Two if by Sea

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  In a few quiet sentences, late that night, Frank told her what had transpired with Rad Cartwright, making only the slightest allusion to the abuse. Claudia’s voice bristled. “I don’t know if even Ian or Julia could ever change what a jerk he is, but Rebecca didn’t seem to mind that he had to be the big, swaggering jock until . . . he started . . . until . . .”

  “Until he slapped her around? That’s what made Ian sick the first night. He wanted Becca to be happy.”

  Claudia, who seemed to have prepared remarks for every occasion, could only say, “Wow,” followed by “She’s getting a divorce? Is that what Ian meant, what he said to Julia? Becca said he hit her once, by accident.”

  “She’s ashamed,” Frank said. “For every incident of domestic violence reported, the stats say seven more are never reported. I’d bet that’s more like ten or twenty.”

  “But in my own family.”

  Frank considered how rich he would be if he had a nickel for every time he’d heard that particular remark. Claudia might be a psychiatrist, but when the planks were in their own eyes, he guessed, they were probably as vulnerable as any other Joe. Even at four, Ian clearly could not ignore what needed doing. He couldn’t go through the world easing every dispute. Frank imagined Ian on a street corner in Chicago, with two business harangues, one hostage situation, four phone spats, a breakdown, and a breakup, all unfurling simultaneously within the range of his hearing.

  He said, “I hope he helped Rad and Becca. But Julia’s right. Ian has to grow into all this.”

  “Julia seems pretty serene.”

  “Julia lives on a mountaintop covered with flowers. She’s worked at it. She’s somehow learned to confine it to when she needs it.” He thought of the last thing Julia had said, as they stood at the foot of her hill before driving off, that as she grew older she knew, instinctively, where she could go, where she could not go. She seemed to suggest that the knowingness went with the gift, and that it grew with the gift, and with the person.

  Frank had to remind himself again of Ian the adult. If he really was theirs now, someday he would not be. Between any parent and any child, a series of ruptures happened in a natural way, as a child moved out of the parent’s boundaries and tested their new freedoms. And when those ruptures healed, they left their breaches, wider each time, the easier for the child to slip through the next time adventure beckoned. The next misadventure. Although Frank understood all this, simply from having lived, there was no way to take comfort in any of it. Ian was still as light in his arms as one of Julia Madrigal’s flat reed baskets, filled with nothing but bright leaves, and this thing that pulled Ian along was big, stronger than Ian, stronger than Frank, too much for this little . . . for his little boy.

  When Glory Bee was bothered by flies, her whole body cascaded shuddering muscle. Frank now felt his own flesh in such a waterfall of shivers. In Frank’s mind, Ian was perpetually a child. But in a dozen years, he’d be grown. He would go to college and get a job and fall in love. He would want to know about his background, or he wouldn’t. As Frank had, he would want to put as much distance as possible between himself and Tenacity Farms . . . or, as Frank had, he would want to come back. Someday, Ian would be . . . what? A divorce lawyer? Nobody would ever get divorced. A judge? (“Please. Be happy . . .”) A diplomat in the highest realms of dominion? Or would he be a mail carrier, a bricklayer, a bus driver, anything to keep anyone from ever noticing the Ian effect?

  Someone would, though.

  “She’s adjusted,” Claudia said. “She hasn’t always lived on a hill. She’s been around. Ian will do all the things people do, and he’ll adjust. He’ll learn to do what she does, to confine this to when he needs it. She said she’s never met anyone else like her.”

  “She said that Ian is more than her.”

  “If he is, well . . . he’ll still learn. I don’t know how to tell him when it’s appropriate. I mean, is it ever inappropriate? It sort of came close to crossing that line with my sister and her husband.”

  “It turned out okay, though,” said Frank, who remembered Rad’s congested face and how close he had come to putting his fist in it.

  “When I was a little girl, my parents were really careful to say that no one should ever tell a kid not to tell secrets.”

  “That’s how you turned out way too mentally healthy,” Frank said, smiling in the darkness.

  “But they did tell us that some things were I-T-H, and that meant ‘in the house.’ Private things that were just for our family. So, do we tell him that this is like that?”

  “I guess. At least for now.”

  Frank kissed Claudia’s outstretched hand, happy again that they had come to these mountains, when he noticed again the unaccustomed ring on her finger. He thought of the lamplight on her father’s thick pelt of silver hair, his thick nose and peasant hands, like Claudia’s hands, so unlike the hands of the surgeon Albert was. A good old man, happy for his daughter. But even stoking that feeling, he couldn’t shake the chill that swept over him: Julia somehow knew that no one was after her. Ian just as clearly knew that someone was.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK, the farm, to Frank’s consternation, was not even remotely a shambles. If anything, Patrick had done it up so well Frank felt like he’d walked onto a movie set. In honor of the coming season, he’d strung the entire small pasture and the peak of the barn with white lights, and Hope said he’d gone scouting for Christmas trees just the day before. A new bin with a snug hinged and handled lid ran along one wall, and the untidy lower stack of hay bales was surrounded by a slender slatted cage. The horses looked to have been polished. Glory Bee’s coat shined like a crow’s wing.

  The next day, Claudia at work, the boys full of yawns but back in school, Frank called Brian Donovan again. The reverse of a man asking for the daughter’s hand, Frank felt it must only be meet and right that he should tell his late wife’s brother that he would be married again. A sign of respect. A sign that Frank still considered Brian his kin. It was about four in the afternoon in Brisbane, and the phone rang for so long Frank thought he’d have to leave a message. At last, though, Brian answered, sounding as though he’d been asleep. Frank’s worry about Brian spiked anew. “I don’t work today,” Brian explained. “I was up late reading, and I fell asleep.”

  “You sound just beat.”

  “I am, Frank. Every day is harder with the anniversary coming.”

  This was the worst time to share his news. Frank felt guilty for the joy that underlay the occasional searing remembrance of Christmas past. He thought of a line from Carl Sandburg: So far? So early? So soon?

  “Really, this is why I called, Brian. There’s something I need to tell you; not about the boy, that’s all under control. It’s that I’m getting married.”

  So far? So early? So soon?

  “Why, that’s wonderful, Frank. I wish you only good luck.”

  “She’s very like Natalie. Not to see. In some other ways. Her sense of humor is like Natalie’s. Of course, it’s not the same. It couldn’t be. You only have one first love.” In his abashed state, Frank didn’t want to back himself into dismissing Claudia as though she was the local tavern keeper and it was just easier to screw her at his house than in the room above the bar. “Her name is Claudia Campo. She’s a doctor. A psychiatrist.”

  “Did you go to see her after your bereavement?”

  “She’s one of my brother-in-law’s professors.” Jesus Christ. “My sister’s husband, that is. I met her because she’s training for the World Cup. Jumping.”

  “You’re still on that?”

  “I didn’t expect to be, but yes.”

  “Well, I hope you find contentment and joy, Frank. You deserve it. And it’s good for boys to have a mother. She’s fine about the boys, is she?”

  Frank murmured agreement. He said then, “Brian? Do you ever think that someday you . . .”

  “My children died, Frank.”

  “Of course,” Fran
k said.

  “I wish I had, too.”

  “Brian, come to us for Christmas. My gift to you, please. Everyone would love to see you. A change of scene. It’s been years since you’ve been in the United States. You loved New York. Meet us there . . .”

  “I can’t, Frank. Lovely of you to ask. I’ll let you get on with your day . . . well, your evening now,” Brian said. “Have a good night. And a happy Christmas to you.” Frank was possessed with the belief that Brian Donovan would take his own life. There was nothing he could do.

  Sensing his mood, Claudia came home late, after the boys were asleep, ate a few bites of something from the refrigerator, and sat quietly in the kitchen. Then also quietly, with Claudia carefully dressing in modest flannel pajamas striped in pink and black, she and Frank propped themselves up on pillows, turned on their reading lamps, read their books, and went to sleep.

  There should have been champagne and exhausting passion on their engagement night.

  But it was no ordinary engagement.

  They were no ordinary couple.

  Between them swung the weight of sorrows and secrets, the private words and deeds that bound them now, and would never go away. So, in a sense, they were already mated, each the bearer of the other’s seal.

  • • •

  The following morning, since Claudia didn’t have classes, they’d already decided to treat themselves to the fun of telling everyone else the good news. Frank wouldn’t get up at five for chores, and Claudia wouldn’t get up at five to take a run and get ready for classes. They would act all crazy, and sleep until seven, like the rest of the household.

  Claudia woke first, and tiptoed down to get a cup of tea. The smell of the first day’s coffee was like reveille at Tenacity and would get everyone up. When she returned, with two fragrant mugs, she said, “I’m not even sure that Ian knows that was why we went to see my dad.”

  “Of course he knows.”

  “He doesn’t usually pay any attention to most adult stuff unless somebody’s in trouble. That way he’s like any other kid.”

  As if summoned, Ian came in first, fuddled and puzzled that Frank hadn’t woken him for chores and his mostly milk coffee before the school bus.

  “I’ll drive you to school,” Frank said. But Ian was distracted by then, by the unfamiliar sight of Claudia in her candy-striped pajamas. “Cloudy, you had a sleepover.”

  “She can have sleepovers now. We’re getting married,” Frank said.

  “You are?”

  “We said so about a hundred times at the grandfather’s house.”

  “I was sick in bed. I was sick from those sickening dead bird babies.”

  “Yes, of course, I forgot,” said Frank. “We have to remember never to cook baby birds for you. No four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.”

  “Did people really do that?” Ian asked.

  “No,” Frank lied. He knew very well people had, and starved the birds first, so they wouldn’t crap as the oven’s heat climbed to intolerable levels. He steered the subject away. “Will you let Claudia be your mom?”

  “Can I still call her ‘Cloudy’?”

  “No,” Claudia said. “You can call me ‘Cloudy’ for fun, and I can call you ‘Eeny’ for fun, but you’ll have to call me ‘Mommy.’ ”

  “Well, okay.” With a small, secret smile, he climbed into Frank’s bed between them. “What about Colin? Will he be jealous if I call you ‘Mommy’?”

  “I’ll be his mommy, too, of course,” Claudia said.

  Colin came into the room. “You stayed over! Does Hope know?”

  “I’m going to move in,” said Claudia. “We’re going to get married.”

  “I thought that was what you said to all those people when we were having dinner. But I didn’t know because at first, I thought you were married already and you just lived someplace else because you were maybe getting a divorce.” Frank thought, What a swell job we did of explaining Colin’s new life to him.

  “Ha! Nope,” Claudia said. “There will be some big changes around here, buddy. Like, you have to mind me.”

  “I already mind you. I’m a mind reader,” Colin said, and punched Claudia lightly. She pulled him down and kissed him, and he allowed it.

  Hope hurried past, hearing voices, and determined, with purposeful grace, not to notice Claudia in Frank’s bed.

  “Mom, wait!” Frank called. “Come back.” Sighing audibly, Hope did. “We’re getting married.”

  “You’re getting married?”

  “You’re getting married?” Marty said, passing the door in his Badger sweatpants. “Welcome to the fam, Professor Campo.”

  “You are getting married?” Eden said. “You. Frank Mercy?”

  “What does that mean, Edie? I was married before. Not so long ago at all.”

  “You’re such an old bachelor. I thought that Natalie must be an enchantress to have broken your will.” She leaned back against the wall, her big tummy stretched low against her long nightshirt. “Crabby old men who own six identical shirts must be the thing for beautiful doctors now.”

  Frank gestured around him, at Ian now somersaulting off the end of the bed. “Edie, you’re my sister, so you can’t appreciate what a stud bomb I am to other women.” Colin laughed until he had to run and blow his nose. “I think good wishes are in order.”

  “I think good luck is the wish—for Claudia anyhow.”

  “Clearly, cranky Irish girls with big mouths are all the thing for upcoming young Jewish doctors now.” Marty made a whipcrack sound with his tongue.

  They all stopped as they heard Patrick open the back door and begin to make coffee, grumbling and whistling through his teeth. “Pat!” Marty called. “Frank’s getting married.”

  “Ah, shit,” Patrick said. “Does Claudia know?”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  JUST HOME FROM early Mass on Christmas Eve with Hope, Ian asked to lead the prayer at the table that included Hope’s friend Johnny, the new librarian, and Johnny’s beloved, Blake. The food wasn’t even on the table when Ian took up his solemn stance at the head: Marty and Claudia were still ferrying steaming platters from the kitchen, where both stoves and both ovens had been working double time since before dawn. In the middle of the living room, between the leather couches that usually faced the fish tank, stood the tree, a blue spruce twelve feet tall and comically rotund, set in a giant galvanized bucket of sand. With the boys, Patrick had made a Yorkshire Christmas tree: they’d folded and strung multifaceted stars from aluminum foil and pierced them with thread. They dipped pinecones in glue and rolled them in glitter. They strung red ribbons from branch to branch, and wrapped the core in white lights. With Hope’s small favorites, made by her children, and the handblown glass icicles of many colors that Claudia carried home one summer from Italy, the result was a quiet country fantasy out of Dickens, a kindly and humble tree.

  Since the doors from the bedrooms at Tenacity opened out onto a wide hallway balcony with balustrades, Frank and Claudia had taken the precaution of hiding not just the children’s Santa presents but everyone else’s under the fitted rubber cover on the back of Tenacity’s big pickup truck—a tarp tightened down with fasteners that required a tool to open. Even if the boys thought of the hiding place, the adults were reasonably sure they’d never be able to breach it alone. However, Johnny and Blake carried in piles of gifts, Blake wearing a quilted foolscap and a cape in motley colors.

  Toasting and prayers, Johnny and Blake insisted, had to wait until after gift giving.

  When they handed Colin three wrapped packages, he said, “Thank you, but you don’t have to give these to me. You don’t even know me.”

  “But you’re Hope’s grandson . . .”

  “She doesn’t even know me!”

  “We think you must be a good kid,” Blake told him. “We think Ian is great, and you’re like Ian, but older, so you must be smarter. It’s okay to accept presents from friends of your family, and this is your family now.”
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  Ian said, “Be nice now. Let’s all eat and pray.”

  Ian had taken to religion with gusto—and now was part crypto-Catholic and part devout pagan.

  He began, “Let’s pray for Natalie, because she died at Christmas with no presents.”

  “Okay,” Claudia said, and they did.

  “Let’s pray for those old people at the farm where Glory Bee lived, and Patrick’s sainted mother . . .”

  They did that, also.

  Ian next ordered a prayer for Grandma to live for a long time, for Ian to be given the power of invisibility, and—Claudia misted up—for Prospero to have wings.

  “This is a lot of praying,” Frank said. “Can we be done?”

  “Just one more,” Ian said. “God, please show us how to make an ark.”

  Frank said, “A what?”

  “So we can get out of town in the flood.”

  “There’s not going to be a flood in Spring Green,” Frank said.

  Then why, Ian wanted to know, had the Sunday school teacher in this very town told them the story of the ark with two cats, two geese, two cows, two pigeons, two zebras, two wombats, two polar bears, two spiders, two monitor lizards, two fruit bats . . .

  Frank thought, Why indeed?

  “Amen!” Colin said.

  Ian crossed himself in several different ways—including one that looked like head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, and everyone fell upon the platters of turkey, ham, venison, extravagances of potatoes scalloped, mashed, and twice-baked, dressing with apples and walnuts, cranberry relish with orange peels, and breads in the shape of petals and pinwheels and pretzels.

  Later, they played games, like charades, that were old to everyone except Ian and Colin—who both had to be taken aside and warned against using any funny stuff in aid of their respective teams. They held a baby-naming contest for Eden and Marty’s child. Claudia and Eden were certain it was a girl (Eden favored her grandmother’s name, Philippa). Everyone else insisted it was a boy—whom Marty wanted to name after his grandfather, Saul, a pronouncement that invariably drew ire from Eden (“Why not Shlomo? Why not Yehuda?”), an outburst that Marty quite righteously found baffling. Eden admitted to being the world’s snarkiest pregnant lady, and said they should have let the doctor tell them the baby’s gender at the ultrasound instead of being coy about it.