by Ian Woollen
The date of the Wangerts’ departure for Maine loomed. Ward summoned Ruby and Rusalka into his office. He opened his private bar and mixed them private drinks. He made a toast to vacation and the salubrious effects of Great Tusk on Mary. He said, “I know you consider me rather tweedy, so let me just put it right out there. If you two want more than a friendship, please feel free to explore life’s passions. Rusalka, don’t worry, you’ll still have a job and Mary is not going to be offended either.”
His overt motive was to sanction beforehand what he could not prevent. Covertly, he was angling to block Father Tyler, who, despite a headstrong progressive tilt, would certainly not ordain an open lesbian. Ward also wanted to believe that Rusalka’s outlandish play for Ruby meant that she could not possibly be a professional spy. He could put those fears to rest.
Much later, at the subcommittee investigation, Rusalka’s testimony revealed that she initially saw Ruby Ashberry as a conduit deeper into Mary’s life. Before discovering that she really, really liked the sex. Rusalka also loved Ruby for her valiant step-parenting of Vincent and Kayla.
Chapter 45
A Shortened Stay
Ward and Mary found themselves alone for much of their time on Great Tusk that summer. Rob and Duncan attended a double-session at lacrosse camp. Duncan, perhaps embarrassed by his negligence with Geneva, never made it to Maine, choosing instead to visit Kathryn at her family’s place on Nantucket. Anthony, thanks to Breezy, landed an intern position at the Bangor newspaper.
Mary assembled her usual piles of books around the house. She mowed a wide path to the shore. To honor Loretta’s memory, Mary bought seeds and transplants and laid out a garden. Ward vowed to master the art of bread baking. They hoped that full immersion in new summer routines could break the pall cast by her parents’ deaths. The transition from their Indianapolis to Great Tusk lifestyle usually took a few days. It was no longer just a matter of slipping into old clothes, and for Ward, ceasing to shave.
He’d lost his low gear. He craved his newspaper and television. The ratty clothes waiting for him in the cedar chest no longer felt comfortable and a two-day beard was an irritation. Like his mother’s penchant for paper napkins, Ward welcomed the latest in razor blades. He bought stock in the company that produced the blades, because of their contribution to humanity—ending the bane of the double-edge scraper. Ward impulsively burned his tattered flannels and mail-ordered a replacement of casual permanent-press outfits from L.L. Bean. He ordered three sundresses for Mary. He talked her into thumping down the boardwalk to take meals at the Yacht Club.
The weather made gardening difficult. Days of fog became a week of “pea soup” became two weeks of “socked in.” Worse still, a rumor circulated about a scourge of brown treetops on the ridgeline spruce in the Park. Geneva was apparently the first to report the condition to Ranger Amos. In the Yacht Club dining room, the rumor grew to include a team of government scientists, and it introduced a new descriptive term into the already plentiful fog vocabulary of the island residents: “acid fog”.
“Here’s something ….” Ward announced. He ferried morning coffee out to Mary on the porch, while the kitchen radio twittered behind him. “They’re saying that acid fog is caused by sulfur dioxide spewed from smokestacks in Ohio and Indiana that blows east in the upper atmosphere.”
“Our poisons are following us,” Mary nodded glumly. Ward interpreted this as an attempt at humor, however bleak.
He clasped his coffee mug for some warmth. Mary blew the steam off into the fog. Her long silences and stares off the porch worried him. He tried to engage her in fond reminiscing about their first winter on Great Tusk as newlyweds.
“Remember that old sign by the Eatons’ front door?” Ward asked.
“ ‘Here lives a fisherman, with the catch of his life,’ ” Mary recited.
“I could commission Geneva to embroider that on a pillow for us.”
Mary said, “When have you ever caught a big fish?”
“I caught you.”
Mary sighed, “More like we got tangled in each other’s nets.”
Ward got up from his deck chair, strode to the end of the porch, and squinted back at his wife, as if to get a clearer view on the subject.
“Remember the school? You loved helping out in the school,” Ward recalled, “and with Rob gone, maybe you could get back to teaching.”
“In town yesterday, the fog was so thick, everyone looked like ghosts,” Mary said. “As I walked by the schoolhouse, I thought I was seeing people from long ago, from that first winter, Clyde and Doc Runge, and it felt like we’d become ghosts too.”
Ward patted his prominent gut. “I’d say, in fact, we’re even more flesh and blood than we were back then.”
Mary groaned and glared at her own belly. “Ward, I know you’re determined to cheer me up, but pointing out that I now have to wear foundational garments isn’t the best approach.”
“No, no, no,” Ward sputtered, backpedaling his way in deeper. “One of the big surprises about getting older is how much I enjoy seeing our bodies age together. I love our sags and wrinkles and folds.”
Mary got up from her deck chair and disappeared into the house. Ward waited in the fog. He knew she was mulling over a response. As husband and wife, they each sensed the wheels turning inside the other’s hoary head. That was how it went for days, one endless conversation, periodically interrupted while the other party retreated to gather thoughts, and then picked up again a few minutes or hours later, and not necessarily where they’d left off.
“Why did we never invite my parents out here to visit?” Mary asked that afternoon at the pond. They crouched at the edge of the diving rock.
Ward, growing less cautious and protective, said, “I don’t know. It feels like I’m about to get blamed.”
“I could try, but it wouldn’t stick,” Mary said. She continued, “Anthony suggested inviting them a few times. He wanted to take them sailing. And I remember you saying it was up to me.”
Ward nodded and ventured, “Frankly, you never really seemed that close to your parents.”
Mary, shivering, submerged herself slowly into the misty, green pond and swam out with a slow breast stroke. He caught up with her at the float.
“I wanted to feel closer to them,” Mary announced. “I was always afraid they would find out the truth about Anthony’s conception. That’s the sad, stupid reality. Crazy as it sounds, I thought that if they came to the island they were more likely to discover what really happened.”
Both pondered that for a few minutes. Water dripping from their chins and hair. Ward experienced the squeamish sensation he knew from business meetings when a client unexpectedly revealed the reason for a failed deal.
“So what if they’d known?” Ward asked.
“You never heard my mother preach about teenage pregnancy,” Mary said.
“No, I didn’t,” Ward conceded, “but let’s consider. They doted on Anthony. They wouldn’t have doted on him any less. And by the way, have you done the math on how old your mother was when your brother was born?”
“People got married younger back then,” Mary said.
“And it could have been for the exact same reason we did,” Ward speculated.
Mary shook her head. “No, not Mother. Not with the way she kept her legs crossed.”
“So, what if they’d known?” Ward pressed again.
Mary answered, “Then I wouldn’t have been their good daughter. Especially after Robert’s plane crash, I had to be their good daughter. I tried hard. I went to Vassar. I worked for the State Department. I married a Wangert. I gave them grandsons.”
“Mary Stark: the good daughter.”
“The Good Daughter has no purpose anymore. There should be a sense of relief. I should be feeling that the pressure is off. The secret is safe now with my parents dead. No, with them gone, the Good Daughter doesn’t know what to do.”
Ward tentatively stroked her back. “Maybe now at least you can tell m
e what really happened.”
Mary leaned into his shoulder and shook her head.
Ward said, “A lot has changed in the last twenty years. Especially attitudes about sex. Nobody would judge you.”
“Oh, yes they would!” Mary countered.
“Why do you say that so strongly?”
“Because I let myself be impregnated by a man who is now fucking entire parts of the globe,” she snapped and added, “How do you think Anthony would feel to know that his father is the Devil’s spymaster?”
“It would throw him,” Ward agreed.
When Anthony showed up for the weekend, Ward and Mary both remarked, whispering to each other in bed, how much Anthony’s adult face was coming to resemble He Who Remains Classified. The same weld of features. A long nose descending from a visor brow, like an ancient Roman helmet.
Anthony was very attentive to his mother’s grief. Ward recognized that in some ways Anthony was better at helping his mother’s recovery. He arrived each weekend with a new jigsaw puzzle. He shared stories about his grandparents that Ward had never heard. They laughed about Fred filling the dishwasher with laundry detergent and Loretta’s penchant for peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches.
Finally, one morning Mary announced, “I’m sick of this goddamn fog. I want to go home. I need to clear out my parents’ house and sell it. And, as you and Rusalka and Ruby have repeatedly suggested, I should be seeing a therapist again.”
Ward happily obliged. He packed their bags and prepared a box lunch. They planned to leave on the next boat. The only hitch in their sudden departure was what to do about Rob. He was scheduled to bus up to the island after lacrosse camp ended the following week. He would now have to return to Indianapolis with them for a short period before going east again to start Rokeby.
Ward phoned and informed him of the change in plans. Rob cussed and complained, “Why should I lose out on island vacation time just because Mom is upset about Grandpa and Grandma? No frigging way I’m driving home with you right now! I am a grown-up fifteen-year-old and I am definitely mature enough to spend two weeks alone on the island. Anthony can check on me from Bangor, if necessary.” An argument to which his parents, hands full with their own business, promptly caved.
Chapter 46
The Dark Star
He Who Remains Classified locked his office door. He extracted the snapshot of Mary from his wallet and kissed it. He tossed back a third Scotch. It was noon somewhere. He hated hearing the dull pain in Mary’s voice on the wiretaps, and simultaneously hated feeling anything so strongly. A vicious cycle that required lubrication.
He could only obliquely relate to her grief. Yes, he knew the concept of loss, but empathy was not his strong suit. His own parents passed away when he was quite young, which thickened his skin toward human suffering. “Death is overrated,” he instructed his trainees.
Currently plagued with recurring nightmares, he understood the aggravation of a pesky emotional state. Despite his status within the agency being more secure than ever, he struggled for peaceful sleep. As a child, as a young man, slumber enveloped him easily. Lights-out easily. Now, dreams flashed with ugly case material—imbroglios in foreign streets. A recurring image of a Russian ventriloquist strangling a mannequin. Images that if encountered during the daytime might produce a sigh of regret, or a brusque laugh, but at night brought forth screams. Weak, pathetic outpourings.
He spilled a fourth drink and sucked down a fifth. He found himself at the window, tugging at the blinds, hell bent on taking up bird-watching. A man needs a fucking hobby. Instead of peering down at passersby on the street, he used his binoculars to ogle the winged creatures in the nearby park—pigeons, jays, crows—desperately wishing he could soar above it all.
Chapter 47
The Fog Lifts
Hopes for a clearing were dashed many times on Great Tusk. Stars poked through at midnight only to have dawn appear enshrouded yet again. The ferry service saw a marked decrease in day-trippers. The campground received cancellations. The Island Store complained about loss of revenue in gas and groceries from their usual summer clientele of passing yachts and cabin-cruisers. Even the old-timers began to grumble. Laundry wouldn’t dry. The lobstermen, who didn’t like going out in the fog, had to empty their overfull traps, and they reported an increasing number of collisions. Clyde started a lottery for guessing the day the curse would lift.
It turned out to be the morning of Rob’s arrival. In fact, the exact moment of Rob’s arrival. He was third or fourth in line on the gangway as the mail boat tied up at the town dock. It was like a choreographed scene in one of the Super-8 movies that he and Duncan and Geneva made as kids.
As Rob descended onto the float, he received astonished stares. The islanders on the dock, waiting for the mail, turned to the mouth of the harbor. There, like a giant curtain opening, the fogbank rolled across the thoroughfare and departed, revealing trees and greenery, all manner of natural features and colors that the villagers had almost forgotten.
Invoking a common superstition about a change in the weather being wrought by a new arrival on the island, Clyde Salter pointed at young Rob, foot poised at the top of the gangway, and yelled, “Robbie Wangert brought us the clearing!” The assembly applauded and repeated the cheer. For the next couple of days, whenever Rob came into town, people who hadn’t said two words to him his entire life came up and thanked him for lifting the fog.
Rob savored the warm welcome from the island community. He even put up with being called “Robbie.” He needed a boost. Lacrosse camp had been a tough month for the Wangert brothers. They were at an extreme disadvantage. All the other campers had been playing lacrosse since birth. Rob and Duncan were rudely reminded several times a day that catching a fast-moving ball in a small net at the end of a pole is difficult enough to do standing still, but—for them—near impossible while running. Rob was still nursing a few bruises from vicious stick checks, another area of the game where the Hoosier boys had a lot to learn.
The island community’s laissez-faire approach to driver’s licenses also helped his spirits. Nobody cared if he had one. Rob climbed into the Jeep, inexpertly backed it out of the barn, and drove down to the pond. Next day, he drove all the way into town. He slowed for the Hangman’s Cove bump, a quick little rise where the local teenage drivers “caught some air.” People waved the same standard, perfunctory wave to him as to anyone else. He was in full command. He didn’t even need money for gas. His father had arranged a charge account at the store.
Rob stocked up on Twinkies and Chef Boyardee. He played the radio as loud as he wanted, while peering through the telescope. He had some trouble finding his own star among the newly revealed heavens. It was somewhere near the Big Dipper. Feeling slightly intimidated by the large, empty house, he slept downstairs on the couch. Instead of abandoning all domestic duties, or rather, after a couple days of abandoning them, he found himself performing certain basic chores, such as dishwashing and putting out the canvas porch furniture in the morning and taking it in at night. Those routines made the place seem less different. He also began loudly repeating some his parents’ stock phrases. For example, his father’s “Come on now, buddy!” motivator for getting out of bed. And his mother’s “Hey, gang!” for getting out of the house.
Anthony came up for the weekend to check on him. They quickly fell into familiar vacation pastimes, such as a daylong Skittles game. Rob felt more willing to accord Anthony some respected oldest brother status. The month at camp with Duncan had been problematic in their brotherhood department, what with Duncan’s nightly phone calls to Kathryn and his tendency to chide his younger sibling for stick-handling screw-ups in front of his varsity friends from Rokeby. Rob complained to Anthony about Duncan’s fixation on Kathryn.
“And what about Geneva?” Anthony asked, “Have you seen her yet?”
Rob shook his head. “No, I sent her a bunch of postcards last winter. She never wrote me back, and I don’t know whether to ju
st leave her alone or what.”
Anthony said, “I don’t think Duncan ditching her should have to mean you can’t be friends, and realistically, it would be kind of hard on a small island not to see her at all. Then again, it is true that people can go for years out here without acknowledging each other’s existence.”
“I actually like that about Great Tusk,” Rob said.
“You like that why?” Anthony said.
“I don’t know,” Rob replied.
Unable yet to fully comprehend or explain his emerging internal distinction between Island Rob and Mainland Rob, he added, “It took me a while to find my star.”
“With all the fog, I haven’t looked through the telescope,” Anthony said.
They dug out the star charts, identified a few old favorites, and reminisced about their fake names for constellations—Tony the Tiger, Blueberry Muffin, Dog Barf. Anthony even convinced Rob to go for a night sail. The convincing took the form of a dare, which Rob could not refuse. Among nocturnal adventures on Great Tusk, night sailing is one of the most exciting, especially for star viewing. It was Rob’s first time out on the ocean in the dark, except for a couple ‘harbor patrol’ dinghy excursions as part of the detective agency.
Impressed by his oldest brother’s quiet confidence, Rob sprawled on the bow and gazed up at the slow-motion panoply overhead, unfurling like a giant player-piano scroll (the island church still used one). He listened to the music of the wavelets near his ear. And when he rolled over onto his belly, the myriad pinprick glow was all still there, reflected in the gentle ripples of the dark, somnolent surface.
Anthony, struck by Rob’s attentiveness, babbled intermittent advice about the teachers at Rokeby and the easy courses. He offered thoughts on his own start at Yale. “When I got back my first term paper, the professor’s comment was, ‘Extremely well-written bullshit. Grade: D.’ ”