In the Midst of the Sea

by Sean McCarthy

  Not until he was standing there right in front of him. He hesitated a moment. Taller than Ford on the threshold, and then he smiled.

  “Well, look who it is,” he said. “The prodigal son.”

  38

  May 16, 1872

  It is my third week straight residing in the cellar. Hiram has engaged in no more outbursts and he brings me food both in the morning, and late in the afternoon. Sometimes, he sits atop of the old cider barrel and quietly speaks to me. Keeping me down here is the only way he can protect me, he has said. The darkness is gathering, he says. Hiram’s eyes, in the shadows of the cellar, look even more empty than before, and his odor has grown strong, his beard long and unruly. He truly appears to be a man who has lost his way. But the only thing that fills the emptiness is the rage, and of the two Hirams, I would certainly prefer to see the former. He learned that Paschal Randolph will once again be returning to the island, and he has been researching the man, he has told me.

  The cellar is damp, and the mice are always about, rats. Hiram caught one beneath his foot just two days back, and pressed it with his heel, the little creature screeching all the while, as he flattened it to the floor. When he had finished, he lifted it by its tail, and tossed it to the well. I wonder if he has forgotten that we drink that water. I wonder if he cares.

  May 23, 1872

  Hiram attended Mr. Randolph’s performance. He spoke to me about it. How he took a seat at the back of theater, dressed in all black, so as not to call attention to himself, for if anyone saw him there, recognized him, they would know that a man like himself who walked with Christ would not attend such a spectacle for entertainment purposes. They would know, he said, that he was there for one reason and one reason alone—to call out the Devil. “And call him out, I did,” he told me. “The heathen was but ten minutes into his ‘performance,’” he said, “calling forth the demons, the damned, to pose as spirits of the loved ones of the pitiful souls in attendance, when I stood and exposed him for what he is, what he was doing. I saw Satan shining in his eyes, and I called him out.” Hiram raised a clenched fist. “There was an astonished gasp from the audience, and this man, this Mr. Randolph, called me forward. He said I stood in the shadows, and that he needed me to come forward so that he could see me in the light. So, ‘The light of the Devil is no light at all!’ I told him, and then he was silent a moment. And then he began to quote Scripture. Revelations 1:18. ‘I am he that liveth,’ he said, ‘and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.’”

  “But if he could quote Scripture,” I said to him, “doesn’t that tell you anything?” I was very hungry, and I did not want to upset him, but I still held out a small hope that I could reach him, reason with him. But Hiram just glared at me. “The Devil knows his scripture. He must, for it is Scripture that defines him. It realizes him in all his wickedness for all the world to see. It would not surprise me if this man Randolph could recite Revelations forwards and backwards all the while salivating on his moment. No, that meant little to me at all, except to confirm what I already knew, but still I came forward to face him, standing in the middle aisle, and right then and there, he shut his eyes, held out his hand as if casting a spell, and he tried to read me. Me? Can you imagine that, Elizabeth? This man in all his wretchedness tried to read me! As if he could penetrate the barrier of godliness that surrounds me! And you know what he read? Do you know what he received?!”

  “What?” I asked quietly.

  “Nothing. Not a thing! He did not even try to pretend, did not make up any messages from spirits of the people who loved me, no words of wisdom. Nothing!”

  And that, I thought, is because even the dead do not wish to be near you, my dear husband. For you have no soul for them to comfort. But of course, this I could not say. Not without risking being hurt and left to rot here on the cellar floor.

  “After a moment he stopped, and took two steps back, and then he took a slight bow and apologized, both to me and the audience. He had met his match, Elizabeth, and he knew it. I shouted at him then. I called him out for what he is. A sinner and a sorcerer. A spawn of the Devil working his misgivings here upon our beautiful little island. Luring people in to convince them that what he says, what he hears, is real, and convincing them to follow him. Follow him right into the fiery pits of hell itself! And follow him, they would have, had I not been there to save them! Had I not banished him from the theater, from the island itself!”

  After a moment, he wiped his forehead, and took a seat on the chair beside the well. He took a moment to catch his breath.

  “I should have followed him,” he said at last. “I should have made sure he was gone for good—even if it meant taking the wretched demon’s life, for there can only be virtue in extinguishing evil—but there was much commotion, people standing, looking about, and all talking at once. A few people demanded their money back, and a few turned to blame me. Me. They asked why I had disrupted the performance. One of the men, a man I did not recognize, grabbed me by my sleeve, and it was all I could do to refrain from striking out at him. But refrain I did, and I told him the truth—I had done what I had done for him, and for the others, and for … you. My beautiful little lamb led so far astray. And do you know what this man did?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “He spat on my shoe, and told me I was mad. Mad? Can you imagine that, Elizabeth? Mad? Me. Here I stood, brimming with the goodness of our Lord and Savior, and this man would call me mad.” Hiram took another breath, chuckled a little. He shut his eyes as if drifting off into prayer, and then when he opened them he took out his handkerchief, and leaned over to polish the toe of his shoes. He has never liked the cellar for the dirt and the dust.

  “I wish you hadn’t brought this all upon us,” he told me, “forcing me to keep you safe and secure, for if not we could keep clean of both clothes and soul.” He paused after he said this. “And you, my good wife, I fear are clean of neither. I wish I did not have to walk alone. I wish it could be like the days gone past when you would march beside and behind me, head high as we spoke his words, but how can you march beside me when my trust in you has been shattered? There must be a solution, and yet though I lie in bed at night, curtained in the darkness, I can’t conclude what it is. Tell me, Elizabeth, he said, do you know what it is?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Well, we must pray on it, the two of us. Pray for an answer to restore your virtue.” He paused after he said this, and then he asked me to raise my dress. Ordering me to bend over and turn around, supporting myself with my hands on the well. He began to pray and then he removed his belt and smacked it hard against my bottom, my flesh immediately wincing beneath the sting. He struck me again, and then put his hands on my hips, repositioning me, and then he struck me a third time. All the while talking, not to me and not to himself, talking as if there were someone else in the room. Whispers turning to shouts and then turning to nonsense, and then as always, invoking the name of the Lord.

  I have not eaten now for several days. I only have water from the well—thank our Lord for the well—and I don’t know how long that will be able to sustain me. I fear Hiram has left the island, and I cannot be sure how long he will be gone. There could be a storm, he could have had an accident. An accident would be befitting him now, but as no one knows I am here, and it would truly be the end of me unless I can find a way to get out the door. And even if I do? Then what? If and when he does return, I would surely feel the strength of his wrath, and his wickedness. Yes, wicked. For there is no longer any doubt in my head that I have married a wicked, wicked man, and the sanity of whom I question with each living breath. He has gone in search of Mr. Randolph, I fear, following him on the circuit. He says he will demand answers concerning what transpired between the two of us, and I fear both what he will do if he receives them, and what he will do if he does not. I only wish there was a way to warn the man ahead of time, that he could receive messages from t
he living as well as the dead.

  39

  Toby was sweating harder than Ford. Panting, too. Fogging up the windows inside the car. He was talking, babbling. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck was that about? The guy is almost sixty years old for chrissakes. You might have killed him.” But Ford could barely hear him, the voice distant, detached—he was still in the zone. The whole night had shut down around him. The car lights, streetlights, everything distant and small.

  Ford could still see his father, lying on the floor. It only took two swings with the bat—he could still hear the crack as it hit the old man’s skull—to get him on the floor, and then he was swinging some more, the bat raised over his head, and kicking him as hard as he could. The old man had tried deflecting the blows at first, but then he had stopped, his eyes rolling back in his head, and blood trickling from his eye socket, and from his ear. Ford could have finished it for sure right then, once and for all, but then Toby was suddenly in the house, yelling, and pulling Ford backward. He pushed him across the yard, and then into the car, the old man still flat on the floor, bleeding in the yellow light behind them, soaked in the smell of sewerage, and then Toby slammed the car into drive, sped off down the road. Lighting a cigarette, still babbling.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “What’s wrong with you? I think you might have killed him, Ford. Jesus Christ. He might die. Your father.”

  Ford had no answers for him, but when Toby got out at his house, Ford smiled a little and leaned over and kissed him. Once on the cheek. Toby didn’t move. “You’re fucked up,” he had said again, and then he shook his head. “You need help.”

  Ford laughed. “Fuck you,” he said. “I love you.”

  He bought a bottle of Jim Beam and rented a room off 495. The road was doubling before him, and he knew it wouldn’t be good to try and get all the way back to Woods Hole, never mind Oak Bluffs. And he needed to get back in one piece. His family needed him.

  40

  Diana met Michael the following Friday at the bed-and-breakfast, her heart pounding as she climbed the stairs to the porch, rang the doorbell. There was something about meeting him that made her feel both excited and guilty. He was a painter, an artist, and he was painting her. Nothing more. He didn’t think of it as anything more, and neither did she—she had to believe that. She was married. But did she want it to be more? She had been thinking about him since that day at Ocean Park, then and before, their meeting at the B&B. But it couldn’t be wrong just to think, to daydream. She had to convince herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but she hadn’t told Ford where she was going. Of course she couldn’t tell Ford—he’d lose his mind. He was sleeping again when she left. Had come home at seven and started drinking. Passed out cold by nine thirty, so she guessed he wouldn’t wake again until close to supper. She hoped. It was dark inside the house, and for a moment she heard nothing, almost turned and walked away. But then the door opened, and Michael stepped aside to let her in. There was a light on in the kitchen, but she couldn’t hear any voices.

  “Does anyone else ever stay here this time of year?” she asked.

  “Not many.” He took her coat, hung it on the rack by the door. The house felt different than it had the first time she was here. Older. Quieter. Bigger. Even when they whispered, their voices seemed to echo. The staircase was beautiful, she noticed now, mahogany and ornate. Halfway up there was a stained glass window, light coming in from over the sea. A picture of Saint Anthony, down on one knee, one hand lifted with a dove perched upon it.

  “Do you want something to drink before we get started?” Michael asked. “Water?”

  “How about a shot of tequila?” she said, laughing a little.

  He nodded. “I think there might be some whiskey. Possibly cognac. Tequila, I’m not sure.”

  “I’m just joking. I’ve never done anything like this before. I usually don’t even like getting my picture taken.”

  “Well, you should. Believe me, a lot of people would be very happy to take your picture.”

  “You’re just saying that to be nice. And believe me, I take the worst pictures in the world.” She raised a finger, pointed, drew it back quick. “However, if the painting comes out bad, I get to blame you.”

  He looked into her eyes, and then he shook his head. “It won’t,” he whispered.

  He was staying in the top room, the octagonal cupola. It was much bigger on the inside than it looked from the street. Eight windows, one on each wall. Light coming from everywhere. The view was magnificent. The town, the harbor, the open sea. Ocean Park, and in the distance, Sengekontacket Pond. Diana wrapped her arms tight about her, already feeling slightly exposed. Her anxiety was building. She wondered why she was doing this. Why she was really doing this. He seemed nice, but she knew the relationship could never go beyond casual friends, and she wondered if by asking her to sit for him, it implied anything else? Anything further? Or was he just short on models? If it was the former, she didn’t want to lead him on; it wouldn’t be right to lead him on. But then again, what kind of guy would be looking for someone like her anyway—a jobless twenty-four-year-old with a five-year-old kid, and the baggage of a crazy husband?

  He set up his easel, his back to the sun. Diana took a seat on the stool in the middle of the room, hands on her knees, and her knees close together. She wore a black skirt and a red sweater.

  “How many people have you painted before?” she asked him.

  He was attaching a sketch pad to the easel.

  “None for a while. I mean, none that have sat for a portrait. There are people in my landscapes, and in the pictures of the old houses, but I haven’t had anyone sit since school, and that was a very long time ago. Back then, my instructor used to bring them in off the street. Elderly, overweight, often unwashed. I think he recruited them down by the wharf. A lot of them looked mad.”

  “Is that why you asked me?” she asked, smiling. “Because you thought I looked crazy? Or am I just fat and old? I promise you that I’ve washed.”

  He had begun sketching. Quick movements, like a conductor with a baton. He was looking at her, and looking at the page, but he wasn’t looking at her when he spoke to her.

  “No,” he said, “I asked you because you’re beautiful.”

  Diana felt her face go flush.

  “And you’re modest,” he said, smiling.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Do you lie to all your subjects?” she asked, wanting to make light of it.

  “No.” And then he did look at her. Eye contact. He shrugged. “I’ve never been very good at it.” He started sketching again. “That being said, I’ve always been impressed by people who can lie well. It requires a certain amount of detachment. The only way a person can truly lie well, I think, is if they first convince themselves that whatever they are saying is true. It’s an art form all itself.”

  “Well, you’d really be impressed by my mother then,” Diana said.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. Start each day—lie early, lie often, and then by bedtime you’ve created a whole new little world for yourself. One you can control.”

  “Well, I suppose there is something wonderful in that. We all want to control our worlds, right?”

  “I suppose, but—”

  “I mean, that is what art is all about, creating a world of our own, a representation of what we see, feel, remember, how we interpret it. And once we do it, it’s ours alone. Kind of like memory—the past is another country, right? Once the past is the past, if it is really the past, if it doesn’t really exist, there is no tangibility to it. You can never touch it, not really, but you can make it whatever you want it to be here in the present. And who’s to say what was real, and what was not? What is real? Even with photographs, imprints. Kind of wonderful in that regard, I think. Or at least liberating.”

  “Well, my mother does it without lifting a paint brush or pen.”

  “How about your husband?”

  “He doesn’t
have an artistic bone in his body. He doesn’t have to make things up to control them.”

  “You never can be sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe he makes things up in his head. Reasons, justifications. Maybe he just doesn’t share them.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. There would have to be a fair amount of paranoia going on for that to be the case though, right? And I don’t think he seems very paranoid.”

  “Well, how do you think he seems?”

  Diana swallowed her breath. Was he digging? Looking for some kind of in? He wouldn’t have to look far, she thought—she needed to vent, talk to someone, it helped to vent, and ever since Cybil had left, she had no one. And Cybil wouldn’t be back, not after what had happened last time. Diana had had her chance. Could have left then, renounced it all, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. And now, just the other day, Cybil had called about her father. He had been found unconscious in his home, apparently the victim of an attempted burglary. His head cracked open, he was still in a coma. She wanted Diana to tell Ford, and when she had, he had just looked at her and shrugged. It couldn’t have been Ford, despite being off island when it happened and the history he had with his father, he wasn’t capable of that kind of violence. But even still, his absence of any kind of reaction had just left her even more unsettled than she had been to date.

  “I think he seems unhappy,” she said at last to Michael. “Miserable even. I think his life revolves around this tight little ball of anger and misery that spins around somewhere deep inside him, just getting tighter and tighter, and that’s what makes him take it all out on others. It just explodes. He doesn’t know of any other way to release the tension.”