Under the Water (ARC)

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Under the Water (ARC) Page 27

by Paul Pen


  lost an eye because you brought a gun into the home to

  protect yourself from a woman who wants you for herself.

  That’s what happened. Our boy will be missing an eye

  for the rest of his life because of you. Because of ... this.”

  She gestured at the two of them with contempt, mov-

  ing her hand with a disdain that made them something

  appalling, something hard to look at. In this new distorted reality Grace had been transported to, everything was

  hollow, and awful. And if the person responsible for this distortion was the person she loved most, then everything she knew about the world was a lie. Love didn’t exist.

  Goodness didn’t, either. Frank nodded. He lowered his

  head, accepting the full weight of the guilt that Grace

  had tried to take off his shoulders since the incident but that now made so much sense.

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  Mara cleared her throat. “It isn’t exactly like that.”

  Frank looked up with eyes full of hate.

  “It’s incredible how misogynist we women can be,”

  Mara said to Grace. “How easily we blame one another

  before blaming the man. Crazy, unbalanced, in love with

  your husband. Is that the first explanation you arrive at?

  I’m the crazy one, right? The one responsible for every-

  thing. And this is all my doing.” She stretched out her

  arms to illustrate how extreme the situation was. “Why?

  Out of spite? Out of love? Because your husband’s such an incredible man that a woman like me will lose her mind

  after sleeping with him a few times, to the point that I’d threaten his wife with a knife? It’s not that, Grace. I’m not threatening you. You’re a wonderful woman who’s had

  the misfortune of being another victim of your husband’s

  staggering lack of honesty. He deceived me, too, denying

  your existence for months. Telling me he was divorced.”

  Another crack opened up on Grace’s heart. She looked

  at Frank’s ringless left hand. He’d never worn it—he said he was uncomfortable in it, just as he never wore a watch or a necklace. He didn’t even wear sunglasses. When

  Grace commented on it in one of her videos, many of her

  subscribers remarked that it seemed like a lack of respect on her husband’s part to refuse to wear the wedding ring, but to Grace that sounded like the antiquated argument

  of conservative women. A piece of metal didn’t make

  their marriage any worthier.

  “I would never have done anything with a married

  man,” Mara went on. “If you knew the pain something

  like that caused in my fam—” A sob interrupted her

  words. She closed her eyes and shook her head as if fighting against a memory that tormented her. When she opened

  them again, full of malice, she aimed the knife at Frank.

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  “That’s why I’m here. Because he made me play a part

  in cheating on another innocent woman.” Her fingers

  squeezed the hilt with rage. “And because of everything

  he did to me afterward. Because you haven’t heard all of

  the truth yet, Grace. There’s more. Much more.”

  Frank took a step toward Mara, who brandished the

  weapon firmly.

  “Don’t come near me.”

  “Please...” He held his hands together as if praying.

  “Don’t do this.”

  Grace took his arm as though he was a stranger.

  “Do what?” she asked. “Say what?”

  Frank didn’t respond, didn’t even look at her. His eyes

  remained fixed on Mara’s, half pleading, half intimidating.

  “What?” Grace insisted.

  It was Mara who spoke.

  “The night your son...” She cleared her throat, pre-

  paring herself for what she was about to say. “The night

  your son lost his eye ... I guess you missed your husband when you were at the hospital.”

  Grace nodded. Frank had disappeared for a few hours,

  roaming the building’s surroundings, overcome with

  guilt because of what had happened to Simon, hurt by

  the accusation Grace had made.

  “He was with me,” said Mara. “He came to see me

  at my place.”

  “Shut up,” Frank muttered. “Please, stop.”

  Grace felt her soul being pinched.

  “You went to see your lover while your son was in

  the hospital?”

  “But he didn’t come for that, Grace.” Mara swatted a mosquito on her arm. “Let me tell you why he did come,

  what your husband did that night.”

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  * * *

  Mara already had a foot in the water when the intercom

  bleeped. Since she’d moved to the apartment, every party

  night had ended in the tub on the balcony—there was no

  better way to sober up than to relax for a while in the hot water. She could turn on the bubbles or not, depending

  on how drunk she was and whether she wanted to make

  use of them in the other pleasant way she did from time

  to time. That night, for the time being, she wasn’t going to turn them on—the tequila shots at the end of the night were still making her dizzy. To this day, she still didn’t understand why she kept drinking those shots, knowing

  how unwell they made her feel. Well, she did know: it

  was Gabby’s fault. Gabby always shrieked the idea at her, with her eyes popping out, at eleven o’clock at night.

  The hot tub would be the perfect way to subdue the last

  waves of drunkenness from those shots and everything

  else she’d drunk. But just as she dipped her foot in, the intercom began bleeping with an urgency as alarming as

  it was annoying. One of her guests must have forgotten

  something.

  Mara covered her nakedness with a towel tied around

  her chest. She walked from the balcony to the intercom,

  dodging red plastic cups and knocking over a can of Rainier that spilled beer on the floor. She mopped it up with

  someone’s sweatshirt she found on a stool, which might

  have been exactly what the person ringing the doorbell

  like a lunatic had returned for. She also trod in something sticky with her heel and hoped it was more spilled beer

  and not vomit like in another of her recent parties. If she didn’t know why she always ended up drinking tequila

  shots, she found it even harder to understand why she

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  kept organizing parties with more than thirty people in

  her apartment, given that when they were over and it was

  time to clean up, she always promised herself it had been the last. It must have been that, in the end, her vanity got the better of her and she wanted to show off her home, the newest and most sophisticated in her friend group. Many

  of those friends wondered how she had gotten her hands

  on such an apartment downtown. Only her closest ones

  knew the sad truth. After Mom’s death, Dad got rid of the house where his wife had taken her own life. He sold the

  gigantic property on the outskirts and offered the money

  to Mara by way of a strange apology for cheating on her

  mother for thirty years. He persuaded her to accept it by assuring her that it was what her mother had wanted—

  apparently, for over a year, Mom had been suggesting the

  idea of selling the house that was now too big for them

  and use the money to help their only daughter.
Mara ac-

  cepted the money, but not the apology.

  It wasn’t a guest Mara now saw on the intercom screen,

  but Frank, who was staring straight at the camera as if

  wanting to look her in the eyes.

  She buzzed open the street-level door and waited

  for him at the apartment entrance with the door open a

  crack. The elevator’s blue lights announced his arrival on her floor. Frank ran out and pushed her apartment door

  open before Mara could react to his sudden appearance.

  Inside, seeing him pace around in circles with his hands

  on his head but unable to articulate a single word, Mara

  thought she understood what had happened.

  “Did you tell her?” she asked. “You finally told your

  wife?”

  Frank looked at her with contempt, the kind of con-

  tempt a woman does not allow in her own home and that

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  filled Mara with the desire to kick him out. She was about to do so when the pain and desperation she saw in his eyes brought out her compassion. She asked him again if he’d

  told Grace about their affair, but he snorted, dismissing the possibility as if it were absurd. Then he bit his lip as his eyes welled up and his chin trembled.

  “Stop,” Frank said. “Please, stop now.”

  Mara tried to take his hand, but he moved away.

  “What is it? I haven’t done anything else. I haven’t

  been back to your house.”

  Frank rested his back on the glass partition between

  the entrance hall and the living room and slid down it

  until he was sitting on the floor. Covering his eyes with his hands, he told her that his son, his youngest, had just blown an eye out with a gun he’d found in his bedside

  table. Right now the doctors were deciding whether they

  could save it or he’d be one-eyed for the rest of his life.

  At the age of nine.

  “What’re you doing here, then?” Mara asked. “Why

  aren’t you at the hospital with him, with your wife?”

  “I needed to ask you to please stop,” said Frank, un-

  covering his reddened eyes. “Leave me in peace, stop

  tormenting me. I have money, I can give you money. Or

  give you back the RV, tomorrow, for nothing, so you can

  sell it again at the dealership. Anything, but please, stop doing this to me. Leave my family in peace. They don’t

  deserve to suffer like this.”

  The mere mention of money offended her. Frank

  knew her objectives were different.

  “You know the only thing I want, Frank. For you to

  put right what you’ve done. For you to tell your wife. It’s not just that I want you to do it. It’s the least your wife deserves. To know the truth. To know her husband.”

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  Frank looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh that

  contained a barely enunciated plea. A pitter-patter caught his attention, approaching along the micro cement hall

  floor.

  “What’s all this?” he asked, indicating the debris from

  the party.

  “I just had a little party. We under-thirties still have

  them, you know.”

  The pitter-patter snaked between the plastic cups, wet

  ice bags, and empty soda bottles, until two curious snouts emerged from the detritus. Audrey’s ferrets chased each

  other on their way out of the living room.

  “You still have them,” said Frank.

  “Sure. They’ll go home to your daughter when you

  confess, you know that. None of this is Audrey’s fault.

  You’re the one who forced me to use your family. You

  can end this whenever you want. You decide.”

  “Please, stop.” His shoulders slumped. “Look how far

  you’ve taken this. Look what you’ve done to my son.”

  “Me?” The accusation outraged her enough to almost

  sober her up, like a big fright. “That gun has nothing to do with me.”

  “I bought it because of you,” Frank whispered, “after

  you started coming into my home like some crazy woman

  out of Fatal Attraction.”

  “And you didn’t think that a crazy woman out of

  Fatal Attraction coming into your house might be because you’ve become the disgusting unfaithful husband in that

  movie? When’re you going to take responsibility for your

  actions, Frank? If you’re man enough to have an affair,

  you should also be man enough to tell your wife. To be

  frank. So she knows the life she believes she’s leading isn’t what she thinks it is.”

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  Just as the life Mom lived had been a lie. Mara had

  not stopped thinking about Mom, about her pain, her

  unjust end, since she learned of Grace’s existence. It was in this pain that Mom suffered, and in her determination

  to prevent it from happening to another woman, to other

  children, Mara found the justification for taking whatever measures were necessary to force Frank to confess. Silent pressure had not worked, so she had been obliged to adopt more extreme methods: to break into his home, steal his

  daughter’s pets, tamper with his wife’s shampoo, sneak into their house in the early hours to keep the pressure on. With the shampoo she had overplayed her hand, miscalculated

  the quantity. But some lost hair was a very small price for Grace to pay for her husband’s honesty. For the truth.

  “Please, leave me in peace,” Frank pleaded.

  Mara returned to the balcony to take the bath she

  needed. She wasn’t going to allow Frank’s crisis of con-

  science to ruin it. Not after he had dragged her, with

  his lies, into a situation she detested more than anyone.

  A conscience was precisely what a man who repeatedly

  sleeps with another woman before going home to sleep

  with his wife doesn’t have.

  “Besides, what were you intending to do with a gun?”

  she asked him near the hot tub, Frank behind her now.

  “Shoot me if I’d gone back in your house? God, Frank,

  all I did was steal some pets and mess with your wife’s

  shampoo—I didn’t kill anybody. And I repeat, you can

  end this whenever you want. It’s not fair for you to get

  off scot-free after cheating on your wife, on the mother

  of your children. On your own children. It’s not fair.”

  “Then tell her,” said Frank, offering her a cell phone

  he pulled from his pocket. “Go on, call her and tell her, if that’s what you want, but stop doing all the other stuff.”

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  “No, Frank.” Mara batted the phone away with a smile.

  “Telling the truth’s up to you. You’re the only one making the situation worse every day. If you’d been honest with

  your wife from the start, after the first time in the hut, I bet anything you would’ve had a chance to fix it. A lot of wives end up forgiving their husbands if it’s just one time, a moment of madness. We’re all human, women understand that. But you kept quiet. You’re still keeping quiet, just like my father did. He was silent for thirty years. He stole thirty whole years from my mother.” Mara clenched

  her jaw when she mentioned her father, spat the tragic

  consequence of that betrayal through her teeth. “He stole her whole life from her. And you’ve kept quiet to protect yourself even when your lover broke into your house to

  harass your family, your children. I promise you, that’s

 
; much harder to forgive. The longer you take to tell her

  the truth, the more Grace is going to hate you. When my

  mother knew the last thirty years of her life had been a lie, that my father had shared his love with other women ...

  it destroyed her, Frank. It’s not right for a man to hurt a woman so much, and I’m not going to let you do it to

  your wife. I’m not going to give you that amount of time.”

  “So that’s what this is? I’m revenge for something

  from your past? That’s why you’re enjoying this,” he said, clenching his fists. “You’re enjoying seeing me suffer,

  making me pay for something your father did that has

  nothing to do with me.”

  “I enjoy making a man be honest with his wife. I

  enjoy the truth.”

  “Please,” Frank whimpered, holding his hands to his

  chest. “My son’s lost an eye.”

  “And I’m very sorry. I’m sure he’s a wonderful boy.

  But I didn’t do it. You bought the weapon and the bullets.

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  You kept them in a place where he could find them.

  You’re the one who did that to your son, like you did

  this”—she removed her towel, showing him her naked

  body—“to your wife. When’re you going to stop hurting

  your family?”

  Mara gave Frank a lascivious look, sitting on the

  edge of the hot tub. Her taunt twisted Frank’s face into

  a grimace of hatred that frightened her. Moments before,

  Mara had seen the urge to hit her pass over Frank’s face

  like a thundercloud. Now he struck like lightning, fast

  and merciless. So fast that Mara only felt the impact on

  her face when he had already retracted his hand. She felt heat there, pain in her eye, fire in her chest, and tension in her teeth. But also shame in her stomach, a victim’s

  unjust humiliation.

  The slap left her disoriented for a moment. She didn’t

  know whether to respond first to her indignation or her

  pain. Then her disorientation turned into a loss of bal-

  ance, and she slipped into the tub. Her body fell into the water, her head hitting one of the acrylic corners. The

  sound of the blow to the back of her neck, the organic

  crunch of a watermelon hitting the ground, made her

  bite her lips and tense her fingers in horror. It felt like the electric shock from a blow to the funny bone, but all over her body. Then the pain blinded her, it emanated

 

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