Blue Water (13 page)

“T-Rex!” he called. “Losin' again tonight?”

“You'll find out soon enough.”

“Okay, then. See you at the game.”

We waited, smiles fixed to our faces, until Paulie pulled away.

“The thing is,” Rex said, “I've been in touch with Arnie. I talked to him today, in fact.” He shrugged. “No sevens in his number.”

I couldn't have been more shocked if he'd confessed to having an affair. Stunned, I picked up two bags of groceries, carried them down the companionway. Rex followed with an armload of clean clothes, which he tossed into our stateroom. Then he poured himself
a drink—the last of the scotch from a bottle he'd promised, three days earlier, would last him at least a week. He took a sip. Another. He said, “Anyway. Remember, before we left, I told you that he'd hired this private detective?”

I said, “Could you bring down the rest of the grocery bags?”

“Don't you want to know what the detective found?”

“It doesn't matter what he found.” I was sorting and stacking cans of food, slapping things onto the countertop: green beans, fruit cocktail, soup. “We withdrew the suit.”

Rex went topside, returned with the last of the groceries. Then he squeezed past me into our stateroom and shut the door. I could hear him opening drawers, putting away our clothes as I unpacked the perishables from their melted ice packs. When I looked up again, he was dressed in fresh shorts and a short-sleeved polo, his uncut hair slicked back into a nub of ponytail. The ponytail appealed to me about as much as the beard. It emphasized his high forehead, with its receding hairline, its chronic peeling sunburn. “Cindy Ann's attorney wants to settle, Meg.”

“I'm not getting dragged back into this.”

“So give Arnie permission to handle things for you.” He paused. “That's what I did. Before we took off, in fact.”

I couldn't stop shaking my head. “We dropped the suit. That was six months ago. You told me I could tell my brother, and I did. Don't tell me what I told him wasn't true.”

It was not a question.

“Six months ago,” Rex said, “I told Arnie that you'd—we'd—developed certain reservations. And Arnie advised me, as I would have advised any client of my own, that people often make these decisions in haste. Then, later on, when they've had some time to think, they change their minds. They get a second wind.”

I stared at him. “You're telling me we didn't drop the suit?”

“But wait until you hear—”

“You've been talking to him all along!”

“—buying liquor at the discount store! Shit-faced drunk in her kitchen, lit up like a goddamn diva in a spotlight! The detective got photos, Meg, dozens of them.”

And that was all it took. Instantly, all the old anger kicked and bit and punched its way out of my heart. I was coming down County C toward the Point Road. I was watching the Suburban slow for the yield, and I did see it slow, I made certain of it, before I glanced away. I was staring at the cemetery plot that would hold the body of my child as soon as the ground thawed enough for the backhoe. I was rocking, naked, in the same bed where Evan had been conceived, screaming into my pillow, unable to let Rex touch me.

“I know,” Rex said. “I know.”

Again, we heard the sound of a dinghy drawing near. There was a knock on the side of the hull.

“Ahoy,
Chelone
!” This time, we recognized the voice of Marvin Thomas, Pam's husband, a retired ophthalmologist. “Rex-man, need a lift?”

“Be right up,” Rex called. To me, he said, “You can have the dinghy. I'll catch a ride with someone after the game.”

“How much is it?” I asked, softly. “The settlement?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“Peanuts.” I spat the word. “To someone like her, that's pocket change.”

But Rex shook his head. “She's uninsured. Her trust is nearly spent. She took out a loan on the house before the accident.”

“She must have equity there.”

“The first forty thousand is protected by Wisconsin statute. She
walks away with that much, at least, no matter what we do.”

Outside, Marvin's dinghy motor flooded, choked, died. You could smell the belch of gas fumes as it started up again. Rex downed the rest of his drink in a gulp.

“I want to see those photographs,” I said. “I want—”

But then my throat closed up. I couldn't say anything more.

“You know what?” Rex said. “The hell with the game. Let me run up and tell Marv I've decided not to go.”

“No,” I said. “If you don't go now, half the cove will be stopping by to ask if something's wrong.”

“You shouldn't be alone with this.”

“I've got the dinghy,” I said. “I'll head over to the 'Girls. I'm okay, I'll be okay,” I said, turning my head to avoid the sour taste of scotch.

“Sorry,” Rex said, and then I was sorry, too, but it was too late. He was already up the steps.

Gone.

I tuned the single sideband to the BBC, tried to focus on world news as I dumped the perishables into the sour-smelling well of the refrigerator. The postelection scandal was heating up in Florida. The Middle East peace talks were falling apart again. Blood-colored liquid sloshed around at the bottom; the trap was blocked with a butter wrapper, eggshell, bits of cheese. It was time to clean it properly, thaw the layer of ice that was clinging to the cold plate. It was time to take everything out of the lockers, wipe the shelves down with diluted bleach. The trash bags were full. The floors needed washing. The brass grab rail in front of the stove begged for polish, as did the compression post. Outside, in the cockpit, the teak was overdue for staining and sealing. The hull's gel coat had lost its shine.

And this was only the beginning of all the things that needed to be done, tasks we'd fallen behind on since landing in Ladyslip Cove, since deciding we might as well stay until the end of hurricane season, until Rex's shoulder had enjoyed all the benefits of a good long rest. Engine maintenance, through-hull checks. The head had developed a leak. There was a short in the bilge pump motor.
Chelone
's batteries weren't charging as efficiently as they should. Perhaps I would stay in tonight, put some time into the boat. Clean the galley properly. Reinventory supplies. But suddenly, it all seemed overwhelming, and I threw myself, facedown, on the settee. Of course, I still thought about the civil suit. Of course, I still wondered if we'd been right—if I'd been right—to insist we let it go. Of course, I'd been hoping all along that Toby's stubborn attachment to Mallory would fade, that we'd return to Fox Harbor in a year to discover Cindy Ann had moved away. Somehow, we'd step back into our lives as if we'd never left them. Our tenant would vanish. Our jobs would reappear. One night, we'd come home from work to find Evan sitting at his place at the table.

Bullshit.

I was crying so hard I bit my tongue, tasted my own salty blood. Evan was dead, he'd been gone a whole year; still, I couldn't believe it. Toby and Mallory were engaged to be married. Cindy Ann still lived up the road, where she'd probably live forever and ever.

Unless she were forced to sell.

I thought, again, of the dream that I'd had, the two of us, walking by the side of the road: silent, stooping, rising. I imagined the photos the detective had taken, Cindy Ann with her head thrown back, raising her glass in a toast. Cindy Ann laughing, like a woman in an ad, lips parted, wet with shine. She looked nothing like Rex looked when he drank too much, and he
had
been drinking too
much, night after night, there was simply no way not to see it. A couple of drinks before supper. A glass of wine with dinner, maybe two. The glass by the sink as he washed the supper dishes—I've got it, he'd say, why don't you go for a swim?

Come with me, I'd say.

I'm fine right here.

Want to play cards?

Not really.

A walk on the beach, then?

Ask Bernadette.

Drunk, his features unhinged themselves. His eyes grew puffy; his jaw lengthened, slack. Want anything? he'd say, pouring himself another drink, another scotch, always another scotch. Sitting in the amber-green glow of the kerosene lamp. Playing solitaire. The soft slap of cards against the table. Maybe, it wasn't just the alcohol. Maybe it was the combination of alcohol and the painkillers he'd been getting from the clinic. Or maybe it was just that he was aging so fast. Chronic pain could do that to a person. Make him seem older than he actually was. Make him drink more than was good for him. Make him seem like a stranger, someone vaguely unappealing, the friend or family member of a loved one you must, as part of the package, put up with at birthdays, holiday gatherings.

“We could fly back to the States,” I'd said. This had been several weeks earlier. “Get your shoulder looked at by a specialist.”

“What would we do with the boat?”

“Put it in a slip. Eli would watch it.”

“That's too much to ask during hurricane season.”

“It's just that I'm worried about your—” I began, thinking I knew where the sentence was going, “your drinking.” Quickly, I amended myself. “Self-medicating, I mean. That's what it's called, when you
drink out of pain. It's not that I don't understand why you do it.”

To my surprise, Rex laughed. “If it's true that I'm
self
-medicating,” he said, “then there's no need to travel three thousand miles to see a doctor, is there?”

“Rex.”

“Meg.” He poked my arm teasingly. “Aw, c'mon. Look around. If you're worried about how much I drink, take a look at Eli.”

“He's not on medication.”

“Those warnings have more to do with legal protection than anything,” Rex said. Then he shrugged. “But okay. After we're under way again, I'll clean up my act. I promise.”

“In January,” I said.

“January, February, whenever we get
Chelone
back in shape.” He gave me a quizzical look. “What's the rush? We're happy here, right? And it's not like we're expected anywhere else.”

But I wouldn't have called it happiness that kept us in Ladyslip Cove. It was something closer to inertia, a deepening sense of ennui. Weeks had passed since we'd taken
Chelone
out for so much as a day sail, and when I thought of Jeanie McFadden, traveling alone with her dogs, her plans, I was envious. Restless. Longing to be back on the water, in motion, skimming across the surface. Falling into sleep at the end of each watch with such fullness, such force, that there was no room for thought, no choice beyond necessary oblivion, the closest thing I'd found, since Evan's death, to peace.

Now, breathing in the musty odor of the settee, everything seemed pointless. Worthless. I couldn't think of a single thing I truly wanted to do. It was exactly the way I'd felt before Rex and I had purchased
Chelone,
sailed off into what, I'd hoped, would be a new life, far from shore. Only now, here I was again. Here we were. Right back where we'd started.

No
.

I got up, pumped water at the galley sink, splashed at my tear-swollen face. Then I went into our stateroom, searched through my locker for clothes. A miniskirt with a tropical print. A bright tank top. My old swimming suit to wear underneath. I threw off my torn shorts and faded T-shirt, dressed, put on earrings, pinned back my hair. Lipstick, eyeliner, mascara. Bronzer, which I dusted over my shoulders and cheeks.

I would go to Island Girls, damnit. I'd meet up with Bernadette and Pam, Audrey and Carole, whoever else was there. I'd drink and I'd dance and I'd have a good time, the hell with Arnie and his photographs, the hell with Cindy Ann and Mallory, the hell with Toby, too.

Why should we congratulate you?

It had been, I decided, the perfect response. What else could we have said?
As long as you're happy, we'll overlook the fact that your fiancée's sister murdered our son.

I could feel the flames of my anger building, burning my regret, drying my tears. When I looked in the mirror one last time, there was no trace of sorrow anywhere.

 

“Got to get my game face on,” Rex used to say, facing a full day of arguments in court. Unlike most other attorneys we knew, he seldom had a drink when he came home from work, though he'd certainly enjoyed a glass of good scotch, a shared bottle of wine, on the weekends. Instead, in the years before Evan was born, he'd fix himself a stack of peanut butter crackers, then head upstairs to his study.
The crow's nest,
he called it. There, sitting at his father's antique drafting table, he'd page through his collection of nautical maga
zines, his chart kits, his scrapbooks of neatly sketched sail plans, hull designs. I'd come home from work to find him studying lists of boats for sale, items circled, underlined, margins thick with notes.

After Evan was born, I'd find both of them up there, Evan tucked into the baby sling. By the age of two, Evan could tell you the difference between a sailboat and a motorboat. By four, he could talk about the Gulf Stream, point out the Caribbean on a chart. At six, he and Rex were making plans to build a wooden skiff in the garage. I'd follow the trail of cracker crumbs, the smell of peanut butter, to find them in the crow's nest with their heads bent over a set of blueprints, each of them holding an identically chewed grease pencil, Evan talking, talking, talking.

“Look at this one, Mom, look at her lines,” he'd say, spraying me lightly with crumbs, and Rex would say, smiling, pleased, “Isn't she a beauty, Meg?”

“She's a beauty, all right.”

Both of them would beam as if they actually believed I could see the difference between one little rowboat and another. What I liked to look at were the couples on the sailboats in Rex's collection of magazines. And there always were couples, women and men, roughly the ages of Rex and me. There were clasped hands, glasses of wine. There were sunsets the color of oranges. A sense of connection that seemed to run as deep as the ocean itself.