The Fives Run North-South (25 page)

“Oh yeah?”

“I know I’m going to regret telling you this. It might even be a sliver of career suicide, but what the hell. I’d said something along the lines of how I’m constantly impressed by the unlimited places his imagination took us…or something like that. He looked at me and said: ‘This one’s not really all rooted in my imagination, Paul.’”

27

“H
ey
, Dad, what are you doing?”

“Oh, Ben. I didn’t see you there. Just writing.”

“Yeah? Need a reader?”

“Always do. And you know I’m not brave enough to send to the publisher without your input,” Rob said. “That will never change.”

“The great Rob Keaton could send his grocery list to the publisher without fear. So what’s this one called?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t…”

“It’s
Dented.”

“Wait…I’m working on that one. Because…well, because you’re…”

“I know. I’m in the big epilogue in the sky.”

“You’re finishing
Dented
still?”

“Of course.”

“They want the real ending. Not mine.”

“Yours is the real ending.”

“No, it isn’t. The one you’re writing has to be.”

“Of course.”

“I’m lost, Dad.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I have been for a while.”

“No, son. You’re not. Shoulder to shoulder, son. You’re leading
me
now. And you have been for longer than you know.”

Ben woke with a start, his pillow wet. He took a sharp, violent intake of breath, almost as if he’d been underwater beyond the limits of his lungs. Then he rolled to his side and collapsed his body to a fetal position, trying to squeeze the pressure from his stomach. A dream, of course. One of those
semidreams
—
where
you could be both the main character and a
director
—
but
he was unsure how much of the dream he’d controlled and how much had controlled him.

Swinging his legs off the bed, he sat at the side, still covering his aching stomach with his arms. He leaned down, his face nearly between his knees. His room was pitch black, the house quiet…as it always was.

Shoulder to shoulder.

In his mind, for a second he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder, there for comfort. Or at least he felt the lack of it. A wisp…whether a
high
-
school
sweetheart long dead or the woman who might have been his wife. Or perhaps one of a few of the other women who had been more like
fireflies
—
blinking
out of his reach just an instant after becoming known to him. No, there would be no gentle hand to support him. This room, this bed had been his alone almost always. As had his nightmares.

Slowly, the effects of the dream spell faded. His shaking became more a product of the chilly air, and when he felt his stomach would let him, he let himself lie back in his bed. Exhaustion came like a wave, his eyes grew heavy, and he slept. As he faded away, he reminded himself that
dreams
—
like
loneliness
—
become
a vapor much less sharp in the light of morning.

The room was bright,
late
-
morning
bright. Beside the bed was a
half
-
empty
beer
bottle
—
as
unappetizing now as it had been inviting the night before. Ben rolled his head, stretching his neck. Rough night, but they seemed more commonplace these days. He thought that maybe it was a part of aging. He walked into the kitchen and threw two pieces of bread into the toaster. He turned on the news and was glad to see the weather
report
—
it
would be nice out.

He ate the toast at his desk. He did manage a paragraph or two on the next chapter of
Dented
,
but wandered over to his
e
-
mail
inbox then clicked over to check the Red Sox results on the
Boston Globe
website. He brought his dishes to the kitchen and loaded up the dishwasher. As the morning grew later, he found his stomach growing tighter. Nerves.

Like a damned teenager
,
he thought to himself.

Finally, it was ten thirty, so he grabbed his keys, left his house, and got in his car. He remembered most of the route, checking his shorthand directions (ink pen on partially torn paper towel) a couple times. He made it to the entrance right on time, and as he saw the sign he’d been told about
(pumpkin
-
ugly
orange with lime green lettering) he swung his car into a parking space. Cary was there at the end of the walking trail, sitting on a bench. Her face lit up as she waved, and he felt a slight catch in his breath that felt both unfamiliar and frightening.

Let’s keep it real here
,
he thought.

He got out of his car and walked toward her as she stood up. For an awkward second he tried to determine the appropriate form of greeting…definitely not a handshake. She removed his anxiety by moving in quickly and giving him a short, but commanding, hug.

“You ready?” she asked.

Ben looked at the entrance to the walking trail she’d told him about; an amenity that happened to be her favorite in her subdivision.

“How long did you say this was?” he asked.

“Nothing you can’t handle.”

“You seem to have a lot of confidence in me.”

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his forearm and tugging him to the head of the trail.

She’d described the trail to him during dinner. He’d said: “I’ll have to try that sometime.” To which she’d replied: “Great. Tuesday or Wednesday?”

His look of mild shock had made her giggle. “I’m not someone who lets you get away with the whole ‘have to try that sometime’ brushoff.”

As they walked in silence, he realized she’d been right about the trail. On either side, the woods were not too dense, allowing beams of sunlight to penetrate in dusty, bright towers. The woods were a good mixture, including a heavy dose of birch, their white towering trunks seeming to glow. As they made their way, he thought he saw glimpses of the lake that the path circled farther up the trail.

“It’s not completely back to nature,” Cary said, gesturing toward the wide base covered in
wood
-
chip
mulch, bordered by railroad ties. “But even though it’s got a
made
-
for
-
comfort
artificial element or two, you can’t beat this for the price of an airline ticket.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not a roughing it kind of guy.”

After a few minutes, the sound of traffic faded behind the expanding curtain of trees.

“So,” she said, “I’m glad you didn’t cut me off after hearing my crazy conspiracy theory.”

“I decided that the possibility that my dad was writing about your husband might be crazy, but I had a hard time reconciling it with something.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Thanks,” Cary said. “I think.”

“A writer’s always got to consider the source,” he said. “So I pulled out my dad’s notebook and gave it some thought. I’ll tell you, there’s no smoking gun. Might be some stuff that could form a popcorn trail.”

“Oh?”

“So let’s consider: is there any possibility your husband…”

“Ex
-
husband
…”

“Sorry. Any chance he knew my father?”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“Me, too,” Ben said. “I checked his address book and looked through the contacts on his Blackberry. So then I wondered: is it likely he was on the road that evening and saw the road rage incident between your
ex
-
husband
and the red SUV driven by some
real
-
life
Randall Grosse? That’s possible. I can say, plenty of his books have taken root from stuff he’s observed like that.”

Cary bit her bottom lip and nodded. Ben let the silence hang for a few minutes. Then she said: “So perhaps he saw the incident and made up the rest of the harassment.”

“Who knows?” Ben said. “Did your husband ever tell you specifically about continued troubles with the road rage guy?”

“It wasn’t in his nature to share his troubles with me. Another of the things that are similar to Adam and Suze…though I suppose that’s probably not a rare thing when there’s an extreme
type
-
A
person involved. It’s hard to say in those last few months,” she continued. “It was all so stressful, and my memory really can’t be trusted. He was not himself.”

As they followed the curve of the trail, the lake (or jumbo pond) started to come into view. While listening to Cary speak, Ben let the
sun
-
sparkled
view soak in. It triggered feelings of youth, calm, and nostalgia. He recalled shadows of a cabin, him as a boy with his father, some friends. A canoe. A floating deck. Hot dogs on a stick over a flame. God, how long had it been since he’d been swimming?

“But there is this one time. I remember it. I’d wasted the entire day weighing the pros and cons of divorce on that scale in my mind. And when he came home, he tipped the balance to the divorce side with a thump.”

“Oh?”

“I’d made a decision to try. Because you have these doubts, you know? When you’re thinking of ending it, you get so scared of maybe having to deal with the
guilt
—
the
guilt that it happened because you forced the issue by not trying in the end. You know, like if I’d only be a bit more supportive then it could maybe get all harmonious again.”

“So you thought you were driving him to divorce,” Ben said.

“Exactly.”

“I take that bit back about you not being crazy.”

“Shut up,” she said, playfully punching him on the arm.

“So what happened when he got home?” Ben asked.

“Well, I’d worked on a nice meal, one of his favorites. I’d put out his relaxing clothes, something I’d not done in a long time. Had the news on the television. Put on a few candles, though that was more for me than for him. In my mind, I was thinking that if we had a nice night, I might suggest we seek counseling. Give that a try before giving up the whole thing. No way was he ever going to agree to it, but it meant I’d never have to look back and regret not having offered it up, you know?”

Cary heard Fred’s car pull into the garage. She felt a twinge of nervousness, which was a mixture of surprise and pleasant nostalgia. For a second she remembered their dating years and how she’d continued to feel all Christmas Eve as each date approached. And how that hadn’t worn off as quickly as it had with past boyfriends. And how that meant this was probably the one. Of course it had died away. Later. And it was now a rotten husk hardened by experience and routine. So when she felt the fluster that night, she at first thought it was a good sign.