“Here, look,” Teddy says. He has an arm in the water, face pressed to stone. “Little brookie and I have been practicing.”
Thad presses his face to the rock, too. Teddy grimaces, the lip of the rock tucked into his armpit, his arm in the water, elbow-deep.
“I like you, Thad,” Teddy says.
“I like you too,” Thad says, a wave of gratefulness cascading down his back. When was the last time he was told he’s liked? Not loved, not appreciated, but genuinely liked, told without explanation or expectation of commendation in return.
“You aren’t like other customers,” Teddy says. “You talk to me.”
“You’re easy to talk to.”
Teddy strains, arm stirring the water. “What is it you believe in, Thad?” His face mashed to the rock looks slightly crazed.
“Like, religion? My mom’s the religious one. I don’t practice a faith.” Which isn’t entirely true. But what’s the shorthand for occasional churchgoer turned atheist turned whatever Thad is now? Surviving his second attempt, he longs to believe in something bigger than himself, but finding that something hasn’t been easy. He hoped he’d found it with Jake, but he can’t even get Jake on the phone.
“You don’t believe in anything?”
“I believe in something,” Thad says. “I don’t know what I’d call it. Maybe love.”
“I wouldn’t call it love.”
“What would you call it?”
“Me?” Teddy says. “The something I believe in I call the universe. The universe knows what you want. The universe knows what you’re thinking. You’re responsible to just one thing, and do you know what that one thing is?”
“The universe?” Thad says.
“The universe,” Teddy says. “People will tell you the universe doesn’t matter, but don’t listen to them. The secret to a good life is to forget what people say. You and me, we don’t answer to people. We answer to the universe. And when we do, the universe answers back. Aligns itself. Some people call this chaos, or God. You call it love. Others say whatever and go about their day. But life isn’t whatever. We’re talking about the fucking universe. It knows your needs. And you’re accountable to it, which means it’s got to be accountable to you.”
Thad leans back so that his cheek no longer rests on the surface of the stone.
“Teddy,” he says, “I have no idea what you’re telling me.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Teddy says.
Thad wants to tell Teddy that his truth is cruel. That if the universe is in charge, the universe watched a boy drown and did nothing. How is that a universe worth listening to? What manner of accountability is that?
A splash, and Teddy pulls a fish, flapping, from the stream.
“The universe,” Teddy says.
“Holy shit,” Thad says.
The fish is small, a brook trout, judging by the green head and red tail. Its pupil is black ringed by gold. The mouth opens. The tail searches for current in empty air. The trout’s middle is caught in the fat of Teddy’s fist. He loosens his grip, and between the fingers Thad sees polka dots, gold and red. The circles fuse into a pattern along the animal’s back and melt into the red of its belly. Thad’s used to seeing rainbow trout, the pink stripe, the black-speckled back, but he’s never before seen a brook trout up close. The fish is beautiful, but how? How could something so beautiful spring from such an ugly universe?
Teddy kisses the fish, a brief peck on its head. He offers the fish for Thad to kiss.
“I’m good,” Thad says, and Teddy lowers the trout into the water, then it’s gone.
They lie awhile on the rock. The boughs of pines bend overhead.
“The universe,” Teddy says. “Think about it.”
“I will,” Thad says.
He won’t. But Teddy has inspired him. If the universe is merciless, Thad can’t wait around for mercy. He must act. He must adjust his meds, smoke less, get serious about his poetry, or let it go. He must accept that, once Jake makes his choice, he may need to move on. And that will have to be okay. He has to learn to face his sadness and survive.
Teddy stands. “I should probably get back to the store.”
Thad won’t see Teddy next summer. He needs to tell him this. He needs to thank him for his friendship and for years and years of weed.
But he doesn’t get the chance. There’s a chirp, the sound his phone makes when it’s been out of range and a signal has been found, the chirp followed by the dings of two missed calls, two messages awaiting his reply, and Thad opens the voice mail, hoping to hear from Jake.
The first message is Michael. It’s garbled, though. Thad can barely make out what his brother says, and he skips ahead.
The second voice mail is clear. It’s Michael again, only this time, he’s calling Thad from jail.
31.
Richard is the one who found June.
She’d suffocated in her sleep, face pressed to a stuffed duck. Or she hadn’t. They hadn’t swaddled the child, hadn’t put her to sleep on her back. Paramedics and doctors couldn’t pinpoint the cause. Too many variables. SIDS is unpredictable that way. There was a brief but excruciating investigation, Richard and Lisa questioned in separate rooms. Could they be sure the other hadn’t smothered the girl? Richard comprehended the legal obligation, but that hadn’t kept him from threatening to punch the cop.
People at the funeral made things worse, the way well-meaning people tend to do.
“God won’t give you more than you can bear,” one man said, and Lisa drove her fingernails into Richard’s arm. They both wanted to slap the man, to gouge his eyes and rip his tongue out by the root.
“This is more than I can bear,” Lisa said the rest of that week, sobbing.
The year that followed was a gauntlet of a hundred little hurts: How the bassinet had to be disassembled and moved to the attic. How a thermometer or pacifier might surface in an unexpected place to obliterate Richard’s day. How Lisa lactated for weeks after, shirts stained with milk.
Richard hadn’t told the story in over thirty years. He can’t say why he shared it with Clyde, but he did, the men in lawn chairs on the marina dock. He talked, and Clyde listened. When a boat pulled up for gas, Richard grew quiet, Clyde serviced the boat, and when the boat pulled away and Clyde took his seat, Richard resumed his story. He must have talked for an hour, every detail, all he could remember, everything. When he was through, Clyde said, “I’m sorry for your loss,” shook Richard’s hand, untied the boat, and helped Richard push off, so much tenderness in the other man’s eyes, Richard thought he might cry.
“Crying’s okay,” Lisa would say. “It’s healthy.” But Richard isn’t sure. Better to move steadily forward, eyes dry. Better to fish a few hours more and enjoy one of his last days on the lake.
He’s a mile from his bay when he sees the police boats, no sirens, no lights. The big boat is not here, the dredge boat with its pulleys and hook.
It’s getting late, near dinnertime.
He downshifts, idles. The police boats drift, a space opens between them, and a body floats into the open space.
Richard looks away. He doesn’t have to see to know it’s Glenn and Wendy’s son.
Order, design. A comfort in numbers:
20: the number of seconds it takes a drowning person’s lungs to fill with water.
4: the number of minutes before a dead body begins to decompose. Carbon dioxide builds. Cells rupture. The body eats itself from the inside out.
10 trillion: the number of microbes in the colon of a boy Robbie’s size. Bacteria blooms. Skin discolors. Methane and hydrogen sulfide inflate the abdominal cavity and chest.
2–22: the number of days it takes bacteria to produce gas to the point of inflation. Variables include body mass index and water temperature. The colder the water, the slower the growth.
0.61: the number of degrees Fahrenheit that lake water temperatures have risen worldwide every decade for the past forty years.
; 54: the number of hours since the boy slipped beneath the boat.
48: the number of hours it takes a body to rise when the water is warm.
Richard does not know these numbers yet. He will tonight, when sleeplessness has driven him online to look them up. For now, there are no numbers, only a white body in blue water.
Maybe the body is not the boy, he tells himself. Maybe the body is not a body.
He looks, sees silver swim trunks. He looks away.
No way to make this right, but there’s one thing he can do. Suppose he reached the boy’s family before the police? Wouldn’t it be better to hear the news from a sympathetic voice, from a man who knows the grief they’re going through?
He remembers their street. The cop on the boat, the young one, made Glenn repeat it twice. The street is just two bays away, their house somewhere on that street. He can find it. If he hurries, he can beat the police there.
He ratchets the boat out of idle and pilots fast toward the nearby bay. He’s been there before. Fourteen miles of shoreline, and Richard’s fished every channel and tributary, every inlet, every cove.
He enters the bay. No trailers here. Here, the houses are huge, their docks not rotted wood but plastic and aluminum, attendant boats suspended above the water in hydraulic lifts.
Figuring out which house is theirs will be a challenge. He circles the bay once, twice, looking for their pontoon boat.
That poor family. This will be the worst day of their lives.
And what is Richard’s plan, exactly? Tie off at their dock. Knock on their door. What then? Assuming he can find the place, assuming the family is home, assuming they come to the door, what will Richard say? What words could possibly contain the horror that their boy’s dead body has been found?
No matter. He’s too late.
He spots the boat, the house above. A police cruiser pulls into a driveway, and the boy’s mother hurries to meet it there. An officer steps out of the car. The mother falls. The officer lifts her, and she falls again.
Then Glenn is at her side. Then Trish. They are a tangle in the driveway, and Richard cannot watch. There is nothing left for him to do, and this is not his grief to share.
The sun is setting. He should be with his family. He leaves the bay and points his boat toward home.
32.
Michael shouldn’t be surprised to find himself here. No small miracle he’s never been arrested before. Drunk, how many punches has he thrown? How many times driven home the definition of in no condition to drive?
He isn’t drunk. Or, he is, but he isn’t drunk-drunk. He could have made it home. He wouldn’t submit to the Breathalyzer because, technically, he’s probably over the limit, but that hardly means he couldn’t get home safe. They want to see in no condition, he’ll show them in no condition. Give them a glimpse of the highlight reel of his life. Two bottles of wine is nothing. In no condition is still a bottle or two away. In no condition is throwing up to make room for more, waking with no memory of driving home, then rising and checking the grill of your car for gore.
Blow into this, or you’re under arrest.
Fuck that. He hadn’t crashed. He hadn’t crossed a double yellow line. No way the cop could know unless he’d been waiting, casing the bar for drunks. Entrapment. Is that a thing, or just something from TV? Unless Lou called the cops. Or Gwen. Or the gallery owner. Or the woman he bumped into trying to navigate the sidewalk to his car. The way she’d pulled her toddler to her and crossed the street. The look on her face looking back at him. Fuck her.
He remembers calling Thad, remembers it seeming very important at that moment that his brother know they had a sister, remembers saying so into his phone, Thad’s voice mail a land mine now, no way to take it back.
Then he was at his car door trying to work the key into the lock.
Then he was behind the wheel trying to work the key into the ignition.
He’d gone a block before he heard the siren—staccato, uncompromising—come on.
He got one phone call, which turns out not to be just something from TV. He tried his brother, left a second voice mail, and before long, Thad called the station to say that he was on his way. But that was hours ago.
Maybe Michael is where he belongs. On a bench. In a holding cell. In a tiny county police station with one cell, two desks, and a clock that ticks too loudly on the wall.
He’s not alone. The arresting officer sits at his desk, and a drunk is with Michael in the cell. The man’s passed out, or maybe he’s asleep. He commands the length of the cell’s only other bench, which is impressive, seeing as the bench isn’t much wider than a gymnast’s balance beam. The man sleeps on his back. He’s bald, bushy eyebrows, pale skin. Both eyes are blackened, and blood runs from the man’s mouth and down his cheek.
Michael shouldn’t be here. He got into Cornell, goddammit.
“I got into Cornell, goddammit!” he yells.
Never mind that he wouldn’t have gotten in had his parents not worked there, not with his grades. Never mind that he didn’t actually go, passing up his free ride to follow Diane to Savannah instead.
The officer doesn’t look up.
The cell is small, the bars close together. A low-slung, vulgar-looking toilet occupies one corner of the cell, no wall or privacy door.
What’s taking Thad so long?
The man on the bench stirs. His hand finds his face, and blood streaks his chin.
This: This is when Michael’s meant to change his life. This is rock bottom, right? Except, he isn’t even drunk. He’s buzzed. He’s under arrest because his bail and fines and fees will pay for this year’s police station Christmas party. That is why Michael was pulled over, cuffed, and pushed unnecessarily hard into the cruiser’s backseat. Because he’s not from around here. Because they want to take what little money he has left.
He didn’t even swerve.
“I didn’t swerve!” he yells.
“Should have submitted to the Breathalyzer, then,” the officer says.
“I don’t care what the numbers say. I know when I’m safe to drive.”
The cop nods. Probably he’s heard this before. A framed photo of his wife and kids sits on the desk. In the picture, the family stands behind a pumpkin, freshly carved, the officer younger, thinner, out of uniform.
“I’m not a drunk,” Michael says.
“Sleep it off,” the officer says, sounding weary more than angry. No doubt he’d rather be home with his family too. Probably lives in town, nice house, solid pension building up. Probably he has state-funded health insurance, benefits, and… Is he doing a crossword puzzle? On the clock? He’s getting paid for this shit? Michael should have been a cop.
The man on the cell bench lets go a blood-flecked exhalation. His shirtfront’s torn. His pants have pissed themselves. Exhibit A: Michael’s no drunk. There are bottoms way rockier than his.
“What’d this guy do?” Michael asks.
“Ed?” the cop says. “Frequent flyer. Finally picked a fight he couldn’t win. Word to the wise? No matter how drunk you get, never shoot your neighbor’s dog.”
“Jesus,” Michael says. “So where’s the other guy, the guy who beat him up?”
The officer looks perplexed. “Ed shot his dog. I’d have kicked his ass too.”
Carolina justice. The officer returns to his crossword. The puzzle fills the page of one of those jumbo books for sale alongside sudoku tomes and paperback Bibles at Dollar Tree.
The station phone rings, and the cop is on the phone for a minute. “All right,” he says, hanging up. “Your brother’s on the way.”
“For real this time?”
“I’m only saying what he said.”
Still, the officer stands, opens the cell door, and lets Michael pull up a chair. From beneath the desk he produces a yellow bin, and Michael reclaims his watch, his keys, his wallet full of maxed-out credit cards. His phone is missing, then he remembers he left it in the car. He stands and puts on his belt.
“Sit down,” the officer says, and he does. “Two pieces of advice: First, on your way home, buy some lice shampoo. RID is best, but any brand will do. You might be fine, but there’s been a bit of that going around in here. Better safe than sorry.”
Michael’s scalp itches at the thought, and he fights the urge to run his fingers through his hair.
“Second, I know it’s not my business, but I see people like you every day. I used to be you. Drunk before sundown. Hungover every morning. All I’m saying is, there’s a better way to live.”
“You’re right.”
Anticipation fills the officer’s face, the start of a smile.
“It’s not your fucking business,” Michael says.
He says it too loud, and crossword cop is on his feet. “You want to go back in the cell?”
Fuck him. Michael’s not the drunk he thinks he is. Physically, he may be alcohol-dependent, may need a drink every few hours to keep his hands from shaking, another few to make it through the day. But he’s not some drunk. He’s not Ed.
“What?” Michael says, angrier than he’s prepared himself to feel. “What are you going to do, double-arrest me? For talking back? Did I make bail or not?”
“Michael!” Thad stands in the doorway, then he’s through the door.
“One more word,” the officer says.
“Oh, go finish your crossword,” Michael says.
The cop pulls handcuffs from a pouch on his belt, taps them to his palm, and the cuffs spring open, ready for wrists.
But Thad is moving fast, apologizing, pushing Michael back into the chair. Thad sweet-talks the officer a while, trying everything. Finally, he lands on Michael as small-town hero, recounting the story of the drowning and his attempt to save the kid. Thad points to Michael’s bandage.
“Shit,” the officer says. “That was you?”
“Ever since the head injury, he’s not himself,” Thad says.
Michael laughs. He’s never been more himself. He’s never more himself than when he’s mad and has a couple of drinks in him.
Lake Life Page 22