Frog (9 page)

She's OK, everything in place, in the same position, far as he can tell, she was in when he last looked in on her an hour ago. About an hour and fifteen minutes now. Nobody to call. The town hall, but he's just about sure nobody's there to answer. Looks outside the bedroom window that faces the front. Doesn't seem to be any fog around. Bug light above the front door and the living room floor lamp he was sitting under give off enough light to tell. But the roads always get the fog worse than their house. Denise would also have called, if she was going anywhere but home after the movie, to make sure everything was all right with Olivia. Something's wrong. He's almost sure of it. There's just no reason for her not to be home by now. He thinks that even if there was an accident on the road that prevented her car and others from going around it—on one of the two narrow bridges, for instance—she would have got the trooper to somehow call him or gone into someone's home to call herself. No, that's going too far—both those. Olivia stirs, turns her head over to the other side. She probably did that several times in the last hour, stuck her foot out of the crib and brought it under the covers too. He hopes she wakes up. He'd love to pick her up, wrap a baby blanket around her and hold her to him till she fell asleep again. Maybe singing to her; probably just quietly. Maybe she has to pee. She doesn't wake up. He pulls the covers back, feels inside her diapers. Dry. If they were wet he'd go downstairs to run warm water over her washrag, change her in the crib.

He goes downstairs, sits in the living room chair under the lamp, picks up the book he's been reading, stares outside. Mosquito buzzes his ear. He jerks his head back, looks around for it, sees it, holds his hand and the book out on either side of it and slaps. Got it, but nothing's there when he looks at the book and his hand. Spreads his fingers wide, looks at his lap and the floor, stands and brushes off anything that may be on his chest. Doesn't see how he could have missed it, since he didn't see it fly away, but it's sometimes happened. It'll be back. He goes to the window. Private road leading to the secondary road roughly a quarter of a mile up the hill. Right on that road to the general store and main country road 2.3 miles away. Mosquito again, once around his head, and when he holds out his hands to slap it, though there's much less light here, it darts away and seems to go up the fireplace chimney, but he's lost it in a darker part of the room for a few seconds, so that could have been another one. Right on that road to White Hill. Movie's probably been over an hour and three-quarters by now, longer if it started on time. So it's been almost an hour and a half since she should have been home, and longer if she left the movie early because she didn't like it, let's say, or wasn't feeling well. He can see only a few feet of road going up the hill. Can see some sky through the trees. A dark blue with a streak of bright light. Good. Must be a clear night and full moon or no more than a day before or after one. Better for driving. Some full-moon nights, which they don't get the effect of in front of the house because of the tall trees, it's almost as if streetlights lit the road. They usually say something about the moon when it's full. Just that there is one and it looks nice over the bay from their deck and lights the path and garden behind the house as electric overhead lights would and maybe something about its face. But it's rained or has been cloudy or misty the last three days. Slippery roads? No, they were dry this afternoon when they drove to the lake to swim, though some puddles on the road when the culverts under them must have got clogged. Denise, get home now, come on, will you? Oh shit, where is she? Way past midnight. She's been tired lately because of the pregnancy. Quiet upstairs. Very quiet inside this room and around the house. Baby inside kicks hard now. It could have kicked so hard she lost control of the car for a few seconds and crashed. He should have gone with her. Of course he couldn't. Then convinced her to stay home. “If the movie's that good and been reviewed so much,” he should have said, “it'll be coming around New York for the next year.” Some men could have stopped her car. The old trick of pulling alongside her car and pointing to the back wheel as if something were wrong with it—just the driver visible, the others lying on the seat or floor—and she should stop. He's warned her about it, but a while ago, so she may have forgotten it or only remembered it once she got out of the car. Read about it happening to a woman in New York, another somewhere else, and that's
just
what he's read. They'd stop, if she did, and jump out after she stepped out to look at her wheel or just rolled down her window, and do who knows what to her. “I'm pregnant,” she could say and that might work with some of them but excite one of them even more. “You'll kill the baby,” she could say and they could get so guilty or just want her out of the way so she can't identify them that they'd kill her and dump her into a ditch along the road or drive into the woods along an old quarry or clammer's road and dig a hole and bury her or cover her up with brush and leaves. It's happened. It could happen. He hasn't heard of it happening around here, but no area's exempt, especially one with so many transients. Campers from the national park who were out for a good time and got carried away. Maybe it has happened around here, since he doesn't know what's in the local papers between Labor Day and July 1. He can't hear any cicadas, or whatever are the summer's last noise-making insects of that kind. Maybe the phone's dead or off the hook. Goes into the kitchen and picks up the receiver. Working. He looks outside. No lights coming down the road. Thinks he heard something outside—an animal walking, or a person, or falling tree branch hitting the ground. He goes out the kitchen door and looks. Nothing. “Anybody here?” Holds his breath to listen. Not even car sounds from far off. If a car were approaching their road from either way, he'd be able to hear it from here even if it were a half-mile away. Thinks so. Or maybe just from the top of the road. Very few cars on it at this time. Maybe none. Maybe there won't be one till five o'clock or so when the lobstermen drive past their road to the point a mile away. Who to call? No one. The phone's ringing and he runs to the kitchen to get it. Olivia cries. Oh God, he thinks, what to do? “Mommy Mommy, Daddy,” she screams. Phone rings probably scared her. He picks it up. “Denise?” “No,” a woman says. “Is it something immediately urgent?” “Well…” “Anyway, please, whoever it is, hold for ten seconds—a minute at the most. I have to see about my daughter. OK?” “I guess.”

He runs upstairs. “Where's Mommy? I want Mommy,” Olivia says. “She'll be home very soon. She went to a movie. You knew; we told you. Listen, I have to get the phone downstairs. Someone's on it. It's very important. That's what woke you up—the phone ringing. Stay here, sweetheart.” “No.” “I'll be right back up.” She holds out her arms. “Carry me.” “I can't. Stay in bed.” “Carry me downstairs. I don't want to be here alone.” He picks her up, grabs a blanket out of the crib and throws it around her, goes downstairs, sits at the table with Olivia on his thigh, picks up the receiver and says “Excuse me, you still there?” “Yes,” the woman says. “Is this Mr. Tetch?” “What is it, my wife?” “I'm Officer Ragnet, state police. There's been an auto accident and your wife's been hurt.” “Is she seriously hurt?” “Yes, I'm sorry.”

That can't have happened, he tells himself later. Impossible. Never, and he shakes it off. He's sitting in the same chair. Olivia's asleep upstairs. Denise shouldn't have gone to the movie, period. He didn't think it would be a good movie no matter what anyone said. The trailer they saw made it seem as if it would be a terrible movie, very slow paced, trite plot, too heavily acted, that's what it'll be, he remembers thinking then, and then, he thinks, telling her. “Derivative. The way the people are dressed and look. The background darkness. The long camera shots out into space. Bergman,” he said in the theater after the trailer was over. “All that rain.” He remembers a Bergman movie he'd seen that resembled the little they saw in the trailer. The listless way the people spoke and moved. Their depressed, estranged looks. “Bad Bergman, that's what it'll be,” he said after they left the theater. “Even the actors look as if they were picked because they look like some of the more well-known actors in the Bergman repertory company.” Olivia was with his mother-in-law. The movie they saw that afternoon was what? Funny to remember the trailer but not the movie it was with. All the movies they've seen together the last two-and-a-half years have been in the afternoon. That's when his mother-in-law can take care of Olivia, or prefers to. Besides, they like to get Olivia to bed by eight so she'll be asleep by nine. The movie only stayed around for a week, despite the good reviews. They thought it would be around for a month or two. He would have seen it with her. He likes going to movies with her when his mother-in-law takes care of Olivia. It seems the only time they're out of the house alone together in New York. So far they haven't got anyone else to babysit for them there. For a while they were reading about a number of babysitters in and out of New York who killed or mutilated or molested the children they sat, and it spooked them. They decided they'd only start hiring sitters when Olivia was clearly able to tell them if the sitter had done anything wrong to her or had left her alone in the apartment for even a minute or anything like that. His mother-in-law will only sit at her apartment, which would have meant, if she had agreed to sit for them at night, getting Olivia out of sleep to take her home. He likes walking out of his in-laws' building with Denise, just after they've left Olivia there. And taking her hand and holding it all the way to the theater, even if they take a subway or bus, though most of the movie theaters they go to are in walking distance of his in laws'. Also holding her hand through the movie, kissing it a few times, pressing it to his cheek, maybe kissing her once or twice and whispering things to her he never seems to say anywhere else, other than at a party or some social gathering like a wedding when he's a little tight, or in bed when he thinks he hasn't said anything like that for a long time and maybe he should. Even waiting on the movie line with her is nice, except when it's cold. Actually, when it's very cold or raining they usually go to another theater that doesn't have a long line. Most of the movie theaters near his in-laws' are pretty good. If that movie had had a good New York run she wouldn't have gone to see it tonight. Now that he thinks of it, the newspaper review she told him about was only so-so. The two magazine reviews she read parts of to him were ecstatic, but they came out after the movie was gone. The telephone call was a wrong number. The caller was very apologetic. Howard didn't think anyone called anyone around here so late—long after midnight. Maybe it was silly to think that, but that's what he thought. He wishes it were possible to think that and it had been a wrong number. Tonight's a year after Denise was killed coming back from the movie. It was foggy. Year to the day. She lost control of the car, it seems, and she and the baby she was carrying died. He screamed “Oh nooo” when the officer on the phone told him. Olivia started crying upstairs. He didn't know what to do, called friends and told them what had happened and if one of them could stay here with Olivia while the other drove him to the hospital where the police wanted him to identify Denise. He sits in the same chair he sat in that night. Almost to the minute a year ago when the officer called. He's drinking brandy straight. He wants to get drunk. He is getting drunk. He raises his glass and says “Denise, my love, where in God's name are you? Please come back,” and drinks. It's actually the night she went to the movie. Almost one now. If there was fog or slow traffic in front of her—a tractor, but there wouldn't be one on the road that late. So just someone in front of her driving very slowly—she still should have been home two hours ago. The fog slows you down fifteen minutes from White Hill, maybe a half-hour if it's thick. Same with a slow driver no matter how slow. And then only if he's going the whole way, White Hill to the country-road cutoff at their village, and she can't pass him, something she doesn't like to do, but does if he urges her to, on these roads even during the day. Anyway, her trip home, if it were one of those, would take no more than an hour and fifteen minutes at the most. He did hear the phone ring when he was outside before. He ran in. Olivia was crying. Phone rings must have woke her. He said into the receiver “Denise?” “No.” He told the woman to hold, his daughter was crying, and ran to the bedroom, brought Olivia downstairs, apologized to the woman for keeping her waiting and asked what she wanted. “Is this the Drickhoff residence?” “No, we share a party line. They're four rings and we're three.” “I'm almost positive I dialed right. How terrible at this hour.” “You had to have dialed right. I was outside when I heard the phone ring. I must have missed the first ring, so thought it was three I was hearing. Then I ran in and picked it up on the third ring of the second series, when there no doubt would have been a fourth. You see, I was anxious to pick up the phone—I thought it was my wife calling—that ‘Denise' name I said before—that I answered it by mistake. Excuse me, but you'll have to dial again. I hope you're not calling from out of state.” “No, from Bellsport—not far.” “May I also say, because this is a party line and we hear the Drickhoff rings, that it might be a bit late to call?” “I know and I'm sorry. I wouldn't call if I didn't have to. But it is rather a little urgent, as I'm sure your wife's call to you must be.” “That's right. Look what I get for sticking my nose in. Excuse me. Good night.” Right after that the phone rings four times, twice. Maybe one of the Drickhoffs picked it up or the woman thought that was enough times to ring. He gave Olivia water, brought her upstairs, she said “Where's Mommy?,” he said she'll be back soon, sang to her, she fell asleep in his arms and he put her down. He rolled the mosquito netting over her crib and went downstairs, poured a brandy, drank it quickly, poured another and sat in the living room chair and opened the book. Can't read, he thought, and shut it and sipped the brandy while he stared out the window. A mosquito flew out of the fireplace. He watched it hover above his knee and then go across the room. Must be a male.