The Cove

by Hautala, Rick

  “Benny’s come to visit you, Lilly,” she said. “What do you say we all go down to your room so we can talk?”

  Ben’s heart was breaking as he watched his mother’s reaction. She looked at Mrs. Appleby, the distant glaze filming her eyes over like a skim of ice as she struggled to put this all together.

  “Benny’s here?” she said, and then she looked all around the room as if she didn’t see him standing a few feet in front of her. Without a word, Ben moved closer and made as if to hug her, but she shied away from him.

  “Let’s go see Benny,” she said. “Is he waiting in my room?”

  “I’m right —” Ben started to say, but Mrs. Appleby hooked her arm and led her gently away. Lilly’s feet, in pink fur-lined slippers, scuffed on the carpeted floor.

  “That’s right. He came here to show you some pictures.”

  “Pictures,” Lilly said. “I like pictures.”

  They managed to get Lilly to leave the TV room, but she was reluctant to walk down the corridor back to her room. Her eyes kept shifting from side to side like a trapped animal looking for an escape route that wasn’t there. Finally, with some gentle coaxing from Mrs. Appleby and Louise, they got her past the front desk and heading down the hall to her room.

  In the hallway, staying a few steps behind her, Ben took the time to study his mother. It staggered him to see how much she had changed in so short a time. He remembered her as tanned and fit-looking from working out in the yard all her life, but now her skin was almost translucent, like there was a layer of clear jelly below the surface. Thin blue veins lined her arms and the backs of her hands like twisted strands of faded yarn. Her fingernails had no nail polish, and the cuticles had grown halfway up the nail, making them look like talons.

  Once they were back in her room, Mrs. Appleby directed Lilly to the easy chair next to the window. She sat down and looked at each of them as though she had no idea who any of them were. Then she focused on the wall across the room, her eyes on some middle distance like her memory was a book, and she was flipping through the pages, trying to read. Her eyelids made faint clicking sounds when she blinked.

  She smacked her lips as though preparing to say something, but then she stopped. Her lips were cracked, and a thin line of bubbly drool ran down her chin from one corner of her mouth. Mrs. Appleby snapped a tissue from the dispenser on the table next to the bed and wiped it away.

  “I thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing,” Ben said. “I just got back from the war.”

  “The war,” Lilly said, nodding but looking as though she had absolutely no understanding. She inhaled slowly through her nose, the air making a watery wheezing sound in her chest.

  Ben cast a worried glance at Mrs. Appleby, who regarded him with an expression of deep sympathy. She shrugged and said softly, “We do the best we can, but …” She let her voice drift away like a wind-blown leaf.

  Ben nodded, finding it almost impossible to look at his mother.

  How could this be the woman who had raised him — the tough fisherman’s wife who took no guff and gave as good as she got? The avid gardener who could all but make roses grow in beach sand? The woman who was in constant motion from the time she got up until the time she went to bed, usually well past midnight. Her life had been filled with raising three kids … cooking and cleaning and sewing and PTA and church suppers and, at least once a week, dragging Wally home from The Local dead drunk. Most of all, how could this woman whose bones looked as fragile as a bird’s be the same person who walloped him but good whenever he wised off … and then tenderly stroked his hair from his forehead and kissed him when he woke up from a bad dream?

  “I just got back from … from Iraq,” Ben said, resigned, now, to the fact that she simply wasn’t registering anything that was going on around her.

  He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. He wanted so much to reach out and hug her, but he was genuinely afraid that even the lightest touch would bruise her.

  “We have some pictures … from the boat launch yesterday,” Louise said. She started digging in her purse for her camera.

  “A boat launch … What boat launch?”

  “Yesterday. Remember I told you about it?” Louise spoke with patient understanding, and Ben realized that she was much more used to this. “Dad’s new boat, the Abby-Rose.”

  “Abby Rose … I used to know a girl named Abby Rose.”

  “This is the boat. Dad named it after Uncle Ed’s granddaughter,” Louise said.

  “You remember Uncle Ed, don’t you?” Ben offered.

  “You have an Uncle Ed, too?” Lilly said, looking intently at Ben. “What a coincidence.”

  “It’s the same Uncle Ed … Pop’s brother,” Ben said, but he knew, even as he said it, that it was futile to try to get through. All he could think of was the line about how the lights were on in the house, but nobody was home. His mother was gone.

  “Good God, you’d think —” his mother said, her voice was as faint as a gust of wind, but that was all. She took a breath, deeper than before, and slowly rotated her head from side to side.

  “What’s that, Ma?” Ben said, coming a step closer.

  “You’d think … that son of a bitch would come and visit more often.” She took another thin breath. “He should visit from time to time.”

  “Who’s that, Ma?” Louise asked. “You mean Pops?”

  “No. Ed!” Lilly snapped. She pursed her lips so tightly they looked like a bloodless wound. Ben glanced at Mrs. Appleby as if she could provide some assistance, but all she did was smile grimly and shake her head.

  “Lousy son of a bitch,” Lilly said, and then she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, keeping them shut for so long Ben was suddenly afraid she had died right there in front of him. He jumped, genuinely shocked when his mother opened her eyes again and stared at him. Then she leaned so far forward in the chair Ben was afraid she was going to pitch on the floor.

  “Come on, Ma,” Louise said. “You know Uncle Ed’s been dead for years.”

  “You have an Uncle Ed, too?” Lilly said, then she shifted her gaze to Ben and, in a low, conspiratorial voice, said, “You know they’re all lesbians, working here?” Her eyes twitched back and forth as though she couldn’t quite control them. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Ben was at a loss. He had never heard his mother talk like this before.

  “I hear ’em,” Lilly said. Leaning forward, she placed her elbows on her knees and folded her hands as if in prayer. “You think I don’t? You bet’cha ass I do. I hear ’em talking late at night … talking to each other and doing … doing lesbian things.”

  “I — umm, I don’t think that’s quite what’s going on here, Ma,” Ben said, thinking Louise or Mrs. Appleby could jump in any time now to take the pressure off him. It was tearing his heart apart to see his mother like this, and it was damned frustrating that there wasn’t a thing he or anyone else could say or do to help.

  Her mind was already gone. Now it was simply a matter of time, waiting for her body to catch up … and die.

  As tears filmed his eyes, his view of the room wavered. The air was suddenly too hot … as stifling as the desert.

  He looked behind him at the door and was overcome with the urge to get out.

  “Well, I — ah …” Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I ought to get going. I just dropped by to say a quick hi.”

  Louise shot him a look of irritation as he began backing up toward the door, barely looking where he was going.

  “I thought you’d want to see the pictures before we go?” Louise said.

  “Pictures? … Of what?”

  “The boat launch,” Louise said.

  “Maybe we should come back later, Lou,” Ben said, “when she’s feeling better.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Mrs. Appleby said, her voice low and mild as she looked at Louise. Then, to Ben, she said, “She has much better days than this sometimes.”

>   “Does she even know who I am?” he asked, incredulous.

  Mrs. Appleby’s eyebrows shot up like two inverted commas.

  “You can never tell,” she said as if that would end the discussion instead of begin it.

  Ben realized he was talking about his mother as if she wasn’t even in the same room, but — in some important ways — she wasn’t.

  A sense of unreality swept through him as he moved closer, reached out, and patted his mother gently on the shoulder. Just once. It was like touching a plastic bag filled with dry bones.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow and see how you’re doing, Ma, okay?”

  Lilly had no response. She looked at him vacantly, as if she had no idea what he’d just said. Once again, her gaze was fixed on the opposite wall as if she was expecting something to happen. It was impossible to know what.

  Ben turned his back to his mother and strode to the door. Louise and Mrs. Appleby followed behind him, joining him in the corridor. Mrs. Appleby closed the door quietly behind her and lowered her gaze as she slowly shook her head from side to side.

  “Sweet Mother of God,” Ben said.

  “It’s difficult, I know,” Mrs. Appleby said, obviously pained as the three of them walked back down the corridor to the front desk. “Alzheimer’s is a terrible, terrible disease.”

  The day was almost psychedelically sharp as he and Louise walked outside into the clear, bright sunlight. They were both silent until Ben shouted at her, “Why didn’t you or someone tell me how bad off she was?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” Louise said. “I figured you had enough shit to deal with over there.”

  He knew what she meant by “over there,” but that didn’t stop the rush of anger. He crossed the parking lot to his car. When he got to it, he let out a low, strangled moan that came from the bottom of his gut. He clenched his fist and slammed it against the roof of the car hard enough to dent the metal.

  “Jesus, Lou!” He looked at her, feeling helpless. “Promise you’ll shoot me if I ever get that bad, okay? Just fucking shoot me!”

  Louise looked at him, her eyes full of tears, and said nothing.

  When he got into the car and sat down behind the steering wheel, inexpressible sadness filled him like a flood of water. He was shaking and had to wait before trying to get the key into the ignition. He was wondering if Louise or anyone else on the planet loved him enough to do that if he ever needed it.

  Chapter Five

  Night Trip

  “Yah think you’re making enough noise there, Chucklenuts?”

  Capt’n Wally stood at the helm, glaring at his son, Pete, who was about to cast off. Pete froze with the rope in his hand and looked up at the granite wharf. It was late at night. A string of streetlights cast a powdery blue haze along the rutted dirt road that led past the dock to the fishing sheds with their bait barrels and teetering stacks of lobster pots. The smell of rotting bait was thick in the air. The sounds were the gentle whisper of waves running underneath the floating dock and slapping against the hull of the Abby-Rose, and the distant whine of traffic on Route One.

  “You don’t think you’ll wake up half the town when you start up the engine?” Pete asked.

  Without seeing his face, Pete knew that his father was still scowling. He dropped the mooring line onto the deck while holding onto the gunwales with one hand.

  “That can’t be helped,” Wally said, and with that, he hit the starter. The diesel engine rumbled softly as water churned out from underneath the stern in a boiling froth.

  “Get a move on,” Capt’n Wally snapped, and Pete vaulted into the boat. A second later, Capt’n Wally revved the engine, almost knocking him to the deck as he pulled away from the dock.

  “Gotta blow off the fumes,” Wally said. Pete wondered if by “fumes” he meant the boat’s engine or himself as Wally fetched a full fifth of rum from a compartment. With one hand, he spun the cap off and tossed his head back, gulping down several mouthfuls. Smacking his lips, he wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

  “There … That’ll take off the edge.”

  “You gonna turn on your running lights?” Pete asked.

  Wally didn’t dignify the question with an answer.

  Pete never liked being on board a boat at night. It was bad enough heading out on foggy days, but in the darkness — even in a boat equipped with up-to-date electronics — his orientation always got fouled up. He wished he had inherited his father’s ability to dead reckon. At times, Wally’s abilities seemed almost supernatural, but Pete still wondered if it wasn’t just that his father was damned lucky.

  After maneuvering carefully between some boats, with the running lights still off, Wally gunned the engine. The boat was moving well above the harbor speed limit, and before long they were in the channel, heading out to sea. Pete cast an anxious glance back at the shore, wondering if a Coast Guard patrol had seen them leave. If they had, they would immediately be suspicious of a boat heading out without running lights. Pete feared the night might end badly.

  “Where we headed?” Pete asked, shouting to be heard above the steady growl of the engine. Salt spray flew from the bow of the boat as it cut into the chop. It peppered the windshield until the boat leveled off.

  Capt’n Wally said nothing as he stared straight ahead, his jaw tensed, his teeth set after he took another swig of rum. Pete thought he hadn’t heard him but, more likely, he was ignoring him.

  Fuck you, Pete thought but didn’t say.

  He was thinking how nice it would be to have a slug or two of rum himself to bolster his courage. He’d already told his father that he wasn’t too keen about going on this run tonight, but Capt’n Wally had made it clear that he was going. He needed him. Even after Pete told his father about the talk he’d heard that there was a new DEA agent in the area who was squeezing everyone’s balls, his father wasn’t deterred. They’d make this run and dozens more like it all through the summer and into the fall. If Capt’n Wally had a new boat to pay off, the quickest way to do that was to bring in as many kilos of weed and other drugs as he could. Too bad for the Capt’n, but Pete bitterly resented that his father was dragging his ass out on another one of these miserable night runs.

  Why did he always have to do all the grunt work?

  Why not Ben?

  Now that he was out of the Army, Ben was going to have to start pulling his weight. Sooner or later, G.I. Fucking Joe would have to put away his glory and get a goddamned job and stop freeloading. If he thought he was welcome to stay at the house and not contribute, then he had another think coming.

  And Ben’s snot-ass behavior yesterday gave Pete another reason to want to bring the hero down a couple of pegs.

  Scowling, Pete hunched down and fished a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He shook one out and, cupping his hand to protect the lighter from the wind, lit up. As he straightened up, he exhaled hard and watched the puff of blue smoke dissolve into the darkness. A feeling of loneliness welled up inside him, and he thought about his girl. Except she wasn’t his girl … not yet.

  He turned to look at Capt’n Wally’s back as the old man navigated a steady course out to sea.

  It bothered Pete that his old man never talked to him unless he needed him to help out without something … usually a thankless, miserable task like this. And Pete knew he would do whatever his father asked of him because while Ben might be the hero, Pete was the dutiful son … the one who didn’t leave home … the one who stayed behind in The Cove and kept the family business going. Not that anyone appreciated it.

  “Screw it,” Pete muttered as he took another drag and then snapped the cigarette away. It corkscrewed into the darkness and then was gone.

  “What you say?” Wally asked, barely glancing over his shoulder.

  “Nothing,” Pete replied.

  The two men said little else as they passed the bell buoy to starboard and took a southeast bearing. Pete came closer and watched when his father turned on the G
PS and other navigational systems. His father’s face glowed a ghastly green in the light from the screen, but the lights kept flickering and, before long, Wally was cursing.

  “What’s the problem, Pops?” Pete asked, craning his head forward and looking the equipment over.

  “Fuckin’ thing keeps fuckin’ the fuck up,” Wally said. His voice was tight with repressed fury, and no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the screen winked off, plunging them into darkness. It took a moment or two for Pete’s eyes to adjust.

  “You check the connections and stuff?” Pete asked.

  Wally turned his head slowly and looked at him like he’d asked the most ridiculous question imaginable.

  “How ’bout trying the lights?” Pete asked.

  Wally flipped a switch, and the running lights came on, but they didn’t need them. The night was clear, and they were out on the open water. In the faint moonlight, they could see a fair distance in all directions.

  “Fuckin’ electronics … Don’t even need ’em half the time, anyways” he grumbled and then drank some more rum. “Why do I fuckin’ bother?”

  Pete had nothing to say to that. He appreciated the modern equipment. It sure took a lot of the guesswork out of the job.

  “So where we headed?” Pete was sure he already knew, but he was trying to engage his father in conversation.

  “The Nephews,” Wally said holding a steady course as he headed further out to sea. The moon, small and waning, was low on the western horizon. Reflected light and shadow rippled in the water like jagged, black teeth. Far out to sea, Pete could make out the dark shapes of several islands. He wasn’t sure which — if any — was The Nephews.

  The Nephews was a small group of islands more than twenty miles out from The Cove. Wally hadn’t told Pete what time they were to meet the trawler, but he had the impression they were running late. Maybe that’s why Wally was in such a pissy mood.

  It was a beautiful night, but out on the water, it was cold. Once Wally had the boat up to speed, the ride was smooth, if bracing.