Speak Softly, She Can Hear

by Pam Lewis

Will scootched the furniture forward, pushing the couch with Rachel and Dylan on it, and moving the two ratty green armchairs and a couple of smaller wooden chairs into a tight semicircle in front of the fireplace. Morgan swept up the mouse droppings and chunks of mortar that were always coming loose from the walls. The room warmed quickly and was fragrant with fire and must. Eddie watched the women take off their parkas and sweaters. Sly but apparent to Carole was the way he settled down on the couch beside Rachel and peered in to watch Dylan at Rachel’s breast.

  Rachel pulled away, covering the nursing baby with her clothing. She shot Carole a warning glance. I know who he is now, her look said. She shook her head, frowning.

  Just then, Morgan and Will brought in food. They laid platters of bread and cheese and bowls of soup on the rickety table behind the circle of chairs and sofas, but Carole was still looking at Rachel, who was looking back at her with a take-no-prisoners expression. Eddie got up to help himself, to be first in line. Carole had lost her appetite. Rachel took the plate of food Morgan brought to her, then looked again at Carole.

  “I can explain,” Carole said in just a whisper. “There’s more to it than it looks.”

  But Rachel was not about to wait this one out. “Pepper,” she said, “does Eddie remind you of somebody?”

  Pepper shook his head.

  “Say, Eddie,” she said. “Take a good look at my son.”

  “We’re not going on,” Will broke in. By now everyone was squeezed into the circle, their plates on their laps. “It’s too risky with the baby. With Dylan. And we were getting sloppy out there. People aren’t keeping an eye on the ones behind. Me included, I guess.”

  “I got cold waiting all the time,” Naomi said in a thin little whine. She was the only one on the floor, wedged in between Eddie’s knees. She finished off her glass of wine, and Eddie leaned forward, picked up the bottle, and filled her glass again.

  “Something you ought to know about alcohol,” Will said. “It makes blood come to the surface of the body, so you cool off faster. You don’t want to mess with it if you’re going to be in wilderness.”

  “But we’re all cozy inside,” Naomi said, as though Will was nuts.

  Will shrugged in annoyance at her. “We’ll try to get some sleep after we eat,” he said.

  “I was speaking!” Rachel practically shouted out the words, and the others stopped eating and looked at her.

  “Rach,” Carole said, extending a hand as if to stave off a blow. “Maybe we can talk about this later, just the two of us.”

  Rachel ignored her. “I believe I asked Eddie to take a good look at Pepper. At his forehead, in particular.”

  “Rachel!” Pepper covered the scar with his hand. “Cut it out.”

  “What’s going on?” Naomi said. “What are we talking about?”

  “Your boyfriend here gave Pepper that scar,” Rachel said. “In San Francisco. He was four years old, and the love of your life threw him against a countertop and split open his forehead, and then he took off like the coward he is. I’m right, aren’t I? Carole? Tell everybody. I’m right about this.”

  Naomi craned her neck to see Eddie. “You never told me you saw Carole in San Francisco.”

  Eddie leaned his head against the back of the couch, his eyes shut.

  “I can explain it, Rachel,” Carole said. “Please.”

  But Rachel was having none of it. “I asked you back there before we started and you didn’t have the decency to tell me. You might as well have lied to my face. You did lie. You’ve been lying for weeks just by keeping quiet.” She looked at Will. “Did you know about this? Who he is? Did she tell you?”

  Will had settled on the wide arm of Carole’s chair. He looked down at her and then at Rachel and shook his head. “No,” he said. “She didn’t.”

  “I recognized the voice when we were skiing,” Rachel said, looking right at Eddie, who opened his eyes and stared at her. “There was something familiar about you, but then it was dark in the kitchen in San Francisco and you look different now. Fatter, for one thing. But your voice, you bastard. It was you.”

  Eddie’s face filled with loathing. “Christ,” he said, slow as syrup. “You’re that bitch that spat on me.”

  “And I’ll spit again,” Rachel said, getting up. “In a heartbeat.” Morgan held her back.

  “You never told me you went to see Carole,” Naomi said.

  “I was passing through,” Eddie said. “After ’Nam. I dropped in to say hello.”

  “And you.” Rachel directed her fury at Carole. “You knew it was him all this time. You let him come in here.” She motioned around to the others, to the cabin. “When you knew what he did.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carole said.

  “Sorry?” Rachel bellowed as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “Sorry is all you can say? What the hell does that even mean? If I hadn’t figured it out, you weren’t going to say anything. Am I right?”

  Carole nodded. She owed Rachel that much. She looked at everyone in turn; they were all watching her. “I wanted them to leave,” she said to Rachel. “I tried to talk Naomi out of coming in the first place. You know I did. I didn’t want them on this trip. I went about it all wrong. I should have told you who he was, I know.”

  “But we were a family here, Carole. At least I thought we were. The six of us. You and me and Will and Morgan and the kids. Family. But I was wrong about that, because you let this monster in the fold and not just once but twice.”

  “Wait just a second,” Naomi said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Rachel said.

  Carole glanced at Will, but his expression was unreadable. She was too ashamed to look at anybody else. There was nothing to say. No explanation.

  “I guess that’s it for us,” Rachel said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Look at me, Carole.” Carole looked up. “Shame on you,” Rachel told her.

  She lay wide-eyed, watching the fire die down. Pepper had the couch. Morgan, Dylan, and Rachel were the heap below him on the floor. Everybody had gone to their corners without any more discussion, slinking away, afraid to say more. Naomi and Eddie were by the window. Will was at Carole’s side, lying on his back. She waited until she was sure everyone was asleep before getting up. She couldn’t sleep. She might never sleep again.

  She slipped on her boots, wrapped a blanket around herself, and tiptoed to the door to the deck. Someone had shoveled a path to the railing, and beyond that the hill was smooth, broken only by ski tracks. It was breathtaking and bitter cold. The moon was just behind some thin clouds. She’d done the unforgivable, keeping Eddie’s identity from Rachel. Shame on you. There would be no restoring the friendship. Rachel was dead right about what she’d done.

  She didn’t hear the door open behind her, and she jumped when a thick hand covered her mouth. “Just shut up,” he said.

  She pulled at his hand, but he wouldn’t yield.

  “Now look what the fuck you’ve gone and done,” he said.

  The feel of him, the smell of him so close, made her sick. He let go but pressed her against the railing. “You and I have to get a couple of things straight.” She looked back at the cabin, afraid the door would open and Will would find her with Eddie. It looked like an embrace. “That stunt your friend pulled tonight. You talk to her. You straighten it out.”

  “What do you think I can do? Tell Rachel she’s wrong? She’s not stupid. She remembered you.” She felt exhausted.

  “She’s a walking freak show, that one. Tell her something. Make it right. Settle the thing. And talk to Naomi. That’s the main thing. She thinks I went out there to see you.”

  “You did.”

  “You tell her what really happened. That it was you bird-dogging me and not the other way around. You who asked me. You gave me the address, capisce?”

  “Me bird-dogging you? Oh, please.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “I just lost my best friend. God knows what Will’s going to
do, and you want me to care about Naomi? That’s a joke. Did you take a good look at that scar? Did you see what you did to him? We had to take him up to the hospital for stitches. He was just a little kid.”

  “She spat at me,” he said, as if it justified not just that but a whole lot of worse things. He was crazy. She’d always known it. He was missing something. A conscience. That was it. He wasn’t all there. “So just do what I say, Carole. Like you always do.” He twisted the flesh at the back of her neck, and she yelped, her cry cutting the night air. Both of them were silent to see if anyone came to the door to see what was going on. “Holy shit,” Eddie said, laughing softly and letting her go. “You were scared just then, weren’t you? Scared that somebody would hear you and come out and find the two of us together. Hell. You’re not going to yell, are you? And you’re going to do what I tell you.”

  She looked away to the hill of smooth, unbroken snow.

  “You’ll do it, Carole, because you always do what Eddie says.” His breath was foul, soaked in sleep. “You talk a good game. You strut around like you’ve got the world by the balls, but I know better.” His voice lowered an octave. “All you really know how to do is roll over and spread your legs. Since you were sixteen years old. Since you were taught by old Eddie. Right?”

  The moon was sliding behind the trees on a spear of cloud.

  “You ever tell Sambo about what happened?” His fingers tapped her neck lightly, traveled up to her chin and down again. “I asked you a question.”

  “No.”

  “But you told that freak show, right? Girlfriend to girlfriend.”

  “No.”

  He tightened his grasp on her. “Fix it,” he said. “Make up a story she believes, then invite Naomi over, you know? Confide in her. Like you used to do when you were in school. You dig?” He turned to go back inside, but then stopped and faced her. “I mean it. No more surprises.” Then he went inside. The deck, brittle with cold, groaned noisily under his footsteps. She stood in the chill, watching the door close behind him. She felt weak, her heart thundering. She waited until she was sure Eddie was gone before she made her way back across the deck to the door and tiptoed to where Will lay. As quietly as she could she lay down beside him, but when she reached for the blanket, she saw that his eyes were wide open and he was staring at her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One by one, they dragged themselves out of the warmth of their dusty old blankets and took up the chairs that were still around the fire, nobody speaking. Carole escaped to the kitchen to put a bucket of snow on the stove to boil and to heat some of the food from the night before that would serve as breakfast. She hadn’t slept at all, and she was dreading the morning.

  She was afraid of having to face Rachel. Shame on you kept ringing in her ears. Or Will. She took a deep breath and pulled her attention toward the task at hand, the food. Something she knew how to do. She spread an oilcloth over the table, smoothing it carefully so there were no ripples in it. When the water on the stove came to a boil, she poured some of it into a tub and rewashed the dishes from the night before, which still had bits of food and grease on them. Naomi’s work. She set the food to warm in a makeshift double boiler on the stove. Everybody was leaving her alone in here. Nobody came in to help or even to talk.

  When everything was ready, she took the food out and laid it on the table in the main room, not looking at the others. “Breakfast” was all she said. They got up like a bunch of zombies. It looked as though no one had slept. They were in line, helping themselves in silence, when Pepper dropped the bomb.

  “They got married,” he said. “Eddie and Naomi got married.”

  “We were going to announce it ourselves, thank you very much,” Naomi said.

  “Maybe you can still get it annulled,” Rachel said to Naomi, her voice dull.

  Naomi let it go. “Last week. Justice of the peace. Eddie didn’t want anything big and flashy. Just the two of us, and Zoë to stand up for me.” She looked around, her eyes glassy. “Eddie has such great plans for the house,” she said. “A study he can use. Maybe even a studio out in back.”

  “And a place in the islands,” Eddie said, getting up and heading into the kitchen. “So we can get away in the winter, right, babe?” He came back with a half-full bottle of red wine. “Calls for a toast.”

  “None of that,” Will said. “We still have the trip to finish, and I don’t want anybody drinking.”

  “Just a little sip,” Eddie said.

  “I said no,” Will said. “And I’m in charge here.”

  Eddie poured a glass for Naomi and handed it to her.

  “You drink that, you’re not on the trip,” Will said to her. “You can get back to the road on your own, the both of you.”

  Naomi put the glass down. “Isn’t anybody going to even congratulate us?” she said. “Carole?”

  “Yeah, Carole,” Eddie said. “Aren’t you going to congratulate us?”

  Naomi came to life then, as if she’d just woken up. She threw her arms around Carole’s neck and let herself hang there for a moment as dead weight until Carole pulled herself free. “Aren’t you happy for me?” Naomi said. “Please be happy for me. I hope you’re not jealous.” She turned to Morgan and Will, who were standing together. “You boys going to kiss the bride?” She reached up to Will the way she had to Carole and kissed him full on the lips before he pulled away, and she went on to Morgan and then to Pepper, who at ten was more her own height, and kissed him in a way that must have been brand new to him. Eddie stood apart watching as his bride went from one man to the next, and he was pleased as hell. Carole could tell how pleased he was, as though he’d bagged a big one. Pudgy face trying to contain the size of his smile. That was her impression, and that’s what she said to Will later, after they’d skied down the rest of the way and arrived at the cars. “He’s done it this time,” she seethed, watching them pull away. “That son of a bitch.”

  Will said nothing. He stopped for the mail at the bottom of their driveway and handed it to her. She sat with it in her lap as the car labored up the hill to the house, slipping and sliding. She remembered Will’s open eyes in the dark. “Look, I went to the deck because I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “He followed me.”

  “You were out there a long time.”

  “He wants me to be nicer to Naomi,” she said.

  “I asked you once how Pepper got that scar,” he said. “You told me it was a fight, that Pepper got in the way. Didn’t you think it mattered that that son of a bitch was the one who did it? And let’s see. ‘I met him briefly.’ I think that’s how you put it. But now it turns out he came looking for you in San Francisco. Or you went looking for him, depending on who you believe. That doesn’t sound like briefly to me.”

  All during the unpacking and putting away of their gear, Will didn’t say another word. She put the food into the refrigerator and emptied her pack, hanging the ski clothes in the closet by the front door. When she’d finished, she sat down at the dining room table to go through the mail, anything to stay busy right now. It was standard stuff. Some catalogs and a few bills. But there was also a long white envelope. She stared at it for several moments.

  It was addressed to her in an old spidery handwriting. In the upper-left corner was the name Conrad Mason and an address in Albany. She took a knife from the drawer, slit it open, and took out a single sheet of thin blue paper. The letter was typed, but there were cross-outs and words written in the margins. She knew the handwriting instantly.

  My dear Carole,

  First, I don’t mean to alarm you with this letter. Do not think that I write from my deathbed. To the contrary, I am in good health.

  I know that Naomi has been in touch with you. She telephoned me last year to ask your whereabouts, and I gave them to her on condition that she be in touch once she had spoken to you. She has written several times since. I’m pleased that you two have reestablished the friendship you once had and pleased that I played some small part i
n your reunion. This renewed connection to Naomi is what gives me the wherewithal to write.

  I shall tell you something of my life now. I remarried after your mother died. Gloria and I lived in New York, in the Sixty-second Street apartment, until I left my practice and we moved here to Albany to be close to family.

  Gloria has two sons and now six grandchildren, all of whom live nearby. They are lovely children, a joy to us both. We travel a good deal. Gloria shares my interest in geology and we have spent many wonderful days in the world’s faraway places examining rocks and caves, even the edges of sleeping volcanoes!

  Often in our travels, the conversation among people our age turns to our children. I have been surprised at how many of these strangers’ children left as you did. They ran away from home or disappeared into cities and communes in the 1960s. Gloria’s sons too disappeared into Europe and broke contact for a time. I tell you this only because it’s so much on my mind. The heartbreak, however, is that those young people came home again, and you did not.

  Over the years, I have known your whereabouts. I hired someone to find you, to report to me where you were living and with whom. You did little to erase yourself. Over the years, I’ve received his reports, consoling myself that you were alive and surrounded by others. I know we both disappointed each other. Your abrupt departure from your mother’s memorial service and subsequent flight came as an additional blow. I had thought we were on the way to mending the rift between us. I was mistaken.

  I don’t expect fondness or affection from you. I’m beyond that, but I wonder if you will consent to see me. I would like to talk to you. No one else remains from that time. Not even your aunt Emily, who died last September in a convalescent home.

  Gloria thinks the time to respect privacy is long over. Perhaps she’s correct that it is my right, my duty, to see you regardless. And there is the money as well. I suspect that money holds no interest for you, judging from the life you lead, but you should know that you are of course entitled to a share of your mother’s and my estate. If I should die, you would be contacted by Gloria. So, you see, one way or another there will be contact. I prefer it to be now, while I am alive.