The Time in Between by David Bergen Read Free Book Online Page A

mill outside of Portland. And then, seventeen years after the war, he went over to his parents’ house and late one night he sat in his father’s car and ran a vacuum hose up through the window and gassed himself. Alex B. started a drywall business and got rich. Charles Boatman moved up to Canada, pulled the caboose up onto the mountain, and sequestered himself, until his children came along and forced him back into the world. And with their arrival and the added responsibility, he put his correspondence books away and gave up the notion of being an accountant.
    There wasn’t a lot of history up on Sumas Mountain, nor was there a lot of curiosity about where Charles Boatman came from or what his story was. That was good, for the most part. Sometimes, though, Charles wanted a listening ear, a neighbor who knew the stories, or at least had seen them on TV, and cared about them. When he began to spend time with Claire Toupin, he at first loved her innocence, her manner of asking a question and lifting her chin as if this were the most important question in the world, one that had never been asked before.
    She was a small woman, and if she seemed easy and malleable it was only an impression she liked to give. She wasn’t that simple. The first time Charles slept with her, on the night of the party, he was surprised by her forthrightness, by her directions, and by her knowledge. After, they lay side by side, arms touching, and he said that he hadn’t loved anyone for a long time.
    “I knew that,” she said.
    “I mean, I love my children.”
    “Of course.” She kissed him, on the mouth and then on his chest. This might be the answer to madness.
    But still the dreams came, and on the nights that Charles stayed over at Claire’s, leaving his teenage children alone, he sometimes woke and sat at the edge of the bed and stared out the small window of the bedroom, breathing quickly. When Claire woke, she held him. She asked him what it was and he said, “Nightmares.” Her hand running his spine, on his shoulder, fingering his neck. She pulled him back onto the bed and asked, “What was it?” and he lied and said, “It was Ada, she was drowning and I couldn’t get to her,” or “It was Jon, he was falling.”
    Claire’s hair in his hands. Her head, the bluntness of her crown. As if by determining the shape of her, he could bear out his own existence. Finally, unable to sleep, he said he was worried about the kids and he dressed and kissed her good night and walked back down the mountain to his own house.
    One night he passed by Tomas Manik’s place and he saw the lights on and a figure walking down the driveway to the main road and he recognized Del’s gait, the slight sideways bob of her head as she walked. He waited for her and when she saw him she stopped and looked back at the house and then, as if resigning herself to some sort of inquisition, joined him.
    “What?” Charles asked. “You sleepwalking?”
    Del said that she probably was.
    “That’s the artist’s house,” Charles said.
    “That’s right.”
    “And you’re visiting?”
    “I guess.”
    “By yourself?”
    “I guess.”
    “That ’s a lot of guessing. You a friend of Mr. Manik?” He pronounced the name wrong, with a long eee on the last syllable, as if the man were not to be taken seriously.
    “Yes.”
    “How good a friend?”
    “Pretty good.”
    Charles didn’t speak. They walked together in silence until they reached the house and then Charles said good night. Del looked at him and she went to her room.
    He lay in bed that night and waited for sleep, but when it didn’t come he got up and made coffee and sat at the kitchen table. In the morning Ada found him sleeping at the table. He woke and picked up his coffee cup and said, “Look at me, sleeping everywhere but where I’m supposed to.”
    Ada made fresh coffee, and while she did this he watched her. He said, “What do you think of Tomas Manik?”
    Ada looked up and then away.