Close to the Bone (7 page)

I put my arm around her. “A contract for what, hon?”

“A book.” She shivered. “They’re giving me money to write a book.”

I stood up and held my hands out to her. “Come on. Let’s go inside, make some coffee, get some clothes on. I want to hear all about it.”

Fifteen minutes later we were sipping hot coffee at the table. We’d changed into sweats, and on the other side of the sliding glass doors, the sky was full of dark clouds and it had begun to rain.

“Now,” I said. “Tell me about your book.”

Alex smiled quickly. “Remember that series I did on abused wives?”

I nodded. “Sure. There was Pulitzer talk, as I recall.”

“Well, they want me to do a book on it. A different book. The publisher liked my slant. It looks at the dynamics that produce these abusive relationships.”

“You mean how women drive men to it?”

She looked sharply at me, and I quickly held up my hand. “Joke, kid.”

She nodded. “I know when you’re joking. You’re not always funny. It’s about how mothers raise their boys to beat their wives, and how fathers raise their daughters to seek out abusive men to marry, and how abusers and victims seem to seek out and marry each other, and…” She shrugged. “Anyway,” she said, “I got the contract. Sally called today.”

“And that’s why you drank more beers than usual and threw away your clothes.”

“Yup. I’m gonna be a real writer. I’m sorry, Brady.”

“Sorry? Why? This is wonderful news.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before.”

I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. “That doesn’t matter. Congratulations. It’s an appropriate occasion to drink a lot of beers and discard your clothing.”

She was shaking her head. “What if I can’t do it? What if I spend the money they give me and I can’t write anything? What if the paper dumps me and won’t take me back?” Tears welled up in her eyes. “What if…”

I squeezed her hand. “I’m proud of you. You’re going to write a wonderful book. You’re a hard worker and a terrific writer. Publishers don’t invest money in people who can’t do the job.”

“They don’t know me like I do,” she said.

When we finished our coffee, I took her hand and led her to the shower. We stripped off clothes and stood under the steaming water. Alex cried and pressed against me, and I held her tight until she whispered, “I’m okay now.” I lathered her up all over and twirled her slowly under the hot spray. “Now your turn,” she said, and she washed me. We toweled each other dry and then she took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

We made love. We dozed.

Sometime in the evening I awakened. Alex had her arm thrown across my chest and she was breathing softly on my cheek. I slipped away from her, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, went into the kitchen, and dumped two cans of Progresso minestrone into a saucepan.

While it heated I smoked a cigarette and stared out the sliding door at the storm that raged over the harbor. Raindrops as big as acorns splattered against the glass. Six stories down, frothy white combers rolled across the black water. Now and then lightning lit up the sky.

I felt Alex press herself against my back. “I love a big storm,” she whispered.

“It reminds us who’s boss.”

“Yes. It puts things into perspective.”

“I’ve got some soup heating on the stove.”

She snaked her hand under my T-shirt and rubbed my chest. “So what if I can’t do the dumb book,” she said.

“You can do it.”

“I think I can.”

“We should be celebrating,” I said.

“We already did.”

“That was it?”

She chuckled. “No. That was just the prologue. Let’s have some soup. Then we can celebrate some more.”

Later we lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry for acting like a female hysteric,” Alex murmured.

“I think that’s a redundancy.”

“What is?”

“ ‘Female hysteric.’ The word
hysteria
comes from the Greek word for ‘uterus.’ Originally, at least, they thought only females were susceptible to hysteria.”

“Because they had a uterus,” said Alex.

“Because they were female, which was more or less defined as having a uterus.”

“Males didn’t have hysteria.”

“No,” I said. “Being deprived of uteruses and all. When males had those symptoms, they figured there was really something wrong with them.”

“The doctors giving those diagnoses being predominantly male.”

“Exclusively male back then, I believe,” I said.

She rolled onto her side and kissed my shoulder. “I’ll have to move,” she said softly. “I’ll need a quiet place. In the country, probably. Maine, maybe, or Vermont. Someplace cheaper. I’ll have to get a leave from the paper, and I’ll have to live on the advance for two years, and anyway, I want to move. But…”

“I understand,” I said.

“Do you? It’ll be someplace not—not so near to you.”

“We’ll work it out.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“What have you been thinking?”

“You could come with me. It wouldn’t be Montana, but…”

“It’s something to think about,” I said quietly.

We lay there in silence for a few minutes. Then Alex said, “Brady?”

“What, hon?”

“You’re more important to me than a book, you know?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Hey?”

“Mmm?”

“Did I say something wrong?”

I hugged her against me. “Sometimes you think too much,” I said.

“I want you to be happy.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I want both of us to be happy.”

When both of my sons fled the East Coast for Western time zones, I stopped being frightened when the phone awakened me in the middle of the night. Billy liked to tell me about the trout he was catching in Idaho. Rubbing it in, I called it, but I was always happy to hear from him, even if it did interrupt my sleep. Joey called less often and less spontaneously than his brother, but as smart as he was, he always seemed surprised when I reminded him that eleven o’clock in the evening in California was 2:00
A.M.
in Boston.

So when the telephone shrilled in the dark that night, it didn’t jar me upright in bed the way it used to when the boys were still teenagers living with Gloria and my first waking thought was of automobile accidents.

I fumbled for the phone, got it after the second ring, and held it to my ear. “H’lo?”

“Brady?” It was neither of my sons. Billy calls me Pop and Joey calls me Dad, and both of them generally call me collect. Anyway, this voice was female.

“Yes, this is Brady,” I mumbled.

“It’s Olivia.”

“Oh…?”

“Olivia Cizek. You were the first person I thought of to call. I’m sorry to wake you up.”

“It’s okay.” I bunched my pillow behind me and pushed myself into a semi-sitting position. Beside me Alex twitched and groaned. “What’s the matter?” I said softly into the phone.

“It’s very strange. It’s…”

“Olivia, are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I—the Coast Guard just called. They found Paul’s boat.”

“What do you mean?”

I heard her exhale a loud breath. “His boat. It was drifting somewhere out around the Merrimack River. They towed it in, and then they called me, and—”

“Where’s Paul?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated, then said, “Oh. You probably don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

I heard her take a breath. “Paul and I separated a couple months ago, Brady.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s been living up there. On Plum Island. Since we—we split. Up there in that—he calls it a shack. They called here for him. They got the numbers off the boat and this was the address, but—”

“Olivia, listen,” I said. “We’ve had a big storm tonight. Paul’s boat broke away from its moorings, that’s all. Call him and tell him what happened. He’s pretty lucky they found it in this storm. It could’ve been sunk or gone halfway to Labrador.”

“I tried calling him. There was no answer.” She paused. “You don’t get it,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t keep his boat moored. He trailers it. Do you understand?”

Alex mumbled something and rolled toward me. I reached for her and pulled her against me.

“Brady?” said Olivia.

“I understand,” I said quietly. If Paul trailered his boat, he did not keep it moored at any marina. He kept it in his garage or driveway. Paul’s boat would be in the water only if Paul was on it.

“I told them something happened,” said Olivia. “He went out in that storm.”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“I gave them your name,” she said. “Was that all right?”

“Sure, Olivia. Anything I can do to help…”

“You
are
our lawyer.”

“Yes, I am.”

“So now what? Now what’m I supposed to do?”

“What did the Coast Guard tell you?”

“They said someone would be in touch. I guess they’re… they’re looking…”

“There’s nothing else you can do,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s hard. But all you can do is wait.”

“He never wore a life jacket,” she said. “He loved to go out alone at night. Especially when it was stormy. He said that a storm would churn up the bait, get the fish excited. It’s so dumb.”

“Hang in there, Olivia. Call me when—”

“When they find his body.”

“Anytime. Call me when you hear anything. Or even if you don’t. Whatever I can do to help, call me.”

“Thank you,” she said in a small voice. “Thank you, Brady.”

I hung up the phone. Alex mumbled, “Everything okay?”

“No,” I said. “Paul Cizek took his boat out this evening. The Coast Guard towed it in. Paul wasn’t on it.”

I
LAY THERE FOR A WHILE
with Alex’s cheek on my shoulder and her leg hooked over both of mine, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I slid out from under her, pulled on my jeans and a clean T-shirt, and padded into the kitchen. I plugged in the coffee and leaned against the counter until it finished perking. Then I poured myself a mugful and took it out onto the balcony.

The storm had swept the air clean, and the sky was turning pink out on the eastern horizon. I didn’t need a wristwatch to tell me that it was close to 5:00
A.M.
, because at that time of June the sun rises a little after five, and when I’m on my balcony I can see it happen.

Olivia Cizek, I figured, had called around four.

I imagined her sitting somewhere in her house sipping coffee and staring out the window waiting for the phone to ring. She and Paul had separated. But being separated wouldn’t stop her from caring.

I remembered the last time I’d seen Paul. It had been at Glen Falconer’s victory party. He’d asked for my help, and I’d tried to give it to him. But as far as I knew, he hadn’t accepted it. Maybe I could have tried harder.

No. I’d done what I could. I was not responsible for his leaving Olivia.

The sun cracked the horizon on schedule, a sudden flare of light in the clear morning air. “Daybreak,” it’s called, and the word applies literally when it happens over the ocean.

It took only a few minutes for the earth to rotate far enough to reveal the entire circumference of the sun. The color quickly burned out of the sky, leaving it pale blue and cloudless. It promised to be a perfect Saturday in June.

Ideally I would spend a perfect June Saturday at a trout river. Mayflies of various species hatch from April through October on New England rivers, but their name is no coincidence. They hatch most prolifically in May and June—big, smoke-winged Hendricksons; March Browns and Gray Foxes, which look like miniature sailboats on the water with their barred wings unfurled; little yellow sulphurs and big yellow Light Cahills; and green drakes, which are really more cream-colored than green and look as big as sparrows when they lift off a river.

Mayflies are among Mother Nature’s most graceful and beautiful creations, and I think I’d believe that even if trout didn’t gluttonize on them when they ride on a stream’s currents to dry their wings.

But trout do gluttonize on mayflies, and when they do, they can be fooled into eating an imitation made of feathers and fur and hair wound onto a small fishhook, provided, like the real thing, it drifts freely and naturally on the surface of the stream.

Selecting the best imitation to tie onto the end of my leader, casting it so that it drifts directly over a feeding trout, and doing it so cleverly that the trout confuses that fur-and-feather concoction with a real mayfly and pokes his nose out of the water to eat it—that is the appeal of trout fishing in June.

I figured I wouldn’t do any fishing on this particular Saturday in June, keeping my nonfishing record for the season intact. Paul Cizek had gone overboard during the storm. Olivia would need me.

I was smoking a cigarette, working on my second mug of coffee, and watching the gulls cruise over the harbor when Alex kissed the back of my neck.

“Good morning, sweetie,” she said.

I turned my head so she could kiss my cheek. Then I kissed hers. “Hi,” I said. “Coffee’s all brewed.”

She showed me the mug she was holding. “Are you okay?”

“I’m pretty worried about Paul.”

“Tell me about it. I was kind of out of it when the phone rang.”

She sat in the aluminum chair beside me and held onto my hand while I talked. When I told her that Paul and Olivia had separated, she squeezed my hand a little harder.

“You think he went overboard during the storm,” she said when I finished.

“I guess there are a lot of explanations for finding his boat out there without him on it,” I said. “But that’s the one that makes the most sense.”

“If he went overboard—”

“He probably drowned. He never wore a life jacket. I’m trying not to create scenarios. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just trying to wait and see what happens.”

“His wife will call you again?”

“I expect so. If she doesn’t, I’ll call her.”

“You were hoping to go fishing,” she said.

“Yes. I was going to call Charlie and see if he wanted to go. If he didn’t, I’d probably have gone alone. I haven’t been all year. I’ve pretty much lost my heart for it now.”