Nathaniel (6 page)

All idyllic, all a dream, and all of it, always, gently derided by Mark. All the reasons why it was impossible, all the excuses that they continually debated: They were city people, though they both had been born in the country, and New Yorkers by choice, Mark would insist; choices could still be made, Janet would counter. Marie was a teacher, not a farmer; there were colleges in New England, everywhere you looked—he could still teach, and they could hire someone to run the farm. Michael was happy in his school, Mark would point out; children change schools all the time, and there’s no proof, Janet would argue, that city schools are better than small-town schools.

In the end, however, it had always come down to the one argument for which Janet had no answer.

They couldn’t afford a farm, couldn’t manage to save enough even for a half-acre in the suburbs, let alone a farm.

Now, Janet realized that it had all been a lie. From the day they were married, the lie had been between them, and she had never felt it, never faintly suspected it. There had even been times when Mark had seemed to join in her dream.

They had been in Millbrook, and they had come around a curve in the road, and there, spread out before them, was Janet’s dream. It had been Mark who had noticed it first; Janet had been studying a map, trying to match the route numbers to the street names that seemed to be posted only every five miles and then changed with every village they passed through. Suddenly Mark had stopped the car and said, “Well, there it is, and even I have to admit that it’s pretty.” She’d looked up, and across a pasture that sloped gently away from the highway, she had seen her farm—white clapboard house, red barn, white post-and-rail fence, even a stream, dammed to form a millpond. And it was for sale.

They’d talked about it all weekend, even going so far as to investigate the possibility of Mark’s finding a job in Poughkeepsie. But in the end, on Sunday night as they drove south on the Taconic Parkway, they’d faced reality.

They had no money, and they couldn’t buy the farm without money.

But it had been a lie. And Mark had known it was a lie.

What else was there? How much had this stranger with whom she had spent thirteen years of her life kept hidden from her? What else would she find as the days went by and she learned more about the man she had married?

Anna. Had Mark known his mother was confined to a wheelchair? It seemed impossible that he hadn’t, and yet it seemed equally impossible that he had never said anything to her about it. But he hadn’t.

When Janet had asked her mother-in-law about it just before coming upstairs that night, Anna had only shrugged, a look of philosophical resignation in her eyes. “I suppose he must have known,” she’d said. “It happened after he went away, but I think Laura must have told him about it.”

“But he never heard from Laura,” Janet had protested. “He never even
talked
about her. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know Mark had a sister.”

Anna’s eyes had flickered with pain for a moment. “You have to understand,” she’d finally said. “There were some things Mark just wanted to shut out of his mind. He always did that, even when he was little. I remember he had a puppy once—a little black shepherd—but it got sick, and Amos had to put it down. Afterward, I tried to talk to Mark about it, but he wouldn’t admit the puppy’d ever even existed. Just shut it out completely.” She sighed, weariness spreading across her features. “I suppose that’s what he did when he left Prairie Bend. Shut us out, just like that dog.”

“But why? Why did he leave?”

And for that, there had been no answer. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” was all Anna would say. “It’s all in the past. There’s no use dredging it up now. It would only cause pain.” She’d looked beseechingly at Janet. “I’ve had enough pain, dear. Can’t we leave this alone?” Then she’d held out her arms, and Janet, her throat constricting with feeling, had leaned down, clumsily embracing this fragile woman she hardly knew.

As she sat in the darkness that night, trying to concentrate on the stars, Janet felt the props of her life slipping away from her, felt the rock of trust she’d always had in Mark dissolving into sand. Already, it was slipping through her fingers, leaving her with nothing to cling to.

By the time the horizon edged silvery-gray with dawn and she drifted into an uneasy sleep, Janet’s grief over the death of her husband had begun to change into something else. An odd fear had begun to pervade her, a fear of what else she might discover about Mark, what other secrets might have lain hidden from her during all the years of her marriage.

When she awoke several hours later, she could feel a difference in herself. It was as if uncertainty had gathered around her, crippling her. She lay still for a long time, unable to make up her mind to get up, unsure whether she could face the day.

She closed her eyes for a few moments, and suddenly she saw an image of Mark’s face, but his features were slightly blurred, and there was something in his eyes—a secretiveness—that she’d never seen before. And then the image changed, hardened and sharpened into the visage of Amos.

His eyes were clear, his features strong. And he was smiling at her, offering her the strength she could no longer get from Mark or find within herself.

She rose from her bed and went to the window. Below her, in the barnyard, she watched Michael feeding the chickens. A moment later Amos emerged from the barn, and as if feeling her gaze, looked up; she waved to him; he waved back to her.

And then the nausea hit her. Turning away from the window, she hurried to the bathroom, threw up in the toilet, and waited for the sickness to pass.

What’s going to happen to us?
she wondered a few minutes later as she began dressing.
What’s going to happen to us now?

Ryan Shields pedaled furiously through the village, then east on the highway toward his grandparents’ farm. He didn’t slow down until he’d made the turn into the driveway, but by the time he got to the front yard, he was coasting, his feet dragging in the dust as makeshift brakes. He came to a dead stop, expertly dropped the kickstand with one toe, then balanced on the leaning bike, his arms crossed, only his slouching posture preventing the bike from tipping over. It was a technique he’d learned only a month ago, and it had quickly become his favorite pose. He cocked his head, squinting in the brightness of the sun, peering at the house. “Hey! Anybody home?”

A moment later the front door opened, and Michael came out on the porch. “Hi.”

“Hi. Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothing. Everybody’s gone into town to Dr. Potter’s.”

Ryan swung his leg over the handlebar, and stepped off the bike, which promptly fell over into the dust of the driveway. “Shit.” He picked up the bike, carefully balanced it on the kickstand, then mounted the steps to the porch. “Is your mom still sick?”

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess not. Anyway, it didn’t seem like it this morning, and she was okay last night.” Then he frowned. “How come you’re not in school?”

“School’s out.”

“At home, we don’t get out for another three weeks.”

“We always get out early here. Most of the kids have to help their dads with planting. Can I come in?”

Michael’s expression became guarded. “There’s nobody home.”

“You’re home.”

“But I’m not supposed to let anybody in the house when I’m by myself.”

Ryan stared at him in disbelief. “Why not?”

“ ’Cause you never know who might come to the door. There’s all kinds of crazies in the city. What can you do?”

“Well, I’m not crazy, and this is my grandparents’ house, and I can come in if I want to.” Then, seeing Michael suddenly tense, he grinned. “Stop worrying. Grandma and Grandpa won’t care, and it’s their house, not yours. I come out here all the time.” He brushed past Michael and went inside, then called back over his shoulder, “You want a Coke?”

Michael hesitated a moment, then decided that Ryan was right. This wasn’t New York, and Ryan was his cousin. “There aren’t any,” he said, following Ryan inside and letting the screen door slam behind him. “I already looked.”

“Where’d you look?”

“In the ’fridge.”

“Grandma keeps them in the laundry room. Come on.”

A moment later, each of them armed with a warm Coke, they wandered out into the backyard. “Hey, have you been down to the river yet?”

Michael shook his head. “I haven’t been anywhere.”

“Well, come on,” Ryan told him. “The river’s the best part of Prairie Bend.” With Michael following him, Ryan headed around behind the barn, then across the pasture toward the strip of cottonwoods that bordered the river. Five minutes later, the two of them stepped out of the sunshine into the deep shade of the trees. In contrast to the openness of the prairie, the woods were choked with underbrush. The canopied branches overhead created a closed-in feeling that made Michael shiver.

“Where’s the river?” he asked.

“Down the trail. Come on.”

A couple of minutes later the path made a sharp right, then opened out onto the river. Here the bank was low, and Ryan scrambled down onto the beach that separated the woods from the water. “You should have seen it last month. It was full, and the whole beach was covered. Right here, the water must have been six feet deep.”

“How deep is it now?” Michael asked. They’d crossed the beach and stood at the water’s edge. The river was moving lazily, the current only rippling the surface near the far bank, but it was murky, its waters stained by the silt it carried.

“Only a couple feet on this side. You could wade almost all the way across, but it gets deep over by the other bank.”

“Can we go swimming?” Michael asked.

Ryan looked doubtful. “I don’t know. It’s still kind of early, and the water’s pretty cold.”

“Aw, come on,” Michael urged. “You said it was shallow.”

But Ryan still hesitated. “Nobody ever goes in this early. It’s too dangerous. You can’t see where the holes are, and the current can grab you.”

Michael stared out at the river. “You chicken?” he finally asked.

That did it. Ryan scowled at his cousin. “There’s a swimming hole down near the bend. Come on.”

They started downstream and in a few minutes came to the point where the river began the first of the curves that would take it around the village. Here, the spring floods had eroded the bank, creating an inlet where the water seemed almost still. A huge cottonwood stood by the inlet, its roots half exposed, one enormous limb reaching out over the water. From that branch, a rope hung, an old tire tied to its free end. Michael knew immediately what it was for.

“How do you get to it?”

“You have to climb the tree, then go down the rope,” Ryan explained. “Once you’re on it, you get it swinging, then dive off it.”

“You wanna go first?”

Ryan stared at him. “Are you crazy? Nobody’s been in swimming yet. There could be rocks in there, and it’s cold, and you don’t know how deep it is. None of the kids go off the tire until someone’s been down there to make sure it’s safe.”

“What could happen?” Michael asked.

“You could break your neck, that’s what,” Ryan replied.

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit, nothin’! It’s happened.”

“Well, it won’t happen to me,” Michael said. He set his half-drunk Coke down and started stripping off his clothes. A moment later, naked, he scrambled up the cottonwood and began making his way out onto the limb that overhung the swimming hole. From the shore, Ryan watched him anxiously.

“Don’t start down the rope ’till you check it out. It might be rotten.”

Michael nodded. A few seconds later he came to the rope, and straddling the branch, grasped the loop with both hands. He gave it an experimental tug and, when it held, began pulling harder. Satisfied that it wouldn’t break, he reached down and took hold of the hanging section. Finally he rolled off the trunk, and began letting himself down the rope until his feet touched the tire. When he was standing on the tire, he grinned at Ryan, then began slowly pumping to get the tire swinging.

“You’re supposed to sit on the tire,” Ryan yelled.

Michael ignored him. The makeshift swing began to move, with Michael maneuvering it so that soon it was arcing back and forth, over the bank on the backswing, and out over the center of the swimming hole on the forward swing. When he had it going as high as he could, he crouched on top of the tire, waited for the crest of the forward swing, then released his grasp on the rope and sprang away from the tire, flipping himself into a back dive. Just before he hit the water he took a deep breath, and listened with satisfaction to the scream that had burst out of Ryan. Then he plunged into the icy water.

From the shore, Ryan stared at the spot where Michael had disappeared into the murk, unconsciously holding his breath and counting the seconds. Time seemed to stand still as he waited for his cousin’s head to reappear.

Ten seconds went by, then fifteen.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty.

His breath bursting out of his lungs, Ryan began to panic. Should he jump in after Michael, or run for help? But run where? No one was home at his grandparents’, and the village was too far away.

“Help! Somebody help us!”

And then, just as he was about to jump into the dark water, the surface broke, and Michael’s grinning face appeared. With three strong strokes, he made it to the shore and scrambled out.

“It’s neat!” he cried. “You want to try it?”

Ryan ignored the question. “What the hell are you doing? I thought you’d hit a rock!”

“I coulda stayed under for a whole minute,” Michael said, flopping down on the ground. He was barely even panting, and his eyes were sparkling. “Did I scare you?”

Ryan glared down at his cousin and again ignored the question. “You coulda gotten killed.”

“I scared you, didn’t I?”

Ryan finally nodded his head. “So what?”

“Betcha thought I wouldn’t do it.”

Ryan shrugged elaborately. “So you did it. What’s that prove, except that you’re stupid?”

“It wasn’t stupid—it was fun. Go on—try it!”

But instead of peeling off his clothes, Ryan only sat down and reached for his Coke. “I’m not gonna try it, and if you want to think I’m chicken, go ahead. There’s rocks down there. You were just lucky you didn’t hit one.”