Between the Tides

by Susannah Marren

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Charles?” William starts to yell. Somehow his raised voice is a relief since it is what we’ve been expecting.

  “William, I advise you to—” Charles speaks reasonably.

  “You advise me? I made you and I can unmake you. I brought you to Elliot and made you a head of a department, and I can fire you too.”

  Charles is standing like the garbagemen, headfirst. “I know what a contract is; I signed one. I am as able to sue you, I know lawyers too. A few who walk around without hobbling after I’ve operated on them. Don’t threaten me, William, in your hour of need.”

  William rubs his temples and stares at Jess. “Well, Jess, we’ll fight it out whether it’s in the Morrises’ house or in our own home. I expect you to come back with the children. Either you come with me or follow in your car.”

  Jess has stepped back and squeezes my hand again. I need to be by the shoreline, sidestepping the horseshoe crabs. The surf may be strong, the undertow dangerous—yet I belong there for my survival.

  “Lainie? Lainie?” In the years that we’ve known each other, I’ve never heard Jess sound desperate, frightened. I force myself back into this wretched scene.

  “Whatever you need, Jess,” I say.

  “Fuck you, Lainie,” William says. “I’ll expect you at home, then, Jess.”

  The house shakes when he slams the front door. That’s when I realize that Matilde is with us.

  “Matilde! What are you doing? Please … join the others,” I say. “Take care of Liza … she is with Tom and Billy.…”

  Charles nods; he’s looking as bleached out as an old white sheet faded to beige. Matilde, who has become a witness to unadulterated domestic violence, spins around and runs up the stairs.

  * * *

  Once William is gone, Jess and I move like rippling water into the guest room, where we are alone.

  “I don’t know why I married him. I can’t remember why,” Jess says.

  “Maybe you never knew why.”

  “The night that I married him my knees were shaking and my teeth were chattering. But William looked so sure, so certain. I thought, why not, what have I got to lose?” Jess laughs. “Hey, Lainie, he went to Harvard. The family had money, lots of money.”

  “Well, yes, Harvard. Family money…”

  “He’s in the Social Register.… They’re known in the town.… They appear to be solid citizens. From the outside,” Jess says.

  “They don’t advertise that they’re sadistic?”

  “Worse than that, Lainie. They’re emotionally abusive. I mean the whole family. Not just William; his parents, his brother…”

  “Jess … I’m surprised. I’m sad for you … living a lie.…”

  “I know. I know, Lainie. Do you know that I’ve volunteered for clinics in other towns, Kendalton and Highgrave, to help abused women?” Jess laughs a bitter laugh. “Let me tell you what happened one Thanksgiving, Lainie.”

  “Jess, you don’t have to.… Talking about it could be making you worse.”

  “No, I have to. I have to tell you; it’s a confession of what William and I really are.”

  We wait for a minute and get more comfortable in the room. I turn on the desk lamp. There is the scent of a kill; something will be dead soon. A whale that washes to shore on the barrier islands of the Jersey Shore. A sparrow that flies into the glass door at the beach house. A rat in a rat trap in an Elliot basement.

  “Five years ago over Thanksgiving we went to New Hampshire to visit William’s parents. William didn’t want to go and I convinced him it was the right thing to do. I’ve always made every effort to be a good wife and good mother—roles I’ve come to play quite well. This trip was about being a good daughter-in-law. It was unpleasant from the start, distasteful and ugly.

  “At least if I had hosted the holiday in Elliot I would buffer the event with friends, strangers, anyone to divert the venom of William’s family. Odd how at the start of my marriage I couldn’t reconcile William with his horrid parents and lemon of a brother, Ned. After that Thanksgiving, I viewed them as peas in a pod. My in-laws weren’t any better to the children, and Liza was ready to cry most of the meal, and she was little, she was Claire’s age. After a while, William stood up from the table and said to me, ‘Jess? Might we chat for a minute? Confidentially?’

  “‘Why, William,’ gasped his mother, Belinda. ‘We are in the middle of dinner.’

  “William came to where I sat and put his hand on my upper arm, squeezing it. I tried to squirm away. ‘Jess?’

  “I pushed my chair back and stood up. William rubbed his face against mine and the red veins in the whites of his eyes were sickening.

  “‘Excuse us.’ William spoke to no one in particular. Liza had begun to cry and Billy wouldn’t look up from his plate of dried-out turkey.

  “William led us out to their indoor porch. I tilted my head and shook my arm free.

  “‘Is it too much to ask that our children show a little respect for my parents?’ He was hissing at me.

  “‘Are they disrespectful?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t seen that, William.’

  “‘Fix it. Now, Jess.’

  “‘Meaning they won’t listen to you.’

  “William put his hand back around my arm and squeezed again.

  “‘I said, fix it.’

  “That’s when he hit me for the first time. He simply lifted his hand and slapped me across the face. He hit me with such force I thought for sure I’d get a black eye, that he’d broken my nose. ‘Let’s go back,’ he said.

  “Belinda was watching us return to the dining room and I knew that my face was abraded on the right side, streaked with pain. She was drinking scotch and there was a glint in her eyes. She seemed almost pleased. Later on, I went into the kitchen to get some ice from the freezer. Belinda followed me. Their housekeeper, Grace, took a look at my face and was about to fill a Ziploc bag with ice when Belinda said to her, ‘That won’t be necessary, Gracie. If Jess needs something, she’ll find it herself.’

  “Then Belinda said to me, ‘Get in the game, Jess. There is nothing so special about you except being the mother of my grandchildren, and my son doesn’t like anything messy. You’ll stay with William because he has two things you want: money and prestige. He’s done very nicely and the money came first. Keep a smile on your face and buck up, my dear.’

  “‘How dare you, Belinda,’ I said. I opened the freezer door and she stood so close to me it was revolting.

  “‘How dare you provoke my son. Learn not to provoke him. It can’t be news to you that he has a temper. Think of your closet filled with designer shoes. That might help.’” Jess starts crying.

  “Jess, Jess.” I don’t know how to react. After Jess’s confession and vile secrets, her pile of shit, I reconsider Charles, who is slightly crabby yet decent. Charles, who loves being a surgeon and has fallen for the suburbs. Charles and I, who may not be in sync at the moment but are … attached.

  “Lainie, I dread every morning. I wake up and look to my left, and whether William is there or not, he makes me ill. If he is in the shower and I hear the water running, I despise him. Whether he still has a towel wrapped around his waist and is starting to dress or is already dressed and at his most regal with his hair slicked back, in a suit and tie, he is a stranger. When he gropes around on the dresser for his wallet, keys, and Swiss Army knife, left over from his supposedly happy childhood, I have the urge to knock his belongings to the floor and bolt.

  “Our being together seems like a monstrous joke that I have to keep alive. If our children aren’t in the room, if they’re asleep, if they’re at a friend’s house, I’m at a loss. I have stayed with William to raise the children, offer them the best. We are a bullshit set of parents who encourage them to have good grades, to play sports, play piano, and be on the debate team. William and I are an excellent example of what we are supposed to be in Elliot. When he leaves for work and I hear his Lexus first running in the g
arage, there is more air in the room. I ask myself how it would be if he’s not coming back.”

  “Jess, no more!” I start to cry. “Please no more. I can’t listen, it’s too horrifying … too ugly … what you have gone through.” I start to sob uncontrollably. I need to swim it off, to decamp.

  “I need a drink, Lainie.”

  “What do you want? I’ll go get it. Chardonnay? Port?”

  “No, don’t worry. I brought my own vodka, straight up.” Jess laughs ruefully. “The good ole days. We’re on the main beach at midnight with our flasks. Well, except for you—you never had one, did you?”

  Jess digs into her purse, pulls out a surprisingly weary-looking flask, and guzzles. “Yah!”

  “Jess, you’re safe for tonight, and in the morning we’ll strategize.…” What else is there to say? Charles works for William—it’s a nightmare. I’m not only shocked and sickened, but also confused about what to do.

  “Years of suffering … years piling up before I had the guts to leave him,” Jess says. Then she shouts, “I wish he were fucking dead. Fucking dead. That’s the only way out for me.”

  I look at how the lightbulb seems too naked in the Italian pottery lamp that Charles and I fought over. I thought it an unnecessary purchase while Charles thought it was worth buying. Tonight it reminds me of our bedroom in the city, where we kept it on my side of the bed and we had no guest room.

  Jess takes off her sweater. I gasp, looking at her upper arms.

  “Black and blue,” Jess says. “That’s why I look for dresses with sleeves when I’m at the mall.”

  “Jesus, Jess, to live with this. Of the many charades, the many lies to tell about your life, the worst lie of all. You have nothing with him, nothing that’s yours. I don’t care how popular you are in Elliot, how big a deal William’s position is.”

  “No, Lainie, that’s not true. I have our children, I have this perceived perfect life. I have a successful husband. He isn’t always miffed with me. In the beginning when these … incidents would happen, William used to say, ‘What’s the difference, Jess? Don’t you have the life?’ Then he’d warn me not to dare confide in anyone.”

  Jess starts to cry—wrenching wounded-animal sounds come from her diaphragm. Charles has said that I cry in perfect pitches while my face crumbles. Clearly Jess has waited too long to cry; her crying is beyond crumbling. It isn’t recognizable.

  “Remember those summers in Cape May, Jess? The cute lifeguards who liked us?”

  “They liked you, Lainie.”

  “No, they liked us both.”

  “Whatever.” Jess sniffles.

  “Why don’t you find a good lawyer, Jess? You can file a report. You should report it. I don’t care what William said.”

  I have never been so self-reliant. If I’m quiet with other mothers, if I feel out of my league, if I’m only myself with other painters, Isabelle, Gillian, and Cher down at the peers, the Narrows, this is of another order. When we talk about children and husbands, it is within the range of grueling daily life. No one has what Jess has, no one lives in darkness.

  “Not yet. One more encounter, Lainie.”

  “Why?”

  “One more chance for William to do the right thing…”

  “Jess…”

  “I do, I have to.”

  “What about Charles knowing, Jess? What does that do to William’s reputation?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll ask Charles to keep it among ourselves.”

  “Charles … You and I lost contact before I met him. Now you know him, Jess. Although it is rocky at times with him, I’m thankful.”

  “You should be,” Jess says.

  “Charles is…”

  “I see who Charles is, Lainie.…”

  I stop. I know she does. I’m silent. The heater rattles down here in a way that it doesn’t upstairs.

  “I think about Cape May,” Jess says after a few minutes.

  “Me too,” I say. “Let’s go down after the show opens. With the children.”

  “Christ, Lainie, I haven’t been there since college.”

  “How could that be, Jess? I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t go. That was what Charles had to accept … my roots, the Shore.… We’ll go. What a magical place, it could help you.”

  “A Band-Aid on my mortal wound,” Jess sighs.

  “We should catch some sleep; it’s late. I’ll go upstairs to Charles. Tomorrow we’ll swim the five a.m. and get back before the kids are up.”

  “I’m glad that you moved to Elliot, Lainie. I know it wasn’t your choice, but for me…”

  Jess has gone gooey on top of beaten up and I’m unable to leave her alone. I’m trying to digest the Jess-as-victim revelation when she turns down the lamp while trying to turn it off. Without a word, we crawl into bed together, snuggling closer than most couples would be. I wrap my arms around Jess and she wraps hers around me. We are facing each other. Out of a lost friendship or a history that might never have been resurrected, we share tonight.

  An hour later I wake up and Jess is not there. I stagger up the stairs to the safeness of Charles, who has never seemed such a prince of a husband. When I get to the front door, Jess is outside, climbing into her car. Liza and Billy are with her. They look as if they’re in a dreadful hurry.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Jess has a talent for disappearing acts. The latest being what happened last night at our home, as evidenced by her phone call to me this morning.

  “Lainie, The Elliot News-Times is doing a feature and they’ll be over today at noon. I’m giving you a heads-up in case no one has called from the council to confirm.”

  “Jess? Are you all right?” I ask. “I mean … I know that you drove back to William in the middle of the—”

  “Lainie, will you be ready for them?” Jess asks. “I don’t have to remind you that it’s a week before the show. They are sending a team to interview you.”

  “Jess? I’m worried about—”

  “Lainie, tell me what you’ve got for them—what you’ll say about the triptych. Please be welcoming.”

  I pull several paintings together, the latest and most “strident,” bold and gentle at once, but not my triptych. That must be veiled until opening night. They arrive, a journalist, a young man in his late twenties named Keith, accompanied by his photographer, named Jill. She too is young, with her life ahead of her, and so eager to snap the shots. She stands in the insipid sunlight. Ahead of her is the prospect of falling in love, of mothering children. In the studio she notices my photos of the New York bays and the lighthouse in Cape May.

  “Where are these taken?” she asks. She is a living ad for Urban Outfitters, her tan and denim, her hair tousled and her heavy-framed eyeglasses.

  “Around the New York waterfront.” I imagine the young police officer, McCain, and my heart races. He recedes in a flash, along the walkway in a spring thaw. Done.

  I want to warn Jill to stay on course, to be awake, to be true to herself. Don’t let life pass you by, I’d like to say to her. Instead I stand beside my pictures while she is absolutely enthused, a fan, a callow admirer, and I—and most artists who I know—take our fans as they come.

  “Tell us why your work is about water,” Keith presses. His straightish punkish hair falling too near to his eyes.

  “I paint what I long for: harmony, beauty, power. I paint the world as it should be.” I am dauntless.

  Keith is recording the interview and typing in a shorthand on his iPad, quotes, some that will become distorted, half truths. The correct quotes I will post on my new website, quotes as a means to an end.

  “What is next for Lainie Smith Morris? More sun and sky? More women in jeopardy at the shoreline?”

  “A New York show. Next year. The venue is yet to be determined.” I smile at the triumph of predicting my own future.

  * * *

  The daylight in late March is diluted. I imagine the wind that surrounds Cape May, blowing westward, the damp wood of th
e pavilions, and it centers me. Of all mornings, the morning of my one-woman show at the Arts Council is both long and fraught with tension. I’m at Bricker’s pharmacy buying pressed powder, eyeliner, and Jess’s favorite blush-tone lipstick, one she insists works better than my usual shade. Jess had suggested that we go to the mall together to do a special makeup shop that she swears changes one’s life. I might have gone as a last-minute distraction except for the fact that I want to stop by the Arts Council. Although the paintings were hung yesterday, I have to view them myself before the actual event.

  I stayed up half the nights all week, adding to and subtracting from the third painting in my triptych.

  “What is wrong, Lainie, that you won’t let the last picture go?” asked Charles two days ago. “Why won’t you let it be seen by anyone? They might be your finest work, the new paintings, painted in Elliot. Perhaps better than your masterpiece of yore.” His smile is self-satisfied, the message underscoring why life in Elliot suffices. Why my collages have eluded him. He doesn’t know that these preferred works are from my stolen hours at the New York harbors. What he disdains most he appreciates most.

  Home from the pharmacy, I stand in my colossal, understocked walk-in closet, deciding what to wear. Why play with my wardrobe at a late hour except that the dress color is meaningful for tonight. I never am able to envision what style will become me until the day arrives. This day, my one-person show, my long-dreamed-of comeback. My dress selection is narrowed down to two favorites and the midnight blue that I bought with Jess at the mall.

  * * *

  The Arts Council knows how to paper the room, pad the audience, convince the town. Mostly I see mothers from all four children’s classes or after-school activities, birthday parties, the Y pool. These slightly familiar faces converge upon me as if I am fresh prey. They speak about me and I hear every word. I grab the first fluted glass of champagne that I see go by on a tray.

  “Not so imaginative,” says one woman.

  “That isn’t the problem,” says another. “I simply can’t find any warmth, anything that draws me in, despite the reviews of her style, her work.”