The Life You've Imagined (21 page)

My mother’s face contorted into an exaggerated wounded expression and stayed that way until she died and the mortician rearranged her face.

Robert’s father eventually paid for the ring, which Robert swore to pay him back for. I don’t believe he ever did. I loved him too much to care about any old ring, or who paid for it, though I admit the town gossip was hard to hear.

It was gossip that made me start wearing it inside my shirt, come to think of it. I overheard someone in Clawson’s Drugs talking about how they saw me in the store still wearing my ring, “pining after her runaway husband, so sad.”

I wasn’t pining. I’m not pining, now. But is it so wrong to have a little hope?

Carla jostles me out of my daydream by asking for a Lotto ticket. “Easy Pick,” she says, dropping her huge satchel on the counter.

At dusk, the customers stop coming in. By now they’re all arrayed on blankets on the beach or maybe on condominium balconies. Anna is at the Becker house. Is she talking to Will? I wonder. Or hanging out with Amy? Likely not Amy; she’d be too close to Paul. I hope she’s having a little fun. At least she’s outside the store. She’s been getting too comfortable here.

I prop open the Nee Nance front door and face the lake, standing in the doorway. The dusk is cool and there’s a light breeze, like a sigh of relief that the heat of July has burned away. From here I can just about see the rows of heads facing the water.

Robert and I used to alternate taking Anna to the beach on the Fourth of July, to stake out a good spot. Then, as soon as customers stopped streaming in, the other one of us would sprint to the lake and search the towels for redheaded Anna. Our little girl would hold her ears closed against the bangs, but her face would be bright with joy at the burning sparks lighting up the sky.

Then, when Robert left, I had to stay and run things. Sally would sometimes help, but even back then, the register drawer was a mess when she was done with it. I just couldn’t close the store during those pre-dusk hours, though. I made too much money. Sometimes Anna would go with a friend; sometimes she’d stay with me and, like I’m doing right now, we’d stand in the doorway and watch from here, though the downtown buildings obscure some of the display. Then we’d step back through the door and talk about how everyone else had to fight traffic; weren’t we lucky to already be home?

Lucky us.

Then she got to be a teenager and fell in love with Will, and his parents, too, for that matter, and she spent nearly every holiday with them.

I tried not to mind, because she was enjoying herself, at least.

The crowd cheers as the first lights spark to life. Somewhere, a sound system is playing Sousa marches. Next year Robert could be with me again, and we’ll be rid of this lousy store, watching the fireworks in some quaint northern town before retreating to our own actual house.

Inside, between bangs, I hear the Nee Nance phone ring. I ignore it and it stops. Minutes later it starts up again, and this time I run to it.

Chapter 30

Anna

I
’m on my hands and knees whispering Hail Mary, full of
grace
. . .

I started CPR, but a doctor from the crowd rushed to her, elbowing me aside. Now I crouch, shivering, whispering the only prayer I can think of as he grunts over Maddie, still and white on the sand. The party crowd stands in a gaping horseshoe around us, their faces forming a wall of shock: all mouths open, hands over their faces.

Over the doctor’s noises and the relentless splashing of the lake, I try to silence my own ragged breathing to listen for sounds from that little girl.

Hail Mary, full of grace . . .

And then sounds come. A cough, then more coughing, and a vomiting sound, and a wail that’s heartbreaking and beautiful because it’s human and alive. I drop my head on the sand and breathe:
Thank you.

Now I hear pounding on the wooden stairs, fast and uneven; they’re skipping several steps. I look up to see Beck, wild in his running, his parents behind with blankets, all their faces pulled tight with fear.

I pull up to my feet, my body aching with cold and effort and tension.

The wailing continues from Madeline as the adults bundle her and Beck cradles her, soothing, yet crying himself. I can see him shaking, even at a distance, and watching him I feel just a taste of his fear, and I feel faint with it.

Beck and his family move up the steps still urgently, but now smoothly and with care. A siren grows louder as it nears the top of the hill.

B
eck and his parents have gone to the hospital, where they must have called Samantha, and here in a guest bed in the Becker house, I clench my eyes tight against imagining what it would be like to get that call.

Beck’s sister, Tabitha, finally noticed me, shivering on the sand. She thanked me in such a formal and serious way it was hard to imagine she was once the dorky kid in spectacles we all called Tabby Cat. She attended to my practical needs by leading me to the guest room with an adjacent shower, sink, and bathrobes. As always, it was stocked with soap and shampoo, in both manly, spicy scents and girly, fruity stuff. This is a family who attends to details. How do they miss a little girl walking into a lake?

Of course, I missed it, too. Some lifeguard I turned out to be.

I pull the bathrobe closer on my body, hugging a pillow and staring at the dark window, trying not to think about all the times Beck and I had sex in this room when his parents were out of the house. It felt risky doing it at home, but it wasn’t, really, not with the door locked, and the house was so big that by the time someone walked throug the huge, creaky front door and came upstairs, there was ample time to scramble our clothes back on and dash out into public spaces again.

Tabitha tossed my clothes in the dryer and promised to bring them back, but that was ages ago. Also, I don’t know where my purse is, which has my car keys in it. I’ve been forgotten in all the commotion. I can go traipsing through the house in a bathrobe and a smile or hope someone remembers me.

I’m too tired to go home anyway right now.

I can’t stop picturing Madeline’s face. She didn’t look asleep or romantically unconscious the way people do on TV. She just looked dead.

How long had I been staring at the water before I saw her? Had she been on the beach when I first came down?

I see her limp whiteness in my memory again and sit up, gulping water from the glass on the nightstand. Then I stagger to the bathroom and retch the water into the white marble sink.

The party was cancelled, but the city-operated fireworks carried on, and now, partyers out there are setting off firecrackers and sparklers, and the pops and bangs filter in here. Don’t they understand a near tragedy has taken place? Of course not. But there are always tragedies, somewhere.

I flip off the lamplight. Surely the Beckers won’t mind if I rest a little while longer.

“A
nna?”

I fumble until I find a nightstand, a lamp. The room comes into view and it all hits me: Madeline, the water . . .

Beck.

He’s standing just inside the door, looking like he hasn’t slept in a week.

“Is she okay?”

He closes the door and comes fully into the room. I sit up and swing my legs out of the bed.

“Yes, thank God. The doctors think she’s going to be fine, but they’re keeping her overnight. Sam is with her now; she must have been doing a hundred miles an hour all the way from Indiana.”

I glance at a digital clock on the nightstand, which reads 1:37 a.m. “Oh, Jesus. I’m so sorry to still be here. I was just resting . . .”

“Don’t be sorry. My God, if there’s anything . . . I mean, a place to rest for a few hours is the least of what we could offer you, considering.”

Beck sits on the other side of the double bed. His hair stands up, probably from being raked through with his fingers. Stubble is growing in, and his eyes are watery and shot through with cracks of red.

“I don’t know how it happened,” he says, looking down into his lap. “I could have sworn I saw her just a minute before, and the whole family was there, and I thought we were, I mean, I thought someone was watching . . .”

He chokes on the words and pushes his palms into his eyes, curling himself over.

I cinch my robe tighter and arrange the neck for maximum coverage and join him on the other side of the bed. I put one arm around him, feeling him tremble. I squeeze tight, trying to stop the shaking.

He gulps out, “What if you hadn’t . . .”

“But I did. She’s okay. Don’t do this to yourself. No one can watch a child every minute.”

“Samantha does. She would have. She . . .” He gasps and lets the air out in a shuddery exhale. “She said it’s all my fault.”

With this, he turns to me, staring into my eyes for a moment. Then he leans forward, resting his forehead on mine. He closes his eyes.

For a moment or two, we stay like that, just silent. Then he moves his hands to my shoulders. He pulls me forward, so gently it seems that I imagined it, until his lips press down on mine.

We push aside each other’s clothing with the practiced ease. I allow myself to tip back on the bed with him, almost weeping that his touch is tender as it ever was.

T
he shame creeps up on me, like lengthening late-day shadows.

My limbs entwine with his, in that old familiar way they have, like there are Beck-shaped grooves on my calves, arms. We haven’t yet spoken.

I’m suddenly uncomfortable, despite the pleasing warmth of Beck’s body and its familiar contours.

I jerk myself straight up.

“This was a terrible mistake.” My quiet words seem to blare across the silence. I yank on the robe and my hands shake like an old drunk’s as I fumble with the tie. “Get dressed,” I hiss at Beck. “Get up.”

Beck pulls himself upright but makes no move toward his clothes.

“Beck, please! What if your sister remembers I’m in here? She was supposed to bring back my clothes.”

“She’s not here. No one’s home but Mom and Dad, and they’re asleep.”

“Where did she go?”

“She was going to stop at the hospital, then go to her boyfriend’s house.”

“Beck, for the love of God, put your clothes on; smooth the bed. I’m going to have a panic attack. I’m going to jump out this window unless we look presentable in the next forty-five seconds.”

Beck sighs and gathers his clothes, stepping past me into the adjoining bathroom. I make the bed again, smooth it taut, then remember I’d been sleeping in it. I climb back in, wrinkle up one side, and get back out again.

Now Beck emerges, still looking like hell but dressed, his face unnaturally flushed. Now, his presence can be explained. He could be just saying thank you.

I drop onto a bench at the end of the bed, my head in my hands. “This is by far the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“It wasn’t just you.” Beck’s voice is effortful and gravelly.

“I’m sure that will make your wife feel a whole lot better.”

“She’s not going to find out. I’m certainly not going to tell her.”

“I should have known better.”

“So should I.”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.” I glare at him through a tangled curl. He joins me on the bench. “What the hell was that for?”

“It’s not working out with Sam, I told you that. The fight before she left for Indiana was a little more serious than I let on. We are—well, we were, at least—going to be separating.”

“That doesn’t make this okay.” He puts his hand on my knee, and I walk away from him to the window. All I can see outside is blackness. The lake is indistinguishable from the sky. “And you can’t separate now. Not like this.”

“We’ll wait a decent interval. Make sure Maddie really is okay.”

“How okay is she going to be? First, she almost . . . Then her parents split up. I can’t be responsible for that. I went through that. I won’t do that to somebody else.”

“I’m not like your father! I wouldn’t leave her forever. This is different. I’m telling you, we were on the rocks anyway.”

“So, if I hadn’t come back, you would have left your wife and come to Chicago to be with me.”

Silence.

“Beck, go find my clothes. They’re in the dryer.”

“Anna, I—”

“Just find my clothes. I’m calling a cab. And where the hell is my purse?”

I cut off anything else he might say by grabbing the bedside phone and barking orders at the Information operator. I turn my back to him as he slips out of the room.

Chapter 31

Maeve

M
y hands shake on the steering wheel, partly out of relief that the call wasn’t about Anna, partly with anger at my dimwit, irresponsible, chain-smoking sister-in-law, who nearly torched herself.

As it was, it was only her trailer that went up like a Roman candle.