only to look for a job... but no more about that now, the whole subject scares me to death! I had a note from Ed-just a paragraph, but a great relief just the same-saying that he was staying at one of the cottages at the Hawking Labs compound in Fresh Harbor, and that he would honor the noncontact clause in the bail agreement. He said he was sorry for everything, but I didn't get any real sense of it, if he was. It's not that I was expecting tear-stains on the letter or a package with his ear in it, but... I don't know.
It was as if he wasn't really apologizing at all, but Just getting on the record. Does that make sense? He also included a $750 check, which seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities. That's good, but I think I'd have been happier to hear he was getting help with his mental problems.
That should be his sentence, you know: eighteen months at hard therapy. I said that in group and several people laughed as if they thought I was joking. I wasn't.
Sometimes I get these scary pictures in my head when I try to think of the future. I see us standing in line at Manna for a free meal, or me walking into the Third Street homeless shelter with Nat in my arms, wrapped in a blanket.
When I think of that stuff I start to shake, and sometimes I cry.
I know it's stupid; I've got a graduate degree in Library Science, for God's sake, but I can't help it. And do you know what I hold on to when those bad pictures come? What you said after you took me behind the counter in the Red Apple and sat me down. You told me that I had a lot of friends in the neighborhood, and I was going to get through this. I
know I have one friend, at least. One very true friend.
The letter was signed Love, Helen.
Ralph wiped tears from the corners of his eyes-he cried at the drop of a hat just lately, it seemed, it probably came from being so goddam tired-and read the P.S. she had crammed in at the bottom in: of the sheet and up the right-hand marg' I'd love to have you come and visit, but men are off limits" out here for reasons I'm sure you will understand.
They even want us to be quiet about the exact location! H.
Ralph sat for a minute or two with Helen's letter in his lap, looking out over Harris Avenue. It was the tag end of August now, still summer but the leaves of the poplars had begun to gleam silver when the wind stroked them and there was the first touch of coolness in the air. The sign in the window of the Red Apple said SCHOOL SUPPLIES OF ALL TYPES! CHECK HERE FIRST! And, out by the Newport town line, in some big old farmhouse where battered women went to try and start putting their lives back together, Helen Deepneau was washing storm windows, getting them ready for another long winter.
He slid the letter carefully back into its envelope, trying to remember how long Ed and Helen had been married. Six or seven years, he thought. Carolyn would have known for sure. Ho much courage does it take to fire UP your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? he asked himself. How much courage to go on and do that after you've spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, "I have to quit these peas-, peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans,"
"A lo)t," he said, wiping at the corners of his eyes again. "A damn let, that's what I think."
Suddenly he wanted very badly to see Helen, to repeat what she so well remembered hearing and what he could barely remember saying: You'll be okay, you'll get through this, you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood.
"Take it to the bank," Ralph said. Hearing from Helen seemed to have taken a great weight off his shoulders. He got up, put her letter in his back pocket, and started up Harris Avenue toward the picnic area on the Extension. If he was lucky, he could find Faye Chapin or Don Veazie and play a little chess.