Nicholas’s face was rigid with fear. Frank crossed his arms and waited. The hall clock ticked like a rat with a hammer.
“Out with it, please. I’m tired.” He yawned, ran his hand over his face, which was puffy and red, and looked like he had consumed a few extra drinks after the guests went home.
“Dad,” Nicholas said with difficulty. “The poem by Mary Walker. It’s… When I…” His breath was shallow. Lydia wondered if he would be physically capable of finishing a sentence. “Dad, I found…”
Lydia’s chest filled with anger. “You’ve made your own son terrified of talking to you. Are you proud?”
“Dad, I wrote that poem in the book,” Nicholas blurted.
“So now you wrote it? Just what do you two hope to gain from all of this nonsense?”
“Frank, I told you I composed the poem. What your son is trying to get out is that he found my poem and copied it into an old book because he thought that would make you happy. And you know why he found it? You know why you’ve never seen it before? Because I sent it to you in 1983…in a letter you never even opened. You said you opened it—long, long ago when it mattered—but you didn’t.”
Frank’s face edged from sarcasm to wariness.
“It was a poem that I wrote when I was pregnant with Nicholas,” Lydia pressed on. “I sent it to you from Boston, and you told me you’d read it. You actually pretended to discuss the contents. Said you didn’t think much of it.”
“I don’t remember what night, what envelope—” Frank began.
“You don’t remember,” Lydia went on, “because it didn’t matter to you. Not like things should matter if you love someone. Nick found it in an envelope that was still sealed shut with my sealing wax, with my seal.”
Frank shuffled to a chair and sat down.
“I loved you, you know?” Lydia’s voice quavered. “But you—”
“Hold it. Stop.” Frank held up his hand, avoiding their eyes. “There is no way,” he said firmly, “that this boy could have created a forgery like that. If he had, it would be obvious.” He raised his shoulders. “No, there’s no way. You’re both lying. I cannot fathom why. But perhaps that is what you should be honest about.”
“Nicholas,” Lydia said urgently. “Get the envelope.”
“But Mom…”
“Don’t you have it?” she asked with alarm.
“Yes! Of course I have it, but—”
“Then please go get it this minute.”
He stood up and hurried toward the stairs.
When he returned to the living room, Frank and Lydia were staring away from each other in silence. Frank took the envelope from Nicholas’s hand, briefly examining the address and postmark. He pulled out the paper and read, holding the sheet for a long time without speaking.
Lydia watched as a familiar, dark disappointment entered his features.
“Pulled a fast one, didn’t you, Nicholas Carroll?” Frank said after a long time. His voice was hoarse and low. “Quite a job you did, huh?” He lifted his eyes to Nicholas. “Fooled everyone. Such a talent. Who knew?” Frank’s mouth formed a crooked, irritable smile. “And you.” Frank tilted his brow toward Lydia, glaring at her over his glasses. “Was this your idea, or did our boy genius think of it all on his own?”
Nicholas sat back down on the couch and opened his hands, which trembled. “I did it secretly, Dad. I wanted you to have a Mary Stone Walker poem. I thought it would make you happy. That’s all. I didn’t mean to fool anyone.”
Frank nodded. “Well, of course you meant to fool people, Nick. Why would you do it otherwise?” He emitted a sour chuckle. “Why else would you do it if you didn’t want to fool me, fool everyone? Huh? With your mother’s very own poem. Mmm-hmm.”
No one spoke as Frank shook his head and stared at the pink paper. “Wow. And here I thought you were wasting all of your time on boat plans for the fool in the dunes, keeper of secrets.”
“Nicholas wanted us to be happy, Frank,” Lydia said. “Surely you can see—”
“Lydia, don’t talk. Okay? You don’t really have any part in this, according to our son, so…just keep out of it. You wrote this poem. I see that. You, a romance novelist, wrote a poem that was passed off as the work of a fine poet. Must give you a kick. Must have really tickled you.” He mimicked a false gesture of delight.
“You know it doesn’t tickle me, Frank,” she said, hardly able to process all of her husband’s insults. “You heard me in the kitchen earlier tonight. I was horrified.”
Frank nodded and pursed his lips.
“Listen.” She reached her hand out on the coffee table with nervous urgency. “If you deal with it correctly, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to be an embarrassment, Frank. Because we now have definite evidence of what really happened to Mary Stone Walker. Jack Kenilworth is willing to tell you what he knows. If we share all of that with your colleagues, then they’ll know the poem is a forgery. But they never have to know who did it. This sort of thing happens all the time.”
“Kenilworth again. Mmm-hmm.” Nodding absently, Frank folded the sheet of pink paper and slid it back into its envelope. With difficulty, he scooted his heavy armchair up to the coffee table.
“Yes,” he said mildly. “You told me that earlier on the phone.” He nodded for several seconds. “Jack Kenilworth has the real story about Mary. Huh. However…” He reached across the coffee table for the ashtray and a box of matches beside it, sliding the wide art-deco glass piece toward himself. It rattled on the wood. He set the envelope on the glass and snapped a match to life. “This copy of the new Walker poem”—the pink paper flared in flame and Lydia jerked forward, but he knocked her hand away—“will no longer exist.”
“Dad!”
The paper bent and curled, alive with flame, one edge left unburned in the ashtray as another triangle fell to the coffee table and turned to ash.
“That isn’t fair, Dad!” Nicholas cried. “That was Mom’s poem!”
“You didn’t seem to care about that before, Son.”
“I thought it would make her happy, too. I thought when she saw how much you liked it…just as much as Mary Stone Walker’s other poems…that she would be happy. And I thought that you…”
Nicholas’s voice trailed off. He stood, fists clenched, staring at his father. Then he snatched up the unburned fragment and unfolded it, but there were no words on the pink scrap.
“You’ll be sorry, you know,” Nicholas said angrily.
“Now, now, Nick,” Frank said venomously. “This can all remain between us. No one needs to say a word. Your mother is not a poet; she’s a romance writer. She should be glad to have one of her poems immortalized as a Walker poem. You were right about that.” He leaned back, staring at no one and nothing. “It’s done. It’s over. This confession. Your secret is safely buried.”
Lydia stared in disbelief at her husband. “You can’t actually mean you want to keep up this pretense.”
“Well, at this point, of course I do,” he said, blinking at her with a false smile, straightening the front of his robe and retying it. “There’s no choice. The word is out. It’s well spread, as a matter of fact. The Library of Congress even has a copy of the poem, as you know. There’s no turning back. Not when Nicholas here is our forger and he wants it that way. We can all live with that. The alternative would be far too humiliating. For everyone. No, it’s not an option.”
“No, Frank, the lie is not an option.” Lydia faltered. “It would be poisonous for Nicholas. It would be poisonous for all of us, Frank. Do you hear what you’re saying? You aren’t thinking about this clearly at all.”
“Oh yes.” He laughed coldly. “I’m thinking quite clearly.”
“I won’t allow it.” She stood up.
“On the contrary.” He turned his face toward her, and it was full of contempt.
“You will not stop it.”
“I won’t allow my son to be forced to live with this!”
“You have no choice, my dear. I’ve made my decision.”
“Frank.” Lydia stood up and stepped slowly toward him. “A lie like this will kill something in all of us.”
“You come one step closer,” he hissed, “and I will knock your fucking head off.”
She drew back. “You’re crazy. You’d prefer your charade to your family? I can’t believe this.” Her hands rose to the sides of her head and pressed as if she were trying to hold it together. “I’ll go to Lilly Schmidt. I’ll make them understand. I will. I’ll—”
Frank stood and surged with the force of a bull to thrust his hand at Lydia’s throat, and he shoved her hard against the fireplace mantel.
“Dad!” Nicholas cried, pulling at his father as Lydia kicked at his legs.
“You”—Frank was pressing close to Lydia’s face—“keep your shitty little stories to yourself, or I swear I’ll kill you. I’m sick to death of your sabotage.” He tossed her away, glaring and pointing at her. “I mean it. I’ll find you, and I’ll fucking silence you, you hear me? You’ve stood in my way long enough, you silly little whore.”
Lydia pulled at Nicholas, who stood frozen, and dragged him toward the front door.
“I know every hole you can possibly hide in, and I’ll follow you if you make one single gesture to betray me. I will find you and smash your life like you’ve tried and tried to smash mine.”
Lydia pushed Nicholas out in front of her and slammed the door shut behind them. Frank’s voice was reduced to garbled threats as he continued to rage. The sleeve of her coat caught on the storm door handle, and she tried to jerk away from it again and again, but it didn’t come loose until she stopped, violently shaking, and deliberately unhooked it. When she turned around, Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes groped the darkness in every direction as she began to run, but there was not a trace of him. The moonlit road gleamed eerily.
“Nicholas!” she shouted. “Nick!”
Silence swelled around her. Peepers sang in a nearby marsh. Darkness further dimmed her thinking, until the small beam of a flashlight swept the grass several yards away and Jack’s whisper reached her from the shadows.
“Lydia!”
Lydia ran across the grass. “Is Nicholas with you?”
“Nicholas… No.”
She turned toward the yard and scanned the entire scene, watching closely for any shift of light or form, but if her son was part of it, he was invisible.
34
Carson Woods, Michigan—September 1939
For frosty things and blazing things
and things that fly and hide
have crafty ways of visiting
a door that swings too wide.
~ Fannie Stearns Davis (1884–1966), “Oh, Never Leave Your Door Unlatched”
Elizabeth Kenilworth tucked her child in his crib, added a second blanket, and stroked his back for several minutes until he was calm. Robert watched her from the front door of their small house. He knew she’d heard him enter, and he was aware that she did not want to greet him. Throughout the two weeks since Mary’s visit to his workshop to confide in him about her pregnancy, this had been Elizabeth’s pattern. Tonight he would speak with her about it directly. Her refusal to engage in any conversation with him was painful for both of them, and even the baby seemed to be crying more.
“Lizzy,” he said quietly as she continued to linger over six-month-old Gregory.
She turned in the shadows and gestured for him to be silent. He sighed, walked to the kitchen, and studied the food she had prepared. Corn bread, fried onions with sausage, and applesauce. They were all still warm, and the table was set. He heard her exhale wearily behind him before he noticed her light footsteps as she approached the stove. He waited for her to speak or touch him, hoping for her eyes to meet his, but she merely picked up the corn bread and walked to the table. He followed her with the pan of onions and meat, and the bowl of applesauce, and sat down. The silence and warmth of the modest main room were soothing, as they always were after a day on the water.
“Elizabeth,” he said, his heart speeding up with trepidation.
“Robert.” She glanced at him, and her eyes were lit with something he didn’t recognize.
“It’s been quite a while since we had a conversation,” he said. “And I feel like it’s because you don’t want to talk. To me.”
“Mmm. I don’t know what to say about that.”
“That’s what it seems like. Is that right?” He set his knife and fork on the plate with two clinks and waited. She continued to take small bites without answering. “Lizzy, this is ridiculous. It’s beginning to feel unkind.”
She set her own knife and fork down and folded her hands together with artificial patience. “Unkind? Wouldn’t want that to be said of me. Talk. I’m listening.”
Robert shook his head, chuckling.
“I want you to talk. To me. That is what I miss.”
“I have nothing new to say. My life is the same every day, Robert.” The words were clipped. “You are the one who goes out on the lake, into town, works on your boats, has drinks with friends. Receives visitors in your workshop. You talk.”
His gaze probed her face, and she stared back at him. He reached for her hand and wrapped his fingers—still cold from the lake—around her fisted ones. She pulled away.
“I have had one visitor in recent weeks. Mary Walker came to see me. Nearly two weeks ago.” He wanted to say more, but he was silenced by the frightening memory of kissing the poet’s forehead.
“Why would Mary Walker visit you, Robert? That’s odd. Or isn’t it? Could it be that she’s the lumberman’s wife who has brought you gifts? The one whose name you always neglected to mention. The coffee? Candies? Maple syrup? Do we owe those treats to Mary Walker?”
What had seemed like an obvious, clear line of discussion in his mind suddenly looked like treacherous water. He eyed his wife’s hard stare, the tension in her crossed arms, and remembered the warmth he had felt during Mary’s confessional visit, and then all through that night and the following week as he’d recalled the closeness they had shared. Had it changed him? Had Elizabeth noticed?
Robert’s eyes darted to the bedroom where Gregory slept, and his thoughts clouded even more. His face flushed hot, so he stood and walked to the front door and opened it a few inches. Elizabeth didn’t move. He breathed deeply of the pine-scented air, calmed somewhat by the shush of wind in the high boughs.
Closing the door, he decided in a rush of sober conviction that he would not tell his wife about Mary’s pregnancy, that he must no longer encourage Mary to believe that he was available to her for any level of intimacy, and that he would only help the woman in ways that he could tell Elizabeth about. He did not know what he’d been thinking. What kind of depravity would allow him to endanger his marriage, his child’s future—his own life, when it came down to it? Had the devil possessed him? He would take a stand against his own weakness. For now and always. He would not be ruined by it.
He walked slowly to Elizabeth and stood behind her, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. Her dark hair was shiny, pulled back into a braid. It was true. Her life was the same every day. It was part of their arrangement; it was part of what she gave him so that he could do the work he knew how to do. She took care of their home, their child, his needs, and he tried to earn enough money for their food and shelter. His life had been happier, healthier, sweeter since they had married.
Mary was… What was she? Another man’s wife. An addict and a person without steady values that he could discern. She was trouble to both herself and others, no matter how much beauty or loving inclination she might possess.
“It is odd for Mary Walker to come to me, yes. But the reason, Lizzy, is that sh
e has problems. And she has no one else to talk to.” He heard how it sounded. What a fool his wife would think him, falling for a needy woman, thinking himself her savior. “But I’m not taking on the role of some cheap hero. They are her problems. She will take care of them. She only wanted my opinion. And for that help she did bring gifts occasionally. For both of us.”
Still Elizabeth did not move. She didn’t speak. After a minute Robert felt a tremor under his hands, and he stooped down next to her, turned her face toward his, and found her silently crying, her eyes squeezed shut.
“I can’t compete with her, Robert,” she whispered. “She will win. She will fool you. If you step any closer, you will fall for her beauty and even for her desperation. Don’t you see? That’s how some women are.”
“No, Lizzy. This isn’t like that.” Robert held his wife’s face in his hands, just as he had held Mary’s, and he gritted his teeth against that memorized image. Even now, even in this awful moment of his wife’s pain, he was thinking of a wayward, sensual encounter with another woman. He stood to lose everything he had built here, to lose the genuine love of a good woman and the respect of his own son as he grew. He could not let himself become that sort of man. What, what had he been thinking to ever let himself fall into boyish, romantic impulses and moments of friendship that were far too intimate to ever admit to Elizabeth?
“Maybe it isn’t like that for you. But you don’t know what it is for her.” She untangled herself from Robert’s hands, carried her plate to the kitchen, and turned toward her husband, eyes glittering. “Be careful. If you choose her—even if you don’t act on it every day, Robert—if you choose her in your heart, and she remains a part of your life, I will take your son and I will go back to my family in the Upper Peninsula. I will not endure watching you disintegrate into another woman’s plaything.”
Robert raised his chin and looked directly into the eyes of his wife, and from a murky well of regret, his eyes grew damp.
The Lake and the Lost Girl Page 29