All Things Cease to Appear (26 page)

Time to go, she thought.

She glanced through the screen door and saw Travis standing on the edge of the property, his arms crossed over his chest, looking displeased, impatient. Well, it wouldn’t kill him to wait another five minutes.

Catherine fixed them ice-cream cones—Franny wanted chocolate, Cole a scoop of that and vanilla—and in that moment he was the happy boy Mary remembered from when his mother was alive.

I’m going to put her to bed, Cole. You can probably get going.

Why don’t I take you home? Mary said.

My brother said he’d come.

Nonsense. Go and get your things. I want my husband out of here before he arrests somebody!

—

WITHOUT HIS BROTHERS
around, Cole was quieter than usual. He sat in the back seat, impassive, looking out the window. Mary couldn’t get those rings out of her head. Unlike her cynical husband, she’d been inside enough creepy houses to believe in the possibility of ghosts or, as the experts called them, entities. Sometimes you just got a feeling. Like stepping into ice water, your whole body went rigid. She’d felt it herself at the farm when she’d gone in to clean up right after the accident. She’d stripped their bed and put the bundle of sheets on the back seat of her car, and, driving home that afternoon, she had the strangest feeling that Ella was sitting back there, too, and she kept looking in her rearview mirror, half expecting to meet her eyes. When she got home she shoved the sheets into the machine, dumping in plenty of soap, as if to prove who was the boss here. Then she fixed herself a stiff drink and stood there watching the sheets churn in the little window. But when she thought about it now, without the hysteria, she decided there might be some truth to it. After all, where does your spirit go when your body dies? It has to go somewhere. If you were happy, maybe you went to heaven. If you were troubled—and Ella Hale certainly had been—maybe you stayed around to sort things out. It seemed to make sense, although it wasn’t anything she’d say out loud.

She couldn’t help wondering where she’d go herself. She had unfinished business of her own. When she dared to imagine herself inside a coffin, the darkness, the closed-in feeling, she experienced a terror so violent and intimate that she almost couldn’t breathe.

How do you feel about biology this year? Travis was asking Cole.

Travis Jr.’s struggling, she added, joining the conversation.

It’s not so bad, Cole said. We’re dissecting a pig. It’s kind of cool.

Then Travis asked, How is it, working for the Clares?

All right, I guess. We painted the barns. Now we’re starting on the house, but it’s pretty much just Eddy now, ’cause of school.

Good for you, Mary said.

They came out really good.

What’s he like, Mary asked, Mr. Clare?

He’s all right. Not around all that much.

She knew she shouldn’t but went ahead and said, I think he’s strange.

I don’t know, the boy said, but she could tell he was just being polite.

Now, now, that’s not the important thing, Travis said, giving her a look. How’s the pay? That’s what I want to know.

Pretty good, I guess.

I’ll tell you what. I admire a man who saves his money.

Yes, sir.

They drove a few minutes in silence before pulling up in front of Rainer Luks’s putty-colored row home, which had once housed mill workers back in the early nineteenth century; now most of those residents worked at the plastics factory over on Route 66, but some were young weekenders who liked the big windows and tall ceilings and narrow backyards.

Say hello to your uncle for us.

He opened the door. Thanks for the ride. Say hi to Travis.

You bet.

They watched him go inside. He’d grown tall like his father and had the same loping walk.

I’m glad we brought him home, Travis said. They were smoking marijuana at that party. I could’ve had a field day.

Good for you for restraining yourself.

I can’t do parties. We ought to know that by now.

She reached across the seat and took his hand. Take me home, Travis. We’ll make our own party.

But ten minutes after they got home her husband was asleep. Mary fixed herself a drink and brought out the thick photo album. She flipped through it eagerly and found a snapshot of her and Ella, a little yellow now from the years under plastic. They were out on the steps, smoking, their toddlers, Cole and Travis Jr., playing at their feet. She and Ella were both wearing cardigans and plaid skirts, their lips painted red. They had their hair in rollers. She could remember they’d done each other’s hair that day. Those soft rollers were all the rage.

She thought of the Clares living in that house and a feeling went through her. Poor Cole, working for those people, in his own house. Imagine what his mother would think. They’d stolen the place right out from under those poor boys. It just wasn’t right. And nobody, not one person, had stepped in to see if they could help. Not even her and Travis. They were as guilty as anybody else.

A sick feeling coursed all through her. Guilt, that’s what it was.

And the Clares—well, they’d gotten a hell of a deal.

How sad that we’ve come to this, she thought. A world of unreliability. A world of takers.

2

AFTER EVERYONE
had gone and they were cleaning up, she said to George, Why didn’t you tell me about the boys?

Tell you what? His voice was sharp.

Their parents died in this house, George.

So? Does it matter?

Yes, it matters. Did you know?

He just looked at her.

How could you even buy this house, knowing what happened to their parents?

I didn’t think it was a big deal.

Not a big deal. She could hardly contain her anger. How could you be so insensitive? Why didn’t you tell me?

Because I knew what you’d say.

And you didn’t care?

It’s a little late to be having this conversation, don’t you think?

You’re right. We should’ve had it before we bought it.

As usual, you’re overreacting.

She shook her head. I don’t like this house, she said. It was a mistake.

You’re being ridiculous.

Something about his expression—the flat, cold stare, his flagrant indifference—stirred something wild in her. On impulse, she walked out, shaking, and got into the car and drove. It was very dark, no moon, and the road was empty, as if she were the lone survivor of some global catastrophe. Unwittingly, she glanced at the empty seat beside her, half expecting to see someone there—some vision—but there was nothing, no one. Only the black window, her vague reflection in the glass.

She drove into town, to the house where the boys lived with their uncle, and parked at the curb. The lights were out, but she could see the TV light flashing on the ceiling. She’d planned to knock, explain herself and attempt to distinguish her and George from other people, who had shown their family so little consideration. Instead, she sat there and had a cigarette. Then she thought: I’ll just keep driving. A fantasy washed over her, a vivid chronology of her escape, but ended abruptly. Because leaving Franny behind wasn’t an option.

She started the engine and drove home.

The next day, when Cole came to the house after school, she said, I didn’t know you lived here. I’m sorry. Nobody told me.

She started to cry. She let him hold her. Awkwardly, the way a boy holds a woman. They stood there like that, a strange pair. Here, she said, taking off the rings. These were your mother’s.

Cole took the rings and closed his palm around them.

She would have liked you, he said finally. My mother. She’d be glad to know it was you.

Part 2

Hard Alee

FLOYD DEBEERS OWNED
a sailboat named
The Love of My Life,
in honor of his second wife. He moored it near the campus dock, by the boathouse and the crew team’s weight room. At one time, Saginaw had a sailing team, but then ran out of money, which was often the case. When George mentioned that he was a sailor, Floyd invited him out on the boat, a Valiant 32. It was a sturdy little boat with a canoe stern, rigged as a sloop. One Friday after work, they sailed downriver. It was a beautiful afternoon on the water.

You’re an old salt, George said, nodding at the tiller.

I’ve considered converting it, though a wheel takes all the fun out of it. It’s something like being a little deaf—you might get the experience, but you miss things. I bought it for my wife. She loved a good sail. They’d met in boarding school, he explained, at St. George’s. His wife had been from Watch Hill.

He let George take the tiller and went down below to retrieve a bottle of bourbon and two glasses with ice. What about your wife? She a sailor, too?

No—she’s not a water person.

How’d you meet?

College.

What does she do?

She’s busy with our daughter now. Our time’s kind of limited.

They say you have to make time.

George nodded. Yes, I know.

Will you have more?

More?

Children.

Fortunately, the subject hadn’t come up. She’d turned the small room at the end of the hall into her sewing room in lieu of a nursery. I don’t know, he said, and he didn’t.

Then again, you have to want all that. Floyd poured them each a drink. Skol.

He held up his glass. The bourbon tasted bitter.

I never did.

Kids?

Floyd shook his head. I regret it now. He looked at George carefully. I think I might have been more fulfilled.

It’s great, George said, then realized this might’ve offended him. But it’s a lot of work, too. In truth, Franny was the most important thing in his life. She was the glue that held him and Catherine together. For a moment, he entertained the possibility of leaving her. She would inevitably get custody. The judges, he knew, always sided with the mother. And maybe that’s how it should be. Catherine would undoubtedly move in with her parents. He imagined all of them living together in that ghastly house, eating their dinners off of snack-tray tables in front of
The Price Is Right.

Tacking downriver, they labored against the current. Coming back would be easier. The sun was lower now, almost white in its brightness. The water silver.

What about you?

Me?

Where do you stand on that sort of thing? With your wife, I mean. Your marriage, has it been—has it turned out like you thought? Are you fulfilled?

The question seemed oddly personal. Of course, he said, but it was such a grandiose lie that he coughed.

Well, she’s only your first. As I told you, I’m on my third.

It can be…

Difficult, I know. He looked at George, assessing him. Let me guess: she was pregnant?

George nodded.

And you did the noble thing?

Tried to.

And now you’re—

Stuck?

Your word, not mine. Well? Are you?

It’s one way to put it.

Being stuck has its benefits, DeBeers said encouragingly. Raising your daughter, for one. Having a home, stability. Love. He met George’s eyes. Not things to take for granted, as it turns out.

George nodded like a chastised schoolboy.

When you come right down to it, there are few things in this world as important.

I’ll drink to that.

Not to sound sanctimonious.

No, no, George insisted. You make a good point.

It’s hard to see what’s good, what’s right, when you’re in the middle of it.

—

THE RIVER MOVED
like a great conveyor belt, but you couldn’t compare it to the ocean. Growing up on the Sound, with its compelling current and trickery, had made George a capable sailor. His cousin, Henri, had taught him on an old Blue Jay, an endearing little wooden boat yet clumsy to launch from the rocky shore. Henri was French, the son of his mother’s sister, five years older than George, thin, anxious, philosophical. George tried to read his books, Rimbaud a predictable favorite; even then he’d suspected Henri was gay. George followed him around like a caddy, carrying his easel, watching him paint boats and lobster pots, filling up sketchbooks and journals. In return, Henri gave him cigarettes and talked to him about art. Then, when George was thirteen, Henri drowned in a boating accident. After the funeral, with relatives crowded in the living room of his aunt and uncle’s house, George went up to Henri’s room and stole his journal. He would read it late at night, after his parents had gone to bed, its pages filled with the torment and chaos of lust. A week or so before leaving for college he destroyed it, ripping it to pieces and shoving it into a trash can outside a McDonald’s, amid half-eaten hamburgers and ketchup-splattered napkins.

The theft had stayed with him; he often thought of it during his darkest moments. It seemed to have been a defining moment in his life. Not one he was proud of.

They had another drink as the sun turned red.

Red sky at night, Floyd said.

To our delight, he said, and clinked his glass against Floyd’s. Cheers.

They drank without talking. Across the river, the commuter train flashed behind the trees. They sat there watching it. When it had finally gone, Floyd asked if he’d had a chance to read the Swedenborg.