Cameo Lake (5 page)

“Can I ask how long she's been gone?”

“Almost a year.” Abruptly Ben stood up and swung his pack onto his shoulders. “We'd better head back, down is almost as tough as up.” With that he squelched any further questions I might naturally have asked.

The day before my family arrived it rained nonstop, making it easy to stay put and work. After lunch I tidied up, running a dust mop across the ceiling boards to knock down the worst of the spiderwebs. Lily wouldn't come inside if she thought there was any danger of being touched by a spider.

At seven-thirty I dashed to the car, already late for our nightly call. I wanted to talk about my hike up the mountain, but the kids were full of their own story. “We went to the zoo!” They were in the kitchen with the speakerphone and the echo chamber effect made me nervous but at least we could all talk like a family.

“And how's Alice the elephant today?”

“She's fine.” Tim's voice conjured his little map-of-Ireland face in my mind. “Eleanor didn't know she was named Alice.”

“Who?”

“Eleanor . . . Daddy's, you know . . .” Lily was looking for the noun which would describe Eleanor's role in Sean's life.

“Secretary.” I offered.

“Administer.” Lily countered

“Administrative Assistant.” Her predecessors were all secretaries but the term had fallen out of favor recently. A secretary by any other name.

“What-everrr,” this in Valley Girl dialect. “She and Daddy surprised us.”

Tim launched into every detail of their trip to the Roger Williams Park Zoo, including the ice cream before lunch and the penguin key chains Eleanor bought for them at the gift shop. It was easy to make the appropriate exclamations without concentrating on their every word.

Finally I saw an opening in the litany, “Is Daddy there?”

“No. He's making up lost time.”

Sean's expression. Whenever we co-opted any of his work time he'd say, “Cleo, I've got to make up the lost time.” As if it weren't his own business. If I pulled him away for a school conference or a long weekend, it was the same. It was as if he felt that a moment's inattention would bring down the business his father had built. Francis McCarthy had never taken a day off, either, until his first heart attack.

Sometimes I pointed that fact out to Sean, but he'd just tell me he wasn't his father. He wasn't a hard drinker, or a smoker, and he kept his cholesterol down. He knew that in one colossal way he did resemble his father, but we did not speak of it. However, a trip to Roger Williams Park Zoo with his secretary was a red flag to me that Francis's DNA was acting up in the son.

“Well, when is he coming home?”

“Dunno.” Lily was chewing something and her voice was thick, “Gramma's here.”

Alice immediately took me off speaker. “Seannie's been crazed trying to get ready to take his vacation.” Alice offered this even before I commented on yet another late night.

“Well, he's awfully lucky to have you to fall back on.”

“I enjoy it. You know that, Cleo.”

“I do. I'm lucky, too.”

“So tell me about this trip to the zoo.”

“They went, that's all I know.”

“Alice . . . Ma, should I come home?”

“Don't be silly, it was a trip to the zoo with the kids.”

After I hung up I sat for a long time gripping the steering wheel as if guiding the parked car. Although I trusted Alice's judgment, I decided I would call Eleanor tomorrow and thank her personally for
giving up her afternoon for my family. Emphasis on the
my.
Then I laughed out loud. If this were a first-draft novel, I'd be embarrassed at the absolute banality. This was life and life can be stale, but I wouldn't let my professionally overactive imagination stereotype me. Yet I would have a word with Sean when he arrived. A delicately balanced word. It was critical I avoid any hint of mistrust—the other thing he inherited from his father was his anger.

Five

A
fter backing up all the work I had done onto a floppy disk, I packed my laptop away. A couple of weeks away from Karen and Jay wouldn't be a bad thing. I kept my notebook handy to jot those thoughts and brilliant bits of dialogue which would come to me during the weeks off, so as not to lose them. I spent an hour grocery shopping at the Big G, raising the eyebrow of my usual gum-chewing clerk at the profligate array of snack foods and quantities so at variance with my usual habits. “Family's coming today,” I felt compelled to explain as if embarrassed at my wanton spending. As if the kid cared.

Just saying it aloud tweaked my excitement at seeing my kids again. It had been less than ten days, but I felt that I hadn't seen them since forever. At the same time, I knew that the solitude had been productive and necessary. Still, I couldn't wait to see my babies, imagining that they had somehow grown up in my absence.

After unloading the groceries from the car I skipped lunch and changed into my running gear. The thunderstorm on Tuesday night had cleared the unnaturally hot weather but had left behind true summer. Each morning a light mist hovered over the warming water, ethereal and reminiscent of Arthurian legend. I couldn't see Ben's cabin until the mist dissipated, but the fog amplified simple sounds, a
cough, bird song, the repeated measures of a new motif Ben was working on early in the day. As the mist lifted, the sounds weakened and we were again separated by the flat, shiny expanse of water.

Running along the wooded path, I saw signs of arrival in several of the lake cottages; cushions left out in the sun to air, a dinghy pulled down to the water's edge which wasn't there yesterday, voices calling instructions to spouses and kids. I saw evidence of children and imagined my two chumming with others, exploring the lake and having the experiences which they would carry into adulthood as “When we went to the lake . . . do you remember? . . .” Sometimes I felt as though I wasn't giving my children enough memories. Sean and his sisters had hours of stories from their childhood, everyday moments turned, by some McCarthy magic, into spun gold. “Remember when we had that rabbit and convinced Colleen that it talked?” “Remember the time Dad took us all to Rocky Point and we all put on English accents, pretending not to know what clam cakes were? . . . Remember finding shapes in the clam cakes like clouds?”

For the life of me I couldn't raise memories like that. I remembered asking for a pet, and the dismissal of the idea out of hand by my mother. “Pets are a nuisance, Cleo. A nuisance.” My parents traveled. At least early in my life I know they traveled to New York and Boston. I have a vague memory of going to some city with them, but not of where, or why I was there. Only a shadow of memory of a hotel lobby and the odd little cap the bellboy wore.

Certainly there would be childish memories of Narragansett, of spending time with the cousins and making sandcastles at Watch Hill, of riding the ancient carousel there. Certainly Sean and I had given them those memories to treasure. They would never know about that one terrible summer, and so the place would remain precious to them.

I grimaced against the sudden stitch in my side as I made the turn for home. I was running faster than I should, my pace evidence of how anxious I was to see my kids and watch them record memories for themselves. Running faster, as if to make the time move. Still breathing hard, I peeled off my shorts and top, revealing my tank
suit, pulled my running shoes off while still in motion and plunged into the lake. Conditioning and thermal warming had lessened the shock but I still gasped aloud.

Ben was already on the raft. He had been on the raft long enough for his skin to dry. Only a slight gleam in his gray-threaded dark hair and the dampness of his baggy swim trunks remained of his swim. “Is your family here yet?”

I had told him of their imminent arrival, partially as a head's up, his raft solitude would be under attack, and partially because I was excited. “Not yet. Sean's leaving this evening after work. He doesn't want to lose an extra day.” I rolled over to sun my back, resting my cheek against my arm. “I liked what I heard this morning.”

Ben blushed a little under his tan, a tiny pleased reddening on his sharp cheekbones. “Thanks.” He, too, rolled over to rest his cheek on his arm.

“I'm beginning to recognize it so I guess you've been working on it for a while.”

He didn't say anything, but his fingers against the deck tapped out invisible notes.

“So, what's it for?”

“It's not for anything.” He pushed himself up and went to sit on the edge of the raft, his back to me, his fingers still tapping.

“Then what is it?”

“Just something I've been noodling around with for a while now.”

I got up and sat beside him. Once again the grown man made me think of my little boy. Yet I sensed a willingness to be pressed into telling me more. “I don't mean to be nosy, I just like it and wondered what it was.”

Ben stared across the lake as he spoke, his fingers suddenly still, gripping the coaming of the raft. “A concerto for flute.”

I dangled my legs over the edge beside him. “Sounds like an ambitious project.”

“My wife was a flautist.”

“What a lovely idea, Ben. A wonderful gift.” I didn't say “memorial,” I didn't know enough.

“Thank you.” Ben looked at me, his eyes holding my natural questions at bay. “I haven't gotten to the solo part yet. I keep going back to the orchestral parts.”

“Maybe you're not ready.” I don't know what prompted me to make such an observation and I wished I hadn't. It wasn't mildness which made Benson Turner's eyes so striking in an ordinary face, it was grief and I had trespassed on it.

Ben looked down at his moving fingers and shrugged. “I may never be ready.”

I felt as if somehow my curiosity had prodded this revelation out of Ben at a cost to him and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. We sat quietly for a few more minutes, then stood up and dived off our different sides of the raft.

The headlights of Sean's car broadcast their arrival late that evening. I dashed out to help carry in sleepy children. Lily and Tim revived long enough to argue about going to bed, then caved in. Sean and I chose to leave most of the stuff in the car until morning, when we could see. The Volvo was filled to capacity with what the kids deemed essentials, half of which I knew no one would use. Clearly the kid's had had carte blanche in packing.

“Leave it and come sit with me on the porch.” I handed Sean a bottle of locally brewed beer and picked up my own glass of wine. “The best part of this place is this porch.”

Sean followed me outside. We sat quietly for a few minutes on the old metal glider with its musty cushions, Sean letting the buzz from the long drive subside. It was well near midnight and I felt the long day's end in the heaviness of my limbs and the grit in my eyes. I'd been up since six, eager for their arrival. Now I just wanted my bed, but I knew that we'd make love. I expected it, should have wanted it, but, at midnight, the anticipation had dropped with my energy. I shouldn't have run so far today, or maybe should have taken a nap. Certainly not be drinking wine, with its soporific effect on me.

“So, how was the drive up?” I nestled in beside Sean and he put an arm across my shoulders.

“Fine. Long. Kids slept only after we crossed into New Hampshire. Traffic around Boston was a bitch.” Sean went on in this vein, by rote, as if he'd taken the trip a thousand times. As if he wasn't engaged in his surroundings and the experience. “Look, Cleo, I'm really exhausted. I've been working a lot of extra hours to clear my desk. Would you mind awfully if I just went to bed?”

I tried to keep the relief out of my voice. “I'm beat, too. Let me just finish my wine and I'll join you.”

“Kids sleep late.” The implication.

“I'm sure they will.” The agreement. Though I had my doubts they would, I chose not to argue the point.

At some point in the night I heard Sean get up. Not long after I heard the toilet flush, I felt him return to bed.

“You awake?” His breath in my ear tickled. I could hear the first birds of the day.

“Yeah.”

Sean nuzzled my neck and pressed against my back, his right hand finding my breast. Slowly I moved into his rhythm and we made love. The light was just brightening to full when we parted. Sean was asleep again in seconds. I lay fully awake, already missing my solitude.

Even before breakfast the kids were in the water. Longtime YMCA swimmers, they were strong and confident, making for the raft without hesitation. I didn't worry too much, the raft wasn't terribly distant for kids used to laps, and it was only over their heads toward the middle. Still, I made them promise not to swim unless Sean or I was within sight and I made them promise to jump off only facing Grace's cottage. A request which effectively kept us together outside or separated while one of us did time elsewhere.

Thus our days fell into routine. Breakfast, swim, hike, lunch, swim, break up afternoon squabbles, supper, shower, and bed. Kids began showing up to play with Lily and Tim. The air was filled with
screechy giggles to harmonize with the rusty bedspring notes of the red-winged blackbird. I tried to keep the kids off the raft at noontime, planning lunch and an activity so Ben could have the raft to himself. I hadn't seen Ben except from a distance since our last conversation on the raft, and I had the lingering bad taste of having said the wrong thing to him.

Sean stuck his cell phone into his shirt pocket. “I'm going to take a little walk.”

“Don't be long, lunch will be ready in a little bit.” I was shredding lettuce for Caesar salad.

“Half an hour, tops. You okay to watch the kids?”

It was overcast this morning and the kids had stayed in on the porch, playing Monopoly with the neighbor boy. Through the kitchen window which looked out on the porch, I could see three curly heads bobbing, two copper-red and one, the neighbor boy, jet black.

“Of course.” I had my hands full of lettuce. Sean pecked my cheek and bolted through the door as if he had an appointment. Watching him disappear up the well-worn path, I had to smile at Sean's inability to vacation. Not smile in amusement, but in resignation. He hadn't always been this way. Only in the last couple of years, as his client base had grown from individuals looking for protection for their cars and homes to corporate clients looking for protection against liability should their products do harm or their employees see harassment in a dirty joke. I dumped the shredded lettuce into a glass bowl and stuck it in the refrigerator. “Can I play?” I asked the kids who made room for me to sit and handed me the little car token.

Sean had been supportive of my need to come to the lake to do my work. I could hardly complain if he thought he needed to do his.

Tim pulled over his head a T-shirt I'd never seen before. It flaunted a status logo of which I highly disapproved. I did not like my ten-year-old son wearing status-symbol clothing. “Whose shirt is that?”

“Mine.” Tim held the bottom of the oversized shirt down. “Eleanor bought it for me.”

Eleanor. I never had called to thank her for her taking the time to take the kids to the zoo. Now she was buying Tim clothes.

“You know how I feel, Tim.”

“But Mom, it was a present and I would have been rude to say no.” Tim let go of the hem. “Besides, I'm not in a gang. It's just a shirt.”