The Deep End of the Ocean (46 page)

If Vincent could look through her lens…but that was it. That picture was hers, not his. There was no way to graft it onto his heart.

Suddenly panicky, Beth thought, I’ll go downstairs and wake Pat and tell him: It had gotten colossally out of hand, this notion of separating; it was just a pose. Together, they would forge a relationship with Sam, and help Vincent and Kerry do that, too. It could happen. She would go down there, and get Pat to slide over on the couch, so she could scrunch in next to him, as she had in his hospital bed. She pulled back the quilt and swung her bare feet to the floor.

And then she pictured Pat’s mouth, as it had looked when he told her, “Vincent is not going to leave this house with you.” She pulled up her quilt and lay flat, her hands laced on her chest.

Candy dropped by one night—girlish in jeans and a paint-spattered shirt. She kissed Pat in passing as he left for work, and plopped down on the porch.

“Give me vodka,” she told Beth. “I have spent all day painting my disgusting single-girl flat, in preparation for my disgusting single girl’s life, and I feel old as dirt.”

They sat on the porch, and Beth wondered if she only imagined Candy shooting glances down toward the corner around which Sam lived. Both of them tipped their feet up on the railing and listened to the crickets.

“How’s my man Reese?” Candy asked, midway through her second drink. “Does he brag to his friends about doing time? Even though it was only two days?”

“On the contrary,” said Beth. “I really think he’s ashamed of it.”

“That’s good,” Candy said. “And life on probation?”

Relieved to be able to say anything, Beth told her, “It seems better.” She sketched in Vincent’s evident interest, or at least his show of interest, in the basketball camp for inner-city fifth graders he’d been assigned to help coach twice each week.

“He been driving up any oak trees lately?” Candy asked.

“Vincent will probably be drawing Social Security the next time he gets behind a wheel, if Pat has his way,” Beth said. “His wings are basically clipped. I mean, he goes to community service, he goes to Wedding to help out, he goes to see Tom—”

“What does Tom say?”

“I…I haven’t talked to him. I…usually don’t.”

“And has Reese seen Sam? Again?”

“No.”

They rocked a little longer, and Beth added, “The one thing that seems to have made the biggest impression on him is taking away the boom box.”

“What?” Candy sat up.

“That was my idea. Since he was a little kid, Vincent just…he gets lost in music. It’s way beyond a teenager thing. I stripped it all,” Beth said. “Tapes. CDs. I kept them; but I donated his boom box. I gave it to Saint Vincent De Paul. I told him it was a privilege. He had to know we mean business, and after all, it’s the thing he loves the most….”

She didn’t notice, in the gathering dusk, how Candy’s face had changed, so when Candy brought the chair she’d been balancing on two legs down with a crack and leveled a finger at Beth’s face, Beth almost flinched.

“What he loves most,” Candy said, “is right here in front of me. That’s what he loves most, Beth.”

Rage splashed in Beth’s throat; she almost couldn’t speak.

“I’m so sick of hearing it,” she said finally. “I hear it even in my sleep! I’m so sick of hearing how this boy is only a delinquent because his mother didn’t love him…. Candy, forgive me, it’s not so simple. Vincent never…even before any of this ever happened, Vincent was convinced I loved Ben better.”

“Did you?”

“Jesus God! Did I? How do I know? Candy, do you love your heart better than your brain? Your arm better than your leg? But then this happened, all of it, and Ben at the center, so there was no way I could ever convince Vincent…”

“Even if you tried.”

“Which I didn’t, yes, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But anyhow, shouldn’t he have known? Shouldn’t a normal kid have known? Did I have to tell him every day?”

“Did he have to tell
you
every day? I mean, shouldn’t you know, too?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you taking up Freudian analysis now, Candy?”

“Beth, I’ve seen this kid when he looks at you. He wants you to forgive him so bad….”

“Forgive him?
Forgive
him?”

“For all the shit he’s pulled. Or for something, some dumb thing you don’t even know about. Why don’t you talk to Tom? Why don’t you? I have.”

“And he said?”

“He said Reese is what they call a symptom bearer. He lives out everybody else’s pain with the stuff he does. And now, with Sam gone, how do you think he feels?”

“I have no idea,” Beth said wearily, and then, “You know what? I think Pat and I are separating.”

Candy tossed the remains of her drink out into the bushes and slammed down the glass. “Good Christ, Beth, why?” Beth shrugged. “Isn’t enough enough?”

“Candy, he wants it.”

“Did he say that?”

“He didn’t have to. I can tell.”

“No. No. I refuse to believe that. Pat thinks the sun comes up—”

“Not anymore. Not for a long time, I guess.”

“Bethie, you have to do something about this. You guys can’t take another loss. Come on.”

“Candy, people get divorced all the time. Most people who…lost a child get divorced. Look it up.” Beth struggled to restore a lightness to her tone. “Even you got divorced.”

“You can’t sit here and compare Chris and me with…You were meant for each other, Bethie. You and Pat.”

“Another thing I’m sick of hearing. You know? I feel like I was born with Pat’s last name. Damn it. Maybe I can have a life, you know? Maybe what I need is what you have—real work, and a little place, by myself. Pat doesn’t care.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. And he said, ‘Do what you want.’”

“That’s just pride.” Candy got up and sat on the railing. “He’s just played out. You don’t make these decisions after a summer like the one you had. And what about Reese? And Kerry?”

“He’s going to fight to keep them here. He doesn’t want me to take them back to Madison.”

“To Madison?”

“Well, Candy, what’s left for me here? Annual follow-ups of the many permutations and combinations of the Cappadora saga in the
Tribune
magazine? Even more nasties from his sisters? My father looking at me like I shot his favorite dog? No. Shit. I’m not doing it.” Beth got up and sat down on the cement stoop. “Candy, I don’t know how to even think of leaving Reese or Kerry. And Iknow that if I move, I’ll hardly ever…I’ll lose all my contact with Sam.”

“But you’re played out, too, aren’t you, girlfriend?” Candy kneeled next to Beth’s chair. “Oh, Bethie, Bethie.” Candy rocked her then, and Beth felt her tears come like the letdown of milk when she’d nursed the babies, unstoppable, purging. “Okay now, okay. Listen. I just want you to do one thing for me. One thing. Will you?” Beth nodded, and Candy said, “Don’t bolt the door behind you is all. Close it partway if you have to, but don’t lock it. Give him one more chance to talk. You and Pat haven’t lived apart for your entire adult lives. If you go, don’t forget to listen to how that really feels. Don’t talk yourself into anything, Bethie. You’re fully capable of talking yourself into anything, remember? Just…wait and see.”

Beth nodded.

“When are you leaving?” Candy asked.

“I don’t know…maybe soon,” Beth murmured. “If I go at all. School starts in January. And I’d be taking classes at the university.”

“Oh, my God, my God,” Candy said. “Pat’s going to miss you like he’s lost an arm.” She stood up and gathered up her mammoth bag. “And Bethie, he’s not the only one. I will, too.”

“You sure you don’t want another drink?” asked Beth, suddenly loath for Candy to leave.

“No, I don’t want to have to give myself a field sobriety test. Even though I’m now out of the fertility sweepstakes for good.”

Beth said, wondering if she was going too far, “I kind of hate that, Candy. I wanted you to have your baby.”

“Yeah, yeah…I did, too,” Candy said. “I wanted it, for real. I’m sorry for Chris, too, though he’ll do a lot better with the next twenty-five-year-old to come down the pike. And maybe, now that I don’t have to live on slave wages, I think sometimes there’s this little girl living on a mountain in Chile somewhere who wants a crazy mama who carries a gun. So maybe…”

“I think that would be wonderful. You’d be a wonderful mother,” Beth said.

“So would you, Beth,” Candy said softly, and walked down the steps.

It was after eleven when Reese thought he heard the clang of a basketball on the driveway. He stopped; he’d been writing, or trying to write, something in the stupid journal Tom insisted he mess with every night.

Yeah. Definitely. It was crazy hot for September. With the air on, and the house sealed like a pie under plastic wrap, he wouldn’t have heard it if he’d had even a little music on. Which he would normally have had. Even so, he wasn’t sure, until he raised the window and put his head out, that he wasn’t imagining it.

But no. Somebody was down there.

Reese couldn’t see; his dad had told him to replace the bulbs in the floods on the garage a month ago, and of course he hadn’t. The night was moonless, murky, the only light from the street lamp a block away. The ball hit again, twice, sharply. Reese had to flip the bedside lamp off to be able to tell who it was.

It was Sam.

“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed. Mom and Dad’s window was next to his, and though he knew they were long gone to dreamland, and that Mom, especially, wouldn’t be back until dawn, he didn’t want to start anything.

“Nothing,” said Sam.

“Does your dad know where you are?” asked Reese.

“Yeah,” Sam replied.

“I’ll just bet,” said Reese, leaning out on his elbows.

“You want to play some?”

“Uh, roundhead, it’s nearly midnight, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Past your bedtime?”

“What I mean is, you waste, I’m in enough fucking trouble without getting Mrs. Pellicano or Mr. Becker to call me in for disturbing the peace, too.”

“We could play quiet,” Sam said. “Unless you’re…like, too tired. Or too afraid.”

“Fear is not in my vocabulary,” Reese told him. “As you know, I could take you blindfolded. I took you every day last summer and sometimes twice on Sundays. As I recall, you had to move out to save what little lousy reputation you had left.”

“I don’t remember it that way,” Sam said, and Reese could hear his grin. “Anyhow, that’s pretty easy to say when you’re up on the second floor.”

“Start praying, wimp.”

“I’m on my knees,” Sam said.

Reese thought of putting on a shirt, but it was so damn hot anyway. He just jumped down the stairs by threes—what the hell was the kid doing hanging around their driveway at midnight? He was sure as hell George didn’t know anything about this. George was probably already calling the fucking FBI or the networks or both. Jesus Christ.

He ran out the door, and Sam was standing there, sunburned, in cutoffs and Reese’s White Sox jersey.

“That’s my shirt,” Reese said automatically.

“Awww, really?” Sam pretended to sound apologetic. “I thought it was a paint rag.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“I…took it when I left. I’m sorry. You can have it.”

“I don’t need it,” Reese said in a hurry, then thinking, What a complete asshole I am. “Have it. Or, have it if you beat me. So, that is, you might as well give it up now. Unless it smells.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the kid. It had been, like, weeks since he’d seen him at the jail. His dad and mom had taken Sam out twice, that he knew of, but Reese had been busy both times. And now, having spent two days in jail and many wonderful days and nights in the comfortable confines of his room except for the few moments they allowed him out in manacles to eat dinner did not make for easy surveillance of anything except Mr. Becker watering his hostas.

“Are you sure your dad knows where you are?” he asked again, checking the ball.

“You keep putting it off,” Sam said. “I think you’re scared.”

“Make It—Take It, then,” Reese said. “To eleven.”

He had played with Sam enough to know his moves, so by rights they shouldn’t have fooled him. He knew that the kid hardly ever looked at you, and that was one of his tricks. Sam had these slanty eyes, Dad’s eyes, and he would narrow them down to slits and fasten his gaze over your right shoulder, as if there were some giant bedbug behind you, all the while dribbling in figure eights low between his legs. You almost had to be drawn off. And he talked the whole time—“Man, you are sorry, you’re so sorry, which way you want me to take you? to the right? to the left?”—but it wasn’t as if his patter was directed at you, even meant to rattle you; it was just like a motor running. He made you feel like you weren’t there. And the goddamn thing was, it worked.

Sam looped right around Reese and went in for the layup. And then walked back with his arms out, punching the air, crowing, “What’s up? What’s up? You asleep? You asleep?” And Reese couldn’t help laughing.

But then, when he finally got the ball, he swore to God Sam had grown three inches in the last month; the kid was all over him, clapping his hands, ignoring Reese’s attempts to fake him out. Reese finally drove in to the left, but Sam knocked the shot down.

“That’s goaltending,” Reese said sharply, though he knew it wasn’t; the ball was nowhere near the descending arc. Of course, you had to object, just for form.

“If you gotta cheat, you gotta cheat—I don’t care, take it over,” Sam said.

“Go ahead, little boy,” Reese said then. “I’m going to go easy on you. Seeing it’s late and all.”

By the time the score stood seven–five, Reese ahead, both of them were gasping in the humid darkness. You could feel your lungs flap like wet gloves. “You got air inside?” Sam asked Reese.

“Full blast,” said Reese. “You giving up?”

“Who’s giving up?” Sam darted right and whirled, with this beautiful skyhook, which went nowhere but the bottom of the net.

“What the hell? How did you learn that?” Reese asked him. “That was your left hand.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” Sam laughed, checking the ball to Reese and going into his crouch.

“Call it,” Reese said; then, “Keep the shirt. I pissed on it in June anyhow, that’s why it was in the drawer.”

“You have to stop pissing in your drawers,” Sam said, and Reese reached under the ball, knocking it up so it just glanced off Sam’s chin.

“You got to say ‘beat,’ though,” Sam egged him on. “You’re beat, right?”

“I let you,” Reese told him, “and you know it. But let’s call it a night. Come back tomorrow for a rematch.”

That was when Sam put his hands up and pushed the wet hair up over his forehead, so it stuck straight up, like mowed grass. And took a deep breath. He didn’t move. Reese stopped, heaving and sweating, flatfooted in the driveway.

“I…The thing is,” Sam said then, “I’m not going back.”

“What do you mean?”

Sam jerked his head over his right shoulder, and there, at the end of the driveway in the dark, where Reese had not even noticed it, was a huge, battered suitcase.

“Sam,” he said slowly, “man, what are you doing?”

“My dad knows,” Sam answered, hurriedly. “I mean, we talked about it a lot last week, for a long time, and he said I have to do what I have to do, and he even knows why I came over here so late at night….”

“Which is why?”

Sam looked up at the darkened bedroom windows. “I didn’t want to have this whole big number,” he said. “You know. With your…with Beth and Pat. And, like, what if the press found out?” That killed Reese, the way he said “the press,” like he was forty years old or something. “They probably already think I’m out of my mind for going home—I mean back—I mean to George…”

“So he let you come out this late?”

“We walked down here before. A little while ago. I saw your light.”

“Okay,” Reese said, and added, almost swallowing his tongue over the words, “but, is this, like, permanent?”

Sam looked down at his feet, his mouth clamped shut, and then looked up at Reese—still, Reese thought, an inch shorter maybe—his eyes widening in the dark, as if they had no color, as if they were dark little mirrors in which Reese was sure, if he could get close enough, he could see his own pale face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe. If I can…I hope—”

Reese made a motion, stopping him, and Sam stopped, turned, and went down to the end of the driveway to get his suitcase. After a beat, Reese followed. He didn’t want to push him, but he had to move, to do something; he’d go crazy if he didn’t.

“Loser carries,” Reese said. “Fairsies fairsie.” The thing weighed a ton. “What, do you collect anvils?”

Reese rounded his shoulders, strained, hefted the handle into his right hand; and then Sam reached out and closed his own hand over Reese’s. Reese jerked; he felt the touch up his whole arm, as if the kid had pressure-pointed him.

“No problem. I can do it,” he said.

But Sam didn’t loosen his grip.

You felt like you were diving in a quarry, it was so dark. Reese had to strain to see Sam’s expression in the faint cast from that corner light, the corner around which you would walk, cross one side street, and then spot the red house, the only one on that block that wasn’t blue or gray or brown. Reese could picture it now clearer than he could the sweat-shaped brim of his Rockets hat, the feel of the wild goose pillow on Tom’s couch. The red house that was Sam’s house, now not Sam’s. Maybe. He could ask again, but the answer wouldn’t make any difference.

It was like everything. You just had to wait until morning and then count and see who was left. You had to keep walking until you figured out what was the right place, keep on searching until somebody found you. Reese looked up at the light, then back at the patch of darker dark that contained his brother. He could only feel him, the sweat on his palm—the kid calluses, the strength in those oversized fingers. Reese put the suitcase down; he was shivering. It was one of those times he thought he understood the way his dad felt when his heart brought down the hammer. We should just go in, is all. But fuck, thought Reese, I have to. I have to sometime. I have to now.

“I was the one,” he said. “I was the one who let go of your hand.”

Sam shifted his feet. Reese could hear him sigh.

“Well…” Sam said.

They picked up the suitcase then, even weight, like it was a mattress, and carried it between them onto the porch.

“We’re locked out?” Sam asked.

“They don’t make a lock that can resist the charms of Reese Cappadora,” Reese said, pulling his jimmy out of his back pocket. “I get in this way half the time.” Laughing, then, they struggled into the hall. Beowulf stirred on his rug, got up stretching painfully, and clicked down the hall, chuffing his graying muzzle into Sam’s palm.

“Old dog,” said Sam. “Good old dog.” Then he noticed the stack of Beth’s bags, her suitcase and equipment. “Who’s going on a trip?”

“My mom is maybe going to Wisconsin for…a job,” said Reese.

Maybe. Now maybe not. Suitcases could be packed. Suitcases could be unpacked. You just had to wait. “You want to put that in here? We can take it up later.” They shoved Sam’s bag into the living room next to the piano.

“I could eat,” Sam said.

In the kitchen, the refrigerator’s glow was the only light. Reese flipped a piece of cheese to Beowulf, who gobbled it noisily. Sam reached around him to dislodge a Coke from the pyramid of stacked cans on the bottom shelf, and leaped back when all of them rolled. In the silence, they hit the linoleum like M-80s.

“Jesus Christ,” hissed Reese. “Wreck the joint.” They scrambled after the cans, which kept rolling out, leisurely, smoothly, one after another. One hit a corner of the baseboard, spun, and popped open. Soda geysered; Beowulf yipped. “For God’s sake,” Reese whispered, grinning, “shut up!”

The cans seemed endless, like a film strip of logs rolling down a chute.

“This isn’t your fault,” Reese gasped. “This is Dad, the master engineer of the universe. This one winter, when they were working on the restaurant, and Dad was going to save all the leftover tiles…so he spends all day getting them up in the rafters of the garage, and he stands there and shuts the garage door, and the rafters crack, and the whole goddamn ceiling….”

Helplessly, Sam spit his Coke, which only made Reese more determined to make him laugh. “And so every fucking tile, every single tile goes crashing down, one by one, on the floor of the—”

But they both heard her step.

“Vincent!” Beth called from the top of the stairs, her voice sleep-slurred but laced with a tang of panic. “What’s that noise? Are you in the house?”

Reese put his finger to his lips. “You don’t want her up,” he told Sam. “Not now. Trust me on this.” Sam reached silently into the refrigerator for a flat box of cold pizza, and Reese held up his palm in warning. “Wait,” he ordered. Sam stopped.

Beth called, “Vincent?”

“It’s okay, Mom,” he yelled. “I dropped something. Go back to bed. I’m here.”

Reese turned to follow Sam to the kitchen table. From the upper floor came a whoosh of water, a settling sound. He could feel Beth’s urgent presence recede, down the hall. They sat down at the table, and Sam delicately opened the pizza box, grimacing disgustedly at the slabs cemented to the lid. Reese went out to the kitchen for a butter knife, and stood for a moment, his ear pitched to the creak of the floorboards overhead, the soft sponge of the bed as she lay down, and then nothing but quiet, the tick and gust of the air conditioner going on, the sounds of a house, anyone’s ordinary house, at rest.