Eight Hundred Grapes (43)

He shook his head. “’Cause you can’t fix this. I know you try to fix everything, but you can’t fix this.”

“I just want to help.”

“Start by helping yourself.”

His tone was dismissive, and it stopped me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. You’re just acting like you know the right thing for everyone when you don’t even know the right thing for yourself.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Really? Then why are you still thinking about marrying someone you don’t love?”

I gripped the steering wheel, my heart starting to race. “I love Ben.”

“Georgia, he has a kid you didn’t even know about.”

“So? You’re saying if I loved him I should have known?”

He shook his head. “I’m saying if you love him, why’d you run?”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, hurt and angry. No one had said that to me, and his words—in a way I didn’t want to admit—penetrated.

So I didn’t focus when I turned onto Main Street. I forgot about the curb. I forgot about how, when you turned onto Main Street, the curb jutted out five feet, making room for the fire hydrant.

The fire hydrant that I hit. Muffler first. Jolting us, me into the steering wheel, Finn into the dashboard.

The water shot upward, spraying the front of Finn’s pickup, soaking the empty street, Finn’s bag of peas exploding all around him.

Finn held on to the dashboard, bracing himself. “Are you okay?” Finn said.

I reached up, touching my forehead, feeling for blood and nodding that I was fine.

Finn nodded, relieved that no one was hurt. Then, once he knew that, he wanted nothing more than to kill me himself.

He gripped the dashboard, the water coating the windshield, like a rainstorm.

A tornado.

“You really shouldn’t be behind the wheel!”

I shut the ignition and jumped out of the truck, stepping into the soaking spray of the fire hydrant, surveying the damage. Finn’s headlight was dented, his muffler tipped. I tried kicking it back into place, water in my eyes.

Finn screamed at me. “What are you doing? And where are the keys?” he said.

Then he slid into the driver’s seat, motioning for me to take the passenger side.

“Get back in the car,” he said.

I kept kicking but it was no use. The muffler wouldn’t go back into place, nothing would go back into place.

The Brothers’ Tavern was still several blocks away, but its lights were visible in the distance. Finn could make it by himself. He was going to have to try. I started walking in the opposite direction.

Finn called out the car window. “What are you doing?” he said.

I turned around, still under the spray, getting drenched. “I’m leaving you.”

“Why?”

“You’re an asshole, Finn. You weren’t talking about me and Ben. You were talking about Bobby and Margaret, at least the version of them you want to be true.”

He laughed. “Really, then why are you running away from me?”

“I’m walking.”

“Semantics. You’re running. You’re just not very fast about it.”

Finn called out after me as I walked fast down Main Street, soaking wet. My wallet was still in Finn’s truck, my phone too.

“Come back!” Finn said.

But I turned left onto Green Street.

And I saw him standing there in front of the small French restaurant that my parents used to go to when I was growing up, the only restaurant in town that served after 10 P.M.

Henry.

He stood under the awning, backlit by the open sign, the streetlights. His hands were in his big pockets, his cashmere sweater hanging over his stomach. He was looking at the menu longingly, though he must have felt my gaze, because he turned toward me.

I walked over to him, pulling my hair behind my ears, tugging on my drenched shirt.

He smiled. “Hi there, Georgia.”

He took his hands out of his pocket, like he was going to reach out to shake mine, or dry some wet streaks from my face, or both. Thankfully, he thought better of it.

“You’re . . . wet,” he said.

“I had a fight with a fire hydrant,” I said.

He looked at me like that was the weirdest thing he’d ever heard. For that, at least, I didn’t blame him.

“Are you looking for your mother?”

“I’m actually looking for you.”

This surprised him. He stepped back, looking uncomfortable. “Why’s that?”

I tried to think of how to answer him. What was a good answer? Why had this little confrontation seemed like a good idea? Maybe because there was no one else that I was able to talk to. Not Ben, or my brothers, or my parents. I had no idea what I wanted to say to any of them, but I knew what I wanted to say to Henry. I wanted to tell him to stay away.

“I thought we should talk.”

“Okay . . .” he said.

I wasn’t sure where to start. I looked at Henry, as if that would provide a clue as to why my mother loved him. He was so different from my father: city intellectual to my father’s outdoorsman, large to my father’s lean and lanky. Of course, that wasn’t the right question. The right question was why my mother was giving so much up for him—her family, her home, the farm around it that she had nurtured with her own hands.