Indiscretion

by Charles Dubow

  I tell her what happened. The cry that emanates from the other end of the phone is otherworldly. It is a mixture of anger and pain I have never heard before. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat. “I’m so sorry.” There is nothing else for me to say, so I stand listening to her sob, wishing I could be there to comfort her. After a quarter of an hour, I ask her what time her flight gets in. I have to ask several times because each time she tries to answer, she begins to cry again. Eventually she manages to stutter out the time.

  “Don’t . . . hang . . . up,” she pleads, drawing in breaths, fighting now for control.

  “I won’t.”

  We stay on the phone for another hour. Occasionally we speak, but mostly we are silent or Maddy is crying.

  In the morning she has to fly early to Mexico City and then to JFK. She won’t arrive until the evening. When she does, I am waiting. She is in a wheelchair. Despite a tan, she looks waxen, her cheeks hollow. I walk up to her but can’t even tell if she recognizes me. Her eyelids flutter. She is being escorted by an airline representative and a porter, who carries her luggage.

  I nod as the pretty, dark-haired girl asks, “Are you here to meet Mrs. Winslow? She has been given a sedative. She slept the whole way from Mexico. Do you have a car waiting?”

  This time there is no stretch limousine. I take Maddy to my apartment and put her in my bed and let her sleep.

  For a few days, it is in all the papers. They all use the same photograph of Harry, the one from the dust jacket of his book. One of the tabloids even found a class portrait of Johnny standing with a bunch of other boys in jackets and ties; they run it with a circle around him. Another has a diagram that shows what happens to a plane when it hits the water. I can’t look at it.

  There is speculation over the cause of the crash. Was it pilot error? A technical malfunction? Did Harry have a stroke? Was Johnny flying, attempting a landing under his father’s supervision? Had a depressed Harry driven his plane into the water on purpose? The National Transportation Safety Board moves the pieces of the plane to the Air National Guard base in Westhampton Beach to determine what happened. Autopsies are performed on both bodies.

  Maddy wants them cremated. She is a little better now but still walking around my apartment like a somnambulist. It is up to me to make the arrangements. I speak with the funeral home on Pantigo Road. I fill out the necessary forms. The New York Times calls about the obituary, so do the East Hampton Star and Southampton Press. I have a lot to do and hate leaving Maddy alone. I am seriously concerned she might just walk to the window and throw herself out. I come home and find her still at the breakfast table, staring at a cold cup of coffee, smoking, fingering Harry’s Saint Christopher medal. The heap of stubbed-out cigarette butts is the only indication that time has passed.

  I drive us out to my house. That is where the reception will be. She told me she can’t return to her own house. I put her in the Victorian Room, and, instead of using my own room, I sleep next door, in my great-grandfather’s monk-like chamber. In all the years I have known her, she has never spent the night in my house. I make dinner, but she doesn’t have an appetite. She has barely eaten a thing in days. All she seems to consume is vodka and nicotine. I urge her to eat something, tell her that there’s no point in starving herself. I carve her meat as though for a child. I even put it on the fork. She just stares at me.

  In the morning, the caterers arrive. I am not sure how many guests are coming back to my house afterward. I can count on Cissy and Ned, Harry’s agent, his publisher, other friends. Maddy’s brother, Johnny, is coming from Oregon, where he works as some kind of addiction counselor and teaches yoga. These were the ones I knew to invite. I knew she wouldn’t want too many. Only the closest family and friends. Some of them I hadn’t seen in years, but I suppose they had kept in touch with Harry and Maddy.

  Shortly before eleven, I drive us to the church, St. Luke’s, the same one where we had my father’s memorial. I still regularly attend services, whether out here or at St. James’s in the city, but I know that Harry and Maddy were mainly Christmas and Easter only. The new rector is a woman who has been there for the past few years. She greets me warmly and with great sensitivity, then lets me slip past as I have my arm around a sedated Maddy. I had to help her get dressed.

  A few guests have already arrived, but I ignore them, escorting Maddy to the front of the church. There are many flowers surrounding the altar, and two large photographs of Harry and Johnny. I feel myself tearing up, and I can only imagine how Maddy must be feeling, if she is aware of anything, and I hold her tightly. A few people come up to Maddy, but I politely try to shoo most of them away.

  I look around and see Harry’s father sitting by himself in a pew opposite. A widower now, he has come down from New Hampshire, where he lives in retirement. I am once again struck by their physical resemblance. It is like looking at Harry in thirty years’ time. His father is staring at the photographs of his son and grandson. His whole legacy wiped out in a single instant. I would have gone over and greeted him, but didn’t want to leave Maddy.

  Ned and Cissy appear. Cissy slides in next to Maddy, not saying a word, chin up, clutching Maddy’s hand. Ned looks shrunken. A few more people file in, but I keep my attention focused on Maddy. The service begins, the familiar words: “I am the resurrection and the life.” There are no speeches, no remembrances. Maddy would not have been able to bear it. It is over quickly.

  I move Maddy back outside to my car, which is parked in front of the church. I barely notice the guests as I walk out but catch glimpses of a few familiar faces. There are more people than I had expected. Funerals always attract the curious, especially if the deceased is a celebrity of sorts. Only about ten cars follow us back though.

  I had brought boots for Maddy and myself, and help put hers on. We walk slowly through the mud toward the pond, followed by the others. Ned takes one of the canoes and carries it down the dock. I follow behind with Maddy. Ned and I help her into the bow, where she sits facing aft. Then I get in, sitting in the stern, as ever. Cissy hands me the tin. No one says a word.

  The other guests have gathered on the dock, all of them still in their dark suits and dresses. They are silent. The only sounds come from my paddle, my breathing, and my heart roaring in my chest. The sky is overcast, a milky translucence. The water is dark, calm and opaque. A few seagulls circle overhead. Most of the estates on the pond are still shut for winter. Trees are wrapped in burlap. Lawn furniture stowed away. Swimming pools covered by tarpaulins littered with brown leaves.

  I paddle us out to the middle of the pond and open the tin. There is only one. She wanted them mixed together. Gingerly, she takes it from me. Dipping her fingers in, she removes a handful of ash and then throws it out over the water. She begins to sob. Or, rather, continues sobbing, because she really hasn’t stopped for days. Again and again, she reaches into the tin and scatters the ashes until they are all gone. She looks at me, and I understand it is time to return. Her eyes are red and swollen, mirroring the tears running down my own cheeks.

  We return to the dock, and Ned and Cissy help us out. Again, I shepherd Maddy back to the house. “I can’t,” she whispers. I tell her I understand. I take her to her room, where she collapses on the bed. I pull the comforter over her and turn off the light. “Please tell them I’m sorry I can’t come down. I just can’t see anyone.”

  Downstairs the mood is somber. Everyone has gathered in the Green Room. It has been years since so many people have stood here. A white-jacketed bartender is mixing drinks. A waiter passes hors d’oeuvres. I greet a few of the guests. Harry’s agent, Reuben, comes up to me, confidentially placing his hand on my arm.

  “How is she doing?”

  “It’s been a terrible shock,” I reply.

  “It’s been a terrible shock for all of us. I can’t believe Harry’s dead. Or Johnny. What a tragedy.”

  I circulate among the other guests, my mind still on the grieving woman upstairs. I try to be a good ho
st, tell them what I know, commiserate with them, shake my head. I look for Harry’s father and find him on the patio, staring at the water.

  “Can I get you anything, Mister Winslow?”

  Startled, the old man looks over at me, focuses, and shakes his head. “No, thank you, Walter,” he says. Then he asks, “What do you think happened? I mean, up there.” He gestures with his chin up at the sky.

  “I really don’t know. The autopsies haven’t come back. Nor the results from the NTSB.”

  “The hell with all that. They won’t tell you anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was hamartia.”

  The term is familiar to me, but its meaning is lost. “Hamartia?”

  “From Aristotle’s Poetics. The fatal flaw. I know what my son had done. I know he had sinned. He told me about Maddy and that other girl. It’s always that way. When the hero does something stupid or wrong, the fates won’t let him forget it. And yes, my son was very much a hero. He always had been. But being a hero doesn’t prevent one from making terrible mistakes. Or from suffering the consequences.”

  I listen in silence. He is an old English teacher. It is how he thinks. If he had been an engineer, he would have a different explanation. He has doubtless constructed this theory, based on a lifetime of lecturing, during his long, solitary drive down from New Hampshire. There was no such thing as a technical malfunction in Hamlet, nor did Oedipus have any pilot errors. Harry’s father’s world is governed by certain inviolable rules. Cause and effect. The tragic error could result only in more tragedy. It is the only thing that makes any sense to him.

  “He was a Marine pilot,” he adds. “He could fly anything in any condition. Planes just don’t fall out of the sky.”

  I look at him. Clearly, he is in pain, desperately trying to rationalize the irrational.

  “I wish I knew,” I respond eventually. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on people.” I leave him there, still staring out at the water. He may not have even realized I had left.

  We all need to make sense of our loss in a way we understand best. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t see him again before he left. For all I know, he may have gone straight to his car after our conversation. People are gone by two o’clock, and the caterers are packing up. I had ordered too much. There are plastic containers holding several dozen deviled eggs crammed in my refrigerator. An entire lasagna in a foil baking tray. Half a ham. Gallons of whisky, vodka, white wine. Bread. Lemons. Seltzer. I could live off it for weeks. Ned and Cissy are the last to leave.

  “Call me if you need any help with Maddy, okay?” says Cissy. I tell her that I hope they can come out soon.

  “Thanks, Walter,” says Ned. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. We recently bought our own place in Bridgehampton, near the ocean.”

  The news comes as a surprise. “Congratulations.”

  “It happened about a month ago. Harry knew, but I never had a chance to mention it to you. I told him it was time we stopped being such freeloaders,” he adds with a weak grin. I can tell he is about to cry.

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll miss you guys, but I am very happy for you,” I tell him. But I’m not really happy. It is one more loss. Our old life has come unglued, and it can never be put back together.

  9

  I walk Ned and Cissy out to their car, sorry to see them go, feeling emptier than I ever have. I pay the caterers and then go up to check on Maddy. We are alone again in the house. The sounds of her breathing in the darkened room tell me she is sleeping. I will look in on her again later. I wander downstairs. The kitchen is clean. It’s too early to get drunk, but I figure there is nothing else to do. I pour myself a large whisky and flip on the television in the library, but there is nothing I want to watch.

  Instead I wander over to the bookshelves. More than one hundred years ago my great-grandfather had begun collecting and binding copies of Punch, the once-great British humor magazine. My grandfather and father kept up the tradition. We have every single issue, going back to the 1840s. I pull out a volume from the early twentieth century and absentmindedly flip through the yellowed pages of cartoons of Punch himself, the Kaiser, village curates, noble British military heroes with mustaches, slender, long-necked beauties personifying all that was good and noble in the world. It was probably here in these pages that I first developed my sense of ideal womanhood. Small wonder that the women in the drawings bore such a strong resemblance to Maddy. I had loved leafing through these volumes ever since I was a child, but I have no appetite for it today.

  Restless, I decide to go for a walk. I pull on a coat and exit quietly, making sure not to slam the door. I hate to think of Maddy waking up alone in the house, in that strange bed, quite probably disoriented, calling out but with no one there to answer her.

  Despite the melancholy of the day, or more likely because of it, it feels good to be outside in the April air. The ground is soft, and there are signs of life in the daffodil beds. Already jack-in-the-pulpits are pushing up. It’s still cool, but spring is here. Soon all the trees and flowers will be in bloom, the lawn will smell of fresh-cut grass, and on the pond the cygnets will swim after their parents. I first walk around the house, inspecting gutters, drains. I had the power lines buried years ago. Raccoons and squirrels used to leap from tree branches onto the roof and burrow into the attic, too often winding up trapped in the heating ducts. For this same reason, the trees need to be pruned back regularly. I make a mental note to have the groundskeeper trim the box hedge, repair the deer fencing, and put up the tennis nets.

  Then I walk down to the water. To my surprise, someone is standing at the edge of the dock facing out over the pond. It’s a woman, dressed in a beige raincoat and rubber boots. All the funeral guests are long gone. It’s not Maddy.

  I recognize her shape as soon as I see it.

  Claire.

  “Hello, Walter,” she says, turning to look at me. I had forgotten how lovely she is. She had been in the church. I remember her coat, but her face and head had been concealed by sunglasses and a scarf.

  I hesitate. “Claire,” I say. “This is a surprise.”

  “Is it?” She gives me a rueful little smile.

  “Yes.”

  “I had to say good-bye. I knew I wouldn’t be welcome, but I had to come.”

  I say nothing but walk up behind her. The dock is too narrow for us to stand side by side.

  “Maddy’s in the house, you know.”

  “I assumed she would be here. How is she?”

  “Inconsolable.”

  She sighs. “I understand,” she replies in a soft voice. “How are you?”

  I take a moment to respond. I haven’t been thinking about myself. “Incredibly sad,” I answer finally.

  “I am so sorry. About this. About everything.”

  “We all are. It’s a terrible waste.”

  “I know. I can’t stop thinking about Johnny.”

  “None of us can. There’s nothing sadder than the death of a child.”

  “Maddy’s lucky she has you.”

  I nod my head. It is surreal standing here talking with her. “Thank you. You know, Claire, I can appreciate why you wanted to come, but I am afraid I have to ask you to leave. I can’t risk having Maddy wake up and see you here. It would be too much for her in her present state.”

  She sniffs and smiles at me. “Of course. I understand. I had hoped I could just slip in quietly, unobserved and say good-bye. I did love him, you know. Very much. I’ve been crying for days.”

  “We will all miss him.”

  “You know, he didn’t really love me. I know that now. But there was never any question in his heart. He loved Maddy the most—and Johnny, of course. For what it’s worth, I hadn’t seen him for weeks. Not since Johnny came to stay with him. We had a fight.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “So you can tell Maddy. I don’t know if she knows that. He never talked about her, about their f
amily. He kept that to himself. I think that’s important. I know it would be if it were me.”

  “Thank you. I’ll tell her.”

  “And don’t think I haven’t suffered or won’t suffer. I will always carry part of Harry with me.”

  I look at her, not knowing what to say. I remember the first time we met. How fresh and new she had seemed then.

  “Good-bye, Walter.” She puts out her hand. “I hope we won’t be enemies.”

  “Of course not. But it might be hard to be friends.”

  “I understand.”

  I watch her walk away and then hear the faint sound of her boots as they crunch down the drive. She must have parked on the road. I feel sorry for her. She isn’t a bad person. I believe that in my heart. And I can’t blame her for falling in love with Harry. He was hard not to love. And she, like so many of the young, was looking for a shortcut, an edge over the competition, always in a hurry, not yet realizing there is no benefit in speeding up the journey, that the destination is not the point but merely part of the process. They also don’t fully appreciate that their actions have repercussions. That lives can be ruined. Of course, the young don’t have a monopoly on selfishness. We want what we want. The bitter truth is that it rarely makes us happy once we get it.

  I turn and walk back to the house. I don’t want to leave Maddy alone for too long.

  Epilogue

  Maddy never really recovered from Harry’s and Johnny’s deaths. Eventually she returned to a semblance of life. It was impossible for her to go back to either of her homes, so she continued to stay with me. I know she often thought of killing herself, so I watched her like a hawk. “I just want to die,” she’d say. “Will you help me?” And I, I who would have done anything for her but that, always told her no. At times I wondered if I was doing the right thing, that maybe it would have been better to let her go. Her pain was unbearable. She would break down in the middle of a meal. We never went out, seldom saw anyone.