Reclamation

by Gregory L. Beam

  “I want to know what you were doing in the house,” she says. “I want to know who put you up to it, how they contacted you… I want to know everything you can tell me about this Reclamation business.”

  Stanley thinks for a moment. He looks down at the blanket. “What does it mean to you?” he says.

  She cocks her head. “Are you asking what you’ll get in return?”

  He shakes his head. “No, not… I’m not asking what you’ll pay for it, I’m asking what it means to you?” He looks at her, his eyes wide open and searching.

  The young woman taps her fingers on her thigh, deliberating. “Let’s just say,” she says after a moment, “that I’m with the family.”

  Stanley nods. He clears his throat. “If you really want to know what I was doing there,” he says, “I need to tell you about my daughter.”

  Tess is ashen when she emerges from the hospital room. Matthew goes over to her.

  “Did he cooperate?” he asks.

  She nods, not really looking at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he says.

  “He told me everything,” she says. Her voice is unsteady, almost cracking.

  “Did he tell you who’s behind this thing? Did he tell you who was giving the orders?” He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Tess?”

  She looks up at him. “Matthew…” she says, “how well do you think you know your parents.”

  He scoffs. What is she talking about? She couldn’t be suggesting that his parents were in any way responsible for what happened… could she? He stares at her in disbelief and confusion. And in her eyes—her worrying, pitying, and also slightly resentful expression—he sees the fault lines that threaten to divide his world into pieces.

  John wakes to a weight and pressure that are familiar even in this unfamiliar setting. He would know the feeling of his wife’s hand anywhere, her body beside him. He looks up. Val is sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Sweetie,” he says, “what are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” says Val.

  “You should be resting.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “If this is about what Dresden was saying—”

  “It is.”

  “—then I don’t need to know.”

  “Yes, you do,” she says.

  He knows the look she’s giving him.

  He knows that she won’t be going anywhere, no matter how much he protests. The truth is not so much that he doesn’t need to know. The truth is, he doesn’t want to know. He could guess the general shape of what she has to tell him. Even a woman as clever as Val can only keep things so well hidden over the course of a long marriage. But he decided long ago that it’s best if some things are never spoken aloud.

  “I don’t need you to do this,” he says.

  “That may be,” she says, “but I need to do this.” She strokes his hand, her fingers at first recoiling from his swollen knuckles, then settling on them as every part of her has settled on every part of him over the years.

  She takes a deep breath.

  When she has finished telling her story, they sit in silence for a long time. Beneath the ghastly swell of his knuckles, Val feels John’s fingers clenching into fists.

  “Does Clara know?” he says.

  She shakes her head.

  “Maybe we should tell her.”

  It is only when he says this that Val feels everything finally come loose, the elaborate artifice she’s built dissolving into air, the firmament collapsing. She is overcome with huge, heaving sobs, the kind of uncontrollable weeping that her mother had sternly reproached as unbecoming of a lady. For the first time in her memory, Val gives over to the tears.

  She clutches John’s hand, gently but earnestly. “I’m sorry,” she says.

  John nods but says nothing. He gazes at the ceiling without expression.

  “I lied to the intruders last night,” he says.

  “About what?”

  “They asked me about a lawsuit against SafeGuard Industries,” he says. “An attempted class action claiming that the design of one of our instruments had contributed to severe injuries to both infants and mothers.”

  He breathes deeply and steadily through his nose, as they encourage their yoga students to do.

  “It was all true,” John says. “Everything they alleged. Some women died. Some children were permanently handicapped. And it was our fault. We recalled the instruments, of course, as soon as we knew there was a problem. As soon as we were sure about it, at least. But the damage had been done.”

  Val squints at him. “Why didn’t I hear about this?”

  John chuckles ruefully. “Our contract with the hospitals included an arbitration clause that indemnified us against civil action. Patients were required to sign it prior to receiving care. So the lawsuit never got off the ground. The case went to arbitration, and they determined there was no liability on our part, in spite of the recall.”

  “But that’s not your fault. You didn’t know that—”

  “Yeah.” John nods, a far-off look in his eyes. “That’s what I told them last night. I said I didn’t really know anything about it, that my business partners and the lawyers handled the whole thing. But that wasn’t true. I knew. Maybe not every last detail, but I knew what was going on. It was…” His voice breaks. The muscles in his jaw go hard. Tears form in the corners of his eyes. “It was my fault. I let a dangerous product go to market, and people got hurt. And I failed to take responsibility.”

  There are tears running down the sides of John’s face. Val has never seen her husband like this.

  He continues. “Those people deserved their day in court. They deserved what they were asking for. And we refused them. We wouldn’t even sit down in the same room with them. Wouldn’t look them in the eye and tell them, yes, we did this to you. We are responsible. Or even that we were sorry for their loss. We let our lawyers handle it. Handle them. Dispatch them.” His voice cracks. “I understand it now. I understand why they did what they did to us. They just wanted someone to answer for what’s been done to them. That’s what this movement of theirs is all about.”

  Val can’t help but smile at this. “John,” she says, putting a hand on his arm, “don’t you understand? It was all made up. There is no movement.”

  He looks at her.

  “Well,” he says after a moment, “perhaps there ought to be.”

  The machines continue to whir and bleep, monitoring John’s vitals, as moonlight streams through the blinds, dividing their bodies into alternating bands of light and dark.

  Val strokes her husband’s arm.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gregory L. Beam is an actor, writer, and educator. His work for the stage includes Keepsake and The Bloody Romantic. Originally from Maine, he has lived in Chicago, Southern California, and Brooklyn. He currently resides with his family in El Paso, TX. Reclamation is his first novel.