“You already know your way around,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need anything.” He took me to the room where Teddy always stayed and pulled some sheets and blankets from the closet; wordlessly we made the bed together.
“There are more blankets at the end of the hall if you get cold,” he said. “I’ll come and get you for breakfast in the morning.” He stopped at the bedroom door to turn up the thermostat, and the baseboard heater creaked and popped. “You and Wendy…” he started, trailing off. I braced myself for a talking to, but he just gave a small nod. “You’re very nice to her,” he said, and left.
The sound of Dick’s truck faded as he drove away, and I went to the bathroom and washed my face. I stripped to my underwear, snapped out the lights and jumped into the cold bed, left only with the rush of waves out on the beach and an occasional ping! from the heater. It was very hard to sleep. At some point it rained. The sound of it on the roof made me drowsy, and I managed to doze off.
I woke later to one of the heater sounds, and gasped when I saw a silhouette standing over me.
“Holy shit!” I said, springing upright.
“It’s just me,” Wendy said. “Relax. It’s okay.” She undressed next to the bed, leaving her underwear on. “Move over. I’m freezing.” I shuffled over and she got in next to me. She pressed her little breasts into my side, and I was surprised by how firm and cold they felt. Very quickly I got an erection, and I tried to angle my hips away from her so she wouldn’t notice.
“You’re so warm in here. Are you hard?” she asked me, almost casually. I couldn’t answer.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Can I feel it?”
“Okay.” I lay still, almost trembling, while she slid her hand beneath the band of my underwear and hesitantly touched my penis. I tried to reach between her legs, but she quickly let go of me to stop my hand.
“You can’t,” she said. “I’m on my period. Sorry.”
“Oh,” I said, and her grasp returned, more confidently now.
“What do you call it?” she asked into my shoulder.
“What, you mean like a name? I don’t have a name for it. That’s kind of stupid.”
“No, I mean when it’s hard. Do you call it a boner?”
“That’s kind of stupid too. I just call it hard, I guess.”
“Do you jack off?” The clumsy way she said it sounded almost like a taunt, and I didn’t answer. Wendy rose up and rested her chin in her palm.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Do you think about me while you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Masturbate is a weird word.”
I laughed, as much as I could given the situation. “I guess it is. Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you…you know. Do what we’re talking about?” I couldn’t say the word myself.
“I never feel like I have any privacy in my house.”
“Are you serious? You’re an only child.”
“My parents are always, I don’t know. Around. They’re overprotective.” The motion of Wendy’s hand slowed and stopped. “Especially my dad. He’s always—”
“Do we have to talk about your dad while we’re doing this?”
Wendy giggled, and her hand started moving again. “Sorry.”
“So do you?” I asked.
“Maybe. If I can get to the place where I like to do it. But you’ll laugh at me if I tell you.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
“Well, if the weather’s bad, I do it in the basement. Between the water heater and the wall. I put a pillow on the floor.” I held my breath as I pictured it. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry. It just seems awkward. What if the weather’s good?”
“There’s a place,” she started, and a splatter or raindrops sounded on the roof. “In the woods. Right up next to the river. It’s totally off limits for me, my dad never let me go there. He was always afraid I would fall in and drown or something. But there’s this bent over tree with some bushes, it’s like a shelter, you can’t see inside at all. I go in there and do it. Can I tell you something? And really don’t laugh?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I imagine you are there with me. Doing those things to me. And I’m doing this to you.”
I swallowed. “Why would I laugh at that?”
“I don’t know. Am I doing a good job? Is this how you do it to yourself?”
“Kind of. But the way you do it feels better.”
“Does it make a mess?”
“We should pull down the sheets,” I said.
Wendy stroked me, saying nothing more in the cold and the dark, and rested her head on my shoulder. It went on and on, awkwardly and perfectly, and she giggled when I arched my back, held my breath, and came all over my stomach. I felt embarrassed, and ecstatic.
“That’s just…keep it away from me.” She giggled again. “We don’t need to make any babies.”
“I thought you had your period?”
“That doesn’t mean anything. It’s never really safe. I’ll grab some tissues.”
We cleaned it up and flushed it away, flipping on the light to check for evidence. I watched her from the bed as she dressed, her small, dark nipples and the curve of her waist above her hip. We turned out the lights and she kissed me, and kissed me again, and left in a way that made me wonder if she’d ever even been there.
In the morning we acted like nothing had happened. I ate breakfast with the Olssons and drove home.
The roads leading home were perfectly dry; there hadn’t been an ice storm at all.
Back at my house after my visit with Arthur, I reread Barton Garvey’s email. From his letter, at least, he seems like a good lawyer. He must be good, if his almost incomprehensibly high hourly rate is an indicator of his stature in the legal world.
I read the email one more time, and tap out this reply:
“Bart, do you have time to talk tomorrow?”
I know this will set the meter running, so I don’t hit send. Not yet. How many hours of this guy’s work would my savings cover? I could pay for my defense now, and hope something comes along to cover Wendy, or I could play it safe and ensure Wendy’s care is covered for at least the next few years, and take some punches to the chin.
Is there a chance this will all blow over? Maybe I could simply do nothing, and hope it all just goes away.
Or, there’s always Leland.
I do not check my district email. Instead I clean myself up, get into fresh clothes, and walk over to Carol’s house. Leaves stick to the wet concrete of the basketball court, blue sky shows through broken clouds, and the breeze seems significantly chillier since the rain stopped. There’s a car in Carol’s drive, not Lauren’s, and I’m not sure which nurse it belongs to. Something on the corner of the house catches my eye: there’s an orange bit of color that I first assume to be a leaf stuck to the trim, but it seems too vibrant for that, and when I come around front to investigate I let out a long sigh. The highway-facing garage wall has been splattered by a dozen or so paintball pellets, and the orange pigment has garishly wept down the siding in the recent rain. I pull a coiled hose from next to the front porch and do my best to spray the house clean.
Carol is in her living room when I finally make it inside, sunk into her recliner with the TV on full blast. The nurse working is not one I recognize, so I introduce myself as Carol’s son-in-law and she says “Oh!” like she’s heard about me. I pull a chair from the dining room to Carol’s side, and she mutes the volume with a trembling hand on the remote.
“Hi, Neil,” she says, smiling. Here’s one person, at least, who doesn’t seem to know about the video.
“Carol, how are you?” I ask, trying to gauge her state of mind. “I had a nice chat with your brother a little while ago.”
“Who?”
“Your brother, Arthur.”
“I just got a letter from Arthur,” she says, glancing around at the floor. “It’s here…somewhere. Terrible, just awful for him over there. He’s been fighting in the jungle for ten days straight. I don’t dare tell our mother what he writes in those letters. She’d go into shock.”
There’s my answer.
“Carol,” I say. “He’s home. He made it home safe.”
“Oh!” she says, looking like she’s going to cry. “He…he’s home? He’s okay?”
“He’s just fine. I need to ask you something. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Arthur. It’s so, so good you’re home.”
“How do you feel about the orchard?”
Carol sighs. “Dickie is going to work himself to death in this goddamned orchard. I told him he needs a trip away to clear his head. He’s a strong man, but financial worry can make a man’s heart weak. We thought we’d had the chance to get out from under it, but that son of a bitch pulled out at the last minute.”
“Who? What happened?”
“That Lawler, that spineless Lawler from the co-op. Was going to buy the twenty-eight acres on the north end. That was going to be our retirement! Dickie was ready to sign the papers, and that son of a bitch backed out.”
“You were going to sell?”
“We were all set to go, then, psh. Another fellow came by this spring, but now we’re gun shy, you know. Dick’s going to work himself to death.”
“What…” I start, and I can feel my pulse in my neck. “What if I told you there was a sure thing? Someone who wouldn’t back out?”
“Well, Arthur, if you can convince Dick he’s not a son of a bitch like that Lawler, I’m all for it. I worry about my husband.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“All right. If he says fine, you fix it for us.”
Chris has meetings for student government again tonight, and I go back and forth over whether or not I should call him home early or wait until his extracurricular work is complete. Inside our empty house the air seems suffocating, and Lauren hasn’t called since I spoke with her this morning, which only makes me feel worse. In the too-quiet space, all I have are my thoughts, my thoughts of my earlier conversation with Carol.
They really tried to sell the orchard?
Really?
Memory, as Arthur said, is a funny thing. Maybe this near-transaction with a shady Mister Lawler is a complete figment of Carol’s imagination. Maybe it happened to a friend, and she’s absorbed it into her addled brain and made it a memory of her own.
Or maybe it was true, and the Dune Orchard complex is not as sacred as I’d once believed.
My cell rings to break the silence, and I see my brother Teddy’s name on the display.
“What the hell?” Teddy says as a greeting. In the years since our childhood, his voice has mellowed to a middle-aged growl. “Haven’t you called a lawyer yet? Kath says she hooked you up with a good lawyer and you haven’t even talked to him yet.”
“I’m going to,” I say. “I needed to be ready.”
“Ready for what? Ready to be bent over and fucked? You need to get moving on this right now.”
“Lawyers aren’t exactly cheap, Teddy. I need to be ready to pay for him.”
“What are you going to do? Do you have anything saved up?”
“Not a ton,” I say. “There is Christopher’s money for school. And I might be able to come up with something on top of that.”
“Shit. Don’t wreck yourself to pay for this. Don’t wreck anything for Chris.”
“I might have something going with a real estate deal.”
“Did you see you were on MSNBC?”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not!”
I don’t speak.
“Neil? Talk to me, here.”
“I need to go,” I say.
“Get back with that lawyer. Like, now. You can figure out how to pay for it later. We’ll figure it out somehow, okay?”
I decide, after an hour of wavering, to call Christopher home after school to get this done with. The last bell, I know, at Port Manitou High rings at three fifteen; I sit, waiting and watching the clock, for that time to come so I can call my son. Christopher’s last class of the day is AP European History, and I imagine him there, scribbling his notes and waiting on the clock for the same time I am.
Of course, he’s waiting for a very different reason.
Finally it comes. I wait an extra couple minutes because I know he has to get to his locker, and I dial him. Chris answers on the second ring.
“Dad, what’s up?”
“I need you to come home right now.”
“Is something wrong? Did you hear what I heard about the video?”
“I just need to talk with you about something.”
“Is it like, an emergency?”
“No….”
“Can it wait, then? I have that student elections planning thing tonight.”
“It’s pretty important.”
“Can you just tell me now?”
“No, I can’t.”
“But it’s not an emergency.”
“Chris. Just come home, okay?”
“Fine.” He hangs up, and already I feel like this is starting out the wrong way.
I pace in the house while I wait. I go into the bathroom and look at my own face in the mirror. I draw my fingers over my stubbled cheeks, pulling them down to highlight the dark crescents that have formed beneath my eyes.
I’m tired. So damn tired.
Another hour passes before Chris shows up at home. The waiting is terrible; I stand, I sit, I pace, I walk the field. When I finally see him driving up to the house, it feels like I can hardly breathe.
“Dad,” he says, looking genuinely aggravated. “If this isn’t an emergency, can we make it quick? They’re holding everything up for me, so I need to get back soon.”
“Sit down,” I say. “Let me tell you this, and you can go back after if you feel like it.”
“What’s going on?”
“You know Grandma’s—”
“Is something going on with Grandma?”
“No. Wait. Just let me talk, okay?”
He sits, concern and confusion filling his face, his full, youthful face where, if I look the right way, I always see his mother.
“You know Grandma’s nurse, Lauren.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m in love with her.”
Chris laughs, an explosive bark of mirth. “Seriously?” He laughs again, and his eyes are wide with an expression somewhere between astonishment and joy. “I’ve seen how you look at her, Dad. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, dude. Holy crap, you like Ms. Downey!”
This was not the reaction I was expecting.
“Chris, we’ve—”
“I mean,” he goes on, “she is kind of hot.” He stares at me in a state of goofy shock, and shakes his head. “Don’t worry! She’s not really the type I go for.” Christopher smiles broadly, almost laughing at the absurdity of the thought of us both being attracted to the same person. “Wow. Go, Dad! Are you going to ask her out or something?”
“Christopher.” I sit down across the table from him, and will myself to not look away from his eyes as I speak. “I’ve been involved with her for almost two years now. I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t feel like I could tell you. I didn’t know how. I am sorry.”
The smile leaves my son’s face, and his mouth hangs barely open with jumbled surprise.
“What? You’ve been…what?”
“There’s something else. She’s pregnant. And we’re going to get married. Probably sometime soon.”
“What?” His mouth goes wider, and his brows tighten with anger. “Dad…what? How could you do this!” He rises to his feet, walks behind me as if he’s leaving for his room, but he stops and stomps back and knocks his chair to the floor. “How could you do this?”
Now he go
es to his room, and I follow.
“Christopher, I’m sorry.”
He crosses the room, grabbing the reading lamp as he passes, flipping it to the floor.
“I can’t believe you!” he shouts. He marches down the hall, dragging his hand along the wall, knocking down framed photos one by one.
“Chris, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t fucking talk to me!” he yells, slamming his door behind him.
The lock to his door clicks loudly.
I stand, for one minute, for another, looking down the hall toward his room. Then I walk to his door, picking my way through the broken glass over the floor. With my ear to the door I hear him moving around in there.
“Chris?”
“Go away,” he says.
“Chris, can we talk?”
“I said go away!” There’s a catch in his voice as he says it, and it makes my throat go tight.
“I’ll just...I’ll just be out here.”
He doesn’t answer.
I go to the kitchen. I bring the chair back to its feet, take a broom from the closet and sweep up the glass in the hall. I pick up the frames and put them in a stack on my desk. I bring the reading lamp back to a standing position and straighten the shade. And I return to Christopher’s door.
“Chris, I’ll be right out here. If you need to talk.”
There’s no reply. I lean my back to the wall, and slide myself down to a seat on the floor. For a very long time I stay there.
Chris does not emerge from his room for the rest of the evening. I listen as I sit on the floor, for the shuffling sounds, the bangs and thumps, the occasional evidence of respiration. I give up on saying anything to him; he won’t answer. And I finally give up on waiting.
Dinner does not bring him out, so I pour myself a half-glass of whiskey over ice and eat alone. My brother on TV does not bring him out either. He’s upset, I get it. My glass remains half-filled; sometimes replenished by ice, and other times by spirit.
The Banks of Certain Rivers Page 23