The Mermaid Collector (21 page)

Much heavier in this portrait than in the wedding picture, her brown hair shorter and frosted with gray, Joan Hammond sat pertly on her husband’s lap, looking as light and carefree as a young girl. And for his part, his hands protectively and possessively wrapped around his wife’s ample waist, securing her on his lap as if she might be in danger of falling off, Frank looked nothing short of enraptured.

There was no misunderstanding; it was quite simply the posturing of two people still deeply in love.

Staring up at Beverly, trimmed in a dusty plastic frame, was all the truth she’d been denied. Frank had lied
to her, all right. He’d lied that he hadn’t loved his wife; he’d lied that his wife hadn’t loved him.

“It wasn’t always an easy marriage, but it was a good one,” Buzz said, leaning forward. “They’d wanted kids from the start, but she lost every one, every time. God, it was awful. Frank had this idea that it was his fault. I don’t mean, you know,
mechanically
,” Buzz clarified, flushing slightly. “I mean because he’d made unfortunate choices in his life—I won’t get into it—but just that he thought it was the punishment for something he’d done, something bad. It wasn’t true, of course. The doctors made it clear Joan couldn’t carry a baby to term—and believe me, she gave Frank as many outs as there were days in a year to find someone who
could
, but he wouldn’t take them. No matter his demons, he loved her. And it was the right thing to do.”

Beverly wasn’t even aware she was crying until she realized she couldn’t make out the faces in the photograph anymore. That was how fast the moment of her reckoning arrived. There’d been no time to excuse herself, to push back the tears as they’d grown in her throat. In an instant, they spilled over, and there was no escaping them.

“Oh Jesus,” Buzz said, looking startled. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“You didn’t.” Beverly pressed her napkin to her nose, then to her eyes to stop the tears from seeping out, as if putting pressure on a cut to stop it from bleeding. It didn’t work; more tears flowed.

She set down her napkin and rose, excusing herself.

His expression worried and urgent, Buzz rose too, wanting to repair his blunder immediately but not sure exactly what it was that he’d done.

“But we ordered dessert,” he said weakly, pointing to where Moira was already on her way across the restaurant with their pie.

“I can’t,” Beverly said. “I really can’t. I’m sorry.”

She tried to free the strap of her purse from the chair, tugging so hard that she knocked into the next table. She wanted only to run from him, from this place, this whole town. Somehow she made it to the door, made it outside, so grateful she had her own car, her own escape route, even if she was certain there would be no real escape now, not for a very long time.

DEAN INSISTED THEY EAT ON
the back lawn, and, as was always the way, Tom’s attempt to talk sense into his younger brother met with swift and certain disinterest. Tom had, however, managed to talk Dean out of lobster. They’d settled on pizza instead, which had of course required its own excessive spending: pizza pans, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and olives so big and blue-black, they might have been mistaken for tiny plums.

“I’m not even sure the oven works right,” Tom had said as they’d walked through the small specialty shop outside of town, his nerves growing frayed watching Dean carelessly toss expensive ingredients into their cart like seashells into a child’s bucket. “I’m just saying I wouldn’t go overboard.”

“It’s pizza,” countered Dean, eyeing a log of soppressata. “You can’t fuck up pizza. Maybe we should get dessert.”

“Tess said she’d bring something,” Tom lied, just wanting to get them out of the store before Dean spent the entirety of their savings.

“STILL NOT SURE THE OVEN
works?” Dean demanded, proudly swinging out a perfectly crisped pizza at six thirty. “What time’s your mermaid coming over?”

“Soon.” Tom glanced at the counter, noticing the scotch bottle was gone. Surely Dean hadn’t polished it off already?

“Get a sheet,” Dean ordered, rummaging through the pantry for plates, crashing several into a pile, and tucking them under his arm. “We’ll use it for a blanket.”

Tom did as he was told, knowing better than to try to derail Dean when he was like this, feverish with ideas.

When Tess arrived fifteen minutes later, they were already on the lawn. She came bearing two bottles of wine. Tom gave her a wary look, but she just smiled and dropped beside him, kissing his cheek.

“Hey, where’s mine?” Dean demanded, thrusting out his unshaven jaw. “The cook always gets kissed.”

Tess obliged him, then stepped out of her sneakers, pushing them into the grass. “A picnic? Whose idea was this?”

“Whose do you think?” Tom glanced at Dean who was already opening one of the bottles of wine. He’d come prepared, snapping open a corkscrew and twisting the tip into the cork, yanking it out in the next instant with a loud pop. Dean filled a pair of plastic tumblers and handed one to Tess.

“Aren’t you having any wine?” Tess asked Tom.

“No, thanks.” Tom looked disapprovingly at Dean. “Somebody has to be the designated driver.”

“But we’re not going anywhere,” said Tess.

“It doesn’t matter.” Dean raised his glass to Tom. “Tommy’s always got to be behind the wheel. Don’t you, old man?”

An uncomfortable silence dropped. Tess glanced between the brothers.

“So, what’s for dinner?” she asked, eager to diffuse the tension.

Dean grinned over his glass. “I thought you’d never ask.” He handed Tess his wine, then moved to get up. “Be right back with the main course.”

“Sit; I’ll go.” Tom rose and marched up to the house with his hands in his pockets before Dean could protest. Tess handed Dean back his glass, then watched him take several sips.

“So, when do I get to see this sculpture of yours?” he asked.

“Whenever you want. It’s almost done.”

She glanced back at the house. Dean added more wine to their glasses, even though Tess had barely touched hers.

“Don’t mind Tommy,” Dean said, sitting back. “He’ll snap out of it. He usually does.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“What
isn’t
it?”

Tom returned a few moments later with the pizza and set the pan down on the sheet. He served the wedges, the smell of warm basil fragrant while they ate.

“So how did you and the warden meet?” Dean asked.

Tess looked at Tom, Dean’s challenge too hard to resist. “He was spying on me in my studio.”

“I wasn’t spying,” Tom said firmly. “I was looking to ask for directions.”

“He was
spying
,” Tess said again, equally firmly, grinning at Tom as she did.

“Busted!” Dean cried. “I’m going to start calling you Peeping Tom.”

“Please don’t,” Tom said warily as he watched his brother scoop up the second bottle and deftly uncork it.

“So, how is it you can’t swim?” Tess asked Tom.

“It’s not that I
can’t
swim. I just don’t go out of my way to.”

“Aw, that’s bullshit—the real reason is that Tommy can’t
stand to lose.” Dean leaned over and thumped Tom on the back. “I beat the crap out of him one summer when we were kids, racing back from a raft in the lake, and he was such a goddamn baby about it, he never got in the water again.”

“But
you
did,” Tess said.

“I did more than that.” Dean drained his wine. “Did Tommy tell you I was a shoo-in for the Olympic team?”

“What happened?” asked Tess.

She looked between the brothers, waiting for one of them to answer.

Tom’s eyes fell to his plate. It was Dean who finally explained as he refilled his glass. “I was just kidding you yesterday about the rock climbing. It was a car accident. I limp because of the crash. Fractured my hip. I couldn’t walk for months. Sure as shit couldn’t swim. Ask Tommy. He changed my bedpan for weeks. It was fucking heaven on earth, wasn’t it, old man?”

Tess looked at Tom, waiting for him to meet her worried gaze, but he refused to. Instead, he scooped up the pizza tray and said, “We should clear all this before it gets too dark.”

“I’ll help you,” Tess offered, rising with him.

Dean fished the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one, and dropped down to the grass. “You kids have fun. I’ll wait for you out here. Keep the fireflies company; chat up the crabs.”

Tom and Tess stacked the dirty plates and walked up
to the house, the sunset washing the clapboards in a silvery pink.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked when they were inside.

“It’s not the sort of thing you just throw out there.”

“It must have been awful,” she said, following him to the sink. “Were you in the car too?”

“We all were.” Tom took the plates from her hands and set them under the tap. “My folks were killed instantly.”

“Oh, Tom…” Tess reached for his hand where it rested on the edge of the counter. He watched her fingers slide between his.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“We were in high school. I was about to graduate.”

“What did you do?”

Tom glanced up to the window above the sink, searching the view of the yard, nearly cloaked in darkness now, where Dean had stayed behind. His brother was out of sight maybe, but never out of mind. “The same thing I’m doing now,” he said.

Tess studied him in the harsh light of the overhead. She hadn’t been imagining it; he was different tonight—uncomfortable, distracted. The frown line in the middle of his brow had been fixed there for hours. She had seen the way he’d watched Dean every time he’d refilled his glass.

“Is that why he calls you the warden?” she asked.

“He calls me that because he’s a child,” Tom said, “and he thinks all I ever do is come down on him.” He turned to Tess. “You don’t have to stay. He’s exhausting; I know.”

“I don’t mind. I like him.”

“So you’ve said.”

She took up Tom’s hand in both of hers, turning it, thinking, stupidly, how different his fingers were from Pete’s. “I don’t even know what you teach,” she said.

“Biology.”

“Do the girls leave you apples?”

“Cores, sometimes. From my class right after lunch. I don’t keep them.”

Tess smiled. “He’s just fooling around, you know. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

She was doing it again, Tom thought, defending Dean when she knew nothing about him. He released her hands. “I’m all he has, Tess. I wish it were different, but it’s not.”

“Is that why Frank gave you this place?” she asked. “Because he felt sorry for you?”

Tom looked back to the window. “I should go check on Dean. He’s liable to wander around in the dark and walk off a cliff.”

Tess reached for him again. “You could come back with me,” she said. “Just for a little while.”

“I can’t. I can’t leave him.” Tom cupped her cheek. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Tess put her hand over his. “Of course I came.”

“No, I don’t mean here now,” he said. “I mean here in this town. I’m glad you’re here in this town.”

TWO HOURS LATER, DEAN’S CIGARETTE
pack empty and the wind too brisk to endure, he finally went to bed. Tom closed down the house and came up to his own room. Under the sheets and staring a long while at the blue-tinted ceiling, he could hear the comforting sounds of Dean’s heavy snores sailing down the corridor, proof that he was here and that he was safe. Tomorrow he’d take Dean to the clinic in Port Chester. Tom had managed to make an appointment on his cell phone while Dean had been trying to pick up a woman at the grocery store. Once there, he’d get Dean into a recovery program, get the list of local AA meetings, take him to one as soon as he could; he’d get his brother sober and finally keep him there.

Tom felt a deep and expanding sense of peace, an unfamiliar settling, like a breath let out after too long underwater.

Maybe there was some truth to the magic of this small town, he thought, closing his eyes.

Maybe he didn’t have to drown like Linus Harris after all.

THEY’D BEEN FOUND ON A
small island almost seventy miles from the Harbor, a strip of land called Crow’s Rock. To say the four men were found alive was clinically accurate, but to see them arrive at the wharf on that damp and gray morning, one might not have been so sure. Helped off their rescue boat, they shared a look of numb fatigue, their skin darkened and dry from the sun and the salt, their lips a chalky pink.

They were taken at once to the hospital in Port Chester, and that was where Lydia first saw her husband.

“Did they say what happened?” someone called out from the crowd that had gathered outside the hospital.

An officer raised his hands to quiet everyone. “They’ve not been in any condition to speak. All of that will come in time. Right now, they need to recover. They’ve been through a terrible ordeal and need a great deal of replenishment.”

“He won’t be able to return home for several days, Mrs. Harris,” one of the doctors told Lydia a few minutes later when she’d been steered out of her husband’s room.

“Is there someone you can contact, dear?” a nurse asked, looking genuinely concerned. “Family who could come and stay with you?”

PEARL ARRIVED AT THE POINT
two days later. The sisters rushed to each other and held on for several moments while the driver hauled Pearl’s bags down to the grass. Lydia began to cry at once.

“Why didn’t you send word when he’d gone missing?” demanded Pearl, crying too. “I would have come that instant. I would have
walked
!”

“There wasn’t time,” Lydia lied. “It all happened so quickly.”

“He must be a wreck.”

“He’s resting.”

“
You
must be a wreck.”

“I’m fine. I’m just relieved.”

Pearl took her little sister’s face in her gloved hands, studying her. “Are you fine?” she asked. “Are you really?”

“Of course I am.” Lydia drew her sister’s hands into her own. “Come on. Let’s get you settled.”

PEARL HAD BROUGHT CHEESE AND
smoked meats, which they devoured at the kitchen table with tea soon after Pearl had unpacked her things. Rain fell, spraying the windows. The house crawled with damp. Lydia fed the woodstove until streaks of orange sparked and roared behind the grate, but it made little difference.