The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  “Uh-huh. I can’t remember his name, but—”

  “Kent,” he said.

  “That’s right. Kent. What about him?” I waited.

  “I’m going to . . . I have to tell you about something Mom told me the day of the wedding. And about something no one else knows about. Something I did that day. And I’m . . . Don’t stop me, okay? Because I have to get this all out and I don’t . . . Just don’t stop me until I’m finished. Okay?”

  I nodded. Sat there listening in disbelief.

  When he was done, the two of us had just sat there, Andrew sobbing with his hand over his mouth, me trying to get my head around everything he’d just confessed and, at the same time, looking at his suffering, wracking my compromised brain to think of something—anything—to say that might take away his pain. . . .

  “Dad, it’s like this living nightmare that never lets go of me. I’ll be at the barracks, in the shower or lying in bed, and I’ll start thinking about it: how I killed him and got away with it. Up to this point, anyway. But it could still happen. Someone might put two and two together and . . . It’s just so not who I ever thought I’d be, Dad. A killer, a murderer.”

  I want to interrupt him, object to what he’s saying about himself, but how can I refute it? There’s a body hidden down in back inside that well. My son has taken a life.

  “I can’t eat, can’t sleep for shit. And sometimes when I finally do fall asleep, I dream about him. Dream he’s alive again, and I’m chasing him, catching up to him—not out in the woods where it happened, but down some street I don’t recognize. Or down the corridors of some strange hospital or school or something. . . . At work? I’ll be busy with a patient and it’ll just come over me. I’ll see him sitting out on the front steps that morning when I went back for the rings. See his head flopped to the side, that rock smeared with his blood. And they’ve started to notice—the docs I work with. I’ve gotten warnings from two different supervisors. Dr. Champy chewed me out when I got mixed up about the schedule and didn’t show up for my shift until after they called. He asked me if I had a drug problem—if that was what was wrong with me. And Dr. Sanders wrote me up after I screwed up some patient’s meds. I’m becoming a liability at that place, Dad. I just don’t think I can hold it together anymore. I’m falling apart. I think I’m going to have to tell someone.”

  And that’s when I finally think of something useful to say. “You just did tell someone, Andrew. You told your father. And I want you to promise me that you’re not going to tell anyone else. You hear me? Don’t you tell another fucking soul.”

  He just sits there staring at me, not saying anything.

  “When it starts getting to you, you’re going to pick up the phone and call me. Okay? If you can’t sleep, I don’t care what the hell time it is, you call me. If it hits you at work? You tell them you need to take a quick break, get yourself out of everyone else’s earshot, and dial my number. And I’ll answer it, I promise you. From now on, I’ll keep my cell with me at all times, no matter where I am. No matter what I’m doing. And when it rings, I’ll see that it’s you and pick up. Talk you back down from the ledge if you’re panicking. Okay? But you have to promise me, Andrew. Not another fucking soul. Not your supervisors, not some buddy of yours, not your mother or your sisters. And most of all, not the police. I’m the only one you should talk to about this. I need you to promise me that.”

  Fifteen seconds go by, thirty. He’s trembling, crying again. And then finally, mercifully, he looks at me and nods. “Yeah, okay, Dad. I promise. . . .”

  Larry’s just said something up front. I don’t know what. “Don’t you think so, Doc?” He’s looking back at me, waiting for a response.

  “Yup,” I tell him. “You’ve got that right. . . .”

  Later that afternoon, while she’s driving him to the airport, it turns dark outside. Starts raining. It’s only three, four o’clock, but it gets as dark as dusk. And the weather inside my head has shifted, too. Those dark clouds have descended, and the fear I’ve been feeling for my son has curdled into anger. And Annie is who I’m angry with. What he did that day—the way he ran out of there to avenge her, the way he’s been suffering ever since—it all comes back to rest on her. It’s fucking pathological is what it is. The way she kept me in the dark all those years and then dumped it all out on him. Made our son her confessor. And now his life is ruined, and she’s the one who ruined it.

  I’m at the front window, staring out at the rain, when I see her drive up. Hear the car door slam. She comes in, takes off her wet coat, shakes it out on the foyer floor. “Oh, hi,” she says. “I didn’t see you sitting there. Boy, it’s miserable out. You okay?”

  “Yup.”

  “He checked with the airline on our way up. His flight was on time, so I guess he’s off. I’m going to start supper now. Leftovers okay?”

  “Yes.” I’m seething. Waiting.

  “Orion, can you come in the kitchen with me while I’m getting things ready? I kind of want to talk to you about Andrew.” I tell her I want to talk with her, too. She’s just not going to like what I have to say.

  When I wheel myself in there, she’s at the fridge, pulling things out. Her back is turned to me. “Something’s up with him,” she says. “I think he’s withholding something.”

  It’s not funny—quite the opposite—but I laugh. “Well, he’s learned how to do that from the best, hasn’t he?”

  She glances over her shoulder at me. “I don’t . . . What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you’re the friggin’ queen of withholding. All those secrets you were so good at keeping when we were married. The way your sister died that night, what your cousin did to you when you were a kid. Kind of made the whole marriage a sham, don’t you think?”

  She stops what she’s doing. Turns around and faces me. “How did you—”

  “Because he just told me how you vomited out all your ugly little secrets to him that day. Burdened him with all the dirty little things you never bothered to tell me about.”

  She looks stunned. Good. She deserves to be. “Orion, I don’t really want to go into all that with you right now. I wish I hadn’t told Andrew that day, but it is what it is. And Millie’s been helping me sort through—”

  “Millie? Oh, right. Your shrink. Tell me something, will you? I’m curious. Have you come clean to her about the abuse yet?” She nods, mumbles something about how what her cousin did to her is at the crux of her therapy. “No, no. Not that abuse. I mean the way you used to abuse our son.”

  She stares at me, blank-faced. She keeps blinking.

  “Pushing him down the stairs so that he ended up with a broken wrist. Clunking him on the head with a mallet. And Jesus, those were just the things they told me about.”

  “They?” she says.

  “Our kids, Annie. Ariane, mostly. The other two were pretty closemouthed about it. Still covering for you all these years later. Ari didn’t want to tell me either, but I got it out of her. Jesus, you were all about secrets, lies of omission. Weren’t you?”

  “Orion, can you please just stop now? Because I’m starting to feel like I’m being attacked.”

  “Speaking of which, you really lucked out that time you clobbered him on the head, huh? No concussion, no TBI. That would have really fucked up your secret-keeping, wouldn’t it have?”

  She wipes her hands on her apron. Comes over and sits down at the table. “Orion, what’s going on here? Where is all this anger coming from?”

  “From the gut. That’s where. When they came up to see me at Viveca’s place that weekend? Before your big gay wedding? That’s when I found out. Why’d you do it, Annie? Pick him out of the herd? Make him your victim instead of the girls? Or me?”

  She’s blinking back tears now. “I didn’t . . . I have a temper, Orion. You know that. And sometimes he would—”

  “Right. You’ve got a temper and he’s got a penis. Was that what was at the bottom of it? The fact that, of the three of t
hem, it was your male child you needed to victimize?”

  “I . . . Stop psychoanalyzing me. And stop making it sound like it was premeditated, because . . . because it wasn’t like that. He’d get my goat, press my buttons and I’d just go off. Get a little crazy. And then, afterward, I’d come to my senses and . . . I felt ashamed about those things I did, Orion. Ashamed and guilty.”

  “But not guilty enough to let me know, apparently. And boy, the kids were in your corner, too, huh? You’d victimize him and then the three of them would feel sorry for you. Close ranks around you, like you were the one who needed to be protected. Wasn’t that how it went down, Annie? Poor Mama. She can’t help it. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “I didn’t know! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not justifying it but—”

  “We better not tell Daddy, though. We have to protect her from him. Because he might actually do something. Get her some treatment. Protect us from her rampages.”

  She shakes her head. “They didn’t need to be protected from me. I had my moments, yes, but I was a good mother. I love my kids, Andrew just as much as the girls.”

  “You think they got off scot-free after all those deceptions you involved them in, Annie? You think they didn’t grow up scarred because of all those fucking secrets of yours? Hey, and speaking of secrets, how about the fact that you’re a lesbian. That was another thing you kept from me, huh? Boy, that one was a doozy.”

  “Okay, stop it. Just—”

  “And me, I was so fucking clueless. Jesus, you’d think a shrink would have been smart enough to catch on after a while, but nope. Not me. I mean, sometimes while I was making love to you, inside of you, I’d open my eyes and look at you. And you’d have that far-off expression like you were someplace else. Like you couldn’t wait for me to finish.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re wrong. It wasn’t like that for me.”

  “No? Really? Then how come, nine times out of ten, the only way I could bring you to an orgasm was when I went down on you? Who were you imagining was down there, Annie? What woman were you fantasizing about as you came?”

  She unties her apron and throws it onto the table. Starts to leave the room, then turns around and tries to wound me back. “I don’t care how badly hurt you were up there on the Cape, or how bitter you’ve become because of it,” she says. “I am not going to stand here and have you accuse me unfairly. . . . I come here to help you, Orion. Not so that you can hurl all of these accusations at me. Put me on trial for things that—”

  “That day you told him about what your cousin did to you? When it was just you and Andrew up there in that room? That was a form of abuse, too. Wasn’t it, Annie?”

  “Stop it! He guessed what Kent did. That’s why I told him.”

  “And then he storms out of there, does what he does, and now—”

  “What do you mean? He stormed out and did what?”

  “Nothing. He just . . . Just get out of here, will you? Get in your car and go back to your wife, because it’s making me sick to even look at you.”

  I’m not sparing her to be kind. I’d love to hit her with it right about now. She caused it, didn’t she? He killed him because of her. She deserves to suffer. It’s my son I’m sparing, not her. “Not another living soul,” I told him. And that goes for me, too. If I tell her, she could tell Viveca. Tell his sisters. The more people who know, the more danger he’d be in. The more likely . . . “I mean it, Annie. I don’t need you to come here every weekend and play nursemaid. In fact, I’d prefer you don’t anymore. Just leave. Pack your bag and get the fuck back to New York. Just go.”

  She leaves the room—to do as I’ve just said, I figure. But I’m wrong. A minute later, she’s back in the doorway. “I am not leaving until tomorrow morning when your aide shows up for her shift,” she says. “That’s the plan, and that’s what I’m going to do. But I’m going upstairs now because I don’t want to look at you either. I just want to go up and be by myself and try not to think of the things you’ve just said to me.”

  “Why not? Because the truth hurts?”

  She doesn’t take the bait. An annoying calm has come over her. “I will leave my door open. Call up the stairs when you want to go to bed. I’ll help you get ready, and then I’ll stay the night like I planned. You can ring your bell if you need me for anything during the night, the same as always. Because no matter what you’ve said, what you’ve accused me of, I am not going to leave you by yourself. No matter how hurtful you’ve been, I am staying because you need someone to stay.”

  “Because I’m a fucking gimp? A pathetic cripple that you can condescend to?”

  “I didn’t say that, Orion. You did. Now is there anything you need before I go up?”

  I’m already starting to regret my cruelty toward her, but I sure as hell am not going to apologize. Not yet anyway. I’m just relieved I didn’t get so furious with her that I used it as a weapon against her: what he did, where he hid the body.

  “My cell phone,” I tell her. “It’s on the windowsill in the front room. I put it there before when I was looking out at the rain.” She asks me who I have to call. “No one. I just want to have it in case someone needs to call me.” She gives me a long, inquisitive look, then goes and gets the phone. Comes back, hands it to me, and leaves without another word. I listen to her footsteps on the stairs. . . .

  Why hadn’t I laid what Andrew had done at her feet? I mean, she was damned good at keeping secrets. That was her specialty. What was the real reason I hadn’t drawn her into it? Maybe because, in spite of everything that had happened, how angry I was at her that day, I was still trying to save her. Still trying to rescue the girl at the dry cleaner’s with the flat tire. Wasn’t that my specialty? Rescuing people? Siobhan, the psych patient, the night when I saved her from choking. All those college kids, up to and including Jasmine that night when she barged into my office because her ex-boyfriend was stalking her. . . .

  Maybe that afternoon when I finally did confront Annie, spewed all that venom at her, I stopped short of telling her about that body hidden down there in the well because I still loved her. Is that what love is all about for me? Protecting people? Keeping them safe? Or has that always been more about my ego? Pat yourself on the back, Orion. Take a bow, Mr. Knight in Shining Armor. But I wasn’t able to save Seamus from slipping a noose around his neck that night and jumping into the stairwell at his dorm. Was too oblivious to save my son from his mother’s attacks. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have developed such a hair-trigger temper himself. Wouldn’t have gone after him that day and—no, don’t go there again. What good has second-guessing myself about it ever done? . . . Promise me you’re not going to tell anyone else. You hear me? Don’t you tell another fucking soul. I was trying to protect him. Save him from being arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. How many times have I second-guessed myself? Wondered if maybe he should have gone to the police? Paid for his crime? Or not. I still haven’t been able to decide if I helped him that day or gave him the wrong advice. . . .

  But anyway, in the weeks and weekends after I confronted Annie, we made our peace. I apologized for the things I’d said, she for the things she’d done and hadn’t done—the secrets she’d kept. I hadn’t scared her away after all. And so she had kept returning to the home we had shared so that she could help me. It was ironic, really. Annie had somehow become a better, more honest and forgiving wife than when we were married. So maybe that’s what love means. Having the capacity to forgive the one who wronged you, no matter how deep the hurt was. At any rate, I’m glad she doesn’t know about the corpse that’s down there in that well. I’ve spared her that much.

  Up front, Larry’s begun talking again. “I’m just curious, Doc. You don’t mind my asking, do you?” He’s looking at me in the rearview again.

  “I’m sorry, Larry. I was someplace else just now. Do I what?”

  “Belong to a church.”

  “Me? No. I’m not religious.�
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  “No? So while you were going through your ordeal, you never prayed?”

  “No. Can’t say that I did.” Who was I going to pray to? Some god I never believed in in the first place? But I’m not about to get into a theological discussion with him.

  “Because that’s what helped me out when I got cancer. Not that what I was up against was as bad as what you went through. I’m not saying that. But once I got done being pissed off at God, I started getting down on my knees and asking for His help. And it worked, you know? So far, anyway. I been cancer free for seven years now.”

  “Yeah? Good for you.”

  “Yup. The power of prayer. You can’t beat it, far as I’m concerned.”

  He means well, but I’m in no mood for his proselytizing, so I change the subject. “Looks like we’re a little ahead of schedule. Why don’t you pull into that Dunkin’ Donuts up ahead? Let me buy you a coffee?”

  “Sounds good, Doc,” he says. “But only if I’m buying. And don’t give me an argument, either. I insist.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we’ve had our caffeine and he’s wheeling me into rehab. Paula, the therapist I work with, is out front talking with the receptionist. “Well, look who’s here,” she says. “How are you doing today, handsome?”

  “Handsome.” “Sugar.” “Sweetheart.” I used to resent this chummy familiarity. Just because I couldn’t walk or park myself on the toilet seat anymore, they didn’t need to condescend to me. But after a while, I realized they were just being friendly, not assuming that my TBI had rendered me stupid. “Handsome, huh? Which one of us you talking to? Me or him?”