want some more coffee, Mom?” Carrie asked, probably something she’d been doing all day.

“I’ve already had too much,” Eileen Kohler said, “though it’s not like I’m going to sleep tonight. Is there still that wine?”

While Carrie checked, I helped her mother collect dishes. She asked about my dad, and my sister Ann, who used to be the Kohlers’ sitter. I quietly gave her answers, which I’m sure she didn’t absorb. When Carrie came back with the wine, she brought three glasses. She filled her mother’s, then she and I split what was left in the bottle.

“I know this makes no sense,” Eileen Kohler finally said. “ But I keep expecting Drew to come back from whatever business trip he’s on. I keep waiting to hear his car. I can’t believe we’re going to his funeral tomorrow.”

Which was about the point that anyone else would cry. But for the moment, she seemed past that.

We were sitting in the dining room. The dishes had been cleared, but there were still cakes, and flowers, and fruit baskets -- all things that looked normal until you saw them together. Well, not the fruit baskets. The only time I ever saw them was at funerals, and I almost sent one to Dane’s husband for their wedding.

Carrie was soon explaining about Mark. “He should be here in the morning -- I’m picking him up early at the airport. It took almost all of yesterday for my message to get through. That’s how isolated his boat is.”

Mark was a marine biologist. Ichthyologist would also cover it, but just sounds dumb. For almost a month, he’d been floating in a ship off the Yucatan, trolling for fish for the Boston Aquarium.

I hadn’t seen much of Mexico. I was interested, but by the time I’d bussed all the way up South and Central America, picking up what little work they could afford to give wandering Americans, it was time to get home.

Watching Eileen Kohler as she sat across from me, she seemed to be holding together, and I told her so.

She kind of half-smiled, but said nothing. She was really beautiful, and it was easy to see why Kohler had fallen in love with her. I knew he loved her for other reasons, too, but you could just tell that the Kohlers had a better marriage than my parents. Maybe ‘cause Drew and Eileen were younger. Or maybe that didn’t matter.

“Drew was this mix of the 30’s and 60’s,” Eileen was suddenly saying. “Passed on from relatives he never knew -- experiences he was way too young for. I once told him, ‘You sing Dylan like you were actually there.’”

“I thought you’d seen him in concert,” Carrie said, and Eileen just shook her head.

“That was old Dylan. Not the one your dad used to sing.”

I used to play old Dylan on my guitar. When I still played.

On the dining table in front of us was a photo album people had been looking through. Eileen and Carrie were flipping its pages.

“Drew was always so much taller than anyone else,” Eileen pointed out. “At fourteen, he could pass for twenty.”

Carrie stopped at some of their college pictures.

“That terrible beard,” Eileen said, almost laughing. “And that hair. ‘You should shave,’ I told him one night. ‘You have such a nice chin.’ He just asked, ‘How do you know?’ Of course, I’d peeked at his driver’s license, while he was in the shower. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.”

She made it sound like they were already sleeping together.

“I thought he was a grad student, the first time we met. I was a sophomore, and you’d think, my being from New York while he was from this tiny town, I might have more experience. But my getting into Smith was the biggest thing that ever happened to my family.”

“Oh, come on,” Carrie said. “Grampa’s a doctor.”

“It was different then. He went to city schools. My parents’ big adventure was moving to Long Island.”

Now, families live a thousand miles apart.

“My first year at Smith,” Eileen went on, “all I did was study. If I saw one movie, I don’t remember it, and I never dated. I was so sure I wouldn’t be able to keep up, and I knew -- if I failed -- I could never go home.”

Carrie laughed at that, though I wouldn’t have taken the chance.

“It’s true,” Eileen said. “Plus, I worked part-time. And summers.”

Kohler had also worked, but in what was quickly becoming his own business. Hearing him tell it, he’d grown up in the Mill.

“Sure, I had a car at sixteen,” he’d told us when Carrie was pushing for the same thing. “But I was stocking shelves and filling orders when I was twelve. How do you think I paid for that car?”

“I figured girls gave you money,” Carrie had joked, and Kohler had laughed.

“I wasn’t that good looking.”

“Oh, yes, he was,” Eileen disagreed, when Carrie repeated the story. “With dark brown eyes you almost couldn’t read, and as-dark hair that never seemed to be out of place -- except when he wanted it to be. Some of my friends couldn’t understand why I was interested. They figured, with those looks, he had to be a jerk. But he wasn’t. And it didn’t hurt that he had money.”

“Is that all it was, Mom?”

“Oh, yeah. I was always after the Mill.”

They laughed at that, and then Carrie and her mother just kind of looked at each other.

“What if you didn’t have it?” Carrie asked quietly, and for a moment Eileen looked away.

“I once asked your father what he’d do if we were bought out,” she finally answered. She turned to me. “That was the danger of taking the company public. Drew said he’d just sail around the world.”

“Traveling’s great,” I had to admit.

“I know that,” she said, smiling, “though we never traveled as much as you have. But Drew meant in a little boat, just the two of us. And he didn’t know any more about sailing than I do. Besides, Carrie and Bob were still in school.”

“We would’ve managed,” Carrie insisted. “It would’ve been fun.”

“No. It was completely the wrong time.”

“What did you want to do then, Mom? After you retired?”

Eileen hesitated, then just shook her head. “That was so far away. When we talked about it at all, it was only because of your grandparents and what they were deciding. And Drew always insisted that he’d hang around here, wearing old clothes and doing nothing. But I knew he’d be down at the Mill all the time, bothering you and Bob.”

If that was the plan -- Bob and Carrie running the Mill -- it was the first I’d heard of it. The last time I’d seen Carrie, she’d finished her first year at Smith without picking a major. And I’d never talked about it with Bob.

“So many things can happen,” Carrie told her mother. “Who knows how we’ll turn out?”

Eileen shrugged. “Well, I can’t run the place by myself. I can do my work and some of your dad’s. And Bill and Denny can stretch a little. But either you and Bob come in, or we’ll have to get someone else... At least, for a while.”

When Carrie said nothing, Eileen just added, “I know… I know... You’re thinking about so many other things…”

“It’s not only that, Mom. It’s just…” And then Carrie looked at me. “And Jim doesn’t want to hear all this…”

Doesn’t need to was more like it. But I can’t say it wasn’t interesting. Meanwhile, Eileen was thinking of something else.

“Poor Bill,” she said, with just a little smile. “When he came to me… when he had to tell me about the accident… he looked so horrified. It was more than just him being shocked about Drew… as shocked as any of us were. He looked like his entire life was falling apart.”

“What will you do with him?” Carrie asked.

“He doesn’t have to worry. He’s very good at what he does -- you know that. As long as we don’t let him out in public.”

She and Carrie laughed at that, in a way I knew to stay out of. Of course, I knew some of what they were talking about. Anyone in the Mill would.

Abruptly, Eileen realized that she and Carrie really were talking about things they shouldn’t be in front of me. She politely excused herself and went into the kitchen. When Carrie and I followed, a minute later, carrying the glasses and the wine bottle, Eileen asked if Bob had come in.

Carrie looked at me. “I didn’t hear him.”

I shook my head. “Either did I.”

“He’s getting too involved,” Eileen decided.

“Oh, come on, Mom,” Carrie said, laughing. “He’s not gonna get her pregnant.” While Eileen considered that, Carrie lightly added, “And if Mark were here, you know where I’d be sleeping.”

That suddenly made it obvious that -- possibly for a long time -- Eileen would be sleeping alone. All Carrie could say was, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

Eileen smiled and kissed Carrie. “It’s all right… I mean, it’s not, but what can we do about it?” She smiled again, then told me good night.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said. “And if there’s anything I can do…”

“I’ll let you know… really… and thanks.” She hugged me lightly, then left.

Carrie hugged me, too, longer. “Thanks for everything, Jim. I don’t even have to say that.”

“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t want me to leave yet, and I knew it. But I kissed the top of her head and was out the front door. Carrie was going to cry, and I couldn’t stay there to watch. I didn’t know what to do. Though I did know, as I quickly walked past the dozen-or-so houses on the way back to Dad’s, that when I got home, I wanted Dane to be there, waiting.