The Deep End of the Ocean (17 page)

“I am,” said Vincent. “Ask Jill. I make my own bed.”

“Well, Jill, what do you think?”

“I think the captain is up to the assignment,” Jill said. “But you can’t take it to Alex’s or anything, big buddy.”

“Can I ask him over and show it to him?”

Candy pondered, tapping her teeth. “Can this…Alex be trusted?”

“He’s my best friend,” Vincent confided.

“Well, then, yes. It’s unorthodox procedure. But this once, okay.” She turned to Beth. “If you haven’t got any money, have you got some bank cards or something?”

“Yes, she does,” Jill sang out. “They’re in the envelope taped to the fridge. They won’t recognize her signature, though. They only know mine. I’m Beth Cappadora now.”

“Not today,” Candy told her, palming the card. “Do you want to put on something…? Well, it doesn’t matter. Come on, Beth. Let’s go.”

The light off the snow was pitiless on Beth’s eyes. Her ancient pea coat felt bulky—she hadn’t been farther than the mailbox very often since fall. Even the motion of Candy’s car was like a fresh sensation, something only vaguely familiar. “It’s cold,” she told Candy.

“It’s January, Beth,” Candy said. “It’s traditionally cold in January.”

“It’s just that I haven’t been…getting out much.”

“So I see.”

At the sight of the teeming mall—didn’t people know Christmas was over? What did they find to buy, endlessly buy, forever?—Beth nearly begged for mercy. And people who read
People
might recognize her face. (Had her face been in the story? It had definitely been in some stories.) People would remember. They’d stare.

“I don’t know, Candy,” she said, trying to sound just a little bored, restless. “It’s so crowded in these joints.”

“We’ll only go to one store. I just don’t know what one store. So bear with me.”

They ended up at a place called Cotton to Cotton. “I like cotton,” Candy said. “It never wrinkles, and if you put a lot of it on, you’re as warm as if you were wearing wool. Layers, Bethie. That’s the ticket.”

And Beth was stunned; Candy was as good at clothes as she’d been at makeup that horrible night. After studying Beth’s face in the relentless fluorescent overheads for a few long moments, Candy said, “Purple. Teal. Gray. Real blue. Maybe a little red.” And she’d gone off for armloads of skirts and tunics and vests and belts, sweaters and jackets, which she’d draped over Beth as she stood, mute as a mannequin, in the middle of one of the aisles.

After forty minutes, Candy had filled four shopping bags, and Beth had surrendered her card. On the way home, she told Beth, “Now, the deal is, you can wear any one of those things with any other one of those things. So if one is dirty, just pull out another one and put it on. They all go together, even the belts. And you can wear black shoes with every single thing. Flats or heels. You do have black shoes, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Beth.

“So you don’t have to think about it. You just pull out whatever is there and you put it on. See? And when we get home, I’m going to hang them all in your closet for you, in one place, and then we’re going to take all the disco pants and…make a bonfire or something. Okay?”

“Okay,” Beth said.

The clothes still had the tags on them two months later when Laurie, who had called a dozen times, increasingly sorrowful, showed up one night as Pat was just about to head back to the restaurant. Beth, upstairs sitting on her bed, heard her ask Pat, “She still won’t talk to me, will she?”

“I think she would,” Pat replied. Beth could tell by the muffling of Pat’s voice that he was giving Laurie a hug. “I think she’s over it. I mean, Barbara Kelliher has called her a zillion times telling her how great the response was to the story, how she’s had to have new posters made five times. I think she understands.”

“I think she hates my guts,” Laurie said. But Beth could hear her tripping up the stairs; even on this errand into Rochester’s mad wife’s room, Laurie was bouncy.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” said Beth.

“What’re you doing?”

“Curing cancer,” Beth said. “I just put away my test tubes.”

“Oh, well, good,” Laurie said, sitting down on the bed. “Can you please just forgive me? Just get it over with? We are never going to agree on this, Bethie, but we’ve been friends for a thousand years, and you know, you have to admit that you know, I would never, ever do anything knowingly to harm you.”

“I know that,” Beth said.

“Good, because I have something I want you to do for me.”

The nerve, Beth thought. But she asked, “What?”

“I want you to take a picture.”

“I don’t do it anymore.”

“Just this once. There’s a lot of dough in it. A lot.”

“How much?” Pat asked, walking in.

Beth said, “I don’t do it anymore.”

“They’ll come here.”

“I don’t do it.”

“Just let me tell you.” It was a wedding announcement picture, but the bride—the daughter of a client of Laurie’s husband, Rick—couldn’t go to a studio for the shot.

“Why? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing. Except she’s…very pregnant.”

“Big deal.”

“Well, Beth, her family are immigrants from China. To some people it still
is
a big deal. She’s very modest.”

“Not when it counted,” Beth said, starting to feel like some evil old spider crouched in her den, which wasn’t how she’d intended to appear at all.

Laurie sighed. “Anyhow, this girl’s mom and dad are modest, and very rich. So I said I knew someone who could take the picture in a very private setting, and make it look…like she isn’t. A real magician. You,” Laurie said.

“You could do it, Bethie,” Pat put in. “You wouldn’t have to go out.”

“Take a picture of a pregnant woman? Me?” she sneered. Oh, Pat, if money had lips, we’d never have kissed, Beth thought. “You’ve got to be nuts.”

“Please, Bethie, this once,” Laurie pleaded. “Let me get over my guilt by doing you a good turn. If you hate it, just never do it again.”

“This is not a good turn. This is a setup,” Beth said. “Anyhow, I can’t, because I threw out all my paper and stuff.”

“I’ll get you paper. I’ll get you supplies,” Pat offered eagerly.

Beth sighed, longingly thinking of her pills and the lure of her down comforter.

“When?” she asked.

It was an astounding thing, what happened. When they came, the boy chipper, the girl sullen, both their mothers glowering, Beth set them up as briskly as she would have arranged fruit on a plate. And when she began to shoot, she realized that this was exactly how she saw them. She remembered what a high-school art teacher had told her, one of those tiny, utterly basic things that transform a pattern of thought: that when most people see a cup on a table, they think of it as sitting flat, so they draw it sitting flat. In fact, she had told Beth, the bottom of the cup really looks curved, and that was the correct way for it to be rendered. “It’s the difference between seeing with your brain and seeing with your real eye,” the teacher had explained.

And, for the first time in her professional life, Beth saw the couple as a series of angles and curves, planes and shadows, not as people with emotions and histories, people who had writhed in love and spat in disgust. She saw them not with her brain—her brain, she reasoned later, was gone—but with her photographer’s eye alone. She lit them as she would have lit statues, as, in fact, she had lit statues and architectural pictures.

The portraits that resulted were stunning. The very, very wealthy father gave her a thousand dollars. Laurie turned up more subjects willing to come to Beth’s lair. And by late spring, Beth grew willing to go out to them—to shoot pictures of people-as-things that both the subjects, and, later, publishers praised for their sensitivity and humanity. Even, after a while, children. They were just smaller apples and oranges in baskets.

The first time she had to travel to an assignment, she pulled out a skirt of deep lavender and a red tunic, tied it with a black sash, and slipped on a pair of black shoes. She looked skinny, still, eccentric, and…not bad. By the time summer came, Beth, looking back on several months of increasing business, realized she had found a key, thanks to Candy’s wiles and Laurie’s stubbornness—a way to fill hours and appear productive, without the need to feel or even think very much, not even about whether her belt matched her shoes. She sent Jill back to Cotton to Cotton for more hues and shapes when the first ones succumbed to washing. It worked.

Beth had found what passed for a life.

October 1987

His mother said even she didn’t know what the square box built into the wall on the staircase was supposed to be. She told Vincent once that back when she and Dad were kids, people liked to put telephones in little nooks all over their houses. “This house was probably built in the sixties. Maybe that’s what it was,” she said.

“Why would anybody want a phone in the middle of the stairs?” he had asked, eagerly. But by then his mother was looking past him, the way she did that made Vincent turn his head to try to see the person she had spotted somewhere just behind him. But there was never anybody there.

Grandma Rosie told Vincent she thought the people who originally owned Vincent’s house were good Catholics. “They would have a figure of Our Lady in there, or Saint Anthony,” she had said last Christmas Eve, when she passed Vincent crouched in the square den of a hole on her way up to bed. “It is not for little boys who are trying to stay awake all night so Santa will pass by this house and leave no presents.” She took his hand and led him to bed.

Baby Kerry, who could talk now, called the box her “baby house.” She took her dolls and her phony waffles and the syrup bottle that looked like it was really pouring in there, and he would pretend to be the customer while she pretended to sell him waffles. Or you could sit there, all tucked up, like Vincent imagined mice would feel in their holes, and see right down into a corner of the kitchen—the corner that had the sink and the Mister Coffee. And if the dishwasher wasn’t on, you could hear everything anybody said down there.

That was how Vincent got to hear about how his mom was trying to kill his dad.

First, his dad put his hand on his mother’s top, around one of her boobies, which he did a lot, and which Vincent thought usually meant his dad was trying to be nice—the way Grandpa Bill did when he messed up your hair. Vincent didn’t like anyone to mess up his hair—he liked his hair just so, nice and flat and soft—but he knew that with Grandpa Bill, this hair-messing deal was like hugging. So he put up with it. That’s what the boobie thing was, too. But his mom didn’t like it any better than Vincent liked getting his hair ruffled. She pushed his father’s hand away. Then his father kissed her. She smiled then, and looked down, down into the sink, as if she were trying to find a contact lens.

“Bethie,” said Vincent’s father. “Honey, we have to talk.”

“I have to print,” his mother said. “I have four phone calls to make. I have to get Vincent ready for school.”

“He isn’t even up yet.”

Ha-ha, Daddy, thought Vincent.

“Well, he should be.”

Vincent’s dad sighed. It was a big sigh, meant to get his mom to turn around and say, “Okay, what do you want?” But she didn’t; she just kept on messing with the sink, and finally his father tried again:

“Dad wants an answer, Beth. He wants me to think about this seriously, and make a decision within the year.”

“So make a decision within the year, Pat,” said his mother.

“After all, Beth, this is what all this goddamn work I’ve put in was for….”

“Pat, I’ve heard all this—”

“This is what all the years I’ve spent at Cappadora’s, and before that, filling cartons of potato salad at my dad’s—”

“Pat, we’ve been over and over this.” Watch it, Dad, Vincent thought. That’s the voice you don’t want to hear, the voice that came right before Mom’s fingers went like a lobster claw around your upper arm. Dad was pretty smart. He got up and put his arms around Mom again; he kissed her. She let him.

“Kiss, kiss, kiss,” his dad said softly, almost as nice as if he was talking to one of the kids. “Don’t we ever just fuck anymore?”

Vincent had heard his dad use the
f
word before, but not in such a nice voice. He leaned forward; they weren’t looking up, so they weren’t going to see him anyway.

“Pat,” said his mother. “I have to get the baby up….” Kerry was not a baby anymore, she was going to be two, but everybody still called her that.

“We have time,” said his dad.

“Okay. You go upstairs and get my diaphragm and fill it up with gunk, and then…let’s see, we’ll have about eight minutes before I have to get some food in Vincent before he gets on the bus…want to do it right here? I can make toast at the same time?”

“That’s a lousy thing to say, Beth. It isn’t like I’m on top of you every second. We have sex about as often as we pay the water bill.”

“Talk about lousy things to say…”

“And anyway, I don’t see why you need the gunk and the diaphragm every damn time.”

“Because I don’t want to get pregnant every damn time.”

“Beth, that’s another thing….”

Vincent’s mom got quiet. His dad didn’t get the message, though; he kept right on talking: “It’s been well over a year, Bethie. We both know that Ben—”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Jesus, Beth. Don’t you give a damn about the way I hurt?” Vincent’s dad started to go out into the hall; Vincent shrank back against the sides of the box. “I mean, Bethie, I was the guy who had three kids. Everybody thought I was nuts, you know?
Three
kids? But one of the worst things is, for me, that the house was so full of their noise before. I would want to run up the walk at lunch—”

Vincent’s mom flashed across the lower hall so fast he barely saw her. She opened the front door. It was a thing she did a lot, just opening the front door and letting the air in, even if it was really cold. Just standing there, blowing out her breath.

“Pat, I don’t want another child,” she said.

“You said you would think this over.”

“I
have
thought it over. And every time I think of having another child in me, and that maybe it would be a boy…” Her voice got funny, like she had a bread ball stuck. “Pat, it isn’t going to change anything. Don’t you see that? Just so you can be the guy who has three kids again.”

“Not just that. I’m not a fool.”

“No, I mean, it would just be numbers. It would be a compensatory child. Like a replacement part. Like getting a new gravy boat so you don’t spoil the set.”

“You’re a bitch,” said Vincent’s dad.

“I have no doubt,” said his mom, “that I’m a bitch. But the fact is, I’m not going to have a baby and I’m not going to move to Chicago so you can start a restaurant with your dad. If you want a new baby and a restaurant in Chicago, you need a new wife.”

“Is it so wrong for me to want us to be a family again? Have a normal life again?”

“Pat. There is no such thing as having a normal life again.”

Vincent heard the door bang shut, and he had the feeling his mom hadn’t done it.

“There would be, if you even tried….”

“Pat,” said his mom, and it was her being-nice voice, the voice she used to try to get him not to open the door when she had pictures in the bath and the red light was on. “Do you know what it’s like for me?”

Vincent’s dad said nothing.

“Do you?”

Nothing.

“It’s like I’m always under this giant shelf of snow or rock, and if I move, if I change my position even a little, the snow is going to start to slide, and it’s going to come down on me and bury me….”

“Oh, Beth…”

“No, it really is. I don’t dare to think about him for a full minute. I don’t dare to think about the reunion for a full minute. If I thought of having to live where I’d drive by the Tremont every day of my life…”

“We wouldn’t have to.”

“Pat, I hear you and Tree talking. You and Monica. We’d all be together again. In the old neighborhood. The kids under the table while the adults play poker. Just like the old days. Don’t you think I know that Tree hates me for keeping you up here? Away from your parents, who want you so bad, so much more now that they’re grieving? Don’t you think I know that my own father thinks I should come home, where Bick can help me, because I’m such a mess?”

“Everybody hates you, Beth, right? Nobody understands how—”

“But if I move, Pat, if I move one inch, that avalanche is going to come down on me and you’ll have to raise these kids by yourself—”

“Which I already practically do.”

“Okay, okay. I accept that. Pat’s always been the good one. Pat’s the rock. He’s the one who’s held that poor crazy woman and those little kids…like the
People
story, Pat. Didn’t you love it? ‘His hands sturdily on the backs of his wife and his remaining son.’ You’re such a hero, Pat.”

“And you’re such a martyr, Beth.”

“I have to get Vincent up.” Vincent got up onto his knees, ready to take off for Ben’s bed and dive in if she moved. “But Pat, you know, you can’t force me to do anything. You can’t. You can’t threaten me like when we were in college, because I don’t give a damn if you leave, or…or…or if you screw every pizza waitress in Madison.”

“What?”

“I mean, you don’t have any power over me, Pat. The worst already happened.”

“I love how you say ‘it happened.’ Like it was a tornado or something.” There was such a stillness in the hall that Vincent could hear Kerry’s mouth open in her sleep, with a tiny pop. Pretty soon she would come waddling down the hall, and that would be good, he was hungry, and they were going to fight…The sunlight spun the dust over and up, over and up. Vincent put out his hand to let it rest on his palm. They weren’t done. He could wish all he wanted, but they weren’t done, and he might not get breakfast at all.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” said Vincent’s dad. It was his dad’s lie voice, the voice he used when he said “I’m not tired,” so Vincent knew something else was coming. “I mean nothing.”

“You do. You mean it didn’t just happen.”

“It just happened. Forget it, Beth.”

“No, you’ve been keeping it inside, and you want me to know that you blame me. Don’t you think I already know that you blame me, because
you
would never have let Ben get lost, would you, Pat? You’d never have been such a bad, shitty parent, who only cared about herself—”

“I never once said that, Beth.”

“Said it? You didn’t have to say it. It was evident, Pat. That line around your mouth, Pat. You hate my guts, and you blame me for losing your son.”

Vincent saw his dad blast out of the living room like he was going to grab his mother and knock her down.

“Okay, Beth! Do I blame you? Sure as shit I blame you! Candy blames you, and Bender does, too. So does Ellen. Don’t you think everyone thinks that if you just had a minute to take care of your kids, none of this would ever have happened? Just because they don’t tell you? Does a wall have to fall on you? Yeah, you were lucky all your life until now, Beth. You could do everything half-assed and get away with it, because I was there to clean up after you!”

“You piece of shit,” said Vincent’s mother. “You self-righteous—”

“I’m not self-righteous, Beth. I’m right! I’m just right! Kids don’t just vanish like smoke, Beth. They don’t ‘get lost.’ People lose them.”

“I hate you, Pat,” said Vincent’s mother.

Vincent jumped up and ran down the hall into Kerry’s room. His head was hot like he had a fever. He raced over to the baby’s crib and let down the bar and, reaching up, clamped his whole hand over her little nose and mouth. He didn’t want to kill her…he loved Kerry. She was struggling now, trying to get his hand away, trying to breathe, her big gray eyes scared, bubbling tears…Vincent didn’t know if he could let go yet, but finally Kerry twisted her head just right and opened her getting-blue lips and began to scream, not a baby-wet cry (Vincent knew the sniffly-wheezy quality of that; he’d heard it a million times, first with Ben) but a horror-movie scream, like a big girl’s…and Vincent’s mom was up the stairs like she had wings, knocking him to one side as she pulled Kerry out of the crib (Kerry’s lips were starting to get pink again), screaming, “What did you do to her? Vincent, answer me! What did you do to Kerry?”

His dad was right behind his mom, and he grabbed Kerry out of her arms, and they held her between them, his dad saying, “Beth, she’s okay—remember, the doctor always says if they’re crying, then they’re okay…. It looks like she lost her breath for a minute….”

Then, his mom was crying, holding Kerry in her arms, and his dad tried to pull his mom against him, but she shoved him away, harder even than she’d shoved Vincent. His dad grabbed Vincent’s arm and pulled him off the floor. “Get your sweatshirt on,” he said. “We’re going for a ride.”

“He has school!” his mom screamed.

“Not today!” his dad yelled back.

“Where are you taking him?”

“Somewhere safe, Beth! Safe from you! You’re going to kill me off sooner or later, but not him!” And Vincent was practically lifted off his feet as his father skimmed him, with his sweatshirt only one arm on, down the stairs and out into the garage.

“Daddy,” Vincent said, “wait a minute. I got to get my vitamin.”

“I’ll wait in the car,” his dad said, fumbling for a cigarette in his shirt pocket.

Vincent ran back into the house—good, she was still up in Kerry’s room; he could hear her humming and crying, the floorboards squeaking as she walked Kerry back and forth. Working quickly, Vincent went first into his dad’s office, where he set the alarm for 11:00 p.m. Then into their bedroom (he had to pass Kerry’s door for it, but the door was shut, so that was okay), where he changed the alarm setting from 6:30 to 4:30 in the morning. And then, he couldn’t think, yes…okay, the stove timer. He could barely reach it. He set that for 5:00 a.m. Maybe that wasn’t all the alarms in the house, but that was all he could think of so fast. She would notice, for sure. He could stand right next to her face while she slept, he could even put out his finger and touch her eyelid, and she wouldn’t ever wake up. He’d called her a dozen times, when he had his running-away dreams, but she’d never wake up, though sometimes his dad did, if he called more than once. She would notice this, and he wouldn’t care even if they did come back tonight, which he had a feeling they weren’t going to, because his dad had grabbed his little bag with his toothbrush and shaver in it. He wouldn’t care if the alarms woke him up, too. Or even Kerry, though this wasn’t her fault.