Accidental Happiness (8 page)

She relayed Angel’s ordeal with an enthusiastic narration, as if such terrible things came and went in their lives all the time. I felt dull next to all of her emotional colors. She seemed to have forgotten that I had been there, at the hospital, when she got the update on her daughter.

“We need to watch out for infection, but other than that, she shouldn’t have any trouble. She’ll need some physical therapy to get her shoulder muscles up to speed again once it heals.”

She wasn’t kidding about the blood. I’d done the best I could with my cockpit, but even as I glanced around, I could see streaks of red that I’d missed when I’d gone to work with sponges and towels after getting home.

“I know it’s been a bitch for you too,” Reese said. “Did the police give you a hard time?”

“No.” I shook my head. “They talked to me at the hospital, said they’d file a report, but since both of us agreed it was an accident, there won’t be any more to it. The gun is registered, so that’s not a problem.”

“And we were intruders,” she added, saying what we both knew but I wouldn’t have voiced.

We sat high on the Stern Perches. Reese’s heel tapped with nervous energy as she nursed a margarita from the batch I’d made below. I drank with more enthusiasm. The melting ice diluted the bite of the lime.

“I don’t blame you for any of this,” Reese said.

Generous of her, I thought, but didn’t say. I did blame her, the intrusion into my life. But didn’t say that either. She seemed sincere enough, but I didn’t trust it. There were shadows trailing all of her words, meanings and intentions that were obvious but not clear. After our lunch-time bonding, my suspicious nature had taken hold again.

“Yeah, well you couldn’t have known I was here either.” I tried to be charitable. “It was just bad luck.”

Just one big lovefest. I didn’t mention that people, even former wives, had no right sneaking around on private property in the first place. We’d come to a decent place with each other. No need to get defensive.

“Why are you living here anyway?” she asked. “Do you still have the house?”

If her motives ran beyond curiosity, she didn’t show it.

“I sold it. It was too hard being there without him.”

I wondered if she had designs on money or property. Ben’s will had been standard, no frills. A young man’s document that seemed little more than a formality to us at the time.

I looked over at Reese. The pause in conversation, the loose tequila mood, made the moment ripe for inquiry. Trouble was, I didn’t know where to start.

“Listen, you up for some questions?” I asked.

“Shoot.” She sipped from her glass, kept a cautious look about her.

“Why
were
you two coming on the boat, Reese?” I decided to begin with the simplest one for her to answer.

She sighed, looked as if she needed a minute to think. She touched the edge of her glass with the tip of her tongue, closed her eyes, seemed to savor the salt crystals, elevating them somehow with her response. Then she looked over at Angel, rubbed her fingers together in anxious repetition, which I took to mean she could use a cigarette. I wondered if she’d even heard me; but when she spoke, something about her seemed defeated, as if everything had become pointless.

“We drove into town late,” she said. “It’s the high season and I didn’t think our chances of finding a room that we could afford were so great to begin with. And, to be honest . . .” She turned her eyes to me. “Money’s a little scarce at the moment. I knew the boat was here, figured the padlock combination was probably the same one Ben used for the whole time I knew him . . . Gina, I just thought it’d be a safe place for us to sleep for the night, that’s all.”

A safe place. I looked for irony in her expression, but only saw fatigue. She couldn’t have slept much the night before. I felt bad pressing forward, but I’d waited long enough.

“That doesn’t answer any of my real questions. Why are you back in town? What did you bring Angel here for?”

I saw Lane coming down the path to the dock. As she neared us she must have sensed a serious conversation because she gave us a brief greeting, then moved toward Angel, who was sitting on the bow. Seagulls flew low overhead as Angel tossed pieces of crackers high in the air.

“Any luck?” I heard Lane call out.

“The big one’s pretty good at it,” Angel told her without taking her eyes off the birds. As she stood, chin tilted up with her brown curls moving in the breeze, Angel looked like a miniature version of Reese—identical curls, only darker hair. The resemblance startled me for some reason.

“Reese?” I forced myself back to our conversation, didn’t want to lose the small momentum we’d had. “Why are you here?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. She watched Angel still, lines of concern slight in her brow. “I needed Benjamin’s help on some things. Financial questions, decisions that have to do with Angel. Planning for her. I’m a good mother, but terrible with really practical things. But he’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter why I came. I have to figure things out on my own.”

It was the second time she’d mentioned finances. I wondered if I’d been right, if that’s what she’d been working toward all along. Had this all been an elaborate play for cash?

“Do you need money?” A cautious question, noncommittal.

She smiled. An expression that looked amused, parental somehow.

“You live on a boat, Gina, and last time I looked into it, commercial artists don’t leave huge estates. It doesn’t take a whole lot to figure out that Benjamin hadn’t planned on dying. I appreciate your concern, but I don’t imagine you’re in any position to be our savior.”

Something gave way in me. Who the hell did she think she was?

“I didn’t make any offers to bail you out,” I said, my voice even, my hands calm. It felt good to maintain my own emotions for a change, to own feelings again rather than avoiding a grief that seemed so far beyond me. I thought again of the unopened envelope down below in the cabin. I wondered if she
had
heard about the money; if she was working some scam. “I just asked why you came looking for my husband with a seven-year-old child in tow. I didn’t suggest I’d bankroll you or be your
savior.
”

“Point taken,” she said, her tone remaining calm. “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Not an apology. Not even close. Her eyes stayed level on mine.

“You didn’t offend me,” I said. “You just didn’t answer me.”

“Gina, you’re not the person I came to see.”

A motorboat went by, the engine drowning out our voices. I was glad. My empowered moment had passed. I hated the direction our words had taken. Insults mixed with vague explanations. I’d gone from wanting answers to sparring for points.

“I’m not trying to grill you,” I said, forcing a softer tone. “Imagine you were me, Reese. What would you be thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, with an apology that finally sounded genuine. “I know you have questions. I have more than I had two days ago. The problem is, there aren’t any answers.”

“But there are
some
obvious answers.” I glanced over at Angel. “She came from somewhere.”

The sun passed behind a cloud, and the momentary shade brought a kind of relief. It occurred to me again that Reese’s arrival had brought another kind of relief. At least since Reese landed, literally, on my boat, I hadn’t thought about how hard it was to get up, to move through the day.

“Start with the simple parts,” I said, trying to make my voice more gentle, less accusing. “I just want to understand.”

She sat up, shifted and rolled her neck around like she was getting ready to exercise, then took a sip of her drink. Her skirt fell around the edges of the seat, moved with the slight air around us.

“Angel needs different things now. She’s not a baby anymore. She should have a stable school, friends, a real place to live. I don’t know where to start with most of that stuff. We’ve had a fairly free-floating existence all her life. Different jobs for me, different places. A lot of kindness, frankly, from strangers.”

She looked and sounded like a Tennessee Williams character. I wondered if she even got her own reference.

“But the older she gets, the more complicated things become. I moved her twice last year when she was in first grade, trying to find a good situation for her. But the places I can afford to live don’t usually come with good schools. Plus, she needs eye exams and booster shots, maybe braces in a few years. We’ve been lucky, so far, but this hospital stay only shows me what bad shape we’re in with health benefits . . .”

“I’m covering the hospital, Reese.”

“They told me,” she said. I couldn’t read into how she felt about that. “Thank you. But that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of things could happen. And I haven’t thought very far ahead. Even about things I knew would come. I’ve been pretty stupid, actually.”

She was talking about more than Angel, about more than school and work benefits. I knew it, but I couldn’t read beyond the riddle of her words.

“What about Angel?” I asked, scared to articulate the question any further. Did I really want to know the answer?

“What about her?” Reese looked across to the marsh. She had to sense what was coming. I heard a solid shift in her tone. Our moments of bonding, it seemed, had passed.

“She’s what, seven? Eight? You know what I’m asking,” I pressed.

“Her father.” Reese turned back toward me, her expression as flat as her words.

I nodded, barely managed to breathe.

“I don’t know for sure,” she said, then looked away again, as if that was all the explanation she needed to offer.

“What do you mean,
you don’t know
?”

My arms, my shoulders, felt weak. My drink shook slightly in my hand. I put the glass to my lips, felt the coarse salt as I drained all that was left. The internal hum of the alcohol steadied me, allowed me to focus on the moment.

“I don’t know who her father is,” she said again, looked me in the eye. Bold. Unashamed of all the statement implied.

“Well, is Benjamin one of the candidates?”

“Gina—” she began. But at that moment, Lane called out to us. I think we both felt more than a little relief.

“Angel tells me she’s hungry,” Lane said. She sat with the girl on the bow. They looked like any typical grandmother and granddaughter. “I suggest Ollie’s. My treat.”

A stay of execution. Reese’s expression mirrored mine.

“Great!” she said. She glanced back over at me. “We’ll talk more after dinner. I’ll try to explain everything then.”

I nodded, ready for a break myself.

Georgie sensed the rhythm of the group change, knew we were going somewhere. She sat up, eager for an invite.

“Lane,” I asked, “can I leave Georgie at your house? The guy from the boatyard is coming to look at the air conditioner while we’re gone. She’ll go nuts if I leave her here.”

“Sure, want me to walk her over?”

“That’d be great,” I said, happy to be dealing with logistics again. “I’ll get the car and pick you up over there.”

The fish house sat less than half a mile down the road, practically a walk from the marina, though with mosquitoes in high season, it made more sense to take my car. Even with considerable effort on my part, bloodstains from the night before soiled the cracks in the leather passenger seat. Seemed my ordeal with Angel and Reese had left a mark on all the different areas of my life.

On the ride over, Reese’s face was bright again. As Angel smiled back at her, I realized how good Benjamin’s ex-wife was at deception. With her daughter, it ran toward a good cause; stability within the crazy life she’d made for the girl. But it still bothered me. What ran behind the changing faces she offered? Even with the uncertainty of her motives, I felt for her. Maybe that had been Ben’s mistake too.

I parked at the far end of the lot. “I think you’ll like Ollie’s,” I said to Angel. I’d barely spoken to the child before, felt awkward even trying. I found it impossible not to stare at the sling that held her arm, the large hump of the bandage on her shoulder. She looked like a homebound veteran of war. “They have really good fish and french fries.”

“I only want a hamburger,” she said, her expression going flat as she turned to me. She didn’t even attempt the cute persona I’d seen her employ with Lane. Either she had my number or I had hers. I couldn’t tell which, but something about her defiance struck a chord with me, gave her points on my, admittedly unreliable, measure of character.

“Angel?” Reese gave a slight shake of her head in the direction of her daughter. “Watch your manners, okay?”

Angel nodded, but didn’t say anything more to me.

We all piled out and headed for the door.

Lane and Angel sat side by side. Reese joined us after stopping for a quick smoke outside. Lane and the child had bonded right away, but the girl remained wary of me, kept her distance. Kids, like horses, sense fear, and I was terrified. Of her, of what she could mean. But there was something more, and it didn’t take a shrink to sort it out. I thought of Elise. Even when I was a kid, I had little understanding of children.

“I’ll have a hamburger,” Angel said as she looked at the menu.

“Baked potato or fries?” the waitress asked.

“Nothing else. Just a hamburger,” Angel told her. At least she was true to her word.

Looking at Angel, reality blurred with memory and I felt the shadows closing in. A child that age, that size . . . But a different creature from Elise; a different species, almost. Even in my brief interaction with Angel, I knew that. Unlike Elise, with her insecurities and her endless needs, Angel seemed stubborn and guarded. The two only resembled each other in slight build and dark coloring, but even that much . . . I couldn’t let myself stay in the comparisons. It was too hard.

Lane didn’t know about my younger sister, couldn’t have known the source of my discomfort, but she saved me nonetheless. She launched into the role of surrogate grandmother without flinching. She and Harlan had two sons, one married for five or six years with no kids to show for it, and one unattached and gay. She’d been ripe for years to spoil a kid.