Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work by Jason Brown Read Free Book Online

trees—the trees, you know, Robert. . . .”
    â€œUncle’d be very happy with the job. Very happy, Aunt Lucy. I don’t want you to worry. We won’t send nothing to pulp. Mostly logs, mostly logs, even in the spruce, and not really cause of the money. Uncle woulda wanted it that way. He hated things going to pulp. But the thing he’d be wild over, Aunt Lucy, is this birdseye maple we got. Gonna make beautiful cabinets in some rich guy’s kitchen. No, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”
    The saws continued after he left. She dressed quickly in front of the mirror, her hands hurrying around her waist. She put on her long brown coat, packed her pocketbook in her purse, and held the keys in her hand, ready to walk down the front steps. It wouldn’t do any good to go to any of the women she knew from church, the wives of her husband’s friends, whom she had known for years. Her friends. Theywould listen, maybe a few of them would understand, but they were all busy with families of their own. They couldn’t do anything. The only person she could think of going to was someone most people didn’t think of as a very good person at all—Don Small, who had once owned the garage in town. She had not thought of him in years, but she felt he was the only one who could help her.
    Don’s life had not been easy. One of his children had spent time in prison after causing quite a bit of trouble in Vaughn and somewhere else. Don and his wife had lived apart after the birth of their second child. His wife—Lucy could picture her round face but could not remember her name—died of cancer when the children were still young. The poor children went to live with their grandmother while Don stayed above the garage on Water Street. She had heard that he now lived way out the Litchfield Road before the old MacRitchie farm, in what one of her friends described as the remains of an old shack. She had heard that news three years ago and she didn’t know, as she drove out of the valley, if he would still be there or if he was even alive anymore. He would be older than her by a few years.
    Twenty years ago during a winter of heavy snow, her old Pontiac began to spew black smoke out of the tailpipe on her way back from Boyton’s Market. If Robert had not been working in the woods, he would have fixed the car himself. She brought it to DonSmall, who had already closed his shop for the day. It was dark, the snow spiraling in the streetlight. She had to knock on the door to his upstairs apartment. He was bleary eyed. Maybe he had already started drinking, but he was courteous, calling her ma’am. They lived in the same town, but they had never spoken before. He had a boy manning the pump during the day, and he rarely came out of the garage to talk to anyone. He told her the car wasn’t fit to drive. After some protest, she accepted a ride home in his truck. He put her groceries in the back under a tarp. The snow stopped and it was a clear crisp night, the banks towering and the powder of the fields crystalline in the moonlight. They didn’t speak all the way up the hill. He helped carry in the groceries and stood mute in the dark house with his long arms hanging at his sides.
    They were together that once, that one night, and to her knowledge no one saw him leave before dawn. She told him they could never see each other again, and he looked at her from the shadow of the doorway to the bedroom and didn’t answer.
    For years he called, always when Robert was away. She knew it was him because no one spoke when she said hello. She lived in fear that someone would find out or that Don would come to the house and force himself inside. He never did; he just called and hung up, like a teenager. She felt when he called how much he wanted her and thought about her in ways that her husband never had. On many Sundays, she asked forforgiveness but never of the priest. She was