Perfect Family (17 page)

Ruth went first, slowly, turning often to make sure he was okay. He felt shaken to the bone. He kept trying to snap out of it. He'd pause, tell himself not to be such a jerk. This wasn't even a steep trail. He could do better than this. He could run a trail like this. But when he tried to go faster, he stumbled. He hoped Ruth didn't hear his clumsy footfalls.

In the car going home, he relived the moment, torturing himself with it, beating himself up. It had come over him so abruptly. Fine one moment and paralyzed the next. He'd walked knife-edges in the White Mountains, where a slip of the foot meant dropping into a crevasse and almost certain death. He'd loved exposure, the steeper and more dangerous, the better. He'd craved the feeling of it. Not fear. Kin to fear but more an electric sixth sense that caused his pulse to quicken, his concentration to become sharp. He was alert as hell at those times, and it was what kept him safe.

But this? He'd had contempt for people who were afraid, people who backed away. Maybe he still did. A person could buck fear if he wanted. William sped up. He glanced over at Ruth and felt a weird mix of gratitude and annoyance. She'd seen it, been witness to it. He slid an Aretha Franklin CD into the slot. His hand was trembling. He willed it to stop. He fumbled with the knob to turn up the volume.

“You better pull over,” Ruth said.

“What's the matter?”

“Please,” she said.

The car bounced along the shoulder beside a field of early corn and came to a stop. His hands still trembled. He made fists so she wouldn't see. “I wasn't that high up,” he said, as if that made it all okay. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn't about being high.” Ruth reached for his hand. “William. It's about shock. You're not the iceman. You've got to grieve, like everybody else.”

He snatched his hand away.

“I'm not the enemy,” she said.

He got out of the car and walked up the road a ways, taking deep breaths. He hated the feeling of weakness. He'd been that way as a kid. Always scared. Something he'd made up his mind to overcome, and he'd done it. It had been years since anything like that had happened. He went back to the car. Ruth had gotten out and was leaning against the hood. “William, grief just takes time. It has its own schedule. Give it time.”

He had to walk away again. What was that supposed to mean?
Oh, it'll pass, you're just having a bad day. It'll blow over, and you'll be fine.
He wouldn't be fine. He was back where he'd started. He came back. He stood over her, towered over her, and put his face close to hers. “Here's what I want to know, Ruth. Since you seem to know so much. What the hell am I supposed to be doing while I give it time?”

She didn't flinch. She stood straight up and glared back at him.
Nose to nose now. “Go to that meeting your father called, for one thing.”

He laughed, sounding loud to himself. Where was this coming from, and who was she to tell him how to deal with his family?

“You don't think they're suffering as much as you are?” she asked.

“Those meetings are a farce. It's my dad's show. My dad's chance to show he's in charge. That he's something and we're not. Believe me, I've been to plenty of those meetings. He'll keep us guessing. He won't say, ‘Okay, let's meet at four this afternoon,' or ask when's good for everybody. He won't say anything like that, and nobody will ask.”

“Why not?”

“We just don't,” William said, like it was obvious. “It keeps everybody on a short leash. You stay close so you don't get caught out on the water or up hiking when he calls the meeting, because it'll be out of the blue, and you'll be late. He'll say, ‘Why don't we all sit down and talk this thing over,' like the idea just occurred to him. And we'll sit down at the dining room table, and he'll engage in some small talk or ask what people did that day. We're the openers at these things. The warm-up act. Nobody will bring up the real subject. Pony. The guy on the beach. Because that's Dad's job. He'll tell us what I already know. What I found out, for Christ's sake. And no credit for it, either. I guar-an-fucking-tee that. I'm the one who got the information out of Denny Bell. I'm the one who took the initiative.”

“So if that matters to you, say so.”

“Oh, Ruthie Ruthie Ruthie.” He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. She wasn't getting it.

She looked up with those fierce brown eyes of hers. “Maybe he's got all of you on a short leash,” she said. “But he doesn't have the world on one.”

“You know nothing!”

She threw off his hands, stepped away, and turned her back on
him. Deciding, he figured, between getting really pissed off or letting it go. She decided to let it go. Sort of. “Here's what I do know.” She faced him. “I know your father is a human being like anybody else. He's just a guy.”

William had to laugh. He shouldn't have, but he did. His father was a lot of things, but just a guy? Nope. And William wasn't the only one who knew so. He'd find plenty of support. His sisters, for sure. His father's old business cohorts. The neighbors on Steele Road. The families at Lake Aral. Nope. His old man was definitely not just a guy. His father had the world knocked. Not a man to be cowed. Except once, and that was a total anomaly. Man, William hadn't thought about that night in years. The night the cop had pulled his father over.

“Fine. Make a joke of it.” Ruth pushed him in the chest hard enough that he had to step back.

“I'm not laughing because it's funny, Ruth. He's just not your average Joe. I'll never be what he is.”

She frowned up at him. “What are you even talking about?”

“Huge company. Lot of money. Hundreds of employees. Everybody knows him. He's got a roomful of honors and accolades. I'll never be that. I'll never even be close.”

“You're not serious.”

“The man's bulletproof.”

“Wow,” she said. “Can you
hear
yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Want to know what I think?” She didn't wait for an answer. “I think he's a guy who just sat back and let things come to him. I see a passive guy. He inherited everything you think is so great about him. Never had to lift a finger. The business, for one. He ran it down and sold it, if I understand things correctly. He inherited the house where he raised his family. Even the house on the lake. He's just a sad old man who's lost his wife. Now his daughter. He's a guy with no clue how to connect with people. I can't believe we're even having this discussion. It's so obvious.” She took a deep breath and blew it out.
“And bulletproof?” She shoved him gently in the chest again with her palm. “
Bulletproof?
”

Cars whipped past them on the road. William felt equal parts thrill and shame at the pleasure he took in hearing that his father looked ordinary—maybe less than ordinary—to her. Oh yeah, he loved it. He didn't believe it, but he loved it. He walked down the bank toward the field, grinning to himself.

“I can't believe you'd miss this meeting, William,” she called to him. “Maybe there's new information about the guy Denny Bell saw. It's important.”

“I know as much as any of them know. More,” he said. “I've been in touch with Randy all along. There's nothing.”

She hopped up onto the hood, and damn, she looked cute. Big smile on her now, like she'd won a round. “Come on, go. For me. I for one would like to see this family in action.”

She looked so great up there. Her turquoise halter top, shorts. That white hair and the great big smile. And hell, if she wanted him to go, it was the least he could do for what she'd just given him. If she grooved on his family, well, then, fine.

They got back into the car and turned east, heading for Vermont. William still felt great. Upbeat in a way that was new, as if life held promise now. They passed a cop lurking in some trees at the side of the road. William slowed down. And he got to thinking again about the time the cop had pulled them over. The one time his father had surprised him.

The family was all packed into the Volvo. It was a June night, and they were heading to Fond du Lac for the summer. Mira and Tinker were in their car seats. William was in the way back, and William's mother held Pony on her lap in the front seat. He must have been sleeping, because all of a sudden, he was startled awake by bright revolving lights.

It was a cop car behind them. William had been excited by the commotion, the lights, the prospect of something about to happen. The cop had swaggered up to his father's window and shone his light
into the car, letting it rest on each one of them in turn so they'd had to look away. “Nice family,” the cop had said to William's father. “You trying to kill them?”

William had been floored. Didn't this cop know who his father
was
? His father was Jasper Carteret. He owned Carteret Ball Bearings in Hartford. You didn't talk to him that way.

The cop waited for an answer, but William's father said nothing. Nothing! He just stared into his lap.

“Know how fast you were going?” the cop said.

Silence.

“I clocked you at eighty,” the cop said. William knew that couldn't be true. “Car hits a guardrail at eighty, these kids will be spread over the road like hamburger.” The cop shone his light onto Pony. “Little one, too.” The blinding beam of his flashlight whipped through the car again, landed again on his father's face. “You want that?”

Say something!
William thought.
Jesus, Dad. Stick up for yourself.

“I'm asking you a question,” the cop said.

His father said nothing.

“Get out of the car, sir.”

Now,
William thought.
Now he'll let the cop have it.
But no. His father obeyed. He got out and placed his hands on the roof of the station wagon and let the cop pat him down. He let the cop take his driver's license out of his wallet. Let William's mother hand over the registration from the glove compartment.

The cop went back to his car to write up the summons, and William's father still didn't even move; he stood with his hands against the top of the car like a criminal. It took a long time. Finally, the cop came back and handed the ticket to William's father. “Maximum” was all the cop said.

After the cop walked back to his patrol car, William's father didn't make a move. The cop gave them a few bursts of light from behind, and William's father got into the car as if he'd needed permission. They drove off slowly, nobody saying a word. After a minute
or two, the cop shot past them in his cruiser and disappeared into the night.

When William used to tell the story, and he had a few times in high school and college, he'd tell it as a lesson.
The best thing to do when a cop pulls you over is keep your mouth shut. Let him ream you out and give you the ticket. Don't give him the satisfaction.
But he didn't actually believe that. He'd been pulled over a few times, and he'd always answered the cop's questions respectfully.

He told the whole story to Ruth as they drove, and she wanted to know what his father should have done.

“I kept thinking my dad had something up his sleeve,” William explained. “That he was laying a trap for the cop and he would come roaring back at the guy. But he didn't. He was meek.”

“Hmm,” Ruth said, exactly what she'd said when he hadn't sat in the Wizard's Chair, which caused him to wonder about that, too. He pictured the clearing, at least an acre, dominated by that chair somebody had made, somebody's labor of love. A gift for weary hikers. So why the hell not sit in the big one? What was the matter with him? And it hadn't even been a choice. He'd taken a look at the big one and gone right for the small one.

By the time William and Ruth arrived at the lake, the others had already come, but the place had an empty feel to it. On a day like this, you were supposed to be outside. You were supposed to be engaged in something healthy and athletic. Mira appeared on the porch as they pulled their luggage from the trunk. She wobbled down the stairs in clunky high heels. She had done something to her hair. Gotten rid of those electric-blue tips. She still looked a little scary, if you asked William. A long black skirt hung from her thin hip bones, and a section of white midriff showed. Her eyes were very dark, lined in something heavy. “What are you
doing
here?” she said.

“Hi to you, too,” William said.

“I just meant nobody expected you,” she said. “We didn't know if you got the message.”

“Well, here I am.”

William wondered what it was with women and hugs. Ruth barely knew Mira, right? And there they were in a big hug, but it made Mira smile. She had a great smile when her guard was down. “I'm
watching the kids,” she said. “I think it's penance for bringing Keith to this thing. I didn't know we weren't supposed to. Why doesn't anybody say?”

“Who's Keith?”

“You know. He bought one of Pony's paintings. I met him at Daddy's.”

The
funeral
guy?
William wondered.

“Randy Martine is coming around suppertime, and that's when the meeting is. Just so you know. Do you think somebody murdered her?” Mira asked, her eyes wide.

William was about to answer, to say it was a very big possibility as far as he was concerned, when the screen door slammed and Isabel shot out. She hugged William hard. He picked her up and swung her around. She was so light, so small, for eight. She had this surprised little face. It was something in her upper lip. It peaked at the center, like an isosceles triangle. “We have Andrew,” Isabel said.

“I know,” William said. “Do you like having Andrew?”

Isabel nodded.

“He's around here somewhere,” Mira said. “Jesus, where did he go now?”

“I can look,” Ruth said, disappearing into the house.

“They move so fast,” Mira said. “You put them down in one place, and the next thing you know—”

“I think you're supposed to watch them all the time,” William said.

“I do that,” Mira said.

“Like every minute,” William said, and Mira stuck out her tongue at him.

Ruth came back outside carrying Andrew. “He was in the kitchen,” she said. She gave William a private look that said,
Yikes
. William loved Ruth's restraint. He knew what she was thinking—a baby alone in the bloody
kitchen
? She handed Andrew over. Right away, he remembered the heft of Andrew from that day at the lake. Why had he not liked Andrew then? He didn't know now.

“You should hold him like this, Uncle William,” Isabel said,
crossing her hands over her heart. William swung the baby around the way Isabel had said. “That's right,” she said. “Doesn't that feel good? It's because his heart is right next to yours. Mom said.”

“Yeah?” William was impressed. “Your mom told you that?”

Isabel nodded. “She said it soothes them because they start out in the womb listening to the mother's heartbeat, and it's the nicest sound they know.”

William had to smile. What a cool thing! He loved it that Isabel could use a word like “womb,” that Tinker had told her that. And yes, he thought he could feel Andrew's small heart through the fabric of his T-shirt. William adjusted the baby, raising him up a little. Andrew twisted around to get a better look at who had him.

“He needs his diaper changed,” Mira said.

William tried to hand the child back to her.

“You're the guardian,” she said.

“I can show you.” Isabel led the way to Pony's old room on the second floor, William and Ruth following. “Put him on the table,” Isabel said. She walked William through everything. He removed the baby's shirt and shorts, taking the pins out of the diaper. “Oh, good,” she said. “He didn't poop. It's worse when he poops. Aunt Mira won't change him then.”

God, he was beautiful. William ran his hands over the child's small shoulders and marveled at the perfection of them. The skin was so pure, and the whites of his eyes were so clean, the irises a spectacular hazel-brown. Even his eyelashes looked fresh. William slid his hand over Andrew's silky blond hair, smoothing it back from his face. The small skull fit perfectly into William's palm. William held his hand still a few moments, loving the slight pulse. “You think he remembers?” William asked Ruth.

“Of course,” she said. “At some level.”

William looked into the baby's delighted face. Didn't you need language to remember? An understanding of cause and effect? Unless what babies stored wasn't the event itself but the feeling of it. William touched the baby's cheek and knew Ruth was right. There
would be moments in Andrew's life, triggered by something connected to what happened—whitecaps on the water, maybe, wet grass, certain sounds or smells—that would set off a primitive terror the way, for William, the glittering blue water of a swimming pool in the hot sun could blindside him with sadness.

“Andrew takes a nap now.” Isabel wound up a mobile over the baby's crib. Was it playing what William thought it was playing? “Off We Go, into the Wild Blue Yonder.”

Downstairs, Mark and Tinker were just coming in from somewhere. Maybe canoeing. She had on khakis, a white polo shirt, and deck shoes, the Lake Aral uniform that made them all so sexless. Tinker used to have a body; William was sure she'd once been a good twenty pounds thinner. That summer she was going out with Randy Martine.

“Oh,” she said, seeing William and Ruth. “You came. Oh. Well, good.” She smiled at Ruth. “This changes things.”

Mark clapped William on the shoulder, one of those smooth corporate moves he'd picked up. He kissed Ruth.

“We can put Mira and Ruth together in Pony's old room,” Tinker said to William. “You and Keith share yours.”

He let it go. You had to let her think she was running the show and then just do what you planned to do in the first place. She had circles under her eyes, and she was nervous, picking at a cuticle. She had a stain front and center on her shirt. Mira came in just then, followed by Keith, who carried a red cooler on his shoulder, his neck craned to one side. He swung it around and let it down just inside the kitchen door. “Help yourselves,” he said.

He slung a hand out. “You're William.” He was a muscular guy.
Football
, William thought.
End
. “Keith Brink.” He had a big grin on his puss, and he stood close. “I'm here with Mira.”

He was eyeball to eyeball with William, one of those guys who pulled you toward him when shaking hands. William pulled away, but Keith hung on, grinning. “What?” William asked. “Is something funny?”

Keith released him, still grinning. “Sorry, man. It's just a bad habit of mine, being an only child. I met your sisters. I was checking out the resemblance between you and them.”

“Knock yourself out,” William said.

“William can be a jerk sometimes. Don't pay any attention,” Mira said.

He almost called her on that one but decided against it. He went into the kitchen to find Tinker. “Where's Dad?” he asked her.

Tinker seemed to deflate. She made a worried face. “Taking a nap, I think. He went to his room after lunch.” She hove herself up and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “I worry about him.”

“Why?”

“He's so tired,” she said. “This whole thing.”

The other thing about Tinker. You didn't let her get going on the subject of their father. “Mira said Randy's coming around dinnertime? So that'll be the meeting?”

Tinker tucked in her shirt, glanced at her reflection in the window. She sighed like it was all too much. She was about to start in. He knew the signs. “So we have a couple of hours, then,” he said.

She nodded.

He escaped from Tinker and found Ruth outside on the porch with Isabel. “Let's go for a swim,” he said. They changed and went down to the water, already in shade. He watched Ruth plunge right in, the way Pony used to. The water today was warm. He swam ahead of her to the raft. They hung on to the ladder. She wrapped her legs around him, and there, unseen, he pulled the crotch of her swimsuit aside and backed her against the ladder, held to the ladder's sides, and entered her, slow at first, just resting where they were and he could look into her eyes and be lost until Ruth started to breathe faster, to pull at him, begging him to move inside her, and he did. Afterward they went up the ladder and lay in the last of the sun, watching clouds. “So far, so good?” Ruth asked him.

“So far, outstanding,” he said.

After some time, they swam back to shore. The beach, the house,
and the lawn were in shade now. William caught sight of someone on the porch, alone, rocking. His father was watching them. William felt a stab of dread that he and Ruth had been seen. He tried to remember which way the ladder had faced when they were making love against it. “Hey, Dad.” He shook his father's hand, Ruth leaned over to give him a kiss. His father beamed at her. And then he said to William, “You decided to join us after all,” which William took as sarcasm and which was what he told Ruth later in their room. She frowned, thinking it over, and then said, “I don't think so. I didn't hear it that way at all. It's just, you weren't coming, and then you came.”

While they were out on the raft, Mira must have been putting out pictures of Pony all over the living room. There were dozens of them, leaning against the walls and along the floor, on all the tables and chairs. Mostly snapshots, curled with age, ancient Polaroids. Keith was behind her, looking at each picture carefully.

“We found some of these in Pony's apartment,” Mira said.

“‘We'?” William asked.

“Keith and me,” she said.

“You
went
there?” he asked Keith.

“Man, I live there,” Keith said. “Didn't anybody tell you?”

“Mira, what's he talking about?” William asked.

Mira raised her shoulders as if to say,
What can you do?
“He's been there three weeks.” She looked at Keith. “Two?”

“That's very strange,” William said. “How could you do that?” He couldn't believe it. What was happening to them all?

“If you'd pick up the phone once in a while, you'd know this.” Tinker's voice rang out from the kitchen. She came into the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Pony owed back rent. Keith needed a place and was willing to make up the difference. Voilà. Somebody has to live in it, might as well be family.”

“He's not family,” William said.

“Sorry, man,” Keith said. “I can move out if it's going to start a war.”

“I'd like that.” William glared at him. “Sooner the better.”

“Then
you
pay her back rent, William. If you're going to be like that,” Tinker snapped.

“Oh. This is about money. Of course,” William said.

“It's about moving on.” Tinker came right up to him, nose to nose. “It's about you never being where anybody can find you when big decisions are made and then coming in at the eleventh hour like this and trying to tell us what to do.” Her face was red.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? What big decisions? I'm just asking how he ends up living in Pony's apartment all of a sudden.” He pointed at Keith.

“
He
helped us clean it out, for one thing.”

“I would have helped. I didn't know you were doing it.”

“You never answer your phone, William.”

“Oh, brother.” William threw up his hands.

“Well, it's true. I mean, finally, what's the point in even trying? You're always off somewhere.”

“Off somewhere,” he said. “That's right. Like up here getting that information out of Denny Bell about some guy tormenting Pony on the beach.”

“Denny told Randy that.”

“Tinker, Katherine and I talked to him.
Then
he told Randy.”

“The point is that we have the information.”

“You're sounding more and more like Dad.”

“I'd like to know how much credibility we should give what Denny said. What if he made it up?”

William never saw that one coming. “You're not serious.”

“Why did he wait so long to come forward? It's been over a month, and he just now remembers it? It sounds fishy to me. Maybe he wants to be the center of attention. And now he's backpedaling.”

“He's scared. The guy saw him. Threatened him.”

“He shouldn't be scared,” Tinker said. “And if he's so scared, he should just go back to Worcester. Nobody's making him stay up here.”

She lives in her own world,
William thought.
With all its tidy shoulds and shouldn'ts.

“And it's possible it was you he saw. You were up here,” she went on.

“Denny Bell knows who I am.”

“We shouldn't be talking about all this before the meeting,” Tinker said. “Side talking is counterproductive.”

Oh, for God's sake,
William thought.
Who brought it all up in the first place?
But he let it go. He turned to Keith, who'd been standing by, listening to all this. “Can't you find something better to do?” William said, and stormed off.

“Did you hear that?” he asked Ruth upstairs in the bedroom. She was sitting naked on the bed, her small form tight, knees clasped, head down.

“Of course I did.” She widened her eyes. “Everybody did.”

“We're going back to Connecticut.”