The Ferryman (10 page)

It would be more than an hour before she would be able to sleep again.

Her lips were so cold.

O
n Sunday morning, little more than a week after she had come home from the hospital, the phone woke Janine from out of a dream in which she cradled her baby boy against her chest and sang a lullaby. A discordant ringing disrupted her song. At the third ring her eyes fluttered open and she glanced down at her empty arms with a sense of loss unrivaled by any she had felt thus far.

The dream began to slip away but she could still feel the weight of her infant in her arms.

A quick glance at her alarm clock revealed that it was after ten a.m. The sun had warmed her bedroom and the sweet smells of spring and growing things were carried in on the breezes that billowed the curtains.The day was moving along without her.

Had she thought about it only a moment, she would have let the answering machine pick up. But Janine was angry—at herself for sleeping so late, and at the caller for taking her dream child away. After the fourth ring, even as the machine clicked on, she picked it up.

“Hello?” she said, her voice raspier than she had expected.

“Oh, Janine, did I wake you?”

Her mother. Janine closed her eyes and pressed her head deeper into her pillow.

“You did, actually, but I should be up anyway.”

“Is everything all right? Why are you sleeping so late? It can't be good for you to become some sort of recluse now. You should be out. Doing something. You know—”

“Getting on with my life?” Janine suggested tiredly.

“Exactly,” Ruth Vale replied.

“Thank you for the advice, Mother. It never occurred to me.”

Her mother was silent a moment on the other end of the line, and Janine could practically see the perfectly coiffed woman with her lips pursed in stern disapproval.

“I don't think sarcasm solves anything,” Ruth told her.

Yet you fall back on it again and again,
Janine thought.

Idly scratching the back of her head, she sat up and stretched. A moment later she rose and went to the window, pushing aside the curtains with two fingers to gaze out at the sparklingly bright day.

“You're right,” Janine said, as she leaned against the wall and watched a pair of bluejays flitting from one tree to another. “I'm just not sleeping that well, Mother.”

“Maybe it's the medication,” her mother suggested quickly, their momentary conflict already forgotten. “You know you have to be careful what they prescribe for you.”

“I'll look into it.”

Portable phone in hand, Janine opened the curtained French doors and went out into the living room. It was so bright she had to blink a few times and she felt energized by all that sun. Just as her plants seemed to lean toward the windows to soak up the rays, so was Janine drawn that way a moment.

“So what's going on, Mother?”

Janine spun on one heel and strode into the kitchen, where she began to put water on for tea as her mother hesitated on the phone.

“Well, I've talked to Larry about it, and we both think it's time you had a fresh start. I wonder if you've considered that. It might be just what you need, Nina. You could move back here, even work at the agency.”

Stunned, Janine tightened her grip on the phone. She held a box of tea bags in the other hand and stared at it stupidly, as though she had forgotten why she had taken it out.

“And do what?” she asked.

“There's no need for that tone,” her mother said with a sniff. “I'm only offering to help. Not everyone has the chance to start fresh, you know. I'd think you'd be grateful.”

Janine swallowed hard, took a deep breath to compose herself, then set the box of tea bags down and opened the cabinet to reach for a cup.

“I am grateful, Mother. It's very kind of you to suggest it. But I like it here. I don't know what I'd do at the agency. I'm a teacher, you know? It's what I do.”

“Now, Janine, it isn't as though teaching has made you happy. It may be what you do, but it isn't who you are.”

The kettle began to whistle on the stove. Janine only glared at it for a moment. Her right hand fluttered a bit in the air and she shook her head before plucking the kettle off the burner.

It isn't who you are. So who am I?
Janine bit her lip.
Mommy, that's who I was supposed to be.
Her mother was right, in a way. She had never defined herself by her status as a teacher the way David and Annette both did. It was much more important to them than it was to her. So what was she?

Shallow as it seemed to her, she had felt that the baby she carried would have given her a certain identity, at least in her own mind. But that was not to be.

“You know what, Mother? I can't do this right now. I'm not ready to have this conversation.”

Ruth paused a moment. The empty, hollow sound on the phone seemed to Janine to speak volumes about the real distance between them.

“If you change your mind, we're always here for you, Janine,” her mother said.

“I appreciate that.”

“So you'll be returning to work soon?”

“One more week out, then I'm back,” Janine replied, though it was a decision she had made only as the words came out of her mouth. It felt right to her, though.

“Have you given any more thought to a memorial service for the baby?”

Janine poured water for her tea. Her hand wavered only a little. “Not really.”

“We all need—”

“Closure, Mother, yes, I know,” Janine snapped. She hauled open the refrigerator door and snatched a yogurt from a shelf. With her hip, she bumped the door closed.

Then she stood, frozen, in the middle of the kitchen, phone in one hand and yogurt in the other, with her eyes squeezed shut. When she spoke again, her voice was almost a whisper.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe I don't want closure on this?”

Ruth began to respond.

“Good-bye, Mother,” Janine said.

She hung up and left the phone on the counter while she stirred granola into her yogurt. At her kitchen table, she ate her meager breakfast and pretended to herself that the conversation had never happened at all. When she was through, Janine walked into the living room.

The violin case stood against the wall, lonely and accusatory. She had not played since before ... since
before
. With a wan smile, she drifted as though hypnotized across the sun-drenched room and lifted her instrument from its case.

It nestled, so smoothly textured, so familiar, under her chin. In her right hand, she held the bow out like a wand.Then she began to pluck at the strings, and then to tune, and finally to play.

For just a little while, the music took her somewhere else, far away.

 
Winchester, Massachusetts, was an old-money town with tree-shaded streets lined with brick Colonials, driveways populated by BMWs and Benzes, and the best public schools in New England. It might rub shoulders with Medford, but Winchester was never going to take its neighboring town home to the parents.

On Sunday, just after noon, David drove his modest Volkswagen out past the Winchester Country Club for the birthday party of six-year-old Lucas Kenton. The boy's parents, Geoff and Lily, had been high school sweethearts all the way back in St. Matthew's, and had rediscovered each other after college graduation brought them home again.

As a single guy in his early thirties, David found it awkward whenever he ended up at something like this. Lucas was a good kid, but most of the grown-ups there were married with children of their own. When he had a girlfriend, it had made him feel less out of place.

Today he planned to grin and bear it. Geoff and Lily were just about the only people from his high school class with whom he had regular contact, and he liked them both a great deal. They had the money to live in Winchester, but had managed to avoid adopting the attitude many of the town's residents seemed afflicted with.

The Kentons' house was a traditional brick New England home with a detached garage and a modest yard. Even the house itself was not as enormous as one might expect given the expense of living there. But it was in an old-money neighborhood and it backed up to the lake, with cement steps that went down from the backyard right to the water.

No playing football back there. Not unless you wanted to swim for the ball.

Perhaps a dozen cars lined the street on either side of the road. David found a spot three houses down. Most of the cars he passed on the way up to the house had child safety seats in them. With a small sigh, he tucked his present for Lucas—a LEGO submarine—under his arm and rang the bell.

When the door opened a wave of chattering voices swept over him. Warm, seductive aromas wafted from the house, and David's stomach rumbled. Though most of her friends probably would have had something even as small as a kindergarten birthday party catered, Lily Kenton liked to cook, and she did it very well.

“Dave!” Lily cried as she opened the door.

As usual, she looked wonderful. Lily was always perfectly coiffed, even if she had been cooking since the day before. Her dyed-auburn hair was cut in the latest style and her clothes never seemed less than brand-new. But David had known her most of her life; Lily's nearness to perfection was not some affected persona, but a notch away from obsession that she had been dancing around since childhood.

“You look great,” he said as he stepped inside to give her a quick squeeze. “Smell great, too. Or is that lunch?”

Lily's eyes sparkled with mischief. “Nope, it's me.”

“Rrrowrrr,” David growled.

She whacked him on the arm, then led him down the front hall and into the massive kitchen. Women sat at the table and leaned against the counter, most with coffee mugs or wineglasses in hand. Children shouted happily and zoomed by. Lily and David had to step over toys as they moved amongst the gathered friends and neighbors.

“Most of the guys are out back,” Lily told him. “Lunch will be ready in just a few minutes. There's beer back there, or can I pour you some wine?”

“I'm good, thanks.” David held up the present and raised his eyebrows.

“Table in the living room,” Lily told him.

He nodded, wormed his way through the women in the kitchen, and found the table where Lucas's presents had been deposited. A handful of kids were playing with a wooden train set on the floor, but for the most part, they ignored the presents. David was impressed. He had the vague idea that at six, no matter if it had been his own party or someone else's, he would have been tearing at the paper to get a peek inside.

There was an enclosed porch on the back of the house with a door that led outside. Half a dozen guys, including a couple he vaguely recognized, sat in some older furniture, watching ESPN. One of them, whose name David thought might be Anthony, acknowledged him with a nod and a manly grunt. David nodded back, but he had never mastered the art of manly grunting, and so remained silent.

He finally found Geoff in the backyard tossing a Nerf football around with Lucas, half a dozen other kids, and another one of the dads. Geoff spotted him immediately and tossed the Nerf. David caught it and threw it to the kids.

“Lucas!” he shouted, adding a bit of drama to his voice.

The ball bounced off the boy's head and rolled across the grass. Two other children got into a tug-of-war over it, and a couple of the other fathers on the back lawn had to break it up.

Geoff shook his head as he walked over.“Nice going,” he said, with a backward glance at the shouting kids.

“Not my fault your kid can't catch,” David teased. But he said it low so that Lucas would not hear. It was one thing to give Geoff a hard time, another entirely to scar his son for life.

With a chuckle, Geoff flipped him the middle finger, low to his chest, out of sight of the kids. “Want a beer?”

“One beer wouldn't kill me.”

Together they walked over to the two wide coolers that were propped against the back porch. Geoff reintroduced David to several people he had met at Lucas's last birthday. For the most part, when he saw the Kentons, it was just him, though for a while it had been him and Janine.

Just the thought of her made David smile.

“What's the grin for?” Geoff asked as he pulled a pair of Bass Ales from the ice.

Caught, David shook his head. “Nothing, really. Just ... I saw Janine last week.”

“No shit?” Geoff fished a bottle opener from his pocket—indispensible at such gatherings—and popped the caps off both beers. “What's she up to?”

A bit reluctant, David nevertheless caught Geoff up on Janine's recent tragedy, and the visit they'd had on the previous Saturday. Geoff was a guy's guy, for the most part, but the sorrow on his face when he heard about Janine's baby was not feigned. He had a good heart. That was why David had worked at maintaining the friendship, despite how differently their lives were turning out.

“Lily's going to be crushed if you start seeing Janine again,” Geoff told him.

In the midst of a swig of beer, David almost choked. He lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why? She liked Janine, I thought.”

“She did. But she's got this friend from her book club that she wants you to meet. Samantha. I was against it, I want you to know.”

David raised an eyebrow. “What's wrong with her?”

Geoff snickered nastily. “Nothing. She's completely smoking. I just didn't want you to end up having sex with her because then I'd be jealous.”