The Far End of Happy (15 page)

“Just what I brought with me when I evacuated. I figure the sea turtles now have a pretty sweet woodworking shop set up on the ocean floor.”

Ronnie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was one thing to see this sort of devastation on the news and another to meet someone whose loss was so complete and so personal.

“Yet this place wasn’t damaged beyond a few roof shingles, the previous owner said.”

“I know. Weird, right? The difference a few miles will make.” He flipped to a new picture. “Everything else was waterlogged from the flooding—look at this couch floating here—or swept away. I did find one thing, though.” He tipped his head, and Ronnie followed his eyes to the back wall of the garage and the nautical steering wheel now affixed to it.

Kevin took off his headlamp and flipped the breaker back on. “Finding it felt like a miracle. My grandpa made this wheel himself and was so proud of it that to this day, I still picture him standing in his fishing boat behind it. Imagine walking through a complete wasteland, like I did, and finding this one object that reminded you of someone you loved.”

He ran a finger along the brass in its center. Kevin was still wearing his baseball cap. Ronnie wondered what was beneath it.

“Only had to polish it up and replace one broken handle. These were made for the weather, to be sure.”

Ronnie ran her hand over the almost seamless repair. “You did a good stain match. Jeff’s also a great woodworker. Over the past twelve years, we’ve gutted and renovated our entire house.”

“Takes a lot of heart. Many think they want to try, get a room or two in, and hire me to finish up.” He turned to Jeff, who was soaping up the hood of the car. “You a contractor too?”

Ronnie tensed, wishing he could say yes. Wishing he had supported them by using his talent to help others. Wondering if he’d use the official title she preferred, “Food and beverage manager.”

“Bartender.”

“Ah,” Kevin said. “So woodworking is just a hobby then.”

“One we spend most of our waking hours pursuing,” Ronnie said, to cover any slight Jeff might suffer.

Kevin tested the door. It rolled easily and fully along its track. Ronnie couldn’t help but think of the big barn doors at home, heavy and sagging, and how she had to use her full weight to move them. Kevin packed up his tools.

“One last question, for now. Weren’t you angry about all you lost?”

“Sure, for a while. I mean, I figure I’m human, and humans are nothing else but a big bundle of feelings. But it’s not like the whole world is about me, you know? I figure I just have to keep on showing up, day after day, doing what I need to do to play my part.”

“You said, ‘I figure.’”

“I did?”

“You said ‘figure’ two times, actually.”

He turned around and said to Jeff, “Damn. She must be a firecracker to live with.”

Jeff looked over from where he was circling his sponge over the driver’s side door. He didn’t smile. Positioned as they were, with Jeff in the background, Kevin seemed to vibrate with energy.

“So it’s not like you had some sort of deep knowing,” Ronnie prompted.

“I think that’s the entire point,” Kevin said. “We don’t know a blessed thing. We’ve just got to point ourselves in a direction that feels true, truck along at our own pace, and try to figure things out.” He peeked at her notes. “Did you write that down? That was ‘figure’ number three.” He laughed. “Anyway, if we do all that, when we get to the pearly gates, at least we can report in with some confidence.”

“I heard a joke like that once.”

“Grandpa had a lot of wisdom, a lot of jokes.” He winked at her. “If I have them all mixed up, the joke’s on me.”

She offered her hand. “Kevin, I’m so glad we had this chance to talk. I think people are going to be inspired by the way you came back here and faced off against your loss. Can I reach you at the rental number if I have follow-up questions?”

He wrote his cell number at the top of her notes.

“Guess I’ll go for a swim then. You know where to leave the key when you leave.” Kevin picked up his toolbox and walked backward as he said, “Just don’t make me out to be brave. These days, any wind over fifty miles per hour has me wanting to hightail it in the opposite direction.”

Ronnie smiled. “Understandable. I’ll be in touch.”

More questions immediately sprang to mind and Ronnie took a moment to write them down.

Her mind was abuzz all through dinner. She was so eager to tell Jeff about her ideas for the article that she started in about it as soon as the boys asked to be excused from the dinner table. “I’ll have to interview a psychologist as well,” she said as she cleared the dishes. “Who knows—if I could find more stories of people who have risen above their losses, I might write a book someday.”

Jeff said, “Ronnie, in case you didn’t notice, while you two had your little conversation, I cleaned our Suburban inside and out. My back is sore. I just want to sit and have a drink in peace.”

“What do you mean, my ‘little conversation’? That’s what I’m telling you. I was working too.”

“Volunteer work, you mean.”

Ronnie put her hand on her hip.

“Okay, what do you have to show for this work? A clean car? A sore back?”

“You know I don’t.”

“A paycheck?”

“That’s not how freelance writing works.”

“Because it’s a hobby.”

She set his dirty plate back in front of him. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Even the IRS says so,” he called after her. “If you came to the tax appointments, you’d know.”

Ronnie slammed the door.

She was going to write the article, and it was going to be the best damn thing she’d ever written.

At the deck railing, she paused and felt the wood for what might be left of the day’s warmth. That afternoon she’d stood in the same place with Kevin’s empty glass in her hand, watching as he stepped onto the beach, pulled off his shirt and cap, and let the breeze ruffle his fine brown hair.

“We’ve been reviewing options,” Corporal McNichol said, striding back into the room.

“Oh?” Ronnie snapped to attention as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Her body was flush with lingering feelings of intoxicating curiosity and—she hated to admit it, even to herself—desire. Things only Jeff used to make her feel. Had Jeff seen this change in her? Is that what had him so scared?

“You may want to file a protection from abuse order. After what happened at your house today, you’d qualify.”

“So after today, you suspect this will still be an issue?” Ronnie said. “Nothing will be solved?”

“I’m suggesting you prepare for all possibilities.”

Ronnie trudged back down the hall to the firehouse office. The men stepped out of the room. She called the Reading Courthouse only to learn she had to appear in person to file. Though Ronnie suspected this formality offered no hope. The order might ensure that Jeff would live somewhere else, but with the state police so far away, if he really wanted to hurt them—or try to hurt himself again, on the property—he’d have ample opportunity to do so before help could arrive.

Alone in the office this time, she allowed herself a moment to relish its windows. For the first time all morning, Ronnie looked up at the sky. That blue, so brilliant you could sense its depth; was there any color more beautiful? Wanting to be closer to it, she turned a handle and tipped open the window. She allowed a long draft of fresh air to make full contact with her lungs. This was her very favorite kind of fall day, with air so crisp it made her think of biting into a sweet-tart apple. With the sun smiling down on customers coming and going from Perlmutter’s General Store across the street, it was hard to believe any sort of tragedy could possibly be unfolding.

Ronnie returned to the social hall tables somewhat refreshed, certain she must have left hope for her family’s future lying around on one of these surfaces. All she found was the pile of keys, which opened cars blocked in by the police.

“Did you get through to someone at the courthouse?” Corporal McNichol said.

“For what it’s worth.” She thought of her sons’ arms, so vulnerably thin, their legs not yet muscled enough to make a run for their lives. How could she keep them safe?

Ronnie was wringing her hands again. She shoved them in her pockets. She’d worked too hard to purge the anxiety that had set in when they got home from the shore. She would not let it get the better of her now.

• • •

While absorbed in the endless list of catch-up chores that accumulated on the farm every time they went away, Ronnie couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. During early morning sessions with her journal, she tried to explain away this fascination as false intimacy created by hearing him talk about his beloved grandfather in the home that had belonged to her father. The way he took command of his situation, even while surrendering to circumstance beyond his control.

The way he seemed to be the man she wished Jeff had turned out to be.

She tackled her chores each day with unusual enthusiasm so she could get back to her journal. Her thoughts were ordering themselves on its pages as if the words painted a new portrait of her. One she was afraid to see, yet whose colors would not be ignored.

She tried to memorialize the perspective that while she and Jeff were so busy it seemed they led separate lives, what kept them together was the lifestyle they loved with the boys on the farm. She tried to convince herself that was all she needed.

Of course she would like more attention from Jeff. It had been nine months since they’d last had sex. In recent years, Jeff had relied on Ronnie to marshal efforts and morning erections to do half the work. She still yearned for his touch and the emotional fusion their lovemaking had once been, but these days, with his pillowcase stained nicotine yellow from not washing up at night and his breath sour, she wasn’t sure it was worth the effort.

She wrote in her journal:

What are my needs?

Does a mother have needs? If one of the chops was overdone, Ronnie, as cook, always took it. If there was no hot water left after everyone else’s showers, she was the one who’d go unclean until the water heater recharged; after all, she worked from home. She was flexible. If she was tired and needed a nap, she’d squeeze one in right after she met her deadlines or shuffled the boys to all their activities or made dinner—or, more likely, she’d just drink more coffee.

I don’t know what my needs are, but my conversations with Kevin excite me. They taste like camaraderie, laughter, and emotional language—and I want more of it.

And if more were ever offered, I don’t know how the hell I’d resist.

Over the next two weeks in August, at odd moments throughout the day, Ronnie would be waylaid by crying jags that had no discernible cause. She felt like someone was scratching on the chalkboard of her bones. She set out one day to take Max for one of their three-mile walks and realized, when she got home, that she’d forgotten to bring the dog. And her hands were sore and red; she’d been wringing them the whole way.

One day, Jeff came down to her office and found her sitting at her computer, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” he said, his voice full of concern.

“I wish I knew,” she said.

“Maybe you should go to the doctor.”

“I don’t think it’s physical,” she said. “It’s more like something welling up inside of me that has to get out. I think I need to see a therapist.”

Jeff braced himself against the doorway. “You’re going to leave me.”

Why
the
hell
would
he
say
that? Is my inner turmoil so insignificant that he had to add his to it?

Then again, maybe he knew her better than she’d given him credit for. Three therapy appointments later, things looked a whole lot clearer.

She may be powerless to improve the quality of her marriage, but she was not powerless to affect the quality of her life.

The corporal stood across from Ronnie, the table between them a neutral expanse, her face expressionless. As if ready to accept her confession.

“He’s doing this because I wanted a divorce.”

“Divorce is tough, there’s no getting around that.” Corporal McNichol shrugged. “Yet people get through it every day without ending up in a suicide standoff. Humans—healthy humans, anyway—are remarkably adaptive beings.”

“But I’m his whole world.” It sounded at once idiotic and true. She felt heat rise to her face as she pushed her drawing across the table.

Corporal McNichol eased herself into the chair, as if not wanting to add any further stimulation to Ronnie’s overwrought mind, and contemplated her drawing of the property. “You can’t make a man kill himself,” she said. “Even if I pointed a gun at his child and said, ‘Kill yourself or he’s dead.’ A healthy mind will try to figure another way out. The instinct to survive is too strong.”

The thought was comforting—until Ronnie considered the corollary. “And if a man really wants to kill himself, nobody can stop him.” The words drifted into the quiet without rebuttal.

Corporal McNichol said, “We couldn’t stop my father.”

“Oh,” Ronnie said.

Suicide was no longer a vague, impossible notion. It had moved right into the room with them.

Until then, Ronnie had thought of Corporal McNichol as a tough cop who got her kicks ordering around a bunch of snipers, like on TV. Someone with a function: to reach Jeff and support Ronnie. Now she saw a woman with wavy hair and hips. A mom sitting alone at a PTA meeting; a mom with a secret.

“I’m sorry,” Ronnie said. “Were you close?”

Corporal McNichol smiled. “He’s the reason I became a cop. When I entered the academy, he was the chief of police in Lancaster. I wanted so badly to make him proud. Instead I watched him fade away.”

“What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“He saw too much.” She paused for a moment. “That’s my best guess, anyway. A pregnant preteen strung out on dope. A school shooting. His first partner succumbing to ALS. We can only guess at the final tipping point.”

“He didn’t leave a note?”

Corporal McNichol shook her head. “Guess he didn’t have anything left to say.”

“He shot himself?” Ronnie said quietly.

Corporal McNichol let out a long breath. “I had to cut him down from the rafters in our garage.”

Ronnie could only imagine the concrete horror of seeing your father hanging lifeless. Her own father was dead, but she hadn’t seen him that way. At the beach, it was easy to imagine him forever young. She marveled at Corporal McNichol’s ability to not only live through such a thing, but also somehow protect a place in her heart still capable of offering compassion to others in a similar situation.

They sat in silence for a moment. Finally Corporal McNichol said, “The sad truth is, not everyone can make it in this world.”

“Sorry, but I refuse to accept that. And I can’t believe they put you in charge of the SERT troops. The assignment seems cruel.”

“I applied for it.” The corporal’s gaze was steady.

“How could you—
why
would you willingly enter a suicide standoff? Especially knowing you might fail?”

Corporal McNichol opened Jeff’s file and patted its growing stack of its papers. “Because I can’t stop trying. And because sometimes, I can make a difference. Like today.”

Ronnie got up and walked over to the wall before turning back toward Corporal McNichol. She needed distance, perspective. The helicopter, this SERT team, all the ammunition—it was costing so much money. “I can’t put this whole police action together with the Jeff I’ve known who was so gentle. Could he have changed so much?”

Corporal McNichol was quiet for a moment. “I’m not so sure we change. I think that extreme pressure reveals us.”

Ronnie considered the debt and how she would have consulted a credit counselor and arranged for payments, while Jeff pushed it off on his mother.

“But I have to deal in facts,” Corporal McNichol said. “Right now Jeff is armed and intoxicated. That’s a lethal combination. On top of that, he told you he would kill himself.”

“He just said that to pressure me into—”

“Hear me on this, Ronnie,” Corporal McNichol said. “Once a person has lost respect for the sanctity of his own life, it isn’t much of a stretch to lose respect for all life.”

Ronnie picked at some dry skin on her thumb. Hangnails always arrived with the cooler weather, like chapped lips. As if she were molting. Soon she had a tough quarter-inch of skin hanging off her finger. She gave it a good tug and watched blood fill the gap. “You think he’ll do it.”

Corporal McNichol spread the papers in front of her and examined them as if they were tea leaves. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But he threatened suicide once, with a note detailing his burial wishes, and six weeks later, it’s all going down again. I think he’s been trying to work up the courage to carry out his plan. The unknown variable is whether we can intervene in time.”

“Oh god.” It all suddenly felt so hopeless. “What do I do?”

“Just love your boys. Fixing this is not your responsibility.”

“Really? Then who the hell’s is it?” Ronnie pushed off from the wall where she’d been leaning. “If Jeff lives through the day, then what is my life going to look like? He’s still my sons’ father. And if he dies, who do you think will inherit that mess? No matter how you define ‘fixing,’ it’s all on me.”

Corporal McNichol picked up the drawing again and said, “I think this diagram needs some fixing too.” She pushed it back across the table to Ronnie.

“You probably can’t tell what a damn thing is. I should have labeled the buildings—”

“It just looks too empty. You’ll feel better if you add some living beings to it.” Corporal McNichol smiled. “Hang on to this, Ronnie: suicidal men will often kill their wives and children too. Today worked out well for us. We were lucky to get you out of there alive.”

Ronnie was grateful for their safety. Of course she was.

But what would happen when Corporal McNichol and her troops went home?