“You tell him neither of us wants anything to do with him,” the mother went on. “She doesn’t and I don’t. Tell him no one here wants to see him ever again.” It seemed like she might go on forever saying it over and over if I didn’t stop her.
“I don’t think he wants to come back,” I said finally.
“He can go to hell,” the mother said. Then she looked frightened by her own words. “He probably thinks she’s dead,” she said, in a miserable voice. “He can’t face it. But you tell him she’s alive! She’s still alive!”
28
In the hotel room, we didn’t turn on the TV. I felt jumpy and breathless. The wind rattled the door. A moth hit the window screen and I jumped up and peered outside, terrified.
“Here,” Tuck said. “Look what I’ve got. A sleeping pill.”
I shook my head. “Something’s wrong,” I said. “Something is definitely wrong. I don’t know what.”
Many things were wrong. I tried to list them in an orderly fashion, silently numbering them to keep track of my fear. One, there were moths at the window screen. Two, I was so far from home. Three, the girl in the bed had been sleeping since August. Four, I had fucked someone’s husband. Five, what were they doing at home without me? Six, the baby in his coffin. Seven, all those candles they were always lighting to bring him back. Eight, Cole and Cecily, Cecily and Cole. I mean Anthony. Nine, wind in the trees, and crows. Ten, the girl in the bed with her puffy face, her mouth parted, how she had plummeted down the stairs.
“We don’t know what happened to her,” Tuck said as if he could read my mind.
“I know what happened to her. He did it.”
“It sounds like that couldn’t have happened. You heard what she said about the neighbors.”
“Of course his mother doesn’t think that’s what happened.”
“Well, we’re safe here,” Tuck insisted.
I knew we were. Even wrapped in the shadow the way I’d been since the night in the cemetery, I felt that as long as we stayed in this hotel room we were safe. We could make a life here, Tuck and me. I looked up at him. I wondered what would happen if I touched him now, kissed him at midnight, took my clothes off and stood naked in front of him. I wanted to obliterate everything I was feeling, and fucking seemed like the best and easiest way. Fucking obliterated the mother, and the girl in the bed, and Cole and Anthony, and Lucas, and the lighthouse, and the candles, and the moth, and the shadow. Only no—I knew nothing so ordinary as fucking could have any effect whatsoever on the shadow, which was not a warm and human thing like sex.
And then from under the shadow’s curtain, I felt something else, something tugging at my consciousness, like a memory. Like the strains of a song I was trying to place. What was it?
“You know what?” I said to Tuck. “Something’s wrong with Lucas. I just, I don’t know, I feel it. It’s a twin thing. I need to go home.”
“It’s a five-hour drive,” Tuck said. “And there’s no ferry until morning. We can’t go home tonight.”
“There’s something wrong with him,” I said, suddenly sure, the certainty like a dense black pit in the center of my chest. “I always thought I’d know, and now I know. What should I do, call the police?”
“You should relax,” Tuck said.
“Shut up. I can’t.”
I dialed the island police, but no one answered. I dialed again, longing to hear George’s voice. Something’s wrong, I would say. Again? he would say sounding bored. It was his boredom I longed for, his reassurance that things were the same as they’d ever been.
“George!” I said, when he finally answered. “It’s Lydia. You have to do something for me. Go over to the house and make sure Lucas is okay, George...No, I’m not there. I’m—I’m out of town.”
For once in his life, George did what he said he was going to do. When I called the police station thirty minutes later, he said he’d talked to Lucas and everything was fine.
“Everything is not fine,” I said to Tuck.
I went into the bathroom and locked the door and looked at my face in the mirror for a long time. I turned on the bathwater, and as the water ran I stared at my eyes in the mirror. My eyes were my mother’s eyes, my brother’s eyes.
I took my clothes off and got in the bath. I looked down at my body. So much of it didn’t seem to belong to me anymore. My arms, my stomach, my chest—in some perverse way they belonged more to Anthony than to me. But why? I ran my hands over my skin. Why would I think such a thing? Did Emily believe she belonged to Anthony? I let my chin slide under the water, let the water cover my lips.
Strange how things come into and out of your possession in this life. People belong to you, and then they don’t. Places, homes even, belong to you and then they don’t. Memories, too. You might have no memory of birds and trains, and then suddenly birds and trains are everywhere, wrapped up entirely in some false memory of falling in love.
I stood up and the water shed off my body in rivulets, then solitary drips. The only thing I could think of that might be mine entirely was Tuck, sitting on the bed on the other side of the locked door. I wanted to go to Tuck and tell him he belonged to me now, or ask him if he did, or find out in some other more permanent way.
I wrapped the towel around me and went into the room. I sat beside him on the bed. I took his hand. He touched my wet hair.
“Let’s just go,” I said. “Please? We can sleep in the car. I’ll take the first ferry over tomorrow.”
He nodded.
I got dressed.
He handed me the sleeping pill, and I swallowed it, and we took our bags and left the hotel.
I climbed into the passenger’s seat. But even though my eyes were closed I still saw her: Emily. And sometimes all at once she ceased to be Emily and was instead, terribly and completely and inevitably, Lucas; he was lying somewhere after a great fall, his body arranged in strange and unnatural angles, still as death. I was scared, for myself and for Lucas, now that I had an idea of what Cole was capable of—how easily he could hurt the people he claimed to love.
29
I took the first ferry of the morning, leaving Tuck in Carson Cove, and walked home alone. Then I stood outside my house, afraid to walk inside. The car was parked in the garage again. I imagined the inside of the house as I’d always known it, the furniture, dishes, wallpaper. Lucas would be tying flies at his old desk in the corner of the living room. I would be there, too, reading on the couch, feet tucked under an afghan. Only, now I knew it was Cole on the couch, and I was nowhere in the picture. A great swell of grief came rolling through my chest. How easily, how completely, I could be replaced.
I put my hand on the doorknob, scared I’d find it locked. But the door opened. I walked into the kitchen. There were two bowls in the sink. There was a horseshoe crab shell on the counter, and I stared at it, transfixed. Had they taken a walk together? Found this treasure in the sand, half buried. I touched the crab, its brittle caramel-colored shell. Then I realized there was something strange about the crab. Its tail, that little dagger, instead of having one point, was forked like a snake’s tongue. I touched it, felt the twin points pressing into my fingertips.
The house was still. As if no air from the outside world could get in. As if no one had been moving, talking, breathing the whole time I’d been away. In the living room, two mugs sat on the coffee table. The downstairs bathroom was tidy; it even smelled good.
I looked into the laundry room. On top of the washing machine was a little pile of clothes, damp with blood. I saw the blood immediately, the rich brown mud of it. Lucas’s T-shirt, sweater. His corduroy pants. I felt a contraction of fear so sharp and deep I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand. And from some place far away, my mother’s voice urging me to take care of Lucas. I ran, afraid to find out how I’d failed.
I stumbled upstairs. Hallway. Bedroom. Afraid
I wouldn’t find him, that he would have disappeared the way so many things seemed to be disappearing, lost to time or memory. But he was there.
We faced each other across the doorway. Lucas looked at me, frightened. He was so handsome it took my breath away, his bright golden eyes. He was perfect, his left hand the only imperfect thing, tied up in bandages, a huge white mummy of a hand.
“I knew something happened to you,” I said. I was crying, still holding the bloody clothes. “What did he do to you?”
“It was an accident,” Lucas said.
“An accident!” My voice was shrill. “It was no accident.”
I felt the air move behind me and whirled around. Cole was in the hallway now, calm, still, concerned.
“I was at work. It was the hedge clippers,” Lucas said. “It was definitely an accident. You think I’d cut my fingertip off on purpose?”
Nausea rolled through me. The image of Lucas, and the blood, and the soft pads of his fingers.
“Why were you at work? It’s the off-season.”
“It was a winter work day,” he said, and that made sense. At the Day Estate, Lucas shoveled walkways, raked leaves, and trimmed paths on an as-needed basis.
“How did you get help?”
“Walked home,” he said. “There’s a trail of blood all down the beach.”
I sat down, right there in the hallway, and leaned against the wall. I set down Lucas’s clothes, put my hands on the scratched-up floorboards, felt all the house’s grooves and dents.
“I knew something happened to you,” I said.
“I thought something happened to you,” Lucas said. “You just disappeared. We didn’t know if you were coming back or what.”
“Of course I was coming back. I live here.”
Cole had joined me, and I looked right into his dark eyes. I held his gaze. I was nervous he would immediately recognize that something had shifted between us. Even I wasn’t sure what that shift meant exactly, but I held some power, now that I’d met his mother, his wife, now that I knew his name. I imagined it written on a slip of paper, folded neatly and stored in a box. Yes, I had the name, but I still didn’t know what to do with it. It turned out a name wasn’t powerful unless you understood how to use it.
“Where did you even go?” Lucas asked.
“I went to the cape,” I said, which was true. “I stayed at a motel.”
“Kind of expensive,” Lucas said, holding his hands up as if to say why in the world would you do that.
“I was with Tuck. Anyway, I’m back now.”
“I can’t work for a few days, at least,” Lucas said, holding up his bandaged hand and staring at it. “I’m just home again, I guess.”
“We can all be home together again,” Cole said.
“I was lying down,” Lucas said. “But then I heard Lydia yelling.”
“Keep resting,” Cole said.
Lucas went back into his room. But I stayed where I was, on the floor, and Cole stayed where he was. When I first saw the bloody clothes, I’d imagined something terrible. Lucas’s chest, his throat. Cole with a knife. A pair of scissors. I could see him standing by Emily at the bottom of the stairs. I still saw those things, even though Lucas was okay, even though the girl in the bed was far away.
“I’m so tired,” I said to Cole, and I was. “Please let me rest.”
He turned and walked away, down the stairs.
Tuck and I had agreed that I wouldn’t confront him alone. “Just take your time,” Tuck had said when we were back in Carson Cove waiting for the ferry that would take me home. “Let’s take a few days and figure out the best way to tell him what we know. You don’t want to put yourself in danger.”
“Last night you were all like give him the benefit of the doubt. Last night you didn’t think he was dangerous.”
“I still don’t think he’s dangerous, not really—but why risk it?”
I had a vague idea that I wouldn’t need to confront Cole at all. I would tell Lucas—and once he knew, once he saw, he’d be the one to confront Cole. All afternoon Lucas dozed on his bed, his wrapped hand cradled on his chest like a wounded creature.
I slipped into the room and stood watching him. He opened his eyes. We looked at each other. I was going to tell him, but he spoke first.
“You thought Cole did this to me,” he said. He shook his head. His eyes looked so hurt. “Cole saved me. Why can’t you see that?”
“I see that now,” I said.
“You weren’t even here,” Lucas said. “You were gone again. I could have died. He was here to save me.”
“What do you mean, gone again? I never go anywhere. You’re the one who told Cole I’m afraid to leave the island.”
“You left when mom was sick.”
“I didn’t leave when mom was sick. I came back when mom was sick.”
“Cole said—I mean, I see it, too—it’s actually pretty obvious, and I guess I should have seen it a long time ago—you don’t want us to all be together. You’ve never wanted us all to be together. You couldn’t wait to get out of here, don’t you remember? You left even though Mom was sick. And now—”
“I didn’t leave Mom here sick. I came back.”
“I can’t remember how it happened.”
“I’m telling you how it happened.”
“Cole says—”
“Cole wasn’t here, so he doesn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas said, his voice rising. “I found your folder in the pantry, okay? With all your applications and forms for college. When were you planning to tell me? You know what? It doesn’t matter. Go to college. Or go off with that kid from Carson Cove. I can’t stop you. You have a life to live.”
My throat ached. I was so mad I had to leave the room—before I shouted or threw something at him.
I saw it again—like a dream—like a sudden head-splitting vision—the other life. That city I would have gone to, the street with its tall buildings, its doorways and windows, its people, all those faces, all those hearts moving their bodies toward inevitable outcomes. Every day that other life felt more and more unreachable.
Did I want something other than this life? Yes. Of course I did. But it was too late. Just look what I gave up to stay here with you! I wanted to scream it through the walls. My bedroom, with its tiny bed, it was too small, there was no room to move, no way to breathe. Look at all I gave up. I gave that life up, and here I am, and there’s no way out.
* * *
I called Tuck from the ferry landing at lunchtime.
I told him about Lucas’s hand. “I’ve been trying to talk to him,” I said. “But he won’t listen to me.”
“Don’t even try to talk to Lucas,” he said. “Wait until I get there. I’ll come right after work.”
I tried to follow this advice. I walked around and around the island, staying away from the house. I was overtired from the night on the highway, overemotional from my confrontation with Lucas.
I wandered down to Tame Jaw Beach. It was chilly, and I buttoned my sweater up to my neck. I heard splashing in the shallow water, but I couldn’t see anything. Then there were footsteps behind me.
The man with the cat was barefoot, traversing the beach, the cat stately on his shoulders, face into the breeze. He stopped when he saw me, and we nodded politely at each other.
“Thinking about ghosts?” he asked.
I laughed, a short intense laugh, the kind that is bottled up for too long. “Kind of,” I said.
“That’s what people do,” he said. “They look at the water and think about the dead. Good day.”
I looked at the water and I wondered, how do you tell the difference between the ghosts of the mind and the ghosts that are truly hanging around?
Finally, I stood and brushed sand off my legs, feeling stiff and cold. On C
lara Day Street, the bouncer stool was empty outside Jack’s. I went to the front window and cupped my hands around my face. My breath made a white circle on the glass. The place was full of islanders. Their heads were bent together, and they were talking softly.
Gordon and Sebastian and some of the other fishermen were lining the bar. I went in and stood behind them for a minute, studying their profiles. Gordon’s skin was smooth-baked. Not wrinkly the way Martha the librarian’s was, nothing that delicate. His wrinkles were broad folds of smooth skin. They drank beer and talked to each other and took little notice of me.
“Are there ghosts?” I said finally.
They all turned and looked at me. There was a long pause during which my ridiculous question hung in the air like a balloon that wouldn’t rise and wouldn’t sink.
“Hell, yes,” Gordon said finally.
“Everywhere,” Sebastian said.
“I had one put a pink pebble in my mouth while I was sleeping,” Gordon said. “When I woke up, this pebble comes tumbling out. Smooth and flat and shiny.”
“What’d you do with it?” I asked.
“Gave it to my grandkids.”
“There are ghosts all over this island,” Sebastian said. “They’re always walking the widow’s walks. They’re still waiting on their husbands, but their husbands are ghosts out at sea.”
“My granddad used to visit a ghost whorehouse,” Sebastian said.
“My granddad did, too,” Gordon said. “The one in New Bedford.”
“I went once,” Sebastian said.
“No shit,” Gordon said, impressed.
“It’s like this,” he said, turning kindly to me.
Back in his granddad’s day, he told me, they would come in after a few weeks out whaling and go to the place where the ghosts of whores would still fuck you for free. You paid for your bed and fell asleep and they would visit you in the night, ghostly, but gorgeous. They all died of syphilis pretty young, and their ghosts were young and pretty. You could feel them only faintly, but you saw them clearly, and they rode you until you came just thinking about what it would feel like if they still had their flesh.
Goodnight Stranger Page 21