A Matter of Mercy (32 page)

“So she hurts me on purpose,” Caroline continued. “Maybe has her cousin try to kill my baby. Let’s say she does.”

“Or try to kill you
and
our baby.
On
purpose
.”

“Okay. I’ll give you that. So I, in retaliation, press charges and she goes to jail.”

“Her and moonface psycho dickhead. Right on.”

“And then she gets out. Then what?”

“She’s eighty-two and on a walker, I hope. You can get a lot of time for attempted murder.”

Caroline put her hand on Rid’s thigh. “Rid, someone has to stop the pain, and I choose it to be me. This all started with something I did, and I have some small power now to be—to be decent or kind. I’m not sure what the right word is.”

“CiCi, no. It leaves you wide open. She can come after you again. Psychodick can come after you again, nothing to stop them. Do you think they want you to have this baby? You can’t live like that. Worrying about them being right around the next corner.”

Caroline saw the frustrated anger in the red flush rising from his lower neck steadily toward his face, a thermometer of emotion. She’d seen it before when he’d had it in his head that she was involved in Pissario’s lawsuit.

She tried to take his hand, but he withdrew it. “I don’t want to make you mad, and I don’t want you to have to worry, but Terry said she thought she could get him to stop. I’m trying to make things right, so I can live with myself. It’s a matter of
mercy
, Rid.

“You believe her? After what she’s done to you?”

“I’m going to give her a chance.”

“And risk yourself and our baby?”

“There’s some risk, yes. I want to give her a chance is all.” Caroline looked out the windshield toward the water, but had to squint because of the intensity of the light. She wished she had some sunglasses with her. Rid was right, though. It was home. The sand and the water were soothing. The back of the tide was creeping up toward the wrack line, high and thick as always in winter. The worst of the weather was ahead. The harbor would likely freeze by the end of the month and she was worried about the potential damage to the buried clams. Big blocks of ice would shift with tides, scraping the sand and netting off them.

“Well, I don’t. An accident is one thing, CiCi, but what she did was on purpose. Don’t you get that?”

“Please, Rid—”

“I don’t think I can live with this.”

“But—“

“Are you going to be rational and protect yourself and our baby, or are you gonna put yourself out there with a target on your stomach? Because I’m not gonna watch that. I’m not going to sit around and just wait for that.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. If I thought that’s what I was doing, I couldn’t either. Hold up, just please listen,” she said as Rid started to break in. She picked up his hand, half to restrain him, half to soothe. “I thought about this a lot when I was in the hospital and in bed at Noelle’s. You know, the whole idea of why this happened, if it was retaliation. I felt like it was at least spiritual punishment, that I somehow deserved it. Now I know it was real, direct human retaliation, which at least makes more sense.”

“No way, CiCi. The baby could have been killed. The baby is
innocent
. That’s not how things work. You have
no
right
to put the baby’s life in danger for one unnecessary minute. It’s
my
baby too.” Rid’s face was flushed right into the half-moons where his hairline had receded, the ones that made his face heart-shaped. He was furious, yanking back his hand, but Caroline wouldn’t let it go and he wasn’t going to jerk on her because of her injuries. “Please let go,” he said.

“Just hear me out. Please. It’s all I’m asking. Okay?” She waited for him to take a couple of breaths and meet her eyes again. His were so blue, now, against the flush on his skin, maybe because they were newly wet like beach stones when the rising tide first covers them and recedes. With beach stones, their color intensifies and they glisten like joy; she was always sad when it faded.

It was a good fifteen seconds before he nodded.

“Thank you. Listen, I know you’re right. There’s some risk. But I have to take that chance if I’m going to live at all. I’ve been afraid to, because so much goes wrong all the time. But not living hurts, too. That’s the problem. You love, you hurt. You don’t love, you hurt. You trust, you forgive, you get hurt. You don’t trust, you don’t forgive, guess what?” Caroline was like sand and rockweed flying down the beach in a blow, that speed, that intensity, trying to sweep Rid along with her. “Which choices let you live the best, most decent life? Which gives you more chance at goodness? I don’t want to live in a wasteland anymore and I don’t want our baby to, either. Tell me something: who am I quoting now? ‘I throw my life savings into the bay, and hope?’ Do you recognize your own words? The way we live here is all about risk and love, isn’t it? That’s what sea farmers do. You don’t give up. This is my chance to not give up, to have a little hope that Terry and I can somehow move on to something better in our lives.”

Rid shook his head. “You don’t get it. What you’re asking is the same as…,” he cast for an analogy and hooked one, “asking me not to button down the grant before winter, just take my chance that nature, which I already know can turn lunatic-destructive, will make nice and do me no harm. Yes, I
hope
. But I act responsibly, too. I can’t just rely on hope.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’d go to the cops myself, but that’s not going to do any goddamn good if you won’t press charges.” Rid looked away from her, out the window toward his grant. A wet sheen was around his eyes, gathering in the bottom lids. “I’m saying you’re tying my hands, and I can’t stand that. You might as well put me back in that cage.”

She still didn’t get it. “Rid, please try to understand. I love you.” She reached for his hand where it was in a fist on his thigh, and wrapped hers over it like paper takes rock in
rock, scissors, paper
.

“Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve said the words outright to me? And you’re saying them to get me to do what you want.”

“But I
do
love you. So much I’m scared of it. I’m sorry I haven’t said it upfront before. Neither one of us has been exactly a fountain of words about our feelings, have we? Maybe we should have been. Sooner.”

“But I’ve at least given you a clue, haven’t I? I’ve said it, not just when I wanted something.” Both of them now unsheathing a blade. Rid took his hand out from underneath Caroline’s and shoved it under his own leg. It was junior high again, but he couldn’t help it.

It was the back side of the tide, coming in fast now. Clint’s truck bumped over the sand. Upon the most subtle signal from Rid he’d have pulled up and rolled down his window for a chat, but failing one, he gave a slightly quizzical look—they were in a car rather than a truck, for one—checking to make sure they didn’t need help, and when Rid waved, Clint waved back, accelerated and drove on by.

When he’d passed, Caroline said, “Wait. This isn’t about love, it’s about going to the police or not, and I can’t do that yet. I have to wait to see if she can make it stop. I owe her that.”

“You
owe
her that? Jesus, CiCi, If you don’t go to the police—don’t you understand? I can’t be helpless again. You’re putting me back behind bars, locking me up and telling me I can’t do what I need to do to protect what I love. I can’t sit back and wait for Moonface to come along and destroy everything. I can’t love you and the baby and go through this just waiting for him to attack you in the dark again. I did it your way, to give you time to talk to Terry. I showed my respect. But now you won’t do the same.”

“What do you mean?” Now Caroline’s eyes were full, disbelief mixing with a frantic effort to come up with something,
anything
. Anything except altering the decision by which she was earning her redemption.

“I can’t sit by and watch while you give those two license to hurt you and our baby again. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

“So that’s it? What about loving each other? What about loving our baby?”

Rid turned to face her, angry. “I do love you. I thought I’d made that clear. You’re the one who just said this wasn’t about love. You’re making unilateral decisions about your safety and about the baby’s safety that I can’t abide.”

CiCi stared at him, unbelieving.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “I’ll take you back to Noelle’s now.”

Both sat as if made of stone. Caroline looked out the passenger window, positioned so her tears would slide silently into her scarf so she wouldn’t have to wipe them. Rid put on the radio so she would not hear him sniffling. He swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, glanced over and saw she was sitting at an angle and worried that her ribs must be hurting, then told himself she’d made it clear she didn’t want him taking care of her. Noelle and Walt could worry about her now.

Chapter 29

Frigid Canadian air had chased behind the worst weather of the season, freezing the harbor. Not only that, the last winter storm had come hard from the west, which meant Rid had to worry whether Mario’s stuff had come loose in the blow before the ice hit. If it had, it would have gone to the east and would be all over Rid’s raceways, putting holes in his nets or even scraping them off his quahogs. Typical Mario. He hadn’t pulled out his cages for the winter, playing fast and loose with his own and other people’s livelihoods.

Rid hadn’t let himself call Caroline, hadn’t let himself go to his grant since he’d taken her back to Noelle’s. Going to his grant would mean seeing her house, and how would he be able to keep himself from checking it? From checking on her? It was taking all the self-control he could gather. And it didn’t help that he’d slept better in prison than he’d slept in his own bed lately. He was fitful, a wing beat of a bad dream he couldn’t remember troubling him again and again. Still, he was determined to ride it out. He hadn’t finally learned to do things by the book—after so many wasted years and impulsive mistakes—to deliberately unlearn it now.

On Thursday, he couldn’t stand it anymore. There was enough dark gray wind that he put on his parka rather than waterproof sleeves; he wasn’t going to work, just to look, after all, but still, he added a wool cap under the hood, it was that bone-piercing cold. Two Christmases ago his mother had given him insulated jeans that had turned out useful for cutting wood in bad weather, and he wore those, too, with long underwear.

“Come on, girl. Wake up. Let’s go.” The Lab roused from the couch and climbed down joylessly. “Oh for God’s sake, Liz. Cut me some slack, will you? I’ll give you a treat in the truck.”

He didn’t drive across the beach as he normally would, but left the truck at the end of the access road. Too much snow. He knew where the biggest rocks were, of course, and they were visible snow-mounds, more like small igloos, anyway. But he saw no point in risking his muffler by pretending he was certain where every rock huddled in the deep snow. He opened the driver’s side door and gestured for Lizzie to follow him, sneaking a glance at Caroline’s house while the Lab scrambled out and bounded into valleys between drifts. He could barely see the top of the dune fence between her house and the beach, the storm had blown that much snow against it. There appeared to be a light on in the kitchen window, but it could have been a reflection. It wasn’t his business, he told himself for the umpteenth time. He turned toward his grant. The wind picked up snow and flung it at his back. Twice he tripped on completely covered obstacles. There were patterns on the unbroken snow like those left by retreating waves on sand. Several sets of footprints had already traveled to and from the grants.

Mario was down on the beach, between his own and Rid’s grant. The wind obscured the sound of his feet in the snow until Rid was almost on top of him, but as he approached, Rid saw what Mario was looking at: the detritus of cages frozen into the front of Rid’s grant, which would certainly be over raceways. Who knew what kind of disaster the back would be in?

“Jesus, man, I’m sorry. Caroline’s already been down here. I’ll make it right—I’ll clean it all up. Whatever stock is lost, I’ll replace it.”

Rid looked at the grant and then looked at Mario, trying to process Caroline’s name at the same time he took in the probable devastation to his quahogs. “You don’t know that your cages didn’t take out all
your
clams along with mine,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. He couldn’t ask about Caroline, about what she’d been doing down here in this weather. It was too much. It was all too much. “How’re you gonna fix this? How you gonna replace mine if your nets and stock are gone, too? Goddammit, Mario. This is all I’ve got, and I did
everything
by the book. Everything by the goddamn book.” His voice was raw, sad, spilling anger.

“Look, next year I’ll button the grant. This summer I’ll dig a pit and next winter I’ll button the grant, my word on it. I promised Caroline this wouldn’t happen again. She made me see I’m not being fair. I promise I’ll clean this all up, and I’ll make it right. You know, man, we’ve got to wait to see—maybe it’s not so bad. There’s no telling right now, not till it thaws. Okay?”

Rid swallowed and breathed hard a couple of times. His mouth grim, moving only his eyes, he took the measure of his grant, the seasons of work that lay beneath the ice, where seed had been planted and nurtured like something sacred. Where he’d done all he could to not mess up again like he had in the past. Where he’d done his damnedest to carry on his father’s legacy and build something that would last.

“Man, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Give me another chance, will you?” Mario’s voice was hoarse. Like Rid, he was in a heavy parka , but he wore high waterproof boots, too. Footprints onto the frozen bay revealed that he’d tried to dislodge the closest displaced oyster cage a corner of which was jutting out of the ice. It had been an exercise of equal parts desperation and futility.

“The damage is done, Mario.” Rid’s tone said he wasn’t necessarily referring to the grant.

Rid turned to meet Mario’s eyes and saw tears.

“I swear I’ll make it right,” Mario said, a naked plea. “You gotta give me a chance. We’re partners, right? I keep thinking how you helped me when I sank my truck, and I probably never said thanks. And now I let this happen. I know I fucked up. Just give me a chance. We’re in this together. I swear I
will
make it all right.”

Mario’s words washed over him like a rip tide, and Rid looked back toward his grant, not seeing it this time.
Oh God
, he thought,
is there only one story in the world?
He put his head down on his chest a long quiet moment while his eyes filled and he closed them. Finally he lifted his head and met Mario’s anguished gaze. He nodded and put out his gloved right hand for Mario to shake.

“It’s okay, man. I know you’ll work it out.”

Rid left Mario behind him and headed back toward his truck. A light snow had started up again, magnified by the wind so it swirled around him like a cloud. He didn’t stop at the truck, but lumbered on, Lizzie bounding ahead, then coming back and circling behind as if to gather him in. The land and water were indistinguishable now, and because of the frozen harbor and sky, they too merged until the world seemed all of one substance and he and Lizzie alone in it. He crossed the horseshoe beach and turned to face Caroline’s house where now he saw smoke mounting from the chimney. A fire had been lit. She was there. Thank God, she was there.