Neil stood on the small square of linoleum in front of the refrigerator, conscious of having nothing to do with his hands.
“I’m paid to know these things,” James said. “Surely you knew.”
“I didn’t, and don’t call me Shirley,” Myra said, from a movie they’d watched together.
“Did you notice the tree?” James asked Neil, closing the refrigerator. The bur oak in the small yard between their cottage and the lake had fallen that winter after an ice storm. James had the stump removed, the hole covered over with new sod, and a few feet away had planted a small emerald maple. “Give it a few years, it’ll be almost as big as the old one.”
“It’s a really nice tree,” Neil said. He wondered what they’d done with Jocelyn’s hammock.
“I’m glad that tree’s gone,” Myra said later that night. Neil had found the hammock under the bunk beds and hung it between the shed and gazebo. Now he and his children were lying there, a jumble of naked limbs and bare feet. “We can see more of the sky.”
The horizon had pinked up across the lake; behind the cottage was a silvery twilight. A slow firefly pulsed against the side of the screened gazebo.
“First star,” Ben said, pointing to Venus.
“That’s a planet,” Grady said, but Ben’s lips were already moving.
“I know what you’re wishing,” Effie said.
“We all know what he’s wishing.” Myra was sitting on the edge of the hammock, pushing it back and forth with the balls of her feet. She was sucking on a clump of her hair.
Ben opened his eyes. “I wished for a dog,” he said.
“He wasted it!” Effie said. “He’s supposed to wish about Mommy!”
“It wouldn’t work,” Myra said, standing.
“Wishing’s a personal thing, Myra,” Neil said, but she was already headed inside.
At bedtime, Myra sat on the counter next to the kitchen sink, shaving her legs. She’d started this in January, after the funeral.
“Why don’t you do that in the shower?” Neil asked.
“Because that stall is tiny,” Myra said, “and I’m a beginner. I need room for error.”
He looked at Myra from behind. With her free hand she was eating from a bag of Lay’s. She’d pulled her hair up into a clamp. He remembered supporting her neck, the feel of her plush newborn skull arcing backward into his palm.
Neil sat down on the couch to look at a real estate magazine. He wanted to know the going price per square foot in the area this year.
“Just once,” Myra said, turning around to face him, “I’d like to open a bag, eat one, and throw the rest away.” She held up the bag. “It’s, like, a challenge they give you.”
Grady came in from the shed holding two wooden tennis rackets and a stack of bright Frisbees. “Only two sports here, folks,” he said. “One: courts around the corner, but rackets are no good. Two: Frisbees are good, but no place to throw them. No place without water.”
Ben took bread and a jar of grape Smucker’s out of the refrigerator and slid them up onto the counter. “I know how you make jelly,” he said to Myra. “Get a jellyfish and squeeze it into a jar.”
“That’s right,” Myra said. “That’s just how you do it.” Ben’s head was level with the counter.
“I think it smells good in here,” Effie said. She was on the floor, tapping on a small electronic keyboard. She’d said the same thing last year. The cottage smelled like natural gas and ant spray.
Me too, Eff, Jocelyn had said last summer. When I get better let’s come here, just the two of us. Let’s come here and lie on the floor and sniff for hours.
Neil stood up and began opening windows.
The summer they’d closed on the cottage, Neil and Jocelyn bought things at yard sales. They found an unopened box of silverware for a dollar, a stainless steel microwave for ten, a table and three mismatched chairs for twenty. And for no money at all, someone gave them a frayed wicker headboard, which Jocelyn spray-painted white and propped up behind their queen-sized mattress. The headboard creaked when they made love. Sometimes it bumped against the thin wall between their room and the kitchen. When Myra grew old enough to ask questions, Neil stored the headboard in the shed.
When he was certain the children were asleep, Neil went outside. A steady breeze was coming in off the lake. From across the bay he heard the churn of a Baja motor; when it faded he could hear muted laughter, the bass line of a song, and, closer, the low calls of a bullfrog. Next door someone was grilling fish.
He found the headboard in the shed behind the lawn mower, resting on its side. He pulled it out and examined it in the light of the single bulb above the door. Cobwebs breathed against the latticework. He carried it inside and wiped it with a gray kitchen rag. White paint chips flecked the towel like snowflakes on cement. Then he took it into the bedroom and slid it back into place.
That night, in their bed, Neil dreamed he made love to his wife. He dreamed he made love to her from behind, fast and aggressive. She arched into him, reached between his legs and pressed up, hard, the way she knew he liked.
When it was over, she rolled to face him, her nipples just grazing his chest. “I thought you were a stranger,” she said. “It was incredibly exciting.”
It wasn’t the dreams, Neil thought, when he woke to the sound of a night bird in the maple, its notes a major triad sung in reverse. It wasn’t even waking up alone that was so hard. It was waking up alone, for the first time, here.
“I think I killed one,” Grady said the next morning. He came into the cottage and took a wide stance in front of the breakfast table, hands on his hips. He was wearing just his swim trunks. “I think I had it out of the water too long.” His chin shook.
Neil went down to the dock with him. Grady pointed to a white fish struggling on its side in the shallow water beneath the dock.
“Well, that happens,” Neil said.
“I couldn’t find the rag,” Grady said. “I was afraid I’d get cut if I didn’t hold it with a rag.” He started to cry.
“Hey,” Neil said. He put an arm around Grady’s thin shoulders. “It’s just a fish.”
“A stupid sheephead,” Grady said. “You can’t even eat them.” He tossed his head so that his bangs fell over his eyes.
Neil squatted beside him to help clean up his tackle. He noticed the dirt under Grady’s toenails, the scrapes on his shins, the way he turned the lures around in his fingers, fitting each one into its compartment like a puzzle piece. Grady walked up to the shed, pole over his shoulder. The tip caught in a branch of the maple, and, using more force than was necessary, he yanked it from the tree. Neil watched the torn leaves twirl and settle onto the grass.
He’d had this idea, when Myra was born, then Grady and, six years later, the twins (their miracle year, the cancer gone into remission but really only on pause, gathering itself), that he would guide them. He taught Management, Organizational Behavior, and Leadership Theory at Westminster College in Georgia. At home, he thought, he would be the CEO of his own little company. He would set directions, be there to problem-solve, be a servant-leader. And in return, they would need him. It would be enough.
But the kids seemed only to need Jocelyn—milk, comfort, the lilt of her voice. Fine—Jocelyn would need him. But over the years this hadn’t turned out to be the case either. She was brilliant, beautiful, and self-contained. She came from money and love.
Neil’s own father was on his fourth marriage. His mother died when he was three. He had no full-blood siblings, only half-brothers and half-sisters he didn’t keep track of. Jocelyn’s family, the kids, their life together, summers at the lake—he’d grown dependent on all of it. He’d created the family he never had. He was the needy one.
And when she started pulling away after the final diagnosis, having panic attacks and bout
s of depression where she refused to get out of bed, he thought, Now she’ll need me. And she did. He would bring the kids in to see her when she wanted them, take them out when she started to cry.
One evening, before he hired a part-time nanny, Neil came home from work and found Grady marching on top of the coffee table. He was singing. Ben and Effie, two years old then, were naked; Myra was sitting upright on the couch. “Where’s Mommy?” he asked.
“In the bathroom,” Myra said. “She said to take turns singing till you got home.”
The bathroom door was locked. Neil fumbled at the doorknob with a screwdriver; then he kicked in the door.
He found Jocelyn curled in the empty bathtub. “Did you hear them out there?” she said.
The next day, she told the doctor, “My children are angels and I can’t be in the same room with them.”
That evening, James took them all out on the boat. Grady wanted to try his new kneeboard. “Check this out, Dad,” Grady had said that afternoon, showing him the board his grandfather bought him—streaks of red and orange flames, cartoon boys with wild hair and threatening facial expressions. “No fins. I can do three-sixties on this thing.”
“The guy at the marina said they’re easy for kids to get up on,” James said. “I thought it’d be good for him.”
“It’s great,” Neil said. “He’ll love it.” The price was still on the board—$349.99.
Now they were circling Miller’s Bay in the 27-foot Cobalt. worth the wake, the back of the boat said. James drove, pulling Grady along at 20 mph. In the bow, Ruth held Effie in her lap; Ben and Myra sat in the stern. Ben was clutching the orange flag he was supposed to wave if Grady fell.
Neil stood aft, watching Grady. He’d pulled himself up right away, holding the towrope in one hand so he could fasten the Velcro strap across his thighs. He was already learning to maneuver, cutting across the wake. He dragged one hand in the water beside him, creating a line of spray.
“Cool!” Ben yelled. He was smiling. They were all smiling—his children, his in-laws.
Grady gave a thumbs up. “He says faster!” Myra yelled, and James pushed the throttle forward.
In the support group, the counselor had said: When you lose a loved one, you feel as if you’re inside a confined space. Everyone else will seem to be careening along outside of this space. In time, you will become aware of an opening you are going to have to step through. It might be the touch of a new lover, a new job, a move—but you’ll know. You will step through.
Neil watched Grady bounce in the wake. He felt the spray coming up from the starboard side of the boat. The scream of wind in his ears. There were things none of them knew, not even the counselor. Those last days it was his job to squirt dropper after dropper of morphine down her throat. The hospice nurses would turn away when he dosed up the medication, or leave the room—avoiding the conversation he was not permitted to begin. Jocelyn’s eyes pleading with him to do what he could not. It was the last way he failed her. He filled droppers, then held her hand while she fed them to herself. He stood there while she sucked and sucked, startled by the unity of her first and last acts on earth. He held her hand until the fingertips cooled against his palm.
When the sun was low, James pulled into little Miller’s Bay and anchored the boat three hundred feet out from the nature preserve. A sandbar extended into the bay and separated the lake from the preserve’s wetlands. The children jumped in and walked up to the sandbar, Effie squealing about the seaweed, Ben and Grady draping green swags around their necks. Myra picked her way among the rock piles. Grady took giant steps along the section of sandbar that was invisible beneath an inch of water. “Look,” he called to them. “I’m Jesus!”
“The kids are so good for us,” Ruth said to Neil. “Reasons to go on living.” She was kneeling on the cushioned bench in the bow, taking pictures. She was gorgeous, Neil thought. At sixty-four, her brown hair was graying only at the temples. She’d had a mini face-lift to get rid of her jowls, but she hadn’t touched her eyes. “Why don’t you get in with them,” she said.
The darkening lake, the flock of seagulls at the end of the sandbar. The knock of swells against the hull. The children running, kicking up water, scattering gulls. They were lifting seaweed-covered rocks and spiraling them into the lake. At the far end, near the shore, Neil could see a white-haired couple paddling along in kayaks. A collie, wearing its own orange life jacket, sat up in one of the prows.
“I think I’ll get something to drink,” he said. He went down the steps into the small cabin. A pile of folded beach towels was on the table next to three bottles of sunscreen. He checked the galley—the wet bar was stocked. The refrigerator held Coke, Diet Pepsi, Sprite, Perrier, a six-pack of Coronas. There were juice boxes for the kids, small Lunchables snacks with ham, cheese, and crackers, a tray of sliced fruit. A plate of carrots and ranch dip.
It was dark when they got back to the cottage. Neil helped Ben and Effie pull off their wet swimsuits and told them to find their pajamas. Another yard sale purchase: the children’s oak dresser, four stacked drawers with masking-tape name tags—Myra’s Madness, Grady’s Getups—in Jocelyn’s faded block script. The dresser tipped if you opened more than two drawers at a time. For six summers Neil had meant to anchor it to the wall.
Now the children were fighting over who got to open which drawer first.
Neil went into the bathroom and locked the door. He sat on the closed toilet lid and tried to concentrate on his breathing, the way they’d taught Jocelyn to focus in Lamaze class.
Through the thin drywall behind the sink he could hear Effie and Ben arguing over the top bunk.
“My pillow’s on it,” Ben said.
“But I put books up there,” Effie said.
“You’ll fall out.”
“Mommy said take turns!”
Neil heard the sound of books hitting the floor. He heard Myra’s voice, then Grady’s.
“Dad?” Myra was outside the bathroom door.
“I heard,” he said. “Give me a minute.”
“Did Mom say they should switch off every night?”
Neil yanked the door open. Myra jumped back, hand to her chest; Neil walked past her into the twins’ bedroom.
“Ben, top bunk. Effie, bottom,” he said.
“Not fair!” Effie was standing beside the dresser, wearing just her panties: the words summertime fun!” above a rainbow-colored beach umbrella.
Grady started picking up books. “Maybe they should rock-paper-scissors for it,” he said. “Or do bubblegum-in-a-dish.”
“Mommy does engine-engine-number-nine,” Ben said. He was on the top bunk, looking over the rail, eyes wide.
“My tummy hurts,” Effie said. She started to cry. “I want juice. I want Mommy to cut me up a banana.”
Neil picked Effie up. He thought he might shake her; and then he was visualizing it, he was imagining shaking her so hard her eyes would roll, her teeth knock together. He set Effie down on the bottom bunk and held her there, gripping her upper arms. He savored the compression, the stinging sensation of the squeezing—the movement of his anger into someone else.
“Mommy isn’t here,” he said to her.
He let go and stood. “I’m the one who’s here,” he said, to all of them.
At midnight, Neil stood alone on the dock. The night was warm with a full yellow moon over the lake.
Across the bay, someone was lighting fireworks. He saw the flares, the sprays of dwindling white sparks. Every few seconds, there was a faint pop. In each small burst of light he could see boats anchored along the shoreline.
There were nights when she used to strip, jump off the dock, and swim naked in the dark water. The slick feel of her skin, when she emerged; her narrow hips, the sweep of his fingers up into her wetness; the way she coaxed him out of his clothing and,
still standing, drew him inside and held him fast, his fingers tangled up in her wet hair until he exploded and lost hold of her, falling to his knees. He refused to swim, after—he wanted her smell on him till morning. On her thirtieth birthday she’d painted each wall in their tiny bedroom a different color—buttercream, wild strawberry, peach, mellow mint. “We’ll be sleeping inside a smoothie,” he’d said. And he remembered those unhappy evenings, after the last diagnosis, the petty arguments that came of avoiding the topic neither of them could face; the last time here, when she sat in the gazebo after the kids were in bed, thin and silent, drinking gin.
“Effie needs you.” He turned; it was Myra, coming from the cottage, wearing a long white T-shirt. She was holding Effie’s hand. “I took her to the bathroom and she threw up.”
A corner of Effie’s Barbie nightgown was tucked up into her underwear; her bangs were sweaty and she was crying. Neil walked up onto the grass and pulled the nightgown loose. He lifted her; through the thin fabric he felt the heat in her armpits.
He kissed her forehead. “You’ve got a fever, Eff.”
“I looked for Motrin,” Myra said, “but we don’t have any.”
“I’m sure Grandpa’s got some,” Neil said.
“Want me to walk down and ask?”
“That’s okay, I’ll go. Would you stay with Effie?”
Effie lifted her head off his shoulder. “But I want you.”
It was only a breath, the smallest puff of hot air on his cheek. But it was there. The long hallway, the door swinging out onto the whirling planet. How strange, he thought, that his daughter’s words could reveal such a thing. He felt the invisible machinery inside him stir.
Effie burrowed her face into his shoulder.
He should have jumped into the lake with his children that afternoon. He should have shown them, here, that everything was going to be okay. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow he would pull them in, give them rides on his back. Over and over he would dive deep, come up underneath them, tickle their feet. Allow himself to be thrilled by the reach of their fingertips, the brush of their soles.
I Want to Show You More (9780802193742) Page 5