Only later would I wonder if what I really wanted was to be punished. Toward the end, especially, Daniel got a little rough. We were on the bed, and he had pinned my arms above my head before he straddled me again. I was sore by then, and it hurt. I cried out at one point, but he didn’t stop. And slowly the pain eased, the pain changed. I heard myself whimpering from a long way off. Then I forgot everything. I was moving blindly. Toward some sort of light. I had a flash of pushing against a door that was half ajar—of the door falling open—and then of hurtling into oblivion.
Part Three
17
Cal
The holidays were over, and Kurt and I were back at work. Or at least back in our office above the outbuilding at Kurt’s where we store our heavy equipment. It’s been totally dead business-wise. It’s always slow in the winter months, but this year it feels like construction’s never going to bounce back. You can’t turn on the television or pick up the newspaper without hearing how the economy’s still cratering. The stock market’s down. And the country’s just hemorrhaging jobs and money and confidence. How the hell did things get this bad? I know the problems started months before Betsy was killed, but I can’t help but feel that these disasters are somehow interconnected. That the larger world and my own life are spiraling out of control together.
I’m lying to Jenny all the time now. Lying about where I am half the night. Who I’m with. I don’t even need to put much effort into it. Jenny and I are communicating so little these days, it’s easy to get away with things. It still bothers the hell out me, but at least I’m not lying to myself about Jenny as Kurt accused me of doing with Gannon. I know full well I’m cheating on her. And it feels all wrong. I’m the first to admit that. For one thing, I don’t much like the person I become when I’m with Lori. She keeps telling me I have every reason to be moody. But I know I’m just being selfish. Sometimes, I’m even downright mean. I probably drink too much when I’m with her, too. And I’m afraid I make it pretty clear that I’m not putting a whole lot of work into the “relationship,” as she referred to it a few days ago.
“You must have guessed by now that I always had a thing for you?” she said, turning to me in that crappy foldout bed of hers. I could feel the metal crossbars digging into my spine. “And I just want you to know that, no matter where our relationship is going? I’m happy. I just feel so happy and grateful every time I see you that I want to cry.”
It’s sad, really. I don’t love her and, on some level, I think she has to know that. But she gives me things that I really need right now. Sex is part of it, sure. But she also seems to be doing everything she can to make me feel good about myself—and what I’m trying to do. She’s been following the Gannon media coverage like a hawk, clipping out news items, surfing the Internet, watching the local television reports. I’ll swing by her trailer after a few beers at the Cove and she’ll have this little pile of Gannon stories waiting for me on her kitchen table. I think she must have somehow learned about Jenny’s stand on the lawsuit, though we have yet to mention my wife’s name. It feels kind of weird to be sharing all the details of my daughter’s death with Lori. But I need to talk to someone who’s behind me on this, and she’s always so eager to hear how things are going. I think she believes that it’s what brought us together—and what might keep us there.
At this point, though, I’m just thinking day to day. Edmund and I have been back up to Albany twice now to help Stephens, Stokes draw up a list of witnesses and prepare for our depositions. Each time I go over the details of my daughter’s last day alive—the unseasonably warm weather, the baseball game, my home run—I find that I’m remembering things a little differently.
“Who brought the keg to the game?” Janet asked me last week. We were in a smaller conference room than the one where we’d first met. It was an interior space, windowless, nicely decorated with posters and leather chairs, but still a little claustrophobic.
“Keg? I don’t think we had a keg. Just a cooler.”
“And how many beers did you have? I think you said—was it a couple?—when we talked about this before. Do you remember?”
I’m no fool. I knew she was prepping me to go on the record, and then Gannon would have access to everything I said. I couldn’t outright lie, but on the other hand, who but me would know the full truth? Edmund and I had given Stephens, Stokes names and numbers of people who were at the game: Burt Mayer, Mike Lerner, Denny Lockhardt, and, of course, Kurt. Who among them would be able say for sure how many beers they’d had that afternoon—almost ten months ago now—let alone how many I’d put away?
“Let me think,” I said, closing my eyes as if trying to dredge up a clearer memory. “Yeah—I guess—that sounds about right. A couple.”
Though I’ve been able to successfully skirt around certain issues with Stephens, Stokes, I’ve been having a much harder time trying to figure out how to finesse things with Kurt. Everything’s changed between us since Edmund and I went public with the lawsuit at Christmas. It’s like some curtain’s come down, or a wall’s gone up. Kurt’s there physically, but he’s just kind of turned himself off when it comes to me. We never joke around anymore. I used to be able to just about read his thoughts. Now, half the time, I have no idea what’s on his mind. He spends almost every minute he’s in the office playing online solitaire, his broad back to me, hunched over his keyboard. So I was surprised—and momentarily elated—when, in mid-January, he banged up the steps, slammed open the door, and, before he even took off his coat, said, “We need to talk.”
I was at my computer already, trolling for news about Gannon Baby Products. I’ve got them and Stephens, Stokes on Google Alerts, though most of the items are just a bunch of corporate PR gobbledygook.
“Sure,” I said, pushing back my chair. “But shut the damn door. Stay a while.”
He closed the door, and then leaned against it.
“That’s just it,” he said, digging his hands into his coat pockets. “I can’t anymore. Stay, I mean, Cal. We both know this whole thing is pretty fucked up.”
I decided to pretend he meant Horigan Builders.
“Yeah, well. Us and the rest of the construction business. Us and the rest of the whole fucking economy, right? What can you do about it?”
“I’ve been talking to Tessa,” he said, looking at the floor. It hit me then that he was actually uncomfortable. Nervous. I’ve never known Kurt to avoid eye contact. He’s the most laid-back guy imaginable. But now his unease filled the room like a bad smell.
“I’ve been talking it over with Tessa,” he said again, “and we think it would be better for us—both you and me—if I stepped back from Horigan Builders for a while.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, sitting up. My palms were sweaty even though the room was cold. “Step back?”
“I’m not happy sitting around doing nothing.”
“Oh, come on, Kurt—it’s January, for chrissakes—”
“No. We’ve been dead in the water over a year now. I’ve got a fucking mortgage eating me alive, okay? And . . . well . . . I just can’t do this anymore.”
It was anger and fear that made me say, “Well, good luck, there, brother, finding something else to do.” I thought I had him. I suppose I thought that I was going to shame him somehow. Since when did I want to see Kurt humiliated?
But he didn’t flinch. He just took a deep breath and said, “South County Regional needs an assistant coach. Tessa got me an interview, and they offered me the job yesterday. The money’s pretty much chickenshit. But the head coach is set to retire next year, and they think I might be able to step up.”
“Step up. Step back,” I said. “Jesus, Kurt, which way are you heading? I don’t think you know what the hell you’re doing.”
For years now, Horigan Builders has been such an ego boost. It had felt so good to take that initial risk—get out from under Dad’s wing, borrow the money—and have it all pan out in such a public and spectacular way.
In the beginning, Kurt and I could hardly believe our luck. The first year we cleared enough to buy our own truck—a Ford diesel Super Duty—and we had “Horigan Builders” painted on the sides. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face. He loved the fact that we’d made good on our own. And that was even before the business took off.
When the ball really got rolling, when we got more jobs than we could handle on our own and started adding crews and equipment, it still seemed so easy. We developed a reputation for being reliable, trustworthy, and cost conscious. But we’d been raised that way—anybody could tell you that. We were Jay Horigan’s boys. I never felt we had to work hard at anything—despite the ten-hour days—it all just naturally came our way. It seemed like the phone didn’t stop ringing for months at a time. You’d see our pickups and flatbeds emblazoned with the Horigan Builders logo throughout the county.
But, in many ways, the best part of the whole deal has been working side by side with Kurt. It’s not just that I’ve spent most of my life looking up to him; it’s that we’ve always had this amazing, almost psychic understanding—like that supertight harmony siblings’ voices can produce. I loved the way we played off each other when we were pitching jobs, Kurt the laid-back, courteous good ole boy and me the more in-your-face sales guy. It’s like we were in the zone: that state of grace so many athletes talk about. Kurt’s been such a constant in my life. Always a few years and more than a few steps ahead of me. He’s the one I’ve followed. Until lately anyway.
“So we have one bad year,” I went on when Kurt just stood there. “One bad year in how many really great ones? We’re going to pull out of this. Just like everybody else. I’ve never known you to be a quitter before, Kurt.”
“Sorry,” he said. “This is for the best.”
“Bullshit. Don’t you dare try to hand me that.”
“You really want to get into it again?” Kurt asked, crossing his arms on his chest. He was the most out of shape I think I’ve ever seen him. In the last six months or so, he’s put on twenty pounds easy, and it’s gone mostly to his middle. I can hear him wheeze under his breath these days when we’re going up the outside steps. We’ve both known for years now that I’d be able to take him in a fight. Today was the first time in my life I ever actually wanted to.
“Maybe we should,” I told him. “Maybe you should tell me what’s really on your mind.”
“Don’t push me.”
“Well, I am—I want to hear.”
“Okay,” he said, rocking forward, then back on his heels. “I got a call from your law firm. Apparently, you gave them my name as a witness. They want to talk to me.”
“Yeah, they’re going to depose you—it just means they’re going to ask you some questions about what happened that day.”
“I know what a deposition is. The first thing you do is put your hand on the Bible and swear you’re telling the truth.”
“You make it sound like you’re going to be on Law & Order or something. It’s really not that big a deal.”
“Maybe not to you, Cal. But then, you’re not the one who’s going to be asked these particular questions, are you? Under oath. About how much you’d had to drink. About what kind of shape you were in when we found you.”
“What the fuck are you saying?” I said. My voice was shaking. I was that mad—or afraid.
“Do I really need to tell you after all this?” Kurt asked, shaking his head. “After all the times I tried to warn you off this goddamned lawsuit? Do I really have to explain it to you? How I made a decision that afternoon—at what was probably the worst moment of my life—how I made the decision to try and protect you. You—and Jenny.”
“But—you kept telling me I wasn’t to blame.” I said. “What was I supposed to believe?”
“I guess I thought you knew what I was trying to do,” Kurt replied. “I could already see the heartbreak you were facing. What was the point of you feeling guilty on top of all that? Being arrested, maybe? Destroying your reputation? As far as I was concerned, you’d been punished enough already. Just let it go, I thought. I wanted to make sure that you and Jenny had a real shot at moving on with your lives. I thought you understood. Since when do I have to spell something like that out for you?”
“So what’s going on with you now? You’re suddenly changing your story here? You’re going to tell them I was drunk or something?”
Kurt didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.
“I don’t believe this!” I said. “You’re really planning to fuck this up for me?”
“I don’t want to do that,” he replied. “But—I want you to know—this is costing me, Cal. It’s costing me a lot—and I’m still not convinced what you and Eddie are doing is right.”
Outwardly, nothing much changed. Kurt just stopped coming in. But as things had been so tense between us toward the end anyway, I told myself it was actually for the best. It also meant I could keep the hours I wanted. I started leaving early, hitting the Cove on my way over to Lori’s place. Kurt and I agreed that we’d split the take on the Ravitch job, though I’d oversee the rest of the construction. At this point, we had everything done but the kitchen and bath interiors, straightforward inside work that the crew should have finished by the end of February. Any new projects coming in would be mine, but I wasn’t beating down any doors looking for prospects. It wasn’t just that the economy was so bad; I was already beginning to factor that enormous Gannon payout into my future.
“What the hell are you going to do with all that money?” Edmund had asked me on the way back from our last trip to Albany.
“I’m not counting any chickens,” I told him. “I don’t want to jinx the whole deal.” But I realized that I was no longer claiming the money didn’t matter to me. Slowly, it had stopped being a sideshow in the Gannon proceedings—and had taken center stage. Every discussion we had now with Lester, Janet, and the others seemed to involve the underlying equation of Betsy’s death and my financial gain: from the actual pain and suffering of my daughter’s loss, to its effect on my ability to concentrate and work, to the pressure it might be putting on my marriage.
“Jenny feeling any better?” Lester asked me. He’d told me to drop by his private office at the end of my most recent session with Janet. It was the first time I’d been invited into the inner sanctum—an enormous corner slice of the building with expansive views of downtown Albany.
“I don’t think so,” I told him. I never fudge the facts with Lester. I believe he has a kind of X-ray vision when it comes to people—that he could probably see straight through the walls of my heart. I also sense that he’d be merciless if he caught me lying. I’m beginning to understand that it’s his job to manipulate reality, and he needs to know exactly where things stand in order to do so convincingly.
“She seeking therapy?”
“No. She hardly leaves the house these days. She’s cut herself off from just about everybody.” Though I had heard her on the phone when I got home around midnight a few nights ago, her tone surprisingly intimate and confiding. When I’d asked her who she’d been talking to, she looked upset that I’d been listening but then told me it was Jude. I remember feeling jealous that she would still be so open with Jude—and closed tight to me.
“I think you should encourage her to get some help,” Lester said. For a moment or two I was touched by his concern. Lester often projects a certain benevolent, almost fatherly, aura.
“If she remains determined not to get involved with this,” he continued, “then we’ll need a valid reason for her absence. If there’s evidence that she’s become agoraphobic, say, that could work. We could make the case that this tragedy has severely damaged her emotional equilibrium. But getting her into some kind of treatment program—one that could allow us to document her fragile state from outside sources—would be extremely helpful.”
“I see your point,” I told him. What does it say about my own state of mind that I’d never thought of suggesting Jenny get couns
eling until Lester planted the seed? “I’ll try to talk to her about it.”
“I apologize in advance for prying,” he went on as he ran his right index finger along the bottom ridge of his mustache. “But this is actually a relevant legal question. Has your sex life with Jenny been disturbed by Betsy’s death?”
“How is that of any legal interest?” I demanded, my face flushing.
“If you’re being denied marital relations—well, that’s one more offense we can add to the others we’re heaping onto the Gannon damages pile.”
“I see,” I said, looking past him to the snow-shrouded city below. I tried to remember the last time Jenny and I had made love before Betsy died but could come up with no clear mental picture of it. Instead, the many hundreds of times we’d done so came back to me in a rush—all rolled into one wild, joyful, heart-leaping memory. Jenny, slim and lovely, shimmying out of her nightgown and tossing it over her head. Laughing as she collapsed into my arms. The smell of her skin, her breath tickling my ear. I shut my eyes for a moment, remembering her touch, her lips moving across my body.
“If you consider this too private,” I heard Lester say, “don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to muster all the ammunition I can. And it plays into the question of her non-participation—if she’s not functioning in normal ways, well, we can turn that into a positive, I think.”
“Right,” I said, opening my eyes again to register the dull afternoon that was already giving way to night. The whole world seemed composed of shades of gray. Kurt had walked out on me more than a week ago. And, though outwardly nothing much had changed, inwardly it had. Kurt had been my rudder. I’d always known that, but now I began to realize what it meant to have him gone. How quickly a person could drift. How swiftly I’d left my usual markers behind and— vaguely against my will, but not protesting—let myself be sucked up into the fast-moving currents of the Gannon lawsuit.
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