Made in Vermont: a novel

By Gene Brewer

After his wife's untimely death, Peter Schultz, a retired English teacher moves to Vermont to begin his retirement. Soon after his arrival, however, he meets another English teacher and begins to fall for her. His guilt overwhelms him: he still loves his late wife. Neighbors and a handyman soon become part of his troubles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798369415368

Gene Brewer

Before becoming a novelist, Gene Brewer studied DNA replication and cell division at several major research stations. He is the author of ON A BEAM OF LIGHT, K-PAX II and the forthcoming K-PAX III, published in summer 2002, which will complete the K-PAX trilogy. He lives in New York City.

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Copyright © 2024 by Gene Brewer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/29/2024

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

In

memory of

Robert and Laurette

CHAPTER ONE

W hen my wife died, I went to Vermont. The car was loaded with books, dishware, and other miscellany (the movers had brought the furniture a few days earlier) and, after leaving the paved highway, it whined and slid back and forth for a hundred yards or so before finally sinking to its mired axles only a few miles from its new home. Fortunately, I was rescued by a pair of plumbers, who wasted no time chaining my car and me to their truck and pulling me the last leg of the journey to ‘Deer Hill.’ I thanked them profusely, of course, and tried to offer them some money, which they refused. Instead, they helped me unload the car, though not before popping open a few cans of beer, one of which they offered me. Though I don’t much like beer, I sensed that it would be an insult to refuse it, so I joined them and imitated their guzzling it down. We chatted about inconsequential things, mostly—who I was, where I had come from—before they climbed back into the pickup. Their names were Beau and Charlie. Charlie was the one without a lot of teeth, though he had a sense of humor about it (Q: What do you call someone from Harwood who doesn’t have any teeth? A: Someone with a full set of teeth). Get yourself a four-wheel drive! he yelled from the open window over the roar of the engine as they wiggled away.

So there I was, standing in the rutted driveway (actually it was the end of a narrow dead-end road) holding a half-empty beer can, and suddenly I found myself weeping. For the first time since Alicia died, I felt utterly alone. I knew she would have loved the whole episode, would have found some cheese and crackers or something to offer our Samaritans. I indulged my need for a minute or two, then went inside to face the remainder of my empty life on Deer Hill.

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We had bought the old farmhouse on twenty-three acres in the middle of the state for our ‘golden’ years. It was love at first sight for Alicia: there was a wood-burning cook stove (as well as an electric one) in the big kitchen, which had only recently been remodeled, with stone countertops and plenty of cherry-stained cabinets. It was also a beautiful day when we first visited, with ‘the best fall color in years,’ the proprietors of an antique store informed us. We immediately made a down payment, and waited for the owners of the house, a feisty older couple, to find a place in Florida and move away, which they finally did in late January.

It was cold in the house, so I turned up the heat before unloading the dozen or so boxes of books and other belongings. For the most part I wandered around the house that evening, peering out the windows (which needed washing), carrying some of the boxes to various rooms, setting up a card table in my presumed study (Alicia called it ‘the sun room’—she thought it would be nice to have breakfast there on nice days and watch for deer up the hill) for use as a temporary desk, and carefully positioning the urn containing her ashes on the fireplace mantle in the living room. On the card table in my study I placed my favorite picture of her: ‘The Teacher,’ sitting at her desk smiling at me and grading papers. She had wanted her ashes to be buried next to the old maple tree in the side yard overlooking the western hills with their beautiful sunsets. I promised I would do that when the ground was warm enough, and would join her later. She nodded happily and smiled her sweet smile for the last time.

It was only a few months before her end-of-year retirement that Alicia was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It turned out to be a very aggressive one, and she didn’t live long enough to fulfill her dream. I took my own retirement early to help take care of her. We were able to spend a couple of long weekends here during those late winter months (most of our time was taken up by the infernal chemotherapy), and the place had become warm and familiar, especially after we decorated it with a few pieces of hastily-bought used furniture, charming things we both liked. No real antiques, nothing expensive, just not the cheap stuff you find in the box stores. She especially loved an old grandfather clock we discovered in East Montpelier. It would only run for a few minutes at a time, but the chimes made a wonderful sound, deep and resonant, and it had a beautiful open face, like hers. I made it a project of mine to get it to run right once we were established, and I had planned to set up a workshop on the upper floor of the garage for that and other projects.

Until her last few weeks we continued to hope and plan for the future. She wanted to spend the first year cleaning every corner of the house from top to bottom, painting, wallpapering, adding bookshelves, starting the gardens. She especially enjoyed contemplating the latter, one down the hill behind the ‘orchard’ (a few apple trees and one pear tree) for vegetables, another for flowers on the uphill side of the house above the low stone wall, as well as here and there around the foundation and along the driveway. She would have been pleased to see the crocuses and daffodils that were coming up in those very places.

Even when things were at their worst she comforted herself by gazing at pictures of the property, taken from all angles and distances, silently contemplating the changes she had in mind, sometimes for hours. Toward the end, in fact, when it became clear that the chemo had run its course and could do no more, she made me promise to put in the seeds and bulbs just as she had imagined them, and to make sure they had enough (but not too much) water. She drew a shaky map clearly indicating the arrangement and location of everything. I wasn’t nearly as interested as she was in the complexities of flower production, but of course I promised her whatever she asked. After nearly forty years of marriage, it was the least I could do. God knows I couldn’t do much more. I was comforted by the fact that she had no fear of death; her last words were, Good-bye, dear Peter. I’m going home tonight. That was only three weeks ago, though it sometimes seems like yesterday. She slipped away quietly (or so they said) in the hospice as I dozed in the chair beside her bed.

I stepped back out onto the closed-in porch to take in a panoramic view of the snowy upper woods and fields, including a half-buried millstone and an old-fashioned hand plow standing in an upright position as if waiting for someone to begin tilling the ground. The woods were a mix of hardwoods and evergreens, a beautiful sight last fall when we bought the place. Alicia loved it all, every square inch.

Once the house warmed up I found the windows, those facing the south and west, filled with buzzing flies. They must have hibernated behind the frames all winter, waiting for just this opportunity to wake up and get on with their lives, a situation not unlike my own. When I opened the windows to let them out, they took off like bullets. As I quickly closed them (it was getting even colder outside), I noticed a lot of fly wings on the sills. I wondered whether they were torn off in the act of squeezing past the frames, or whether they molted to their present form after they had emerged.

After hauling in the remaining boxes from the closed-in porch, I spent the rest of the evening just wandering around the house, looking out over the fields and hills, opening boxes and moving them from here to there. Eventually I found a can of tomato soup and some crackers and ate them like a starving man as I gazed out the dining room windows over the deck toward the cloudy gray dusk. Some kind of animal, a groundhog, I think, with auburn hair like Alicia’s gazed in at me through the sliding glass door before ambling off to its safe haven for the night.

I stayed up past midnight going through our ‘important papers’ file before finally turning down the heat, kissing Alicia’s urn, climbing the stairs, retrieving sheets and a blanket, and going to bed. The house seemed preternaturally quiet, and I finally fell asleep listening to the wind blowing through the endless trees.

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At six-thirty the next morning I was awakened by the sound of a car or truck sliding to a stop, an engine dying. I got up, peered out the bedroom window, and found a bright red pickup standing next to the house, the driver getting out. He was at least six and a half feet tall, and with the bulk of a bear. Cold as it was, he wasn’t wearing a coat, only a sweatshirt and jeans with holes in the knees. He waddled out of my sight toward the front of the house, and the next thing I heard was someone banging on the door. I found my bathrobe lying across Alicia’s bentwood rocker, and hurried downstairs. For all I knew, the house was on fire. Otherwise who would show up so early in the morning making enough noise to violently wake a man from a hard-won sleep?

He grinned when I opened the door, and stuck out a hairy hand. I took it without thinking and tried not to wince as he gripped it like a lifeline. Beau and Charlie said you was here, he explained. Like Charlie, he was short of a full complement of teeth. Underneath his baseball cap his hair was graying, and it looked as if he had cut it himself. I asked him if anything was wrong. Naw, I just thought I’d swing on up and innerduce myself. Handyman. Anything you need done, I can do ’er. ’Less there’s snow to plow—that’s my main job in the winter.

Oh. Well—

Don’t mean now, o’ course. I was just in the neighborhood.

At 6:30 in the morning?

Yep. Had to bring my truck over to Chet’s Garardge down on 12A, but he was late comin’ in today. You met Chet?

No, I just got here yesterday.

You will. Everybody around here takes their truck to Chet’s sooner or later.

I don’t have a truck.

You will.

Well, uh— I tried to think what Alicia would have done if she were here. You had breakfast yet, Mr….

Long time ago. I get up at four, four-thirty.

Well, would you like a cup of coffee or something?

Next time, maybe. I just wanted you to know I was here. I’ll swing back up in a day or two to see if there’s anything that orta be done. He scrutinized the walls, the floor, the woodwork. You need to have some things stained and painted. Dining room floor should have a new coat of polyurethane.

Well, I was hoping to do a lot of that myself….

My uninvited guest choked himself with laughter. An old house like this—ark, ark, ark—you’ll be needin’ some help, I garntee it. He hitched up his ample pants. Standing next to him I felt like a boy again. Well, I got to get back down to Chet’s. I’ll see you later. He whirled around and traipsed onto the porch. I could actually hear a couple of lampshades rattle as his two hundred sixty-odd pounds stomped out of the living room onto the closed-in porch.

With a bit of annoyance I called out, Well, do you have a phone number? I’ll let you know if—

As if he hadn’t heard me, he opened the outer door and clomped onto the wooden steps. I’ll be back! he yelled, and turned toward his truck, which was equipped with a rusty snowplow blade.

What’s your name? I shouted from the porch to the departing bear.

He hauled himself into the ample cabin. Booger! he yelled.

Booger??

He backed into the turnaround.

Is that your first or your—

I watched him spin the wheels and pull away, jerking back and forth down the corduroy driveway until the old red truck faded out of sight over the hill and around the bend.

The ground was still mostly snow-covered, though the crocuses rearing their heads were a promising sign of spring. Still, I was shivering when I stepped back into the living room, and I turned up the heat before going back upstairs to take a shower and get dressed for my first full day on Deer Hill.

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Fortunately, I had remembered to bring the toaster and a coffee funnel with some filters, as well as the few eggs and bread and coffee still in the refrigerator at home, so I had a good breakfast at the little kitchen table gazing out the windows at the conifer trees not far up the hill. A couple of skinny robins hopped around the frozen ground as if their feet were cold, disappointed, I presumed, not to find any worms available as yet, unlike at home, where there had already been robins for a few weeks. I reminded myself that I had to stop thinking of the Syracuse house as ‘home.’ Now, home was here.

After rinsing the dishes I carried a second cup of coffee through the dining room to the good-sized sun room I proposed to make my ‘study’ (though I no longer had anything to study), which was furnished only with the card table and chairs and my favorite reading chair (I had had it so long the flowery pattern had almost disappeared), as well as some of the cardboard boxes I had brought in. This was the place I had planned to pay the bills, prepare our tax returns, and make plans of all sorts with Alicia, whose lovely eyes returned my gaze from her photograph on the corner of the wobbly table. I clamped my teeth together once again, holding off another wet blurt.

The sun just coming up over the hills shone brightly through the good-sized windows. I opened them to let out the flies, and quickly closed them against the cold air. A couple of chipmunks darted in and out of the stone wall and I wondered whether there was a nest somewhere in the cracks between the rocks, beyond which would bloom Alicia’s flower garden. As I drank the last of my coffee and contemplated the grassy hill and the pine woods beyond, I felt a sense of contentment I hadn’t known for a long time. In a way, Alicia was here still—in the furniture, in the garden, in the house itself. On the fireplace mantle. In my heart.

I sat at the card table for a good hour after the coffee was gone and the sun continued its inexorable rise in the sky, and wished that time would stand still for just a little while. But it never does. Life goes on at a fast pace, and I finally returned to the kitchen to put the few dishes in the dishwasher. I had tried to eat up everything before leaving New York and had, unfortunately, succeeded pretty well, so I had no choice but to go into town for some groceries. I put the trip off for a while, hoping the sunshine would dry out the road a little. I hooked up the stereo system in the living room and let out a few more flies before heading out to the car determined to forge through the mud to the state road almost four miles from the house.

The sun had, in fact, dried the mud enough to get a grip on it, and by keeping my foot on the gas I managed to wobble side to side, as much as forward, along the narrow road, studiously ignoring the two houses sitting well back from the roadway. Halfway along I thought I was going to slide into the deep ditch on the right, the downhill side, but I learned that the ruts would pull me back if I strayed too far from center. In fact, I did almost as well by letting go of the steering wheel altogether, but finally decided not to press my luck, and gripped the wheel tightly again. Fortunately, I didn’t meet any cars or trucks coming the other way, and after a few more minutes of white-knuckle driving, I finally came to the paved highway.

Soon after turning toward town I passed Chet’s Garage. I had seen it before, of course, but had paid little attention to it. No doubt Alicia would have memorized everything about it. She was always mentioning something I hadn’t noticed along some road or other, and was sometimes frustrated because I had no idea what she was talking about. Drivers usually keep their eyes on the road, I would tell her, to a grunt of dissatisfaction. I spotted someone in the garage waving to me as I drove past, someone with a partially toothy grin. It was Booger. Alicia would no doubt have suggested we stop and meet the mechanic, but I decided to keep going, though I did remember to wave back. I learned later that one doesn’t drive past an acquaintance—there needs to be a few words said, no matter how trivial. Alicia, of course, knew that instinctively.

I spent about an hour in town, mostly at the only grocery, but I also stopped at a garden store with a huge greenhouse in back, where I bought a few plants to make it look as if someone lived in the house. I knew they were annuals because of the large sign above them. I would keep these in for a few weeks, the woman at the register advised me. Her husband, who was sitting nearby in a rocking chair, added, Might be some frost all the way up to Memorial Day, though some folks plant a little earlier. May is a crap shoot.

While I was paying ‘the missus,’ a plumpish middle-aged woman, for my purchases, I asked her if she had any good books on flower growing. She pointed across the square to the used book shop, carefully explaining it was the books that were used, not the shop. It’s a little place, but they have a nice selection of gardening books for their size, she informed me. They mostly carry paperback novels, though, she added with apparent disdain.

I’ll take a look one of these days, I told her, suspecting the store might be owned by a disfavored cousin of hers. Before I left I looked over the shelves of bric-a-brac, mainly mugs and other earthenware labeled, ‘Made in Vermont,’ presumably for the tourists. I finally bought one with the inscription, ‘Vermont is for Lovers’ and, as I paid the woman again, I asked her what her husband did.

The work! he bellowed. They both laughed like children.

Going back down the highway, I decided to stop in at the garage, but when I pulled in, there was no sign of Booger or Chet, so I drove on. Must be lunchtime, I thought. I was already dreading the trip back on the narrow road, but at least it wouldn’t be a long walk back to the garage to get somebody to pull me out. I hadn’t gone far into the mud, however, when a good-size pickup truck came whizzing toward me from the other direction. All I could do was pull over as far as possible and let him go by. I could see the old codger waving at me as he barreled by, his wife grinning like a maniac, as was the dog in the back with its mouth wide open, its muzzle flapping in the wind. As soon as they passed by, I stepped on the gas and wheeled back toward the middle of the road, promising myself to get something with a four-wheel-drive before spring came.

When I finally got home, it had clouded up and looked like rain. I found a jar of homemade jam labeled ‘Black Berry’ sitting inside the porch door, along with half-a-dozen brownies in a paper bag. There was no note, and I hadn’t a clue who had left them.

After a late lunch (I finished it off with one of the brownies), I unpacked one of the boxes of books strewn around the living room, revealing several of our favorite novels, and a few we had wanted to read but hadn’t had time. Now, Alicia would never have time. I would be reading them for both of us, if that made any sense. But instead of feeling sad about this deep thought, it somehow seemed quite funny, and I burst out laughing.

When that episode had run its course, I spent a little time getting the grandfather clock going, then went down to the basement to bring up some wood for the fireplace and the old cooking stove in the kitchen/dining room. While I was at it, I took a good look at what was down there, things I hadn’t paid much attention to before. Besides the oil-fired furnace and tank, there were a few jars of canned pickles and an equal number of peaches (dates unknown); an old wooden churn (who knows when it was last used—the older part of the house was built in 1842); a pile of bricks, a rack half-filled with wood scraps of all sizes; and a few old fence posts, which I