Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (2 page)

“The whole place?” she asked, having no idea what she was talking about, or why she was there.

The girl's blue eyes swept the room back and forth and fell on Catherine, her freckled skin and tan face, the faded sundress threaded with colorful posies, a dress she'd had since college.

“Aren't you renting the house?” she inquired. “I mean, Henry told me that you were.” She sounded exasperated and winded, and Catherine wanted to ask her to sit down but didn't, because at the mention of Henry's name she flinched and went silent. “Everything I've seen is either too far out of town or just isn't right. I loved this little house on the east side, but I'm not sure.”

At one time, the east side of the town had been Winslow's wealthiest, most tended neighborhood, but it had fallen into disrepair, the Victorian homes going to ruin in the current economic climate. With good reason, those on the west side tried to forget about the east, as everything unpleasant in Winslow seemed to originate from there. Catherine had already seen enough of Antonia to know she wouldn't be happy across the railroad tracks.

“It isn't safe there,” she said, thinking about Henry, who'd sent the girl. She didn't need to ask which Henry it was; she'd seen them together more than once. “But there's been a mistake. I'm not renting my house,” she told her, all the while thinking, Why did Henry send you here?

As Antonia slid on her sandals, and they moved back to the porch, Catherine said, “He must have meant the house on the corner,” and pointed to a small green house with a wraparound veranda at the far end of the block.

At this, the girl brightened and said, “I'll check it out. Thanks,” and off she went, lighting a cigarette the moment she crossed the yard.

Catherine remained on the porch, growing concerned by this unexpected visit. She wasn't a suspicious person by nature yet wondered if something else weren't at work this afternoon. Henry, she thought, even as she plucked the half-smoked cigarette out of the flowerpot.

In the house, she poured another glass of wine and took it with her on the deck out back. Out there were the aboveground pool and an ancient sycamore that shaded the cottage, Wyatt's cottage, which glowed blue in the fading sun. There, on the deck, Catherine drank the wine and smoked the rest of the cigarette, taking great pleasure in the mixture of tastes. She stayed until there was no time left, all the while thinking only about Henry Swallow, the man who had helped to kill her husband.

Dinner with the Girls

_____

Instead of taking the unreliable, old Corolla, Catherine walked to the cafe, which sat across from Danvers Park, the town square, and was a good ten minutes from her house. Louise, Jane, and Catherine met there most Wednesday evenings. The park was empty, save for a gang of teenagers who laughed and smoke cigarettes in the white gazebo. During the school year, when the weather was good, the college's theater and music departments frequently put on plays and concerts in the park, many of which Wyatt and she had attended. As it had done every year since they'd come to Winslow nine years ago, in 1982, the local arts council hosted a couple of summer festivals, hiring local bands for entertainment. She remembered those evenings with Wyatt, when they had sat on a blanket leisurely listening to the music or watching a play, eating pâté and crackers and drinking rosé.

This evening, every one of the cafe's thirteen tables was taken, filled by many unfamiliar faces, those urban vacationers who came to Winslow in droves and made the town their own, however temporarily. (Wyatt used to call them tanned rats in Range Rovers.) They sought the cooler climes of upstate New York, the chance to take in the area's natural splendor—the town sat at the base of the Mohawk Mountains—and enjoy the secluded quiet. The tourists and the students, their coming and going, lent the town a sense of restless impermanence. Still, even after Wyatt's death, Catherine never thought about selling the house or leaving. She loved her house and her job and had made some good, lasting friends, like Jane and Louise, who were seated at their usual table in back.

Louise, the matriarch of the trio, was fifty-four years old and still a handsome woman, her hair the color of autumn grain. In 1985, she'd struggled through a battle with breast cancer and ultimately had to have a mastectomy. This happened around the time that Wyatt's novel was being published. Yet, even through the nausea and pain and shame, she'd come to his reading at the bookstore, her support of him as ferocious as Catherine's support of her.

Jane, at thirty-five, was the youngest of the friends. She was Catherine's height and coloring, and had the same thick, untamable blond hair. When they were together, people often mistook them for sisters. Whereas Catherine had put on a few extra pounds over the years, Jane hadn't gained an ounce. Tonight, she was wearing a lemon yellow blouse and a short pleated skirt, which showed off her athletic legs.

As Catherine sat down, Jane said, “And baby makes three,” and smiled.

Catherine settled in her seat and was about to launch into an account of the events of that afternoon, when she turned and spotted Antonia Lively at a table near the window. To the bewilderment of her friends, Catherine laughed; she found the coincidence more than amusing. Sometimes life was like this: we meet someone new and then run into them again, right away. Catherine was pleasantly surprised to see that Antonia was alone, without Henry, her face in a book.

Louise caught Catherine staring and said quietly, “I hear she's been looking at some places in your neighborhood, like the Turner house.” Louise, a native of Winslow, was the gatherer and dispeller of information, true or otherwise. “I mean, do Sandra and Jerome really believe they'll find someone to rent at the price they're asking?” she added. “It's such a dark, cheerless house, don't you think? All those shaggy willows and overgrown rosebushes. A total eyesore. I'd be depressed after a single night in it.”

“Maybe there's nothing else available,” Catherine said, feeling protective of the girl. Unnecessarily, she reminded her friends about the girl's celebrated short story, “Vitreous China.” “It's set in Georgia. It's about a young woman who cleans toilets for a living and finds a diamond engagement ring in one of them. You read it, Louise, remember?”

Louise did remember and crinkled her nose. “I've read better. After finishing it, I felt like I needed a bath. That poor girl and what those nasty soldiers did to her! It was just too gruesome for words. I wonder what compelled her to write such a ghoulish story.”

Catherine ignored the comment. She hadn't said as much, but she knew Louise disapproved of the ghoulishness in Wyatt's novel, too.

“She showed up at my door this afternoon,” Catherine said, with a certain pride. “Apparently, she thought I was renting my house.” She omitted Henry's involvement completely.

“You're leaving us? Where are you going?” Jane asked, horrified. “Not back to the city, because I won't let you.” Originally from Queens, Jane missed New York City more than anyone Catherine knew, herself included.

“I'm not renting my house, and I'm not going anywhere,” she said. “Besides, I couldn't, even if I wanted to.”

She gazed at Antonia, who'd finished her meal and was now heading for the door. Part of Catherine wanted to join her, to go after her—just as she should have gone after Wyatt. All at once, she was transported back to another night in this very cafe: her last meal with Wyatt before he vanished. They'd taken a window table, perhaps the same one as Antonia had taken, she couldn't quite remember. Wyatt had just ordered an expensive bottle of champagne—a luxury they couldn't afford. She didn't deny him or say a word, though; they were celebrating. It was his night. He'd just completed the penultimate chapter of his second novel, a book he'd been laboring on for a couple of years. Catherine had learned not to ask him of his progress or what the novel was about—“You know how much I hate that question. Ask about the characters. Ask about the setting. Just don't ever ask me what it's about!”—and he never gave her any clues. The one time she did ask, he said that it was his big revenge book. So that's what she took to calling it—Wyatt's Big Revenge Book.

As Catherine thought over that evening, she felt her face flush and all at once she had trouble breathing. She reached for her wine, but it seemed miles away, the table stretching into a streak of candlelight and cream-colored linen. Dizzy, she stood up, and stumbled toward the door, past the table and that night so long ago, when their faces still smiled with love and hope, and Wyatt still promised her that everything was going to turn out all right. It hadn't turned out all right, she thought, reaching the street and collapsing on the first available park bench. She looked around, her thoughts a scrambled blur. There was the gazebo, empty now; the soft sputter of the electric-flamed gas lamps; the tree where she and Wyatt had kissed, drunkenly, for the last time. Her heart was racing, and she glowed with sweat, when, moments later, Jane and Louise appeared, concerned and anxious.

“Are you all right?” Jane asked.

“She's fine,” Louise said, her voice soothing and maternal. Then, “I love you, you know that, but you have to stop this. You have to stop blaming yourself.”

“Louise!” Jane said. “Catherine doesn't blame herself. She didn't do anything wrong!”

She had, though. They knew she had. Only they didn't know all of it. How could she ever tell them, her dear friends, that complicated and unflattering story? How could she ever tell them about Henry Swallow?

“If you want, I can stay with you tonight,” Jane offered.

“That isn't necessary,” Catherine said, but even as she said it, she realized she dreaded going home alone. She wished for Wyatt at the door of the house, the comfort of his forgiveness. The loneliness came down hard then; cold, she began to shiver.

“Let me take you home,” Louise said, more of a command than an offer.

“No,” she said, “please,” thinking, What is going on here? Yet she knew exactly what was going on—another bad reaction to the regret and guilt she continued to carry with her. Even though they had other responsibilities to tend to—Jane had a new puppy, and Louise a demanding husband and son—her friends didn't leave her side. She loved them for it and hated them for it, but mostly she hated herself, for letting Wyatt leave, for letting him take their bright and golden futures with him.

They sat in silence, Jane to her right, Louise to her left, and after a while, the moon broke through the clouds and her friends were saying that they wanted a drink, and something—anything—to eat. “How about Tint?” one of them suggested, but Catherine wasn't listening. The air was full of insects and a faint music and too many shadows, and finally she pushed off the bench and said good-bye, heading home alone despite her friends' objections. Walking often slowed her thoughts, and made her feel better. Tonight, instead of going directly home, she walked up one street and down another, gradually breathing more easily, the spell of despair passing and taking with it those awful, indecent feelings that had brought it on. Yet how could she not blame herself? How could she get beyond the inexplicable?

A couple of days after Wyatt's accident, Louise showed up at the house with an envelope—a ticket to Paris and a thousand dollars in travelers' checks. “Wyatt promised you Paris. See Paris. Everything's been taken care of,” she said. Louise might have respected Wyatt, but she hadn't liked him, his pontificating and extravagant ego. When Catherine got to John F. Kennedy Airport, however, she watched her plane board, then depart without her, because she realized she would be alone in Paris just as she was alone in Winslow. It didn't matter where she went, because wherever it was she'd be without Wyatt. At the time, she didn't think there was any place her sadness wouldn't follow, not even in Paris, so she returned to town and she worked and she gardened and she slept. She slept and she smoked and she drank red wine. She drank red wine and she took long walks and she talked to Wyatt. She talked to Wyatt, avoiding the places they'd frequented. She avoided certain foods and songs, anything that brought back memories, and if she had to get from one side of town to another, she skirted the perimeter of the college, never once driving through it.

A place isn't your own until you walk the heart of it, Wyatt used to say, and the heart of the town, the real heart, was Winslow College, where he had been an assistant professor of creative writing. Founded in 1862, the college sat like a huge, stationary wagon wheel with six streets radiating from its center. A modest-sized liberal arts college, with about fifty-five hundred undergrad and grad students combined, it came with rolling lawns and ivy-clad brick buildings. This evening, despite having no intention of going there, she found herself crossing the flat plane of Shaddock Green, coming to the empty parking lot that opened onto Mead Hall. The building's gothic facade was dark and foreboding, even with a couple of the windows lit. She hadn't been back here for a year and a half, not since she'd packed up Wyatt's things: his literary journals, his books, his students' essays, the manuscript he'd been working on, an old windbreaker, a chipped coffee mug, all of which sat in the house, boxed up. She still hadn't mustered the courage to go through any of it.

As Catherine stood, gazing at what had been Wyatt's office window on the third floor, she realized she wasn't alone; someone was gazing down at her. She thought she caught the glimmer of something—glasses, binoculars?—as the light brushed them. She blinked, and for a moment she put Wyatt in the window again, she put Wyatt in the world again, all of this creating an unbearable sadness. She dropped her eyes, and when she looked up, the figure was no longer there. Had it been a maintenance person or maybe the current occupant of Wyatt's office?

Had it been Henry Swallow?

Once home, she grabbed Wyatt's novel off the shelf. “Why did Henry send her, Wyatt?” she asked, sitting down on the sofa, the book in her lap open to the back flap. Her husband's handsome face stared up at her with the same enigmatic smile that he'd worn the day he'd driven away. Even now, Catherine wondered what that smile meant. There were so many possibilities. Smiling, he'd climbed into his car, and smiling, he'd backed out of the driveway. Who was that smile for, and where was it taking him? Was it for someone else, a potential rendezvous? Or—and in the days and weeks and months after his death, she thought about this often—was it for Henry? Had he finally decided to deal with that at last?

Sometimes while working, Catherine let her mind wander, putting Henry in the car instead of Wyatt, putting Henry on the bridge. She again remembered that blustery summer night three years ago, when Henry had shown up at the house unexpectedly. “What are you doing here?” she'd asked. Her heart had pounded at the sight of him on the porch, the wind pushing against him, whipping at his eyes. He blinked back tears and took a step toward her, even as Catherine kept her grip tightly on the door, feeling that if she were to let go of it, she'd fall. She had repeated her question, and thought, Now that would be something if they were real tears.

“I've come to talk to Wyatt,” he'd said.

“Wyatt isn't home,” she'd said.

“Tell him I'm here, Catherine,” he'd said.

“I will do no such thing,” she'd said, slamming the door and extinguishing the porch light.

Just as she'd closed the door, Wyatt had emerged from his study and asked Catherine whom she had been talking to. Pressed up against the wood of the door, she felt heavy and weak. “It was Henry,” she said. “He wanted to talk to you. Why would he want to talk to you, Wyatt?” Even as she said this, her husband was already pushing past her. She followed him onto the porch.

Henry was walking slowly through the yard as Wyatt caught up to him. They spoke quietly for a moment, and then they were both heading back toward the house. Catherine retreated into the bedroom without protest, even though she found the idea of Henry in the house unpleasant. She did not come out again that night, and Wyatt did not come to bed.

The next morning, she found him on the sofa. She didn't want to fight. She merely asked, “What was Henry doing here?”

Wyatt said nothing for many minutes, just sat staring into the empty fireplace. Then he finally said, “The college—my department—hired Swallow. He starts in the fall.” As if overpowered by the ugly weight of his words, Wyatt sank back into the sofa.