Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Especially little Devra captivated him—he stared at her in amazement, the child was so
small
—tiny rib cage, collarbone, wrists—after her bath, the white-blond hair thin as feathers against her delicate skull.
“Love you—I love you—all—so much.”
It was a declaration made to the new wife only in the dark of their bed. In her embrace, her strong warm fingers gripping his back, and his hot face that felt to him like a ferret’s face, hungry, ravenous with hunger, pressed into her neck.
At Paraquarry Lake, in the new camp, there was a new Reno emerging.
It was hard work but thrilling, satisfying—to chop his own firewood and stack it beside the fireplace. The old muscles were reasserting themselves in his shoulders, upper arms, thighs. He was developing a considerable axe swing, and was learning to anticipate the jar of the axe head against wood which he supposed was equivalent to the kick of a shotgun against a man’s shoulder—if you weren’t prepared, the shock ran down your spine like an electric charge.
Working outdoors he wore gloves which Marlena gave him—“Your hands are getting too calloused, scratchy.” When he caressed her, she meant. Marlena was a shy woman and did not speak of their lovemaking but Reno wanted to think that it meant a good deal to her as it meant to him, after years of pointless celibacy.
He was thrilled too when they went shopping together—at the mall, at secondhand furniture stores—choosing Adirondack chairs, a black leather sofa, rattan settee, handwoven rugs, andirons for the fireplace. It was deeply moving to Reno to be in the presence of this attractive woman who took such care and turned to him continually for his opinion as if she’d never furnished a household before.
Reno even visited marinas in the area, compared prices: sailboats, Chris-Craft power boats. In truth he was just a little afraid of the lake—of how he might perform as a sailor on it. A rowboat was one thing, but even a canoe—he felt shaky in a canoe, with another passenger. With this new family vulnerable as a small creature cupped in the palm of a hand—he didn’t want to take any risks.
The first warm days in June, a wading pool for the children. For there was no beach, only just a pebbly shore of sand hard-packed as cement. And sharp-edged rocks in the shallows. But a plastic wading pool, hardly more than a foot of water—that was fine. Little Kevin splashed happily. And Devra in a puckered yellow Spandex swimsuit that fit her little body like a second skin. Reno tried not to stare at the little girl—the astonishing white-blond hair, the widened pale-blue eyes—thinking how strange it was, how strange Marlena would think it was, that the child of a father not known to him should have so totally supplanted Reno’s memory of his own daughter at that age; for Reno’s daughter too must have been beautiful, adorable—but he couldn’t recall. Terrifying how parts of his life were being shut to him like rooms in a house shut and their doors sealed and once you’ve crossed the threshold, you can’t return. Waking in the night with a pounding heart Reno would catch his breath thinking,
But I have my new family now. My new life now.
Sometimes in the woods above the lake there was a powerful smell—a stink—of skunk, or something dead and rotted; not the decaying compost Marlena had begun which exuded a pleasurable odor for the most part, but something ranker, darker. Reno’s sinuses ached, his eyes watered, and he began sneezing—in a sudden panic that he’d acquired an allergy for something at Paraquarry Lake.
That weekend, Kevin injured himself running along the rocky shore—as his mother had warned him not to—falling, twisting his ankle. And little Devra, stung by yellow jackets that erupted out of nowhere—in fact, out of a hive in the earth that Reno had disturbed with his shovel.
Screaming! High-pitched screams that tore at Reno’s heart. If only the yellow jackets had stung
him
—Reno might have used the occasion to give the children some instruction.
Having soothed two weeping children in a single afternoon Marlena said ruefully, “Camp can be treacherous!” The remark was meant to be amusing but there was seriousness beneath, even a subtle warning, Reno knew.
He swallowed hard and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
This warm-humid June afternoon shading now into early evening and Reno was still digging—“excavating”—the old ruin of a terrace. The project was turning out to be harder and more protracted than he had anticipated. For the earth below the part-elevated house was a rocky sort of subsoil, of a texture like fertilizer; moldering bricks were everywhere, part-buried; also jagged pieces of concrete and rusted spikes, broken glass amid shattered bits of red shale. The previous owners had simply dumped things here. Going back for decades, probably. Generations. Reno hoped these slovenly people hadn’t dumped anything toxic.
The A-frame had been built in 1957—that long ago. Sometime later there were renovations, additions—sliding glass doors, skylights. A sturdier roof. Another room or two. By local standards the property hadn’t been very expensive—of course, the market for lakeside properties in this part of New Jersey had been depressed for several years.
The new wife and the children were down at the shore—at their neighbors’ dock. Reno heard voices, radio music—Marlena was talking with another young mother, several children were playing together. Reno liked hearing their happy uplifted voices though he couldn’t make out any words. From where he stood, he couldn’t have said with certainty which small figure was Kevin, which was Devra.
How normal all this was! Soon, Daddy would quit work for the evening, grab a beer from the refrigerator, and join his little family at the dock. How normal Reno was—a husband again, a father and a homeowner here at Paraquarry Lake.
Of all miracles, none is more daunting than
normal.
To be—to become—
normal
. This gift seemingly so ordinary is not a gift given to all who seek it.
And the children’s laughter too. This was yet more exquisite.
With a grunt Reno unearthed a large rock he’d been digging and scraping at with mounting frustration. And beneath it, or beside it, what appeared to be a barrel, with broken and rotted staves; inside the barrel, what appeared to be shards of a broken urn.
There was something special about this urn, Reno seemed to know. The material was some sort of dark red earthenware—thick, glazed—inscribed with figures like hieroglyphics. Even broken and coated with grime, the pieces exuded an opaque sort of beauty. Unbroken, the urn would have stood about three feet in height.
Was this an Indian artifact? Reno was excited to think so—remains of the Lenni Lenape culture were usually shattered into very small pieces, almost impossible for a nonspecialist to recognize.
With the shiny new shovel Reno dug into and around the broken urn, curious. He’d been tossing debris into several cardboard boxes, to be hauled to the local landfill. He was tired—his muscles ached, and there was a new, sharp pain between his shoulder blades—but he was feeling good, essentially. At the neighbors’ dock when they asked him how he was he’d say,
Damn good! But thirsty.
His next-door neighbor looked to be a taciturn man of about Reno’s age. And the wife one of those plus-size personalities with a big smile and greeting. To them, Marlena and Reno would be a
couple.
No sign that they were near-strangers desperate to make the new marriage work.
Already in early June Reno was beginning to tan—he looked like a native of the region more than he looked like a summer visitor from the city, he believed. In his T-shirt, khaki shorts, waterstained running shoes. He wasn’t yet fifty—he had two years before fifty. His father had died at fifty-three of a heart attack but Reno took care of his health. He had annual checkups, he had nothing to worry about. He would adopt the woman’s children—that was settled. He would make them his own: Kevin, Devra. He could not have named the children more fitting names. Beautiful names for beautiful children.
The Paraquarry property was an excellent investment. His work was going well. His work was not going badly. His job wasn’t in peril—yet. He hadn’t lost nearly so much money as he might have in the recent economic crisis—he was far from desperate, like a number of his friends. Beyond that—he didn’t want to think.
A scuttling snake amid the debris. Reno was taken by surprise, startled. Tossed a piece of concrete at it. Thinking then in rebuke,
Don’t be ridiculous. A garter snake is harmless.
Something was stuck to some of the urn shards—clothing? Torn, badly rotted fabric?
Reno leaned his weight onto the shovel, digging more urgently. A flash of something wriggling in the earth—worms—cut by the slice of the shovel. Reno was sweating now. He stooped to peer more closely even as the cautionary words came:
Maybe no. Maybe not a good idea.
“Oh. God.”
Was it a bone? Or maybe plastic? No, a bone. An animal bone?
Covered in dirt, yet a very pale bone.
A human bone?
But so small—had to be a child’s bone.
A child’s forearm perhaps.
Reno picked it up in his gloved hands. It weighed nothing—it might have been made of Styrofoam.
“It is. It really … is.”
Numbly Reno groped amid the broken pottery, tossing handfuls of clumped dirt aside. More bones, small broken rib bones, a skull … A skull!
It was a small skull of course. Small enough to cup in the hand.
Not an animal skull but a child’s skull. Reno seemed to know—
a little girl’s skull.
This was not believable! Reno’s brain was struck blank, for a long moment he could not think … The hairs stirred at the nape of his neck and he wondered if he was being watched.
A makeshift grave about fifteen feet from the base of his house. And when had this little body been buried? Twenty years ago, ten years ago? By the look of the bones, the rotted clothing, and the broken urn, the burial hadn’t been recent.
But these were not Indian bones of course. Those bones would be much older—badly broken, dim, and scarified with time.
Reno’s hand shook. The small teeth were bared in a smile of sheer terror. The small jaws had fallen open, the eye sockets were disproportionately large. Of course, the skull was broken—it was not a perfect skull. Possibly fractured in the burial—struck by the murderer’s shovel. The skeleton lay in pieces—had the body been dismembered? Reno was whispering to himself words meant to console—
Oh God. Help me, God. God!
As his surprise ebbed Reno began to be badly frightened. He was thinking that these might be the bones of his daughter—his first daughter; the little girl had died, her death had been accidental, but he and her mother had hurriedly buried her …
But no: ridiculous. This was another time, not that time.
This was another campsite. This was another part of Paraquarry Lake. This was another time in a father’s life.
His daughter was alive. Somewhere in California, a living girl. He was not to blame. He had never hurt her. She would outlive him.
Laughter and raised voices from the lakeshore. Reno shaded his eyes to see—what were they doing? Were they expecting Daddy to join them?
Kneeling in the dirt. Groping and rummaging in the coarse earth. Among the broken pottery, bones, and rotted fabric faded to the no-color of dirty water, something glittered—a little necklace of glass beads.
Reno untangled it from a cluster of small bones—vertebrae? The remains of the child’s neck? Hideous to think that the child skeleton might have been broken into pieces with a shovel, or an axe. An axe! To fit more readily into the urn. To hasten decomposition.
“Little girl! Poor little girl.”
Reno was weak with shock, sickened. His heart pounded terribly—he didn’t want to die as his father had died! He would breathe deeply, calmly. He held the glass beads to the light. Amazingly the chain was intact. A thin metallic chain, tarnished. He put the little glass-bead necklace into the pocket of his khaki shorts. Hurriedly he covered the bones with dirt, debris. Pieces of the shattered urn he picked up and tossed into the cardboard box. And the barrel staves … Then he thought he should remove the bones also—he should place them in the box, beneath the debris, and take the box out to the landfill this evening. Before he did anything else. Before he washed hurriedly, grabbed a beer, and joined Marlena and the children at the lakefront. He would dispose of the child’s bones at the landfill.
No. They will be traced here. Not a good idea.
Frantically he covered the bones. Then more calmly, smoothing the coarse dirt over the debris. Fortunately there was a sizable hole—a gouged-out, ugly hole—that looked like a rupture in the earth. Reno would lay flagstones over the grave—he’d purchased two dozen flagstones from a garden supply store on the highway. The children could help him—it would not be difficult work once the earth was prepared. As bricks had been laid over the child’s grave years ago, Reno would lay flagstones over it now. For he could not report this terrible discovery—could he? If he called the Paraquarry police, if he reported the child skeleton to county authorities, what would be the consequences?
His mind went blank—he could not think.
Could not bear the consequences. Not now, in his new life.
Numbly he was setting his work tools aside, beneath the overhang of the redwood deck. The new shovel was not so shiny now. Quickly then—shakily—climbing the steps, to wash his hands in the kitchen. A relief—he saw his family down at the shore, with the neighbors—the new wife, the children. No one would interrupt Reno washing the little glass-bead necklace in the kitchen sink, in awkward big-Daddy hands.
Gently washing the glass beads, that were blue—beneath the grime a startling pellucid blue like slivers of sky. It was amazing, you might interpret it as a sign—the thin little chain hadn’t broken in the earth.
Not a particle of dirt remained on the glass beads when Reno was finished washing them, drying them on a paper towel on the kitchen counter.
“Hey—look here! What’s this? Who’s this for?”
Reno dangled the glass-bead necklace in front of Devra. The little girl stared, blinking. It was suppertime—Daddy had cooked hamburgers on the outdoor grill on the deck—and now he pulled a little blue glass-bead necklace out of his pocket as if he’d only just discovered it.