Salvaging Life on a Back Road

It was almost 6 years since we signed the papers and my world was now light years removed from the pace of Congress Street and my prior work world yet it was a nagging presence still. Nancy had been down to Sangerville several times and as with the cottage she started keeping a few personal things there as well. Even still she kept her own house in Island Falls. For whatever reason she wanted to keep that independence and I was OK with it. I liked the same. We had become essentially an exclusive couple and disposed of the condoms even though we never really openly stated it as such. We just pretty much assumed like everybody else we were a couple or at least I did.

As winter began to set in I began working every other week in one of the other plant locations and rather than stay over on weekends I started driving back to Sangerville on Fridays if I was up country that week. Nancy and I would stay together every other weekend and that seemed to work fine for both of us.

If you enjoy Maine winters and I had come to do just that, that winter when I began the weekly treks was great. It was one of the snowiest years we had enjoyed in several years. By the middle of January we had nearly 50 inches of snow on the ground from the accumulation of weekly storms. I had my truck prepared for inclement weather with caution lights and winches but it was always an adventure when I set out late Friday afternoon in the dead of winter.

I shut down my laptop around 4:30 that Friday afternoon and closed up my office before stopping off at Janey's office to let her know I was heading out.

The snow had already started coming down earlier and it was beginning to pick up when I turned the key over. My gear and everything was already loaded and with a '74 'Dead set queued in the CD player I headed for I-95 south. I made it 10 miles down the highway before Nancy called me to let me know there was a jackknifed tractor trailer and three cars involved in an accident on the Medway bridge over the Penobscot River. The State Troopers were redirecting southbound traffic through Medway and then back onto I-95 south of the river.

I had a better route for where I was going or at least I thought so. When I came up on Medway, I got off and headed through to Millinocket to pick up Rt. 11 south to eventually carry me to Sangerville. The storm had picked up and traveling was getting slow. I was on my way toward Brownville and then the spiral of events occurred...

I saw the vehicle, stopped and an hour or so later three of us, my ex-wife Martha, me and the little girl, were in the cab of my truck heading south in nearly white out conditions...

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"Sarah is your daughter." She said glancing at both me and the girl on the quad seat.

The words stuck in my brain lacking the processing push to get them to elicit a response. I saw my mother's almond eyes when I glanced at her and instinctively knew who she was.

"It's true, Connor. She is your daughter." Martha repeated again.

I looked over at her sitting in the passenger seat with her hat pulled off her head. Her hair was short now and the makeup was gone although there was a blizzard outside and maybe such things were of no importance. Nonetheless, there was a simple almost minimalist air about her.

"We need to talk then." I said to her. "But let's wait until later."

"Yes." She nodded and I asked if they were hungry. I had sandwiches in my cooler along with a quart of lemonade. She reached around and got a sandwich out for her daughter and pulled a cup out of her bag for the lemonade.

"She couldn't hear us talk about her, Connor. She is 70% percent deaf with just a bit of hearing in the other ear." Martha said to me between bites.

"I'm sorry to hear that. " I said sincerely as I went to turn down 'Brown Eyed Woman'.

"No, don't," Martha said. "She can still hear and feel the music and I know she likes it."

The elephant was dancing inside my truck cab and I wanted to scream it out but I couldn't. 'What in hell was she doing on Rt. 11 heading north in a snowstorm'. I couldn't help myself.

"Where were you going on a night like this?"

"To find you in Island Falls; I just didn't think about the weather and the next thing I knew we were in the ditch. On top of that I didn't really know where I was. It's all such a mess."

Martha broke down sobbing at that point and I told her we didn't have much further to go and we could talk after the girl was comfortable and safe. We were about 30 minutes out from Sangerville although the snow was getting deeper. I called ahead to Smokies Pizza in Dover for a takeout and by the time we hit Union Square our order was ready. From there it was a 10-15 minutes ride through the snow to get home.

After we settled in and got the wood stove cranked up, Martha got Sarah ready for bed and later joined me in the kitchen.

"So, Martha, where do we begin?" I asked her as I finished a 2nd slice and sipped a beer.

The words from that long ago meeting were swirling in my head. 'Never again' I had said to her. I had never wanted to see her again or have anything to do with her ever again in my life and I meant it with every fiber of my being. Yet for six years I had measured every progress, every significant passage of time from that point and place in the universe. The words seemed so trite and insignificant now and the stone in the pit pulled on whatever gives cause for the heart to grieve.

I really did love her like I had never loved anybody else. I never stopped loving her but I hated her as well; her adultery and betrayal, the manner in which she divorced me and never talked with me. It was a war waged silently and unobservable within me for six years now and I never wanted the stopper removed from its bottle.

"Connor, I'm not sure where to begin." Martha sighed almost exasperatingly so. "I told you about my suspicions in the letter I wrote to you when that horrible divorce was complete but I never heard from you and I took your words to me seriously. You never wanted to see or hear from me again."

I had actually forgotten about the letter over the years. It was filed in a satchel in my attic along with the divorce decree and addendums. I toyed with reading it in the first few months but I've never been a masochist for anything including relationships.

"Martha, to be honest, I never read the letter. When you divorced me in the manner you did, I only wished to bury everything of Portland and Gorham right there before I left. I've never looked back and while I considered reading it a couple times in that first year, I refused. Should I have read it?"

"It would have explained several things and maybe we could have talked a long time ago. " She replied.

"Explained what?" I asked. "Would have it explained why you scorched the earth and my soul with your utterly silent divorce action? Do you know I asked your fucking attorney a dozen times to be able to talk to you and maybe put the brakes on the horrible mess?

"Martha, I was willing to sit down and talk with you and see if there was some way, somehow to step back and fix what was broken or something. All I got was a wall of silence, a firm no at every turn, so I gave up."

Martha's eyes were filled with tears but she remained somewhat in control of her emotions.

"Connor, if you had read it, you would have known I knew I made a terrible mistake, a million of them, and wanted to sit down with you and try to explain. I knew I had thrown away everything I had and that I had allowed bad advice, no, make that devious and incompetent advice, malpractice if you will, interfere with what I should have done in those first few days.

"David Long, my attorney, well, you know he used to be my boss before he moved to family practice. He and Daniel, my - , well, they were close friends and David convinced me to let him handle matters and file before you did.

"Jesus, Connor, I never told him to do what he did. When I asked if you had any response or wanted to talk about it, he told me several times you had no interest. That and the restraining order he got shut everything down. Oh my God, I just wish you had said to hell with that order and walked right into the house."

"He threatened me on the day I received the order so I left it as is." I replied to her."

Martha was staring off into space for a bit so I got up and got another beer and refreshed her drink. She looked right into my face when she turned back and continued.

"I was three months pregnant with Sarah when we signed in David's office but I thought you had not so much as lifted a finger to talk with me so I stayed silent on that. Besides, given what I had done I couldn't say with any certainty that you were ... well, you know. It wasn't until you told me you had wanted to or at least was willing to work something out that I realized something was just plain wrong with what I had done regarding the divorce.

"I betrayed you, horribly so, but I never wanted it. That is what the firm wanted to push and I didn't realize it until you walked out that door and I never saw you again. Oh I knew something was wrong as soon as you told me. I saw it in David's eyes. After the meeting I confronted him about it and he wouldn't admit to anything so I asked John if you had tried to stop it.

"That's when the career of Martha Smythe came to an end. John just nodded, said he wasn't going to talk about it anymore. He was furious with me personally. He knew what I had put you through and then he was gone. David just said we did what we had to do to get it over and the firm wanted it over with because of the interoffice impact it had.

"Well, it wasn't over. I went to the managing partner, laid out the damages and told him we were not through. I quit on the spot and the next day threatened a malpractice lawsuit against them. Long story short, they settled and that was the last of my contact with David, the firm, Daniel or anybody else associated with the whole fucking mess."

It didn't make any sense to me or perhaps I didn't understand the implications of what she was telling me.

"You didn't want the divorce?" I asked her.

"No, I thought it was you that was done with me and my damn legal representation enforced that perception right to the very end. David and Daniel played me like a fool. Like that fool I was with Daniel a few times after the papers were filed but I broke it off completely about the same time we signed. To this day I don't know why they did what they did but I quit on the spot and took a job over in Westbrook. I think John filled you in on things after that.

"Connor, the sad truth is I allowed a manipulative lawyer who didn't have my best interests push me into something I never really wanted. Of course, that's what I thought you wanted in any event but that doesn't excuse him for what he did."

I looked at her closely and sensed there was a lot wanting to bubble to the surface. I could understand her logic if she was being deceived and what I stated to her in that attorney's office was said with cold, determined intent. I cut her off from my universe with my parting words and she knew it, believed it even if I didn't deep down inside. But, there was more. She reached out three years ago. She did what she never needed to do. She burst upon the scene this evening and then, there was the little girl; the little girl with my mother's eyes named Sarah who was the daughter I never knew anything about.

"Martha, setting the divorce and all the machinations, causes and reasons aside, what about Sarah?"

She looked over at me and stood up and paused before walking out of the room into the kitchen. She didn't say a word. She just walked out the back door and stood under the awning with the snow coming down hard all around her; no jacket, nothing.

I grabbed her coat and mine and walked out to give it to her. She was sobbing uncontrollably staring off into the darkness. As I placed her coat around her and held her shoulders she turned into me and wept bitterly into my chest. A myriad of emotions, mostly confusion, engulfed me and I held her like that for several minutes.

When her sobs subsided, I lifted her chin and told her "Let's go back inside before we catch the death of pneumonia out here".

Once comfortable in the kitchen we switched to cups of tea rather than beer and wine and I told her we didn't have to continue any longer this evening if it was getting too hard but she insisted on continuing.

"Connor, as I said, I was three months pregnant with Sarah when we signed in the Attorney's office. Being completely honest with myself and you, I had no idea if you were the father or if Seagerson was. When you left the office I prayed to God that Seagerson was the father even though I wanted nothing more to do with him. When you left the office after what you stated, I would have rather died than know I was carrying your child.

When she said that I felt as if a knife had been plunged right into my heart but she continued.

"Connor, look at me, please. I didn't think that because I wanted to hurt you. Oh my god, nothing of the sort. I thought that because I couldn't bear to be the cause of any more loss and pain in your life. If I thought she was your child, I would have been ripping another searing wound in your soul. You didn't want to see me ever and with your baby, you would have to, at least that's what I told myself. So, it had to be Seagerson."

"Martha, I would never have abandoned my child if I knew" I said to her through my own tears. "When did you find out she was mine?"

She looked away for a moment before returning.

"When Sarah was real young her hair was lighter and she resembled me and I guess both of you. Both you and Daniel were not that much different in appearance. You are taller and bigger but you both have blue eyes and sandy colored hair. Sarah had the same. More importantly, I didn't do a paternity test for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted nothing to do with Seagerson and second, I didn't have anything of yours to use as a sample. But, I guess more importantly, I was afraid of knowing."

"Martha, I knew the moment I saw her. How could you not know?" I asked.

"Connor, I know how you knew but I didn't know that until a couple years ago. It was after I sold the house and when I was unpacking I put several boxes of things into the attic of the house I brought in Portsmouth and left them there until about a year later. I was looking for something up there and when I opened up one particular box, it had several old photo albums, one of which was of your old family photos from when you were a kid."

I had forgotten about some of those albums. I still had a few I brought with me when I moved here but I also know a couple of them were missing and I had assumed at the time that Martha still had them.

"I started going through them and reminiscing about your younger years and then I got to the older albums of your family. I never met your mom, Connor. I wish I had been able to. She was a beautiful woman."

My mother had passed away from a brain aneurism when I was eighteen so Martha never had the opportunity to meet her. She was indeed a beautiful woman, of Slovenian descent; her parents immigrated to the US when she was a toddler.

"I came across a wonderful photograph of your mom when she was a little girl, a close-up portrait of her face and the picture fell to my lap when I gazed upon it. Sarah was nearly the spitting image of her, right down to the very shape of her eyes. I knew then that you were her father."

We both fell silent at that point, each in our own thoughts yet thinking the same things. It had become late and I was tired and knew that the morning would bring its own troubles just clearing out after the heavy snow.

"Martha, let's call it a night for now. We can talk more in the morning. This is a lot for me to digest all at once. Let me get your things to your room. Its right next to Sarah's just down the hall. The bathroom is at the end and I've got extra toiletries if you need them; towels are in the hall closet."

I heard her getting ready for bed and I slipped my coat on and went for a walk in the heavy snow. I was burdened with more than I wished to carry now and in my own unique manner, I found trudging and hiking in heavy snowfalls to be a calming and peaceful experience. The snow was still coming down hard although the winds had let up some and I made my way to the village center and back.

When I returned the house was quiet and I made my way to my bedroom. As I lay there thinking my thoughts went to Nancy and I realized I hadn't called her when I got in.

"Jesus, Connor, do you know what time it is?" She asked me when she picked up after several rings.

She didn't sound like she had been sleeping but it was after 1AM. I brought her up to speed on my trip to Sangerville and she was, well, uncharacteristically not very interested in it. That's when I heard the unmistakable sound of another man. It was just a clearing of the throat, an unavoidable masculine noise no woman makes unless she is overflowing with testosterone.

"Jesus, Nancy, he couldn't keep quiet long enough for you to get off the line??"

I hung up. We were a couple and I at least considered us to be exclusive. If she had talked to me about it I could have been OK with the FWB route as well although perhaps disappointed. Instead, this was more akin to cheating with a man behind my back even if we weren't married and it didn't sit well with me. However, I was tired and ready to sleep.

If you have ever awakened to a cold Maine morning after a heavy northeast snowstorm, you can appreciate the beauty of the canvas that Mother Nature paints her works upon. I came downstairs to a hot fire in the woodstove and an alert little girl sitting at my kitchen table with her mom making pancakes at the stove top.

Martha asked me if I wanted a plate and I nodded my appreciation. I sat across from the little girl and watched her carefully stab each piece with her small fork and delicately lift it to her mouth. She would take it in her mouth and glance back up at me when she was finished. I noticed the hearing aid in her ear so I assumed she could hear and understand much of what we would say.

"Miss Sarah, how are you today?" I asked her.

"Are you my father?" She asked me, right to the point.

Martha intervened and scolded her daughter for being so direct.

"It's quite all right, Martha. Sarah, yes I am your father but I didn't know that until I found your mom and you in that snowstorm last night."

"How come you didn't know?" was her reply to which I didn't have an answer for a 5 year old who would be six in a couple of months if my math was correct.

"Sarah, let's stop with all the questions and you can eat your breakfast." Martha intervened.

I finished my breakfast and when Sarah was done I asked her if she would like to help me blow snow out of the driveway to which she excitedly agreed. I have a small John Deere garden tractor that has a cab attached to it along with a snow blower attachment for the winter months. We both got bundled up for the below zero cold and minutes later we were inside the cab blowing snow out of the driveway and off the walks.

When we were finished Martha had hot chocolate for Sarah and a fresh pot of coffee for her and me. The little girl found some entertainment on the television and Martha and I took a seat at the table.

I had noticed the differences last night but now in the light of day I could see them better. Her hair had been cut short and this morning she was wearing just the slightest bit of makeup, almost unnoticeable except for the modest indication around her eyes. Her lips were full but her face was drawn, almost troubled. Her smile was still bright but now accented with the lines that come with maturity and middle age.