Shatter My Rock

by Greta Nelsen

  * * *

  The bumpy start to our getaway smoothes as we imbibe a number of exotic cocktails Carson prepares at a patio bar. Drinks with names like Jade Monkey, Klondike Cooler, and Platinum Passion.

  Tim bounces Owen on his knee, laughs despite himself at one of Carson’s crass limericks, lets his fingers admit they love me when they brush my way.

  I reach across my chest to my shoulder, where I hold his hand hostage, make him know that, regardless of the tension between us, he is and always will be mine.

  “Hey, Ally!” Jenna calls, trying to draw my daughter, who seems poised to sprout a tail and fins, from the water’s edge. “The hot dogs are ready!”

  I have never been a fan of clams, the chewy, gooey consistency of them, but Jenna has steamed half a bushel of the things in some top-shelf German lager that causes them to melt when they hit my tongue. “These are delicious,” I say. “Where did you learn to cook like this?” My job leaves little time for domestic endeavors, which makes Jenna’s mastery of beachfront cuisine that much more impressive.

  With the beginning of a slur infecting his speech, Carson blurts, “Sissy never told you she was in the CIA?”

  Thinking this is a joke, I burst out laughing, which gets Tim going too. Only I’m wrong. “It’s true,” Jenna says. She tips a shell to her lips and slurps another of the delicacies down. “Between Wheaton and NYU, I took a year off. Thought I was gonna open a bistro in SoHo.”

  “For the CIA?” I ask, still confused.

  She smirks a little. “The Culinary Institute of America.”

  I roll my eyes at Carson, who could not be more delighted at the success of his trick. Then, offering my last two clams to Ally, I say, “Want to try?”

  There is adventure in my daughter, a zest for life I long ago lost or never possessed from the start. She accepts the plate and, with a twirl of her finger, peels a clam free and pops it into her mouth. “Yum.”

  I twist around to look at Tim, who is as obviously awed by Ally’s sophisticated palate as I am. “That a girl, Al,” he says, his voice welling with pride. “Never be afraid to try.” He snuggles Owen to his chest and, in a hopeful tone, says, “Ain’t that right, big guy?”

  There are many things Owen will never attempt, afraid or not: baseball, ice hockey, a first date, driving, college, children of his own. Things that make me ache to take him before he knows, before he tastes enough of life to learn its sweetness and its sorrow.

  Chapter 10

  There is an intimate marina two blocks from Seafarer Way that is leaps and bounds more insular than our neighborhood in Rhode Island could ever hope to be. At a private slip here, the Dearborns dock their yacht, Lucy in the Sky.

  “Oh my God!” Ally says as we round the corner, marveling at the twinkle lights that adorn every available inch of the fifteen or so boats in view.

  “It’s pretty, huh?” I say. “And look at the water.” For all the sparkle above, the twilight ocean stuns on a different level, its surface akin to a bowl of diamonds in the midday sun.

  For once, Tim has relinquished the reins to Owen, entrusted me with his care. But still I need him. “Can you…?” I say. I balance Owen on my hip and extend a hand in Tim’s direction. My foothold on the dock is strong, but I am loath to make the leap from land to sea without him.

  Instead of simply appeasing me with a steady hand, Tim backtracks until he has one foot in the boat and one foot out. “Come here,” he urges, happier than I remember him in a long, long time.

  I inch forward, put my faith in his smile and the strength of his arms. With a little hop, he helps me straddle the ocean and land safely on deck. As he repeats the performance for Ally, I stare down at a dangerous little space between the dock and the boat, a spot where a child’s skull could easily crush, his lungs suffocate.

  I know I’ve stared too long when Jenna beckons, “Hey, Claire! Check this out!” I follow the echo of her voice and the rhythmic slap of Ally’s flip-flops below deck, where I find Carson sprawled across a leather sectional that faces what can only be described as a movie screen. “Nice, huh?” Jenna asks as my jaw sags.

  There is a cocky grin so fixed on Carson’s face that it has begun to wear a path. “Wow,” I say, even though I itch to downplay. “How fun.” I steal a glance at Ally, who has wandered ahead to the galley and brazenly flung open the refrigerator. “Any Disney flicks on tap?” I wonder.

  Ally perks up, eases the refrigerator shut and meanders back our way. She nibbles at her lip and cautiously asks, “Do you have Beauty and the Beast?”

  I want to laugh but don’t. Beauty and the Beast has been Ally’s favorite for the last three years, ostensibly because Belle is an avid reader, like Ally. But I am more inclined to believe that, at eleven years old, my daughter is infatuated with the film’s love story above all else.

  Jenna frowns, creaks open a cabinet below the movie screen and paws around. “How about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” she offers in an upbeat tone, holding out the DVD for Ally’s approval.

  There is no doubt of Ally’s disappointment, but she covers well. “That might be good,” she says with only the slightest hint of a shrug. She takes the DVD from Jenna. “Thanks.”

  She curls up on the floor and studies the DVD case, while I join Tim on the far end of the sofa, beyond Carson’s reach. No sooner do I slide Owen to Tim’s lap than Jenna slips one of those German lagers into my hand and prods, “Drink up. We’re in for the night.” I furrow my brow and she grins. “We bunk on the boats every Memorial Day, to ring in the summer.”

  “Is that why it’s so loud out here?” asks Tim.

  I may not have posed the question so directly, but Tim is right: This cozy little marina has the sound of a frat party on the eve of a big game.

  Carson lets out a snort. “Come on,” he implores, in a tone that more resembles a demand than a request. “Relax.”

  Tim chuckles as if the debauchery has ceased to bother him; meanwhile, Jenna shuffles Ally to a built-in entertainment system in the corner, where the pair fiddle with a DVD player for a bit before figuring how to spark the movie to life.

  “Yay!” Ally squeals with a clap of her hands, the image of Audrey Hepburn exiting a taxi at Tiffany & Co. developing into view on the gigantic screen.

  An impressed reaction percolates in me but is squelched by the sight of Carson, who has abandoned the sofa for the mini-bar, where he upends a fifth of Rémy Martin, substitutes his gaping mouth for a rocks glass. He gulps once, twice, three times, and then drags the back of his hand across his face, the signature move of every soused hillbilly wife-beater in a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.

  He catches me looking and says, “Fifty bucks a shot.” If he were a peacock, his plumage would be on full display. “First one’s on me.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I say, unwilling to even humor him.

  But soon I do drink, and aggressively so. Five-hundred dollars worth of French cognac raging its way through my bloodstream and my mind. Enough liquor that I may require a stomach pump. Or a morgue.

  Tim has fared better than I have, his sobriety intact enough to allow him to care for Owen until he settles for the night in the forward stateroom. Ally lost the battle with sleep shortly before midnight, her stringy hair draped over her fluttering eyes, her willowy frame assuming the fetal position on an oversized floor pillow.

  With a little stagger in her step, Jenna pecks around the salon collecting empty bottles and stray trash, the remnants of a good time had by all. “You guys need anything?” she asks, as she clangs the bottles against one another in the sink. Her face contorts in an ugly yawn. “I’m fried.”

  My head is in Tim’s lap, poised to indulge his most carnal desire—or my own. “We’re good,” I mumble in Jenna’s direction, without care for whether she hears.

  Absently, Tim fingers my hair, loses himself to the din of revelry outside that has just begun to die down. “Ready for bed?” he asks in a tender whisper.

  I close my eye
s, and when I open them again, I see only the empty Rémy Martin bottle standing in judgment, the distinctive gold centaur on its label reflecting in the heavy glass of the coffee table. A double I-told-you-so. “What time is it?” I think I say, my mouth suddenly taking on the feel of cotton and glue.

  Tim muscles an arm around my shoulder and hoists me upright, where the room does a little spin. He chuckles faintly. “Are you okay?”

  I notice that, but for Ally asleep on the floor, we are alone; Jenna and Carson have retired. I nod, focus on Tim’s lips and lurch ahead. His mouth tastes like mud and honey. Organic. Sensual. Sweeter than I remember. “I love you,” I tell him, hoping he reads the declaration as both an affirmation and a call to action.

  And he does.

  The salon is already quite dark, but he pulls away just long enough to extinguish a wall lantern. Now only the twinkle lights and the moon retain the power to guide us.

  Tim sinks to his knees, shoots me a lurid grin that goes ragged on one side. And again I think of college, dwell in the moment that I stole his heart—and his virginity. “You’re so bad,” I tease, even though we have yet to do anything. “What about Ally?”

  He doesn’t bother looking, brushes my concern aside. “She’ll be fine.”

  A sober Claire would hardly risk a sexual encounter mere feet from her sleeping child, but such a version of me vanished three hours ago at the bottom of a Rémy Martin bottle; Tim’s sensible half was lost to imported beer and the gentle rocking of Lucy in the Sky.

  I peel my top over my head, revealing the tired breasts that, only two months ago, gave up trying to nourish Owen and became mine again.

  Tim comes out of his pants, then his boxers. He stares at me with adoration. I touch him and he touches back. Before long, we are in the thick of it, that place where, even if Ally rises and crosses her arms over her chest, taps one of us on the shoulder and frowns disapprovingly, we will not stop. This is how I love him, I will tell her. And how he loves me.

  * * *

  When I wake to Owen’s muffled cries, I know not how I made it to bed, my naked back flush with Tim’s bare chest, a nautical-themed quilt twisted between us. I slip off to tend the baby, soothe him to silence so Tim can rest. “Shh…” I whistle as I hoist him from the hand-woven basket Jenna has been so gracious as to provide. I nuzzle his cheek to mine. “It’s okay.”

  He continues to fuss and gurgle enough that I am forced to flee the stateroom for the chilled, salty air above, where I hope a soft lullaby, even sung in my undulating, tone-deaf attempt at a mezzo-soprano, will squelch his restlessness and allow me back to bed.

  I hike the few steps I must with Owen hanging off the front of me, my hands clasped behind his bottom like a sling, my exposed top half an afterthought that becomes relevant only when my chest meets the night.

  The aft deck is still, secluded, silent, even the diehard partiers having surrendered to exhaustion and common sense. I pull Owen closer, lower us to a seated position on a bank of vinyl cushions, tuck a real pillow—the non-waterproof kind Jenna must have brought from home—behind my back.

  Despite the weeks of strict bottle feeding, Owen grabs for my breast, urges a meal. When I stopped breastfeeding in March, he was still free of teeth, his rigid gums the harshest threat to my sand-papered nipples. Now he has a tooth and the nub of another. And my milk is gone.

  But I let him try. “Easy there,” I caution as he suckles with the eagerness of an inmate on a conjugal visit.

  I don’t want to think of Eric Blair, but I do, Owen’s sloped nose and elfin ears stark reminders of what has been done to him. To us. “I love you,” I tell him anyway, because it’s true. And because it’s my last chance.

  I feel the seizure coming before it hits, the nerve endings of my nipple as jumpy as the pen of a seismograph. A moment too soon, he stiffens, jerks, makes my breast the equivalent of a bite-block wedged in a patient’s jaw for electroconvulsive therapy.

  My first horror is physical, a reaction to my own pain. Then mental, for the stress on Owen, a destructive force he has failed to earn. The spiritual horror comes thick and weighty, a dark curtain separating thought from action, weakness from strength, life from death. I must do it, I think. It’s time.

  I am a stagehand hovering in the wings, a taut rope in my grip, preparing to draw the tragedy of Owen closed. And so I give a little tug.

  AFTER

  Chapter 11

  I wait until the sun gnaws at the sky to shine a light on what I have done, and even this is too soon. With a clumsy nudge of Tim’s shoulder, I begin. “Wake up.” My voice is raspy from crying while trying not to.

  Tim rolls left, a slow smile creeping across his lips, and squints lovingly at me. “Hey.”

  I have turned a thousand phrases over in my mind, but none equal the task. “Something happened.”

  Owen’s giraffe-print baby blanket remains crumpled in the end of the basket, where it catches my eye. Catches and refuses to release. “What is it?” asks Tim, the dread in me seeping into him.

  I keep my eyes on the blanket. “There was an accident,” I tell him sideways, allowing the panic in my voice to rise. “It’s Owen. He…”

  Tim swings his legs over the side of the bed, bolts to his feet and rushes past me. But the basket is empty. “Where…?” he tries to ask, his palm clamped to his temple, his fingers buried in his newly salt-and-peppered hair. “What…?”

  “He fell.”

  In an incredulous, exasperated tone, he repeats, “He fell?”

  I swallow hard, pin my lip under my teeth and nod.

  His gaze darts around, finds nothing. “What the hell, Claire? Where the fuck is the baby?”

  I don’t plan to do it this way, but my body decides for me. With a soft tremor, my hand goes to my mouth, covers it and muffles the sounds. “The water.”

  Tim’s eyes turn wild; his nostrils flare. Roughly, he jerks my arm away from my face. “What?”

  My gaze meets his; I whisper, “The water.”

  He says not another word, stumbles over his shoes as he spins past the end of the bed and tears up the stairs.

  I should stop him before he gets too far gone, lathers himself into a frenzy. There is nothing he can do for Owen now. Nothing anyone can. But there is flat numbness in me that undercuts action, makes me sink into the quilt and sob silently, my eyes pinched shut, my knees drawn to my chest, my spine curled in the upswing of a rocking motion.

  * * *

  The state police dive team goes into the water less than an hour later, which I know only from the sounds: the gruff voices of strange men, all business in their thick New England accents; air tanks clapping against one another on the dock, a cacophony of high-pitched ringing sounds lingering in their wakes; the easy splash of a body to the sea, then another.

  But I cannot rip myself from this bed, witness what my hands have wrought. Not now, not ever. Yet Jenna wants me to. “Claire,” she says in the tender tone grownups use to soothe small children. “Ally’s looking for you.”

  When the police arrived, I gave the briefest of statements to a female deputy from this very spot, and that is the most I intend to do. With my eyes still shut, I mutter, “I can’t.”

  “They’ll find him. It’ll be okay.”

  I know not whether she is ignorant or simply delusional with hope; an infant in the ocean, regardless of how he came to be there, would surely die in minutes. Owen has been gone much longer. I say nothing, shake my head and wish she would leave, pray for an earth-sized asteroid to vaporize us all, post-haste.

  She eases into bed with me, pats my shoulder and sniffles. “They need you.”

  I think she means Tim and Ally, but she could just as easily be referring to the police. “I can’t,” I say again. And I mean it literally.

  She skims her fingers along the edge of my hairline, tucks my tangled mane behind my ear in a way that is as intimate as any lovemaking I’ve had with Tim. “Get some rest, honey,” she tells me, already giving
up on the idea of prodding me above deck. “They’ll understand.”

  Again, the object of her reference is ambiguous, but it hardly seems to matter; she is dead wrong. Not a soul on earth will make sense of the nightmare I have set in motion, even the make-believe version. And that’s the only version that will ever pass my lips. I manage the weakest kind of grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  It’s not long after Jenna exits the stateroom that Tim takes her place. As I expect, he comprehends nothing. “They can’t find him,” he tells me, blind rage simmering beneath his controlled façade. When he learns what I have done, the whole brutal extent of it, he may avenge Owen’s death by returning the favor to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, because it’s the only thing I can think to say.

  Tim keeps his distance, paces as much as he can in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. “What happened?”

  I want to believe he will forgive me, even if I lay the facts bare. But this is too much to ask of any man. “I was woozy.”

  “Drunk, you mean?”

  “Not any more than you were.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “He was crying,” I say. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I took him above deck for some air.”

  He studies the way my lips move as if they may betray me. “And he fell? How did he fall? When did he fall?”

  I was once a superb liar, but I’m out of practice. “It was wet,” I say, the obvious answer. “I slipped, and he…”

  “Fell overboard?”

  I nod, blink back a well of tears, open my mouth to say something but make only a little sucking gasp.

  Tim asks, “What did you tell the cops?”

  “That I slipped, and Owen fell.”

  “That’s it?”