The Way Station by Barry Rachin (snow like ashes series txt) 📕

two minutes back to back. "I got to drive to Burlington next weekend for freshman orientation.”

"School doesn't start for another month yet."

"They show new students around the campus and firm up freshman dorm assignments."
"Your father's taking you?"

"Yeah," he lied. Mr. Devlin had a prior commitment with his 'significant other' so Jason would drive the 495-interstate until he reached the Massachusetts Turnpike veering west toward New York. If he left at dawn, he would reach the college in plenty of time.

Number thirty-eight - your food is ready! Jason approached the counter and retrieved the pizza.

"What’re you reading?" His mother gestured at a paperback jutting from his coat pocket. "A White Heron - it's a collection of short stories by Sarah Orne Jewett."

"Never heard of her." Mrs. Devlin teased a slice of pizza from the round pie and slid it onto a paper plate.

"She doesn't really write conventional stories," he explained, "so much as brief character sketches."

"Who does?" Mrs. Devlin bit into the crust but the cheese was too hot and she had to chew carefully. A double chin had emerged along with a blotchy ripple of sagging flesh under her eyes.

"Sarah Orne Jewett… the lady who wrote the book." He knew she wasn't interested but felt a compulsive need to vent.

"Pass me the salt, please, Jason." She stretched her hand across the table. "I always get this nutty craving for extra salt when I eat pizza. I know it's plenty salty enough and sodium wrecks havoc with your blood pressure, but I just go wacko with the salt shaker every time."

"A White Heron… it's considered her most famous short story." Jason watched his mother eat. "The tale been anthologized in quite a few publications."

"I love the food here. It's so much tastier that Pizza Hut or that other Italian chain down on Armistice Boulevard." His mother slid out from the booth. "We're going to need more napkins. Can I get you anything… another drink?"

"No, I'm fine.

* * * * *

Wednesday night, Jason went downstairs in the basement with his father. The stocky man had removed the mulching blade from the Toro, self-propel lawnmower and was securing it between the jaws of a metal vise. "How come you don't use the bench grinder?"

The man shrugged and ran a thumb and forefinger over a bristly moustache. "The metal gets too hot with a stone. This way I can proceed at my own speed." He reached for a flat file. One side of the tool was a rough-textured wood rasp, the other sported a finer, cross-hatched surface. Mr. Devlin ran the file over the dull blade. "How did the meeting with your mother go?"

"Good, I guess."

After a couple of tentative strokes, the man changed angles and began sharpening in earnest. A silvery sheen emerged where the cutting surface was previously scarred with nicks and burrs. "Is she happy?"

Jason hesitated. "No, I don't think so." When there was no reply, he added. "You can only accomplish just so much with a hand file."

"The goal is not to make the tool razor sharp like a chisel or planer blade." His father ran a thumb over the blade and, satisfied with the results, flipped it end-over-end in the vise. He reached for the file a second time. "As long as it cuts rather than rips the grass, that's all that matters." Mr. Devlin finished securing the blade and stood up. “I've seen water-cooled machines called wet grinders that can reshape and sharpen almost any cutting tool you own. They get the job done without the risks of overheating and blueing tool steel, and you can’t burn up the metal with a wet grinder, because its slow speed and constant water bath keep the tool cool.” He pulled the file down at a diagonal. “There are no flying sparks or superfine grinding-wheel dust to worry about either.”

Jason watched the metal filings accumulate in a grayish mound directly below the vise as his father put the finishing touches on the restored surface. "I'm reading this swell book, A White Heron."

"A White Heron," his father repeated absently. He was reattaching the sharpened blade to the bottom of the lawnmower with a ratchet and half-inch socket.

"The woman who wrote the book was a teenager in the eighteen sixties during the Civil War."

"Imagine that!" The blade was not seating properly on the undercarriage. Mr. Devlin removed the heavy metal bushing and brushed some dirt from the threads.

"Sarah Jewett’s father was an obstetrician, and the author used to bunk school and travel around rural Maine with him on house calls when she was a little girl."

"Hand me that terrycloth towel," his father brought him up short, "so I can get a decent grip on this blade without cutting my hand when I tighten the nut."

* * * * *

One night shortly after they had gone to bed, Jason thumped Clarice lightly between the shoulder blades. “Yes, what is it?” Wakened from a sound sleep, she sounded grouchy.

"A sheriff visited the house earlier today. My mother had my old man served with divorce papers.” He spoke in a plodding manner. “As upset as I am about the divorce, that’s not what really bothers me. It’s the sordidness,... the way my mother’s turned into a caricature of her former self, and a month later, my father hooks up with some gay divorcé.” Jason blew the air out of his lungs making a snorting sound. “It's like a trashy soap opera.”

“Your point?”

“My folks screw up their pathetic lives and then, in the process of fixing what’s broke, make everything ten times worse.”

She kissed her fingertips then placed them over his mouth. “It’s late. Go back to sleep.”
“What about us?” Jason pressed. “What are we doing?”

After a brief pause, she said, "Think of me as a way station... a place to rest and lick your wounds before moving on.”

A place to rest and lick your wounds before moving on. Was that how she understood their relationship? Jason was stung by the woman’s callousness. “I like it best here with you and Victor.”

“A way station,” Clarice repeated what she said a moment earlier. “You’re leaving for college in a few short weeks. Victor will need surgical implants to correct his vision. Everything changes. That’s just the way it is.”

The room fell silent. Jason fluffed his pillow and lay back down. "We read this short story by Sarah Orne Jewett in English last fall… no more than a handful of pages.”

"Never heard of her."

"She lived in the late eighteen hundreds." He recounted everything he previously told his parents about the obscure author. “A little girl goes to live with her grandmother on a farm. She meets a young ornithologist seeking to find a rare bird that has been spotted in the area."
"Where does the story take place?"

"On the coast of Maine."

With a nod, Clarice indicated that he should continue the narrative. "The hunter offers a large sum of money to anyone who can lead him to the heron's nest so he can shoot the bird and add it to his collection."

She brushed a strand of black hair out of her eyes. "Well, does he get the bird or not?"
"No. The girl climbs the tallest tree in the forest so she can view the entire countryside. She finds the heron just where she was sure it would be but, even though the girl and her grandmother are desperately poor, refuses to share the information with the hunter and he goes away empty-handed."

"Such a beautiful story!"

"You're my white heron," the boy said. He placed a hand on her thigh and felt the hips reflexively rock backwards. "My refuge."

“And I’m a middle-aged woman who needs her rest.” The orneriness in her raspy voice was undercut by far too much tenderness to do any lasting damage as Clarice pushed his hand away and shifted on her side.


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Publication Date: 03-25-2011

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