All I Ever Wanted

My grandfather’s rusty voice came from the living room. “That’s right. Pick on the poor cripple.”

“You think I’m kidding, old man?” I asked.

Bowie, my husky mutt, came leaping into the kitchen, singing with joy and canine love, his tail whacking me, great clumps of fur falling to the ground. “Hello, Bowie,” I crooned back at him in my special dog voice. “Yes, I love you, too! Yes, I do! I love you, handsome!” When Bowie had licked me, nipped my chin and turned in a dozen or so frenzied circles, he raced back into the living room. I picked up Noah’s leg and followed my faithful dog.

“The doctor said you need to wear this,” I said, bending to kiss my grandfather’s bearded cheek.

“Fuck the doctor,” Noah said amiably. His stump was propped on some pillows.

“Watch your language, Grumpy,” I said. “Is your leg giving you trouble?”

“My lack of leg is giving me trouble,” he retorted. “But no more than usual.” He rubbed the stump idly, not taking his eyes from the television screen.

Noah was a boat builder, the founder and sole operator of Noah’s Arks (a name I’d thought up when I was four and something I was still pretty proud of). His boats were the stuff of legend—beautiful wooden rowboats, kayaks and canoes, each one made from Noah’s design, by Noah’s hand, selling for thousands of dollars apiece. Up here in the Northeast Kingdom, where the rivers ran wild, he was pretty much a god.

Unfortunately, he’d suffered a small stroke two years ago. Even more unfortunately, he’d been holding a running radial saw at the time, and the result was a cut so bad that his leg had to be amputated just above the knee. At a family meeting, the doctor had recommended an assisted living facility for seniors. Noah, who’d lived alone since my grandmother had died years ago, had gone white. Without forethought, I found myself offering to live with him for a while ’til he got used to his new situation. And though the curmudgeonly old bastard would never say so, I liked to think he appreciated it.

Noah was watching a Deadliest Catch rerun. We both loved reality TV, but this one was our favorite. As the hardy Alaskans battled it out on the Bering Sea, I sat on the couch, Bowie leaping neatly up beside me and laying his beautiful gray and white head in my lap, blinking up at me in adoration. My dog had one brown eye, one blue, which I found very appealing. I made a kissing noise at him, and his ridiculously cute triangle ears swiveled toward me, as if I were about to tell him the most important news ever. “You,” I said, “are a very good dog.” Because really, what message could be more important than that?

Glancing around, I saw that Noah, as usual, had ignored my pleas to keep our place tidy. Newspapers were strewn around his chair, as well as a bowl filled with a puddle of melted ice cream and an empty beer bottle. Yummy.

Noah and I lived in an old mill building, half of which was his workshop, the other half our living quarters. The downstairs housed the kitchen, a den and a huge great room with forty-foot ceilings and massive rafters. The great room was circled by a second-floor catwalk, off which were two bedrooms. My own was quite big and sunny, with plenty of space for my bed, a desk and my rocking chair, which was set in front of two wide windows that overlooked the Trout River. I also had a gorgeous bathroom, complete with Jacuzzi and separate shower. Noah was down the hall from me and mercifully had his own bathroom. There’s only so much a granddaughter will put up with.

At the commercial break, Noah hit Mute. “So? You have a good time?”

I hesitated. “Um…well, the party was at the funeral home. Mom and Dad were there. It was fine.”

“Sounds like a shit bath to me,” he said.

“You were right to stay home,” I confirmed. Noah avoided family get-togethers as if they were hotbeds of ebola. He wasn’t exactly close with my father, his son. Dad’s brother, Remy, had died in a car accident at age twenty, and I gathered from the little Dad said that Remy was the type of son Noah had expected: rugged, quiet, good with his hands. My father, on the other hand, had spent his life schmoozing people as a drug sales rep. And, of course, there was my parents’ divorce. Noah, who had adored my grandmother and nursed her through the horrors of pancreatic cancer, fiercely disapproved. “I brought you some cake, though,” I added.

“Knew I kept you around for a reason,” he said. “Here.” He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a little hand-carved animal…a dog. A husky.

“Oh! Thank you, Noah!” I gave him a kiss, which he tolerated with a mere grumble. He’d been making his grandchildren—and great-grandchildren—these little animals all our lives. I had quite a collection.

“You seem down,” Noah observed. This was deep in Dr. Phil territory from a man who didn’t spend a whole lot of time navel-gazing…in fact, Noah was the least sentimental person I’d ever met. He never spoke of my uncle Remy, but there was a picture of him in Noah’s room, the one thing that never needed dusting. When Gran died—I was six at the time—Noah didn’t shed a single tear, but his sorrow was palpable. I’d drawn him a card every week for months to try to cheer him up. Even when the bandages came off his leg for the first time, his only comment was, “Fuckin’ foolish.” No self-pity, no maudlin mourning of his limb. To comment on my emotional state…shocking.

I stared at him, but he didn’t look away from the muted television set. “Um…no. I’m fine.” I glanced at my wrist. Still wearing Mark’s gift, loser that I was. “Noah, I’m thinking I should probably find a…” the word boyfriend sounded so lame “…a special someone.” Ooh. Not much better. Far worse, in fact. “Care to share the wisdom of your long life?”

“Don’t do it,” he said. “Nothing but heartache and misery.” Underneath his white beard (Noah looked like a malnourished, possibly homeless Santa), his mouth twitched. “You can live here forever and take care of me.”

“And I do so love taking care of you,” I said. “How about a nice enema before bed?”

“Watch your mouth, smart-ass,” he said.

“Hey. Be sweet to me. I turned thirty today,” I reminded him. Bowie licked my hand, then turned on his back so I could see that his big white belly was just lying there, all alone and unrubbed.

“On second thought, ’twouldn’t hurt for you to get a move on with life, Callie,” Noah said unexpectedly. “Don’t have to stay here forever.”

“Who else would put up with you?” I asked.

“Got a point there. You gonna talk all night, or can I watch Johnathan save this guy?”

“I’m going to bed. You need anything?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart.” He dragged his eyes off the TV. “Happy birthday, pretty girl.”

I paused. “Wow. It’s that bad?”

His beard twitched. “Cahn’t say I didn’t try.”

A few minutes later, washed and brushed and in my comfiest jammies (pink-and-yellow striped shorts, yellow cami), I was sitting in my rocking chair. Turning thirty was a momentous event in a woman’s life. Also, I needed to…I don’t know. Process things. And there was no better place to process anything than my Morelock chair, which I’d received twenty-two years ago to this very day.

There are two halves of Vermont—Old Vermont and New. Old Vermont was made up of crusty, rugged people who dropped their Rs and owned the same American-made pickup truck for thirty years, didn’t feel the cold and were immune to blackflies. Noah was Old, of course…he might not speak to his neighbor, but he’d cut and stack five cords of wood if that neighbor became sick. New Vermont…well, they were people who drove Volvos and Priuses, owned expensive hiking boots and hung out their laundry as a political statement as much as to get the clothes dry. They were friendly and cheerful…not like Noah at all, in other words.

Like my grandfather, David Morelock was Old Vermont. He was a furniture maker and Noah’s longtime compatriot. One summer, a reporter happened to be vacationing in St. Albans, where Mr. Morelock lived, and stumbled upon the furniture shop, learned Mr. Morelock had no formal training and didn’t even use power tools…just went out to his barn each day and worked. Two months later, the New York Times featured a story on Mr. Morelock, and bingo! He went from local craftsman to American legend. Suddenly, all those New Vermonters had to have a piece of Morelock furniture, and just like that, the old man had more work than he could manage. Before the story in the Times, his pieces had cost a few hundred dollars apiece. After the story, they sold for thousands, much to the amusement of their maker.

The day I turned eight was a bleak one in my personal history. Dad had moved out the week before, and in all the distress, my birthday was kind of forgotten. Mom was not only pregnant, heartbroken, furious, but also trying to manage a double funeral for a couple who’d died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Hester was away for the summer at some mathlete camp, and the end result was that Mom had hurriedly poured me some Cheerios, then shuttled me over to my grandfather’s. Noah popped me in his truck and drove to St. Albans. I don’t remember the reason.

At any rate, the two men got talking, and I wandered around the drafty old barn, picking up scraps of wood, drawing my initials in a pile of sawdust, trying not to be bothered by the fact that no one remembered that I was eight years old, because even then I understood that grown-ups had a lot of problems. Then I saw the chair.

It was a rocking chair, the type meant for a front porch. Made from honey-colored tiger maple, it was truly a work of art, elegant and slender, almost glowing from within. With a glance at Noah and Mr. Morelock to ascertain that they were too busy to notice, I gave it a little nudge, and it glided back soundlessly. Could I sit in it? There was no sign saying I couldn’t. I sat. The seat and back were perfectly proportioned, curving in all the right places, and when I rocked in it, the movement was as gentle and slow as a quiet river.

Even then, I recognized that the chair was special. It was so…graceful. And so happy, somehow. Just sitting in this chair would make a person feel better. Even if her daddy didn’t live at home anymore. Even if her sister was far away. Even if her mom hadn’t baked a birthday cake. This was a chair that promised a better time ahead. The tightness that had wrapped itself around my throat the day my parents told me they were getting divorced seemed to ease as I rocked, the motion somehow tender and deep.

Closing my eyes, I pictured, perhaps for the first time, what I’d be like as a grown-up. I’d have a rooftop apartment in Manhattan overlooking the entire city. There’d be a garden up there with lemon trees and glorious flowers, and I’d work all day on theToday show, and at night, I’d come home and Bryant Gumbel, my husband, would bring me a drink that contained alcohol, and we’d hold hands and talk about really adult things, and he’d never leave me, a fact I’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“You like that chair, little one?” Mr. Morelock asked, and I jumped in guilt and opened my eyes, feeling my face burn.

“It’s…it’s very nice,” I mumbled, unsure if I was in trouble.

“Your grandpa here tells me it’s your birthday,” he said. I looked at Noah, surprised that he was aware of the date. My grandfather winked at me.

“Yes, sir. I’m eight,” I said.

“How’d you like this chair as a present?” Mr. Morelock asked, and suddenly, my eyes were wet, and I looked down at my lap and nodded, unable to speak. Then Noah picked me up and gave me a bristly kiss, told me not to go all sloppy on them, and did I thank Mr. Morelock? I wiped my eyes and did as I was told.

When Noah took me home that evening, he carried the chair up to my room. “You take care of this chair, young lady,” he said.

“It’s my happily-ever-after chair,” I said, quite pleased with the title. The chair gave my room an entirely new look, and suddenly my ruffled pink bedspread and unicorn poster seemed quite passé. Noah chuckled and ruffled my hair, then left me to worship my new treasure.

David Morelock died later that week. For some reason, his death hit me hard…it was like losing Santa or something, and I was raw anyway. Noah told me that my chair was the last one Mr. Morelock made, and more special and valuable than ever. I took Noah at his word. I didn’t want anyone to sit in it, even me… I saved it for those moments when I felt in need of the most comfort.

Like now. And as usual, the chair was working its magic. From outside came the rushing and gurgling of the Trout River. A distant owl called out. I rocked, the long, smooth glide always a shock of sweetness. Dear Mr. Morelock, how I loved him that day! Sending up a silent thank-you to my chair’s maker, I felt the tension in my shoulders surrender bit by bit.

Somewhere out there was the guy for me. Bryant Gumbel, alas, was spoken for, but somewhere in the Green Mountain state was a man who’d see me and love me and think I was the most wonderful person on earth. We’d get married, and there’d be days when I’d come home and we’d sit on the front porch, and all I ever wanted would have come true.

And so, shoving aside the feelings of sloppy misery and humiliation and summoning the relentless optimism I’d wielded all my life, I took a deep breath, causing Bowie to snap to attention as if I were about to announce something momentous and hugely brilliant. “Bowie,” I said, loath to disappoint, “let’s find you a daddy.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THURSDAY MORNINGS MEANT Senior Citizen Yoga. Granted, I was forty or fifty years younger than most of the other attendees, but since I was extremely unlimber and therefore made them feel good about themselves, I was welcomed. The fact that I brought my famous chocolate chip cookies was just gravy.