Between the Tides (24 page)

A half hour later Jess is driving on the highway like she's a tourist on a Jet Ski.

“Jess, all okay?”

“I'm fine. I have to stop at CVS. If you don't mind.”

“I have to as well. I think I have a yeast infection.”

Jess veers the car haphazardly, steps on the gas. “From the pool? From standing around in a wet bathing suit?” she asks.

“I hardly ever do that,” I say.

“When you watch Matilde and you're finished first you do,” Jess says. “That could be it.”

“I should call my gyno. The new one, who you've introduced me to.”

“You could,” Jess says. “Yeast infections are the worst. Yuck.”

“I'm pretty sure it's from Charles, though. The gyno will recommend no sex for a few days or a week, right? Along with Monistat cream … yogurt…”

Is Jess tensing up, am I giving too much information? She keeps speeding.

“I could call now.” I take my phone out of my bag.

“I didn't realize that your sex life is so active, Lainie,” Jess says as she pulls up to the CVS and parks, furiously, too close to the curb in front of the store.

“Lately it has been, Jess. Very active.” She misses my confession, already halfway out of her seat and staring straight ahead.

 

THIRTY-THREE

“What were you
doing,
Matilde?” Charles is screaming while we sit in a cubicle at the Elliot police station. In the next cubicle are Matilde's supposed friends, Nick and Stephanie, with their father and mother. Abigail is the friend who is placed across the hall, alone with her mother. According to Jess's aspersion of the week, Abigail's father left his wife and family ten days ago for his girlfriend in Philadelphia. Abigail's mother is crying—painful wails that none of us are able to ignore.

A half hour later, on the ride home, Charles is in his agitated state.

“Charles, I'll ask Jess for a lawyer,” I say. “Please just concentrate on the road.”

He swerves fast into the slow lane, then changes his mind as if the car is too heavy for him, as if we might not make it to our destination.

“I don't know what has happened to you, Matilde.”

He looks at her in the rearview mirror.

“Dad, do you wish you had another kind of daughter?” Matilde asks sadly. “Are you sick of me?”

Charles doesn't reply.

“Charles! Charles! Say something … please.” It sinks in, what I've always found disquieting. That you never know who you're married to until there is a problem or a crisis.

The three of us walk into the house through the garage door and stop in the kitchen. I take off my full-length puffy coat to reveal a pale blue sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms in a blue plaid that are tucked into my boots.

Matilde is aghast. “Mom? You're wearing an Elliot Lady outfit. You wouldn't have worn that in the city.”

“You know … I only wear it to tool around before bed … in my studio. At least it's my favorite color.”

“Jesus, shit, Lainie! Matilde!” Charles is apoplectic. “Are we talking about pajamas when we just left the police station? Matilde, have you forgotten that you were arrested?”

Matilde and I stand still without speaking.

“You deal with her, Lainie,” Charles says in a purposely level, deliberately emotionless voice. He leaves the room part pissed, part disgusted.
Your daughter, your creation.

We are alone, Matilde and I. The night is slipping into morning; elsewhere the sky meets the sea, shells are brought in with the tide.

“Nothing will ever be okay again. I did it, my fault. I was stupid, Mom,” Matilde says. “I know you always say,
Think before you act, think every second of every day or you'll be sorry, you'll pay for it.
”

Matilde starts to cry; has my daughter developed a tremor? I place my hands on her face. She is beyond pale and that frightens me. I see my own reflection in the Thermador double-wall oven and we are the same.

“My darling girl, what happened?”

Matilde looks away.

“Matilde? You might be ready to explain. Or … if you wonder who would believe you anyway—well, I would. I'm ready to hear. I'm open to your version of tonight.”

“My version?”

“Please … tell me what happened … for everyone's sake,” I say.

I climb onto a kitchen stool and motion for Matilde to do the same. “Go on, Matilde.”

“I have no real friends in Elliot. In the city I would have had a friend who would have said my plan was a mistake. I asked Stephanie and Abigail 'cause they're best friends and Nick is older, he drives a Honda CR-V. He told Stephanie that I'll be a ‘ten' one day. I figured he'd do it if he said that about me. I didn't think we'd get caught since everyone goes to bed early in Elliot.”

Matilde takes a breath. I pour water out of a Brita and hand her the glass.

“Mom? I once saw this TV show about a police state where everybody had a curfew. That's how it is in Elliot. Plus, everyone is plain miserable.”

As I listen to my daughter I miss the city too much to let it go. If we still lived there, none of Matilde's antics of tonight would have happened. The lack of choice in Elliot is rendering us joyless and dispirited; Matilde and I are woeful.

“While we were driving to the Y, Stephanie talked about how much trouble we could get into, and Nick said we'd go to prison. I was afraid but I was trying to be cool. The reason they said they'd do it was because I promised the girls I could get them into a Justin Bieber concert. I'm not sure why Nick said okay.… His sister bribed him, I think.… Something about drugs and what she saw. He told us to hurry once we pulled up at the Y and we got in fast. I had gotten the second set of keys from the lifeguard, who didn't notice that they were missing.”

“Wasn't there an alarm—a burglar alarm?” I interrupt.

“No, there wasn't. I checked. Not even for the double doors to the aquatics center.”

Matilde puts her forehead against my palm the way she used to when she had a fever. She feels hot. I move away and start to pace up and down. “What were you doing there?”

“I ran up to the big board with the list of swimmers who swim the Raritan River. My name was third and yours was second. I took the eraser and climbed the ladder. I wrote
Lainie Smith Morris
as number one and
Matilde Smith Morris
as number two. I took the name
Larry Spence
that was number one and move it to number three.

“Stephanie said what I'd done wouldn't help—everyone would know it had been changed. I said you had the most points and only twenty miles to go.… You had to be ahead with me right behind, and the guy shouldn't be first.”

Matilde is crying again. “That's when we heard a siren and two cops came into the pool … with handcuffs. Everything is my fault. I just wanted you to beat everyone, to win the Raritan River race,” Matilde says. “To like it here.”

“I believe you,” I say.

Matilde stares at me as I take a step toward the Sub-Zero. She nods, she waits. The Sub-Zero starts making a noise; perhaps it is the freezer churning new ice.

“Jess called and she's found an attorney, a local lawyer who will make the mess—breaking and entering, a misdemeanor at the very least—go away. For you, the girls, the brother. Dad will take care of the legal bills. Do you understand, Matilde?”

“I understand, Mom.”

“I'm worried about you, Matilde. First what you do and then the wisdom of my making it go away. I am of two minds. These things happen, of course. I want you to be excused, exonerated. What I wish is that you would not do what you do. That you would be
responsible
.”

Matilde is crying harder. “Mom, do you remember the salt marsh safari in Cape May last spring? When you took the four of us to look at the wildlife on a skimmer and we saw the plants on the water floor?”

“I remember. There were the fish who live deep down, almost under the sea. Remember the crabs and the gray seals and sea turtles?”

“The sea turtles were my favorite,” Matilde says.

“Really? I'm surprised. The seals were unreal.”

“You're right, Mom … the seals were unreal that day.”

I look at her and I remember the day that we brought her home from the hospital. Charles thanked me for making his dreams come true; he said we had a complete family, a boy and a girl. When the twins were born, he said that we were doubly lucky, doubly blessed.

“Mom, tonight I've ruined everything.”

I shake my head. “I know it's frightening … but not
everything
is ruined.”

“Can we still go to the beach house, will it be the same after what I've done in Elliot?”

“Well, yes, we can, Matilde. But we should talk about how breaking into a building is wrong … about how we have to live with the consequences of our actions. We have to have a moral center, even if life isn't always fair. So while Jess is a good mediator and she's really worried about what happened and will be a good fixer, at some point, you have to figure out
why
you do what you do. I have to figure out why Dad and I race to cover for you. Every time.”

Charles comes back into the kitchen—in a rush and quite unfriendly. He doesn't look at Matilde. “Lainie?”

I don't answer. Instead I go back to Matilde and stroke her hair.

“You can stop babying her, Lainie. You know it's gotten her nowhere except into piles of shit,” Charles says.

“Mom? I thought you said that Dad will cover for me?”

“Oh, he will. He always will,” I say. “Piles of shit? Piles of shit? That it were so simple, Charles.”

Charles faces Matilde. “What has come over you, Matilde?” He speaks normally, a ghastly sound in our ears. I grip Matilde's shoulders.

“I'm finding out, Charles. I'll speak further with Matilde. You must be exhausted. Maybe try to sleep?”

“Sleep? I have two surgeries before ten.
Two fucking surgeries,
Lainie. Matilde, I won't allow you to be a spoiler.”

“A
spoiler,
Charles?” He knows what I mean:
Whatever my daughter has done, she is forever on my side.

Charles looks at Matilde before he storms out of the room. I lead her to the couch in the corner and we sit down together. We are by the window that faces east; the sun is rising, the morning is moving in.

“I miss Cape May. I miss the city,” Matilde says.

“I know. I know.” I sigh. “Matilde, tell me why you
really
did what you did tonight? Why you thought it was okay—why it needed to be accomplished?”

“I wanted you to win, Mom. I wanted you to win the Raritan River contest, to get there first, before any other swimmer.”

“That's why you broke in? Not to see if you could get away with it, not to cause trouble in a place that you haven't quite fit—”

“No, Mom. I changed the board to move you to first place.… I took the risk to make things better for you. That's the only reason.”

“Oh, Matilde, you didn't have to.… Matilde, I would have gotten there anyway, don't you know?”

“I wasn't sure. I only knew it has to be that you win, Mom. For you. So you never leave, so you stay. Because a selkie—a sealy can't be stopped … from returning to the…” Matilde lays her head in my lap. She looks up at me. “I love the water because you love the water. Cape May is the best; ever since I was little I've loved it the way you love it, Mom.”

“Matilde, let's go to Cape May soon, in a few weeks. We'll go when it's cold and the wind is off the ocean. You know how it is, the dunes high and strong.”

“Mom? I learned in science class that everyone's DNA has a memory. I remember
your
memory. That's why I love Cape May.”

I smile at her. “What could be better—my memory bank is yours, Matilde. I've passed it on to you.”

She starts to cry again. “I'm the only one, Mom. Tom and Jack don't have it. Who can tell about Claire … yet.”

“I know. I know precisely what you mean. You have it, Matilde, the DNA of memory.”

 

PART
FOURTEEN

Jess

 

THIRTY-FOUR

The break-in at the Y has been kept quiet. Thanks to me, pro that I am at mopping up the spill, sponging up the tears. Lainie and Charles are relieved as well as impressed by my skills. Matilde too appreciates my help, mostly because miraculously she is not kicked out of the Raritan River competition. That result, more than anything else in the latest Matilde drama, amplifies my power in Elliot. Not only did I ghostwrite her letter to the director of the Y apologizing for following a “dare,” I made sure that the Y board viewed her as repentant. Charles is pleased because he goes under the radar—thanks to my ability to save his reputation. I've even kept the story from William. Lainie and Matilde are more skittish, more flustered.

“If the kids know, then their parents know,” Lainie says, when we meet at the Elliot Library by happenstance. She is carrying three heavy art books in her arms and I twist my head to see the titles.

“These are for my triptych. Research.”

I glance at the wall clock. Ten o'clock and I'm planning on an eleven o'clock train to the city. “How is Matilde?”

“Some days at school people talk about her and ignore her in the hallway. I try to convince her that slandering someone becomes old quickly and since no one got into any real trouble, it isn't that interesting. Charles keeps reminding her that no one is ever ruined—that you are defamed and then it blows over. We are in your debt, Jess. Both Charles and I.”

Ah yes, I'm always in the room with them, always on their minds. After bailing out Matilde for what can only be described as rebellious, insane behavior, I am indispensable to the Morris family. Kudos to me for finding the best defense attorney this side of the Hudson to clean up Matilde's morass. Matilde remains at large because of the team lined up to ameliorate her carelessness. Before that, did I not help Lainie with her freedom to paint
and
a one-person show? Let's not forget finding Mrs. Higgins or the guest country club membership at Wintergreen and early access to the Y on a “sunrise pass,” ahead of the crowd.