Perfect Family (6 page)

“I need to talk to you about Andrew,” Tinker said.

Pony grinned. “Sure. What about him?”

“When Isabel was a baby, I had Mother to help me. To, you know, give me advice.”

Pony cocked her head. “Yeah?”

“It's not healthy for him to go into such cold water,” Tinker said. “He's only a baby.”

“He loved it.”

“I just worry that you're perhaps a little—”

Pony stuck her hands on her hips. Her bikini was so small she might as well have been naked. She took a step forward. She was a little taller than Tinker, and very strong. “A little what?”

“A little casual with him.”

“Look, Tinker. I don't interfere with the way you raise Isabel. I'd appreciate the same courtesy from you. I'm doing just fine.”

As if Pony
could
interfere. That had been a shock; that Pony might disapprove of the way Tinker was raising Isabel had irritated Tinker enough to let the other shoe drop. “It's not appropriate to go around with your fanny hanging out of your shorts, Pony. It attracts the wrong kind of attention. You're a mother now.”

“Wrong kind of attention?” Pony laughed. “Get real, Tinker. Anyway, it's just family up here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, fuck you, Tinker.” Pony snapped the strings on her bikini bottom and left the room.

And those were the last words Pony had spoken to her. Tinker felt her insides tighten at this thought. She strained to remember the rest of the weekend. Had she and Pony said anything further? Had they hugged when they were all taking their leave? Tinker knew damn well they hadn't.

She thought she heard the hydraulic hiss of the school bus down at the corner. She waited for the second, louder hiss of the doors closing, but it didn't come. She checked her watch. Must have been something else. It was still a few minutes early for the bus, and she wanted to remember the rest, to fix a better memory of Pony in her mind, something to hang on to.

They'd let the paint on the raft and the barrels dry overnight, and on Sunday afternoon they'd rolled the barrels down to the beach, carried the wooden raft down, set it on the barrels, and rolled the whole thing into the water. The water was fiercely cold. But it was a badge of honor in their family not to complain and certainly not to pussyfoot in like you saw people doing at the town beach. Tinker had plunged right in. They'd all gasped at the cold and laughed.

It was a ritual. They did it the same way every year. Pony stood on the raft like the captain of a ship in her red bikini, her hair stuffed into a white rubber swim cap, while William and Mira and Tinker pushed the thing out into deep water. Tinker and William did most of the work. Mira was pretty worthless. She was too vain to be any help. She more hung on the raft than pushed, keeping her shoulders well out of the water so her gelled hair would stay dry and her polished black fingernails wouldn't break.

“God forbid you should flatten your spikes,” Tinker said.

“God forbid you should lighten up,” Mira said.

Pony's first job was to keep a line of sight to the shore, the water, and some set of indicators she used to approximate where the anchor hook was. “Stop!” she called out, and they stopped while Pony peered down. Tinker thought she couldn't see a thing in that dark water, but Pony had her ways. “Okay,” she said. She waved at the rest of the family on the shore—Mark and their father, Andrew and Isabel. Tinker wished she'd just hurry up. It was so cold. The anchor chain was coiled high in one corner. Pony pushed it over with her foot. She let it play out and then she slipped into the water and was gone. She had to find the eye down there and hook the chain to it. They waited. After perhaps a minute, she burst to the surface and everybody cheered.

After the raft was secured, they swam to shore, and this was the part that rankled, even now, when it was so wrong of Tinker to think this way. It was the way her father wrapped a big towel around Pony as though she was the only one who'd done anything, as though none
of the rest of them were cold and wet and miserable from being in the water so long.

Tinker checked her watch. She went into the kitchen to double-check the time on the stove clock. Ten past. The bus should have come by now. Why hadn't she heard it? She felt alarm, the panicky vision of something terrible happening to Isabel. She went outside. Their house was set sideways to the road, so the front door opened onto the driveway. She was barefoot and had to step carefully along the drive to the point where she could see down to the bus stop. Down at the corner, the Vance kids were playing on their lawn. Isabel always came right home. It was the rule. No loitering.

“Isabel?” she called. The kids stopped playing. “Is Isabel with you?” she shouted.

One of the kids shook his head.

“Did she get off the bus?”

She was seized by terror. Those damn kids weren't listening. She screamed louder. “Did Isabel get off the bus with you?”

The same boy nodded and went back to playing.

Now Tinker had to scream Isabel's name at the top of her lungs. The neighbor across the street came to her door and looked out.

“I'm here, Mama.” Isabel was suddenly, miraculously, on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, several houses up from theirs. Just standing calmly in her yellow dress, holding her book bag by one strap. Why hadn't Tinker
seen
her? A car was parked close to where Isabel stood. A man was in it. He was looking out his window at Tinker, his face obscured by a baseball cap and sunglasses. She stared at him. He stared back for a fleeting second. She tried to put it together. Had Isabel been talking to him? Tinker charged toward the car. “Hey!” she said. “You!” The man rolled up his window. He took off at a high speed before she even thought to look at the license plate.

“Who was that?” Tinker shouted at Isabel. She didn't care who heard her. “Were you talking to him?”

“No,” Isabel said.

“Did he do something?”

Isabel's eyes were huge. She was frightened, backing away from Tinker as if her mother might hit her, but Tinker had never hit her daughter, ever.

“Answer me!”

“No,” Isabel said again, petulance creeping in.

“Who was he? What did he want?” Tinker was still shouting.

“Nothing,” Isabel said. Tinker had to take a breath.
Calm down.
A couple of neighbors had come out on their front lawns, drawn by the commotion. She waved at them to say it was okay.
Slow down,
she told herself.
Stay in control.
Isabel was okay.

“He didn't want anything.” Isabel stuck out her lower lip, fighting back tears.

“How many times do you have to be told to come right home? Not to talk to strangers.”

“But I
didn't
,” Isabel said, and stalked off toward the house, dragging her book bag behind her.

Oh God,
Tinker thought too late. Isabel would see Andrew sleeping in the living room. She'd want to know why. Tinker would have to explain about Pony. What would she say? She should have thought this through earlier. She hadn't thought it out at all. She had never felt so afraid.

It took William and Ruth two and a half hours to reach the summit of North Dome, and the blackflies were thick around their faces. Before they could head back down, they needed to find the true summit. In the Catskills, mountaintops were wide and flat, the actual summit points only slightly more elevated than the rest. They had to find the canister, open it, sign the register, and put it back. Someone from the Catskill 3500 Club collected the signatures and entered them. It was how you proved you'd done the peak. If you didn't sign the register, you'd have to come up again some other time and find it then.

The truth was that in spite of the blackflies, William felt great. At peace. Since leaving Fond du Lac the evening before, he'd mulled over the experience with Pony. He'd put himself first for once by leaving. She could be reckless as hell sometimes. She could think something was funny when it wasn't. It wasn't funny to attack somebody in the water. She knew that from lifesaving. From their whole lives up there. There was no excuse for what she'd done. The blind
ing terror of that moment had gone to the core of him. And she knew it. He'd been right to leave. Whatever she had to tell him could wait.

He watched Ruth's small compact shape thrashing through the brush. Ruth would never pull a stunt like that. Ruth had respect for things. That being said, she reminded him of Pony. They shared a quality—energy, zest, something. But Ruth was smaller and had that very cool white crew cut. She had to roll up the bottoms of her pants because she was too short for regular sizes. William saw blackfly welts on the back of her neck. “Put on some more bug stuff,” he said. “Here.” He sprayed deet into his hand and wiped it along the back of her neck. She wore a bandana over her face to protect her nose and cheeks. He wiped some more on her forehead. She hated the stuff. It was toxic. It was carcinogenic. But she let him do it anyway, because otherwise she'd lose her mind.

“There!” she shouted. He looked, and sure enough, the canister was nailed at eye level to a tree not twenty feet from where they stood. They signed it quickly and immediately headed back down, stopping at an overlook for a few minutes to drink some water and look at the view from the southeast corner of the summit plateau. They kept going, Ruth in the lead to set the pace because William was too fast. He'd wait for her to climb down the steep parts until she was clear, and then he'd go quickly, scrambling over the stone like a mountain goat.

He'd met Ruth the autumn before on a group hike along a section of the Appalachian Trail in Salisbury, Connecticut. There had been nine of them that day. William noticed Ruth right away. All the guys had. She was cute, small, with a world-class smile.

The leader was a lanky guy named Chris. He gathered them into a circle and explained a little about the hike. They'd all introduced themselves. Ruth said she was from West Hartford, same as William. Chris asked for a volunteer to be the sweep, and a heavyset older guy raised his hand. Then Chris took off up the trail at a near run, and by the time William had zipped his pack and locked his car, he was
caught behind two women who were moving slowly. It was good trail etiquette to stand aside and let the faster people pass, but the two women didn't seem to know about that, and he didn't have the heart to race past. They lumbered along talking about the fact that the hike had been advertised as a B-pace when in fact it felt like a double-A. When the trail widened, he shot ahead, making his apologies. A gap had formed in the middle of the hike, and he had the trail to himself for about ten minutes, something he liked on big hikes, being alone and not alone. He caught up at a trail junction where Chris had stopped to wait. Ruth was there, and so was a guy named Alan.

Ruth gave William a lovely smile, and he returned it.

“I see
you
finally made it,” Alan said with a husky laugh and a quick sidelong glance at Ruth. He hopped from foot to foot the way joggers do at red lights so they don't break their momentum. He had on a new-looking shirt and pants and one of those microfiber French Foreign Legion–looking hats with a long bill and a flap on the back to protect his neck from the sun. Several gadgets dangled from buckles at his waist—a pedometer, an altimeter, a compass, and a digital camera in a holster. Asshole.

It took a while for the two women to catch up, and after them a couple from Mystic. The sweep finally hove into view, smacking at mosquitoes.

“Okay.” Alan slung on his pack and buckled it up. “Everybody's here. Let's go.”

William had to hand it to Chris—he didn't let himself be pressured into taking off right away. He let the sweep drop his pack, sit on a rock, and take out his water bottle. The guy's face was red. “You okay back there?” Chris called out. The sweep raised a hand in return.

“He's fine,” Alan said. “Let's go.”

They waited another five minutes for the sweep to rest, then took off again. William moved easily to the front of the line, just behind Ruth. He kept his eyes on the trail ahead of him, but they strayed to watch Ruth's muscular calves and dynamite ass.

After a half hour, they came to a ridge that looked out over a val
ley to the east. They were admiring the view, pointing out landmarks, when they heard a shout. Chris told them to stay put while he made his way back. William wondered if it was the sweep. The guy was seriously out of shape.

“People come on these hikes who shouldn't, you know what I'm saying?” Alan said, looking to Ruth for confirmation. She gave him a polite smile. “In Tibet last year,” he continued, “we had a guy—you could hear him wheezing a mile away.”

William looked off across the valley, trying to tune Alan out. He knew what was coming, the whole let-me-tell-you-where-I've-been routine. Alan had the skeevy back-door gig nailed, beginning his stories with “When I was in…” Fill in the blanks. The Dolomites, Bhutan, Torres del Paine, always told as if the place was a detail and not the main point. “Is that so?” Ruth asked with all the interest of a clam.

The man of the couple from Mystic came back up the trail. The poor guy's face was white. He said the sweep had collapsed. A heart attack, maybe.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Alan said.

They made their way back to find the man lying on his back across the trail, exactly where he must have fallen. The trees on either side pressed in, leaving no room to maneuver. Chris was crouched over the man. Everyone was talking at once about CPR. Who knew how to do it? Alan started hauling pieces of wood onto the trail, saying they should rig up a litter of some sort and get him down. He'd seen it done in the Whites.

William asked the couple from Mystic how long they thought it had been since they saw the man. The husband said a half hour, at least. The woman nodded agreement. William knelt and lifted the guy's eyelids; the pupils were huge and fixed. The guy was dead, beyond CPR. William took Chris aside. “You want my help?”

Chris said yes. He was shaking.

“Walk people back to their cars and get help. I can stay here. I need one other person to stay with me.”

Chris called for two volunteers. Alan's hand shot up. Chris explained that he and Alan would take the group back to the trailhead and to their cars. He said William would wait with the body. He needed one other person to stay, too.

Which was how Ruth and William ended up on the Appalachian Trail, watching over the corpse of a stranger as light drained from the sky and the air became chill. After a time, Ruth said, “There's a wife somewhere, or kids, parents, friends who don't know yet. Their lives are about to fall apart.”

William had been thinking the same thing.

“That was good you helped Chris out,” she said.

They heard the helicopter just before the last of the daylight vanished. It set down out of sight. Chris and the EMTs broke through the woods with a folded stretcher and flashlights.

After the helicopter left, Ruth took the lead and William followed her back out, lighting their path from behind with his flashlight. At the car, she surprised him. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. He held her tightly to himself, feeling how small she was and how strong. Their kiss was filled with something ancient and delicious. Being so close to death. Feeling so alive.

William followed Ruth to her apartment. She lived not far from William on the third floor of a house belonging to a man who wrote books about medicine. She made them some tea, and they talked for a long time about the man who had died. It was late, and by then his family must know of his death. They made love. William fell into a deep, exhausted sleep but woke often during the night to find Ruth wide awake and staring at the ceiling. She couldn't get the family off her mind. She kept imagining the way the news would be rolling out, the midnight telephone calls, the dark hours of grief. She imagined a great sad network spreading over the world, the information about this man making its way to the people he'd loved. She just couldn't get over it.

 

Now, from the shower in their motel, William watched Ruth in the bedroom. She was sitting naked on the bed with her cell phone to her ear, checking for any messages on her home phone, just in case. She had a big job coming up in the next few weeks: A woman in Glastonbury needed landscaping and gardens put in at a new house. Ruth was lining up some people to work, getting her orders straight. She made notes on a small pad of paper as she listened to her messages. He was toweling off when she came into the bathroom, her face somber. “You'd better listen to this one,” she said.

He took the cell from her. “Ruth?” The voice belonged to his sister Tinker. “This is Tinker Bradshaw, William's sister. I got your number from information.” Her voice broke. “I'm looking for William. It's an emergency. I keep getting his machine. Do you know where he is? Is he with you? If you see him, have him call me right away. Day or night.”

William punched in Tinker's number. Isabel answered. “Hi, Isabel,” he said. “Sweetheart. It's Uncle William calling. Is your mom there?”

“Aunt Pony died,” Isabel whispered. “She drowned.”

He couldn't have heard that right. There were a lot of other voices in the background. Tinker came on the line. “William?” she said. “Is that you?”

He lowered himself carefully to the bed. He felt Ruth's close presence. “What's going on?”

Tinker spoke between sobs. “Pony was missing. Anita Bell called Daddy. We went up there, oh man, when? Two nights ago. I can't think. Where have you been? We've been looking for you for two days. The police—Randy—found her yesterday morning. She drowned, William. Her hair got caught in that chain.” Tinker broke into a wail. “Nobody knew she was even up there.”

There wasn't enough air in the room.

“Are you there, William?”

“I was there,” he said. “I just was there.”

“Daddy passed out in the water. She looked so awful.”

“Tinker, slow it down.”

“There were footprints on the sand besides hers. Somebody else was there. Randy Martine saw them last night before the ambulance this morning and all those people. Somebody was with her.”

William leaned over, reached for the wastepaper basket. He thought he'd throw up. “The other footprints are mine. I was there.”

“You were
what
?”

“Where's Andrew?” William reeled with shock.

“What do you mean, you were there?”

“Is Andrew okay?”

“Yes. What were you doing up there?”

“She can't be dead,” William said.

“She is. I
saw
her, William.”

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't take it in at all. “It can't be.”

Mark's voice came on the line. “Hey, man,” he said.

“Mark,” William said.

“We think maybe she was trying to fix the anchor. Was something wrong with it?”

“I don't know.”

“Your dad wants us all at the house on Sunday at three. Family meeting.”

“I have to hang up,” William said.

“Okay, I understand,” Mark said.

“Wait.” Tinker again. “Is Seth Andrew's father?”

“I have to hang up, Tinker,” William said.

“Don't call Seth,” Tinker said.

“Why would I?” William asked. Keeping Pony's secrets was a habit with him.

“Just don't. Daddy said.”

William gave the phone to Ruth. He pressed his hands to his face.

“This is Ruth. He can't talk anymore.” She listened for a moment before saying, “I'm so sorry. Yes. Okay. I will.”

William took the phone. He called Vermont information and got
the number for the Hartwick barracks. “Randy, it's William Carteret.”

Randy Martine had been around every summer of William's life, a kid who lived at the lake year-round. A nice guy. A decent guy. “Oh, man, William. First let me say I'm so sorry.”

“Where is she now?”

“Medical examiner.”

“You think someone did this?”

“There were footprints. Possibly she had company.”

“They were mine, Randy. I was there. Oh, man, she was fine. She was great. This whole thing—”

“What time was that?”

“Three-thirty. Left maybe five-thirty.”

“Any reason you didn't stay?”

“The kid. The chaos. I thought I'd be able to work. I knew I couldn't.”

“You notice anything unusual about her?” Randy asked.

“Like what?”

“Her mood. Something she might have said. Done. Anything that stands out. Was she expecting anyone?”

“She had something to tell me, but then she never did.”

“Concerning?”

“Don't know. She showed me an old picture of my mother. She showed me a lifesaving move,” William said. “Took me by surprise. Damn near—” He almost said “drowned me.”

Randy cleared his throat. “There are unusual circumstances, William. The baby left unattended like that. It raises a red flag. What was her relationship to the child?”