The Bird Artist Read Online Free PDF Page B

admit. This is tragic, Mr. Gillette. You’ve lost your father. I’m sorry for you, for the girl. But don’t hit her again.”
    Romeo left the store.
    Flung across Dalton Gillette’s bed now, Margaret looked as though she was stretching her arms and legs as far out as possible, clawing at the bedcover, trying to get purchase. She went into a weeping jag unlike any I had heard; her shoulders quaked, great sobs welled up. She wailed, almost a howling. I could not seem to turn away.
    â€œIf you had any sense, boy, you’d bring her a glass of water,” Kelb said. “She’s crying for her own future, as she’s got to live with what a goddamned stupid thing she’s done.”
    Years later, I came to believe that every drink of spirits that Margaret took had, in a way, its wellspring in that incident. And that no amount of whiskey could take a complete enough vengeance on herself. But at that moment in the store, I simply carried in a glass of water and handed it to her.
    Mitchell Kelb had questioned Margaret for over an hour, and had made her go out to the cliff and show him exactly where she had crashed into Dalton. Boas had gone along, too, as Kelb had requested. Later, Boas said that Margaret had collapsed in tears, and that both he and Kelb had to keep her from flinging herself over the cliff. She had actually run toward it. “She was kicking and screaming,” Boas said. “Saying suicidal things nobody that young should’ve even had in their vocabulary.”
    By the time I had seen Margaret in the store that morning,
Dalton Gillette had already been laid out in Henley’s Funeral Parlor overnight. He had fallen onto some jagged rocks, then rolled into an inlet and was easily found. Mrs. Henley had washed all of Dalton’s clothes, hung them out to dry, and, when they had dried, sewn together rips in the shirt and trousers. She had hung up his shoes by the laces to a clothesline. Romeo had provided his own suit for his father to be buried in. Now Romeo would need a new one.
    I was eight, and that is about all I remember, except that at the funeral the reverend at the time, Weebe, said, “Dalton Gillette has surely established our strong and loving memory of him, and God resides therein.”
    I did not see Margaret for three weeks after, some feat in Witless Bay. My mother at first said that Margaret had gone to live with her aunt in Bonavista, north up the coast, because that is what my mother had been told. But rumor was mistaken. It turned out that Margaret had been home all along and simply could not be consoled. She had lost a startling amount of weight and vomited up each meal, or most of it. Enoch finally told Boas, who of course told some others, and so on. “She was under sedation,” my father said one morning at breakfast, then explained what sedation meant. I would have thought that such news might draw sympathy from my mother, but I was wrong. “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I swear that Margaret’s got an untoward mind, just a little right or left of center. Mind you, my heart goes all the way out to Romeo and Annie Gillette, and to Enoch, of course. But I’m afraid only half as far to Margaret.” I was at best puzzled. I looked
at my mother, waiting for her to say something more. She only shrugged, pouring herself a cup of tea.

    Helen leaned against her shack. “Well, whoever your bride is, when you bring her back here, keep her away from my milk,” she said.
    â€œIf we come back, I’ll do that.”
    â€œYou know, this shack’s my true address.” Helen sighed deeply. “I only sleep in my house. I generally stay away from people. Everyone’s jealous of me, because I’m old enough to have witnessed mermaids and mermen, and they aren’t. Nowadays, people have to travel to get important memories. Not me. Mark my word, Fabian Vas, jealousy