Hot Springs (34 page)

“Where are you?”

“On a hill,” she said. “I’ve seen her.”

“Is she with you?”

“No, she’s not with me. But she’s all right.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Where are you?” he asked again. “I hear birds.”

“Gulls,” she said. “I’m in Baltimore.”

“Gulls? Baltimore? You should have said something. You should have discussed this with me.”

“You and I don’t talk. Do we? Do we talk? I can’t remember it. Not recently, anyway.” A small dog ran up and sniffed at her leg, then wandered away to investigate the base of one of the cannons that pointed out over the harbor, toward the city.

“Of course we talk. Don’t be an idiot.”

“Then let’s talk now. Why didn’t you insist on calling the police as soon as you knew it was her?”

“I did. Waiting was your idea.
You
said to wait.”

“I know, I know. But you didn’t even argue. I’ve been thinking about it, and it doesn’t make sense to me. You called the police that time the neighbor kids had a party until three in the morning. You called them when that guy backed into you at King Soopers.”

“I was respecting your feelings. You said they’d bring her back. That’s what you said. But you’re naïve. Admit it—don’t you feel stupid now?”

She had said this, though only because she had needed some hope to hold on to. She repositioned the phone and listened, unable to tell static from breathing. “Don’t you love our child?”

“Oh, stop it. I’ll fly out there and we’ll talk to Bernice. I’m sure we can talk some sense into her. We can give her more money. That’s what this is about. I can—we can get hold of more money.”

“You didn’t answer my question. You don’t like Bernice. You never liked her. You said she was cheap and easy. Remember? Why would you care what I want to do? You’ve got the papers, right? We could get her arrested, have her charged. I don’t get it.”

“Tell me the hotel,” he said. “I’ll come there. You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”

“You don’t, do you? You don’t have the papers. Something is going on. I don’t know what. It’s a lie. Everything has been a lie. I’ve been dreaming. All this time I’ve been dreaming.”

“You’re not dreaming, Tessa,” he said. “Don’t say that. You love me, I love you and Emily, and everything is legal. It was all drawn up by a lawyer. Bernice might be able to challenge it, but I don’t think she’d win. Tessa? We’re walking together. There’s nothing to worry about.”

But there was something he wasn’t telling her. She felt it like a stone she’d swallowed. “Our house?” she said. “Do we own that? Or do we rent? Are our cars leased? What is going on, David?”

“Of course it’s our house. There’s the mortgage and a couple of loans, but it’s ours. I’ve got a pencil now. I’ve got a pencil and a pad of paper. Give me the information and I’ll write it down. Don’t be hysterical. I’m going to take care of everything.”

“Here’s what I’ve figured out. I don’t think you love your daughter,” she said. “Not really. Not the way you should. And I don’t think you love me, either.”

“Don’t say that. That’s just a bunch of shit.”

“It isn’t. You think there’s something wrong with us—with both of us. I don’t know what, exactly, or why, but I see it now. You judge us.”

His voice turned hard. “You are way out of line here.”

The scent of coffee roasting someplace came to her on a soft breeze. “You go now,” she said. “Just go. I’m letting you off the hook.”

“Tessa,” he said. “Everything I do, I do for you. And for us.”

“I think maybe I’ve been asleep,” she said. “All this time. And now I’m just waking up.”

There was a pause. “What did she tell you?”

“What do you mean? What could she have told me?”

“That girl was crazy. We both knew it. Not trustworthy. A liar.”

“Are you listening to yourself? Who’s a liar?” She was suddenly tired of hearing him, of feeling connected to something she didn’t understand or believe in.

He was quiet again for a moment. “I think we should talk about this in person.”

“What?”

“What I’m saying is, whatever she told you, it’s not true.”

“I’m leaving you, David,” she said. “We’re going to be divorced. It’s over. Over.” She hung up before he could try to talk her out of it, and when the phone rang a few moments later, she took a deep breath and turned it off.

A
t 7:00 AM, Bernice, finding herself in her childhood bedroom, momentarily doubted that she was awake at all. She remembered this feeling, the way she had sometimes drifted around the house in a half sleep, seeing but not seeing, inhabiting a parallel universe. But she quickly became aware of her adult self, of the fact that she was still fully dressed, of her need to urinate, of her dry mouth. The last thing she remembered was watching Emily sleep. At some point, apparently, she had gotten onto the bed.

Moving as quietly as she could, she slipped out to the hall and into the cramped bathroom. She used to smoke in here, and there were still burn marks on the windowsill. But then her father had figured out what she was up to and started checking on her, so instead she’d taken to going out her bedroom window and sitting on the tiny ledge outside, the fall from which would most certainly have killed her. It
seemed funny to her now that no one had ever reported this to her father, or even the police, because she had to have been visible to the houses across the street, even at night, a skinny, girlish figure poised fifty feet in the air like a gargoyle.

Back in the bedroom, she crouched by the other bed. “Get up, honey,” she whispered. “We’re going out.”

Emily stirred, then opened her eyes. Her breath was like sour milk. “To the sharks?” she said.

“Yes,” Bernice said. “If we get there early, we’ll be first in line.”

She helped her up and into some clothes, then into the bathroom for a quick brush and wash. Emily seemed uncertain about any of this, but it was early, and she’d had a long night. Bernice kept seeing her in the bath, with Tessa confidently working a washcloth over her body, the two of them interacting so easily. Because, of course, they’d been doing this for years. Bernice’s job had come after the shampoo, filling a pint beer glass with warm water and pouring it over the back of Emily’s upturned head, the child’s eyes closed, her chin tipped toward the ceiling.

“Your hair looks cool,” she said. “You should always go to sleep with it wet.”

After stuffing some clothes and other things into her knapsack, Bernice took Emily’s hand and led her to the top of the stairs. “You want me to carry you?”

She shook her head.

“OK. But hold on to the railing.”

Bernice went down first, so that if Emily took a tumble, she’d be able to catch her, but there was nothing to worry about. She was cautious, taking each step with great attention. Bernice filled with love for her, felt the warmth inside her like a shot of whiskey.

Landis was snoring loudly in the parlor. She wished he’d just returned to his own place, so that she didn’t have to be reminded he
existed this one last time. She held up a finger to her lips. “We don’t want to wake him,” she said.

“Why not?”

“He needs his sleep.”

“Doesn’t he want to come, too?”

“He’s seen the sharks.” She moved them through the dining room and into the kitchen. The light outside was violet, moist with the promise of another hot day. An early-rising neighbor’s car idled on its parking pad across the alley. Some garbage cans had been placed out for collection, and they overflowed with plastic bags balanced two and three high over the top like ice-cream cones.

The kitchen was a mess. Well, she’d never claimed to be a homemaker. Her own mother had gone back and forth between periods of cleaning zealotry, where she Windexed every inch of glass and washed the floors on her hands and knees, and long stretches of absolute indifference, where she seemed not even to notice her surroundings, leaving items of clothing draped over chairs for weeks at a time, letting dust build up on surfaces until you could write your name in it. She remembered her father shouting about this, his face contorted with anger. When Bernice was in high school, he’d hired a cleaning lady to come once a week.

“I want a Pop-Tart,” said Emily.

“Shh,” said Bernice. “All right.” She fumbled in the closet, ignoring the mouse turds everywhere. She removed the box and took out the one remaining silvery-foil-wrapped packet, then noticed that its bottom had been nibbled through. “Goddamnit,” she said.

“Don’t
say
that,” Emily warned.

“Right, sorry.” She took out the pastries and examined them briefly. “You want to get something on the way?” she asked. “Like, maybe a croissant? I’ll bet we could find a nice croissant, or even a bagel someplace.”

“I want a Pop-Tart.”

“Right. Of course you do.” One corner of each Pop-Tart had been rounded off. How bad could that be? She slid them into the toaster. Heat killed bacteria anyway—by toasting them, she was being responsible. Serving them raw would be something else.

They sat at the kitchen table across from each other. Emily’s eyes were still puffy from sleep.

“Did you have dreams?” Bernice asked.

Emily nodded. “I think so.”

“Want to tell me?”

She shook her head.

“Were they bad dreams?”

“Not so bad. I don’t think I want to talk about them.”

“All right,” said Bernice. “That’s fine.”

After a while, the toaster popped and Bernice got up to retrieve their breakfast. She brought them orange juice, too, hers in a coffee mug, Emily’s in a plastic cup with flowers on it that she remembered had just turned up one day years ago, but which she now suddenly thought had probably had something to do with CC. Perhaps her mother had left his place with it back when she was cheating, or—even worse—he’d been here, had brought it with him. She even wondered if her mother had viewed it as some kind of a test, had waited to see what her father would say, had only had her feelings about him confirmed when he failed to notice at all.

“What happened to it?” Emily asked, inspecting the Pop-Tart.

“What do you mean, what happened? It went in the toaster. Now it’s out. Come on, we don’t want to miss the sharks getting fed. I think they throw them live fish and stuff.”

“It’s all chewed up.”

“No it isn’t. Let me see.” She took the paper towel on which she’d served the Pop-Tart and scrutinized the pastry with a professional eye.
“That’s just a little crust damage. Probably happened in shipping.”

“Shipping?”

“Not actually shipping. Shipping means trucks. They probably ought to call it trucking, except that would sound strange. ‘Contents may have shifted during trucking.’ See what I mean? In the olden times, everything went everyplace by ships.” She watched the girl watching her, felt suddenly guilty for not knowing what she was saying or why, for filling Emily’s head with useless stuff. What were the important things?
Learn who the liars are
, she wanted to say.
Everything else is just getting along
. But how to explain this? “Your ancestors came over here on ships,” she said. “Their corners may have gotten a little damaged along the way, too.”

“It looks like a mouse ate it,” said Emily, continuing to inspect the pastry. “It looks like teeth marks.”

“Well, hell,” said Bernice, taking it from her and heading for the trash. “You have to admit, though, the mouse didn’t eat
much
of it.” She dropped the pastry in the bin. “OK, now, let’s go. We’ll get breakfast later.”

She was unlocking the back door when the front doorbell rang. “Mommy!” said Emily.

“Let’s go,
now
.” Bernice took her hand and hustled her out onto the back stair, letting the storm door close behind them. She didn’t want to head up the breezeway between the houses, so instead she directed Emily toward the alley. Once there, they made a right and headed north. She figured they could make a right at the next cross street, then come back down toward the house, approaching the car that way. They walked quickly, but not too quickly, veering to avoid a recently squashed rat, its gray body broken open and bright with gore.

“Where are we going?” asked Emily, struggling to keep up.

“I told you. To see the sharks. And we’ll get you a souvenir, too.
Maybe a refrigerator magnet, or a big old eraser or something. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? An eraser in the shape of a sea horse, or shaped like a dolphin?”

They made the right, then another right onto their street, heading back south toward the house. The car was on the west side, not far from the intersection, parked away from the curb at a noticeable angle—so what if she wasn’t much of a driver? It wasn’t much of a car, was it? She hadn’t locked it either, it turned out. “Get in back,” she said. Farther south, she could see the purple and black taxicab double-parked outside the house. Landis would have answered the door. By now, they’d probably started to put things together. “Go on.”

Emily climbed up into the booster seat and Bernice closed her door, then went around the front of the car and got in the driver’s side. Her hands shook as she inserted the key into the ignition and turned it. The starter motor whinnied the way it always did, but the engine did not catch. She pumped the accelerator furiously and tried three more times. The smell of gas filled the car.

“You should get a new car,” said Emily. “I think this one is too old.”

“I had a fine car,” said Bernice. “Mr. Landis ruined it.” She turned the key again, and again was greeted by failure, except that this time, the starter sounded weak. “Here’s some advice: Never let a man drive your car.”

“I can’t do the straps myself,” said Emily, who had been trying.

“Never mind the straps.”

She hadn’t seen them coming, but suddenly they were outside her window. Landis tapped on the glass. Bernice ignored him and tried again. He was saying something. She rolled down the window, just a crack.