Perfect Family (27 page)

Staying close to shore, William ran, stumbling, through the water, keeping his light trained on the kayak. He needed to get downriver of it. Keith's arms were no match for the current. The kayak was lower in the water, Keith's body mostly submerged.

Around a bend, a huge evergreen had come down. It must have fallen years earlier from much farther up, slid down the hill, and landed halfway across the river, bringing down other trees and brush, forming a massive barrier across the trail and a good half of the river. It was a godsend, a last chance for Keith before he hit the rapid.

Holding the light, William climbed the trunk and tried to make his way through the dense tangle of branches out to where it lay in the water. He cast the light upriver and panned the water. He spotted the blue and yellow of the kayak, barely afloat and moving along like a leaf on a current. He panned once more for Keith and found the pale terrified oval of Keith's face moving toward him with the current. William waved the light, meaning for Keith to come that way. But Keith was frantic, panicked, as he tried to swim wide of the tree. In an instant he was shot forward into the dense suck of branches. William shoved the light down his shirt and used both hands to claw his way farther out the length of the tree, shouting, screaming, over the roar of the river that he was coming. He'd be there in a second. He would help. But he made no progress. It was like fighting through a solid wall. He pulled out the light, shone it ahead, hoping to catch sight of Keith pulling himself out. Instead, Keith lay on his side, entwined in the snarl of branches. The water roiled and frothed over him. His arm was raised up by the current and let down again. William lay on his stomach and reached out to grasp Keith's hand, but it was hopeless. Keith was being sucked back down and held under by thousands of tons of water.

Mira's father, too weak to return home, had been sent to an occupational rehab facility to gather his strength. The doctors said he'd stopped eating enough after Pony died, but no one knew it. He was malnourished, weak, and exhausted by grief. Now he was being taught how to live. There were model rooms at the rehab place, a cool setup, Mira thought. They had a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Whenever Mira went to see him, his first question was always about William. Had he been heard from?

And until now the answer was always no. But early that morning, while she was feeding Andrew in the kitchen, William had telephoned and, in a calm voice, told her he was in Idaho and he'd found his father's widow. He'd also found a brother. Would she please help him with something? He needed her to call a family meeting for Labor Day weekend. Everybody else would hear what he had to say at the same time. But there was something she needed to know first. He asked if Mira had her laptop with her, and when she said yes, he told her to go online to the
Challis Messenger
website
and do a search for a story titled “Man Dies in River Accident.” Would she please see to it that everyone read it. Dad, Tinker, Mark, Isabel, and Minerva. Once Mira read the article, would she please call him back right away.

A brother,
she'd thought as she set up the laptop, googled the
Challis Messenger
, then found the story. Well, as her mother used to say, wonders never cease.

She poured a few more Cheerios onto Andrew's tray. She loved his precision. He used his thumb and forefinger, very carefully, to pick up each one, his pinky extended like that of a Brit drinking tea. “What do you think about all this?” she said to him. He looked up and smiled at her. “Your family, Andrew. What can I tell you?”

While the article printed out, she watched the line of sailboats on the lake. It was Wednesday, race day. Andrew dropped his spoon on the floor. She picked it up, handed it back, and called William. “I read it,” she said.

“Honey,” he said, taking her up short. He'd never called her that. “Keith was Patrick Anholt. He was my brother. He's the one who died.”

She slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

“Say something.”

“Like what?” She made a face at Andrew, and he laughed.

“What do you want to know?” William asked. “I'll tell you what I can.”

“Yeesh,” she said, and shivered. “It's what I don't want to know. This is way too weird, William. Even for me.”

“It wasn't your fault,” William said.

“I always thought there was something off,” she said. “We never were an item, if you know what I mean.”

“That's my girl,” William said.

“I want to get off the phone.”

“Call me,” he said.

She clicked off the phone. “Guess what?” she said to Andrew. “Keith's your uncle.”

Andrew happily banged his metal tray. Cheerios jumped and then fell onto the floor.

“It's not funny,” she said, and then reconsidered. “Well, maybe in your world. Anyway, he's dead.”

Andrew kicked his feet hard against his high chair. “My feelings exactly.” She unfastened the snap that held the tray down and lifted it. He slid down and ran from the kitchen. She followed him to the porch and down the steps to the lake. It all looked bright and surreal, the water too black, the sailboats artificially white. Andrew's new playpen was on the lawn, filled with bright toys. She hoisted him up and over. He started picking blades of grass through the mesh of the playpen and examining them with that tidy little pinky-up gesture of his. He twisted his hand this way and that, then let the grass fall. When a blade of grass drifted onto his chubby bare foot, he laughed out loud.

She'd once read about a woman in New Hampshire who'd had nine children, all by the same father, and put every one of them up for adoption at birth. Years later, a brother and sister fell in love, not knowing they were related. When they found out, the boy was un-perturbed, but the girl freaked out. Mira was definitely in the boy's camp. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't sought that out. They both described the attraction as familiarity. And she knew what they meant. She hadn't actually liked Keith Brink that much, but he'd been familiar and easy the same way.

“It should bother me, right? If I'd known, well, another story altogether. But I didn't know. So what's the big deal? We came close a couple of times, Andrew, but you know? It just never felt right.” She made a face at him and whispered, “When Tinker finds out, run for cover.”

The screen door banged. “Speak of the devil,” Mira said.

Tinker was up at last, looking out at the lake in her bathrobe and pajamas. She smiled at Mira and Andrew, waved a hand in greeting.

It was early for Tinker. Since the day their father collapsed, she had been logging thirteen, fourteen hours of sleep a day by Mira's calculations, plus naps. And when she was awake, she moved about on little cat feet with her cups of hot tea and her nightly phone calls
to Mark. Mira was left to watch Andrew and drive Isabel to her morning swim lessons at the town beach. She didn't mind this at all. Isabel had always been an enigma to Mira, and now she understood that this was because Tinker kept the child on a short leash. Left to her own devices, Isabel was insightful and curious. There was so much she wanted to know. Which is closer, the sun or the stars?
The stars.
What makes electricity?
Who knows
. Is Grandpa sick because he misses Aunt Pony?
Yes.

Mira pulled two chairs from the beach up to the lawn. Tinker came down and settled into one of them, Mira into the other. The day was warm and quiet.

“You talk to Mark again?” Mira asked. She felt as if she were still floating, part of her drifting over the water, the other part here with Tinker, acting normal. As normal as she could anymore.

Tinker nodded. “For hours.”

“You two okay?”

Tinker sighed. “We're working on it.”

“Long-distance dialoguing,” Mira said. “Maybe it's better than face-to-face.” She waved to a solitary canoeist paddling by close to shore.

Tinker smiled. “He's not sleeping with his secretary. But he came close.”

“He
told
you?”

Tinker nodded.

“That's honorable,” Mira said. “To admit it.”

“You think?” Tinker had lost some weight. Her features were sharper, better defined. Her hair was loose at her shoulders. In profile, her face held echoes of Pony.

“God, yes,” Mira said.

“He said the difference between me and her is that she always has time for him.”

“Well,” Mira said. “She's paid to have time for him.”

Tinker smiled again. “Donna is a tart.”

“Maybe that's the point,” Mira said.

Tinker glanced sidelong at Mira. “I should tart it up a little, is that what you're saying?”

“Wouldn't hurt. You look good, Tink.”

“Anything yet from William? I heard the phone.”

“It was him.”

“Why didn't you say? Where is he?”

“Idaho,” Mira said.

“What's he doing there?”

“Looking for his other family.” In the days after the family gathering, Mira had told Tinker pretty much what she'd told William, leaving out the part about her own abortion. “His father's dead, but he found the widow.” She handed Tinker the printout of the story.

Tinker read it. She put it down. “They must mean his half brother, not his brother.”

Mira winked at Andrew. “He wants us to have a meeting on Labor Day. All of us. He'll explain the whole thing then.”

Tinker let the paper fall. “What happened to us, Mira? We used to be such a great family.”

“Great?” Mira said.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I never saw us as great.”

“Sure we were.” Tinker pulled up the collar of her bathrobe. “We were one of the old, established families. We had values, standing in the community. We had a name to uphold.”

“We had a ball-bearing company, Tinker.” Mira shielded her eyes from the sun. “It's not like we were great humanitarians or anything.”

“We were
some
body,” Tinker insisted, but not with all the old fire. She rose, walked a few paces down the lawn, then turned, still clutching the collar of her robe. “We can still be once this settles down. I want that for Isabel. For Andrew. We can still have continuity.”

“We have a big fat dangling thread out in Idaho.”

“Why are you so negative?”

“Sometimes it seems you're more invested in this family than in your own. Maybe this is what Mark's talking about,” Mira said.

Tinker sighed once more.

“We're dishonest,” Mira said.

“You shouldn't say that,” Tinker said.

“Mom and Dad never even told William he had a different father. That's about as dishonest as it gets.”

“I don't know that he was hurt so badly. He has a pretty good life.”

Mira felt sorry for Tinker for the first time. She saw her older sister as someone who was being ground down by the truth, resisting every inch of the way. When the whole truth came out, it was going to be rough on her. “I love you, Tink,” she said. “You try so hard.”

Tinker opened her mouth and was about to say something, then decided against it. Probably
Somebody has to
, which was her standard response to any compliment. She smiled at Mira and looked pretty and young for the first time in years. “Me, too,” she said.

 

In the days that remained before the meeting, Mira sunbathed on the raft and got the first tan of her life. Sometimes, if Andrew was taking a nap, Tinker would come out to the raft, too, and the two of them would loll around, drinking in the last of the summer sun. Mira thought a little about Keith. Poor guy. He could have just told her who he was and lived.

In the evenings she prepared for her fall course, freshman composition, with lots of outside reading. She decided they would read stories about the consequences of betrayals and secrets. She knew for a fact that if she'd taught this class last year or the year before, she'd have felt obligated to include her own secrets. She'd have thought it was necessary to provide them as her bona fides, as if to prove that she knew what she was talking about. But not anymore. Her job was to make her students better writers, not to stand there naked.