The Road to Dalton

PROLOGUE

Imagine this:

You are driving alone on a road in Northern Maine. Your head’s still humming from the monotonous drone of I-95, that empty highway. On the radio, nothing but static and outdated country music.

A couple miles back, you passed a dingy tagging station where men in orange wool hats and vests stood beneath a massive wooden scale, bull moose hanging upside down before them. Dark blood on the dirt. Dead tongue out of the mouth and flapping. The scene passed by so fast you wonder if you only dreamed it—all those men, laughing as the moose swung in the bitter wind.

This is Aroostook County.

You follow Route 212 west until it ends at Route 11, then you turn right, heading north, at a faded green sign: Dalton, 42; Fort Kent, 83. On either side of the potholed road, conifers and bare deciduous trees reach toward the sky. Stubborn banks of snow cling to the shoulder. Your stomach sloshes from last season’s frost-heaves. You roll the window down for a quick hit of decaying leaves and cold clean air.

It takes three-quarters of an hour to reach the tiny hamlet of Milton Landing. You slow as you pass a scattering of buildings—rusty trailers on cinderblocks, general store, bait and tackle. To your left, a wide, slow river snakes its way northeast, blue ice skimming the surface. The sky is heavy with clouds.

You pass a lumber mill, where towering stacks of logs and plywood lie on the ground. You may or may not know this, but most of the men in Dalton and Milton Landing and Portman Lake and Barren make their meager living from trees. They operate kilns in the mill, or they schlep into the forest to mark trees for slaughter, or they drive the 18-wheelers that carry the timbers back here to the lumberyard. The dark and dirty beating heart of an entire region. Inhale the smell—wood pulp and spruce sap and pine resin. Taste it in your mouth; feel the sawdust coat your teeth.

Soon the road widens, the forest retreating to the edge of open fields dotted with clumps of ice and snow. By now the clouds are so low they might as well be sitting on the treetops. No sun. The landscape takes on a depressing palette of gray, white, and brown. You pass no other vehicles. This empty road is eerie, maybe haunted. When you pass an abandoned church with yellowed clapboards and broken windows, serious doubts creep in. You wonder why you took this road at all.

But you’ve come too far to turn around. And where else do you have to go; what else do you have to do? You must keep moving. Just a little further.

You pass farmhouses and double-wides. Collapsing barns that sink into the earth. Down an unmarked side road, the looming silhouette of a potato house. Trees and more trees. Half-frozen, fallow fields. Another potato house. More trees.

Just beyond a small park containing little more than a metal jungle gym and a horse-racing track, you crest a high hill and pull over to the shoulder of the road. Turn off the ignition and step into the gray chill. Stretch your legs, feel your tired spine crack and settle into its familiar ache. The only sound is the distant thrum of something mechanical, some low-throated throb of chainsaw or motor. Take a few steps further and look around you.

Spread out in the valley below is Dalton. You squint, counting three spindly church steeples, one blinking yellow light at the bottom of the hill. You see a gas station, an empty dirt lot across the street from a convenience store. A bullet-marred sign to your right assures you that Dalton, population 1309, is a D.A.R.E. Drug-Free Community. Smoke billows out of chimneys on rooftops missing shingles like gaps in nearly-toothless mouths.

Wasteland.

But something like a magnetic pull coming up from the cracked pavement beneath your feet compels you to get back in your car. Put your hands on the wheel. Keep moving forward, slowly and steadily, straight into the heart of Dalton.

1.

A PRIVATE PRACTICE

Trudy wears her best green dress for the party. Creases stand up on the shoulders from the coat hanger, and tiny pieces of lint stick to the soft velvet bodice. The dress is, perhaps, too short for a woman her age, hitting her just above her knees. Trudy either doesn’t notice these things or is pretending not to care.

Richard has never paid much attention to his wardrobe. The bottoms of his trousers are usually flecked with mud or crusted over with salt, and it’s not uncommon for his shirts to be half a size too small or too large. He knows nothing about what colors work best with his pale Northern Maine complexion. Yet, much as he despises the starchy blandness of the white coat he wears all day at the clinic, Richard wishes he could wear it to tonight’s party. At least then he could hide behind something familiar, put up a thin layer of protection between himself and the world.

Blue or red? Richard holds the shirts up for Trudy to inspect.

The blue sweater has a hole in the collar, she says, her voice muffled around a mouthful of bobby pins as she fusses with her ashy blonde hair. Red one’s tight around your shoulders. Wear the black Oxford.

Last time I wore it you said it made me look like Johnny Cash.

Did I? Well, I guess a lot of people like that sort of thing.

Neither of them ever looks forward to the Fraziers’ New Year’s Eve party. Trudy resents leaving the house after dark, especially in winter, and Richard hates the pretentious food Annette serves each year—salmon puffs, pâté. The woman can’t seem to take a hint that most of her partygoers would rather eat pigs-in-a-blanket or chips and dip. It’s not as if the people of Dalton need another reminder of the divide between them and the Fraziers, whose family has owned the lumber mill for three generations.

But the Haskells are expected to attend the party, which the Fraziers annually host for Dalton businessmen and-women. Richard runs the clinic his father opened in the early ’50s and operates the practice as Simon Haskell would have wanted: healthcare for everyone in town, regardless of insurance. Some patients reimburse Richard over time. Others trade check-ups for homegrown tomatoes or manual labor. Because of this, the Haskells’ pantry is always well stocked, their gutters clean. Without Trudy’s income, though, they’d be in trouble. Her salary at the library is nothing to rave about, but she’s managed to set aside a modest sum in her and Richard’s savings account.

He used to promise Trudy he’d give her anything she wanted. A nice house, all the books she could ever want, vacations to faraway places. I’ll take you to New York, he would tell her. Chicago, San Francisco, maybe even Paris.

Richard no longer makes such promises.

They live close enough to the Fraziers’ that they could walk—they usually do, if the weather isn’t too cold and the sidewalks not too icy—but the wind chill tonight is below freezing, so Trudy hauls herself up into the cab of Richard’s GMC. She hates the old truck. Usually when they travel as a couple, they take her Celebrity. But the car’s still at the garage, waiting for repairs.

This is the first time they’ve gone out together since they got into the accident on their way home from supper out at her brother’s place a few weeks back. It was a mild night, but black ice coated the surface of Route 11. Trudy and Richard were arguing, which they rarely did, and so they were both distracted, not paying enough attention to the slick road. It happened so fast. Before Richard could react, they were sliding into the opposite lane, bright headlights of Nate Theroux’s F-150 coming right toward them. Banged up the Celebrity’s bumper. No injuries, though Nate’s wife, Bridget, sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, was so shook up that she went into early labor, right there under the stars. Trudy held the girl’s hand and cursed under her breath. Nate paced the empty road until salvation arrived in the form of a passing log-truck, whose driver radioed into Nate’s colleagues at the police station for help. Richard, calm and in control, sat beside Bridget in the back of the Celebrity and talked about the rising price of gas while he monitored the girl’s pulse and breathing.

Neither Richard or Trudy speaks on the short ride over to Rich Tucker Road—or, as most of the town calls it, Rich Fucker Road. Only a few families live in this neighborhood, which long-ago blue bloods built on a hill overlooking Dalton—the church steeples and chimneys, the forests and the fields, the gulley where the Aroostook River meanders its way northeast. The Fraziers’ chalet-style house is perched on the peak of this hill, at the end of a long driveway. An enormous Christmas tree dominates the front windows, its blue, gold, and green lights reflecting off the unblemished snow on the lawn.

Richard parks at the crest of the driveway, careful to situate the truck so he can get out easily when it’s time to leave.

In the mudroom, Trudy steps out of her boots and slides on clunky heels. Richard, who forgot to bring a spare pair of shoes, and whose trousers are just a tad too long to allow him to walk around the Fraziers’ house in his socks, tries to wipe the muck from their own yard off the soles of his shoes.

Leave it, Trudy says. Let their floors get a little dirty.

They enter the warmth of the kitchen and are immediately enveloped in cashmere and the strong vanilla haze of Annette Frazier’s perfume as she throws her slender arms around them. Welcome to 1990! She laughs. Well, almost. Is that dress vintage, Trudy? And Richard, what a great shirt.

Behind Annette’s back, Trudy offers Richard a half-smile. They used to take bets on how long they could get Annette to prattle on without taking a breath. The record was New Year’s ’76, when Trudy goaded her into complaining for nine minutes straight about what a letdown the Dalton Daze bicentennial celebration had been that past July.

The living room, a massive space taking up the entire front of the house, smells of spruce and cinnamon. The Christmas tree looks even more impressive under the vaulted ceiling than it appeared from outside. Soft classical music plays in the background, and the carpet gleams an unnatural shade of white, impervious to the footprints of all the people who’ve ever walked on it. About three dozen people mill around the room, bearing cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. From across the room comes the braying laughter of Arlene Nadeau.

You two get your cocktails from Mellie here, Annette says, leading them to the drinks table. I have to check on the food. Ta-ta!

She turns, the gold threads in her blouse catching the light from the tree as she stumbles into Raymond Fields. The pastor apologizes as he catches her elbow, even though Annette was the one to walk into him, and she gives him a toothy smile before gliding off to the kitchen.

Insufferable woman, Trudy mutters.

They order drinks from Mellie—scotch for Richard, white wine for Trudy—and make the rounds, stopping to chat with the same people they see every day at the library, the clinic, the Store ’N More. Phil Lannigan pulls Trudy aside to discuss the Dalton Historical Society’s next fundraiser, leaving Richard to engage in small talk with Ian Best.

I hate parties.

That makes two of us.

Ian clutches a beer in his plump hand. Richard reminds himself this is no longer the child he once treated for bee stings, but a young man who stands to inherit his parents’ thriving potato farm. He asks a few questions about how Ian thinks the crop will do next year—Good enough,—then wanders the periphery of the crowd, taking small sips of his drink and marveling once again at the height of the room’s windows.

Imagine cleaning all those, he’d said to Trudy that muggy summer day fifteen years ago. He’d just turned thirty; she was twenty-six. They’d come here with a bleach-blonde realtor from Prescott who smacked her gum and stood with one leg crossed in front of the other like a child in need of a toilet.

I’d get out the extension ladder and do it myself, Trudy said. And I’d enjoy every goddamn minute of it.

She had been in love with everything about this house from the moment they walked inside: the tiles on the kitchen floor, the soaring ceilings, the fireplace in the master bedroom. Richard warned Trudy not to get her hopes up—he hadn’t yet paid off his student loans, and she had only just started at the library. He’d agreed to look at the place because he, like most people in Dalton, had always wanted to see the interior of this house that sat like a jewel atop their town. But seeing how Trudy stood before these huge windows and smiled as the sun streamed in, Richard resolved to find a way to buy the place. Before Richard could even submit the loan application, however, Marshall and Annette Frazier snatched the house off the market. Later that year, as trees shed their withered leaves, Richard and Trudy bought the yellow bungalow on Winter Street across from the grade school, where they still live.

The clinking of glasses echoes through the room. Marshall and Annette stand before the fireplace, surrounded by their children—William, tan from a recent trip somewhere far from here, Craig wiping his glasses with the hem of his shirt, Penny in a tight cocktail dress, and Bridget, hair pulled into a lopsided twist. Nate Theroux hovers beside her, his eyes locked onto the pink bundle in Bridget’s arms as though held there by an invisible tether. Bridget, dressed in a gray sweater, looks pale and tired. But Richard would be surprised if any new mother didn’t.

As Annette starts in on her usual speech about a new year’s unknown wonders, Richard scans the room for Trudy, finally spotting her near the Christmas tree with Bev Theroux, Nate’s mother. He watches as Trudy whispers something into her best friend’s ear and wonders what his wife is saying. Something caustic, something brilliant? She can be both of those things, often at the same time, and this used to be what Richard loved most about her. He’s not sure what he loves about her now. Her familiarity, he supposes. Or maybe that is the thing he can’t stand. He can never keep it straight, this delicate act of a discontented marriage, the silent agreements they’ve made to remain together.

From the front of the room, Marshall thanks his wife for throwing another great party. In his well-fitting suit and high-heeled boots (Trudy claims such shoes for men are in fashion right now, but Richard remains skeptical), he appears tall, distinguished. Having measured him at each of his yearly checkups, however, Richard knows the man barely clears 5’7".

And we have a new member of the family. Marshall gestures to the baby in Bridget’s arms. Sophie Caroline Theroux.

The room fills with more clinking glasses. Arlene Nadeau lets out a loud wolf whistle.

Marshall beams toward his daughter. Say a few words, hon?

Richard notices that Bridget holds the baby slightly away from her chest, supported and protected by the circle of her arms but without the benefit of her body’s warmth. Her exhausted gaze darts up to Nate, who steps forward to address the crowd.

Just then, Richard feels someone tap his shoulder and turns to see Mellie Martin standing behind him.

Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Haskell, she says. Judging by her breath, Richard guesses she’s been doing more than just serving drinks tonight. But someone’s on the phone for you in the other room.

The kitchen counters are covered with trays of food, pitchers of mulled cider, plastic cups made to look like fine crystal. Richard guesses Annette keeps the real stuff locked away in a cupboard, away from greasy fingers. He holds the phone close to his ear. The female voice on the line is unexpected, but not a surprise.

He hangs up and stands in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, one foot in, the other out. Nate is saying something about his first clumsy attempts at diapering, and the crowd is laughing, but Richard hears none of it. He gazes across the room teeming with people he’s known his entire life, or their entire lives, and watches his wife’s gaze drift above their heads, lifting higher until fixing on the rafters. Richard doesn’t need to follow her line of sight to know what she sees up there. After all these years of holiday parties, he knows the scaffolding of this house like he knows the bones of the yellowed skeleton that lurks in the corner of his office down at the clinic.

If he leaves now, he can be back in an hour. Everyone in the living room raises their glasses in a toast as Richard silently and with great practice makes his retreat from the crowd.

The cold makes the blue stars tremble. Richard eases his truck out of the Fraziers’ driveway, coasts down the steep hill of Rich Fucker Road. He turns left onto High Street, makes a quick right onto Howard. The soccer fields and baseball diamond lie silent under several feet of snow, shining white under a full moon. Icicles gleam from the eaves of houses. He turns again, left onto Prescott Road, and within moments is turning onto Pine Street. A dead-end, surrounded by thick copses of birch and evergreen, bowing under the weight of winter.

A single streetlamp glows outside the clinic, spilling buttery light onto the parking lot. Richard’s shoes crunch against hardened ice and snow as he makes the short walk from his truck to the entrance. His teeth ache from the bitter wind.

It’s warm inside the clinic, dim security lights and red EXIT signs casting shadows across the floor, illuminating the thick glass blocks that make up one wall. Richard waits in the lobby, watches the parking lot. Headlights slant into the room. He stands with his hand on the doorknob and listens to the heavy thunk of her car door, her quick footsteps on the walkway. Pulling in a deep breath and reminding himself to keep a neutral face, no matter what she says or how she might appear, Richard opens the door.

I’m sorry to pull you away from your party, Rose Douglas says, shaking her dark hair free from a wool hat.

Don’t apologize. I was glad to escape for a while.

Rose gazes up at him from behind one teary brown eye. The other is swollen shut from the force of her fiancé’s fist. A small cut, coated with dried blood, rests on the ridge of her cheekbone.

He didn’t mean to, Dr. H. He really didn’t. Her voice wobbles. I shouldn’t have bothered him is all, not while he was drinking.

Richard gestures for Rose to follow him down the hallway and into Exam Room 1. He flicks on the lights, apologizes when the bright fluorescents make her flinch, and snaps on a pair of gloves as he roots through the cupboard drawers, takes out peroxide, cotton swabs, medical tape.

What about the boys? he asks as she settles on the cot, paper crinkling beneath her. She shrugs off her jacket. She’s wearing a yellow sweatshirt, acid-washed jeans, scuffed sneakers that might have been white a long time ago.

I told you. She sniffles. Tommy never hits the kids. And anyway, they’re over at Ma’s tonight, so they didn’t see anything, thank God. How bad do you think the bruise’ll be?

Hard to say. You’ll definitely have some swelling around the area for a few days. Might be hard to explain at work.

Rose wipes her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. I got some vacation time built up. I’ll say the kids got the chickenpox or something.

What will you tell everyone else? Your mother?

"She’s never asked about the other