Shatter My Rock (10 page)

The
bumpy start to our getaway smoothes as we imbibe a number of exotic cocktails Carson
prepares at a patio bar. Drinks with names like Jade Monkey, Klondike Cooler,
and
Platinum Passion.   

Tim
bounces Owen on his knee, laughs despite himself at one of Carson’s crass
limericks, lets his fingers admit they love me when they brush my way.

I
reach across my chest to my shoulder, where I hold his hand hostage, make him
know that, regardless of the tension between us, he is and always will be mine.

“Hey,
Ally!” Jenna calls, trying to draw my daughter, who seems poised to sprout a
tail and fins, from the water’s edge. “The hot dogs are ready!”

I
have never been a fan of clams, the chewy, gooey consistency of them, but Jenna
has steamed half a bushel of the things in some top-shelf German lager that
causes them to melt when they hit my tongue. “These are delicious,” I say.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” My job leaves little time for domestic
endeavors, which makes Jenna’s mastery of beachfront cuisine that much more
impressive.

With
the beginning of a slur infecting his speech, Carson blurts, “Sissy never told
you she was in the CIA?”

Thinking
this is a joke, I burst out laughing, which gets Tim going too. Only I’m wrong.
“It’s true,” Jenna says. She tips a shell to her lips and slurps another of the
delicacies down. “Between Wheaton and NYU, I took a year off. Thought I was
gonna open a bistro in SoHo.”

“For
the CIA?” I ask, still confused.

She
smirks a little. “The Culinary Institute of America.”

I
roll my eyes at Carson, who could not be more delighted at the success of his
trick. Then, offering my last two clams to Ally, I say, “Want to try?”

There
is adventure in my daughter, a zest for life I long ago lost or never possessed
from the start. She accepts the plate and, with a twirl of her finger, peels a
clam free and pops it into her mouth. “Yum.”

I
twist around to look at Tim, who is as obviously awed by Ally’s sophisticated
palate as I am. “That a girl, Al,” he says, his voice welling with pride.
“Never be afraid to try.” He snuggles Owen to his chest and, in a hopeful tone,
says, “Ain’t that right, big guy?”

There
are many things Owen will never attempt, afraid or not: baseball, ice hockey, a
first date, driving, college, children of his own. Things that make me ache to
take him before he knows, before he tastes enough of life to learn its
sweetness and its sorrow.

There
is an intimate marina two blocks from Seafarer Way that is leaps and bounds
more insular than our neighborhood in Rhode Island could ever hope to be. At a
private slip here, the Dearborns dock their yacht,
Lucy in the Sky.

“Oh
my God!” Ally says as we round the corner, marveling at the twinkle lights that
adorn every available inch of the fifteen or so boats in view.

“It’s
pretty, huh?” I say. “And look at the water.” For all the sparkle above, the twilight
ocean stuns on a different level, its surface akin to a bowl of diamonds in the
midday sun.

For
once, Tim has relinquished the reins to Owen, entrusted me with his care. But still
I need him. “Can you…?” I say. I balance Owen on my hip and extend a hand in
Tim’s direction. My foothold on the dock is strong, but I am loath to make the
leap from land to sea without him.

Instead
of simply appeasing me with a steady hand, Tim backtracks until he has one foot
in the boat and one foot out. “Come here,” he urges, happier than I remember
him in a long, long time.

I
inch forward, put my faith in his smile and the strength of his arms. With a
little hop, he helps me straddle the ocean and land safely on deck. As he
repeats the performance for Ally, I stare down at a dangerous little space
between the dock and the boat, a spot where a child’s skull could easily crush,
his lungs suffocate.

I
know I’ve stared too long when Jenna beckons, “Hey, Claire! Check this out!” I
follow the echo of her voice and the rhythmic slap of Ally’s flip-flops below
deck, where I find Carson sprawled across a leather sectional that faces what
can only be described as a movie screen. “Nice, huh?” Jenna asks as my jaw
sags.

There
is a cocky grin so fixed on Carson’s face that it has begun to wear a path.
“Wow,” I say, even though I itch to downplay. “How fun.” I steal a glance at
Ally, who has wandered ahead to the galley and brazenly flung open the
refrigerator. “Any Disney flicks on tap?” I wonder.

Ally
perks up, eases the refrigerator shut and meanders back our way. She nibbles at
her lip and cautiously asks, “Do you have
Beauty and the Beast?
”

I
want to laugh but don’t.
Beauty and the Beast
has been Ally’s favorite
for the last three years, ostensibly because Belle is an avid reader, like
Ally. But I am more inclined to believe that, at eleven years old, my daughter is
infatuated with the film’s love story above all else.

Jenna
frowns, creaks open a cabinet below the movie screen and paws around. “How
about
Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
” she offers in an upbeat tone, holding out
the DVD for Ally’s approval.

There
is no doubt of Ally’s disappointment, but she covers well. “That might be
good,” she says with only the slightest hint of a shrug. She takes the DVD from
Jenna. “Thanks.”

She
curls up on the floor and studies the DVD case, while I join Tim on the far end
of the sofa, beyond Carson’s reach. No sooner do I slide Owen to Tim’s lap than
Jenna slips one of those German lagers into my hand and prods, “Drink up. We’re
in for the night.” I furrow my brow and she grins. “We bunk on the boats every
Memorial Day, to ring in the summer.”

“Is
that why it’s so loud out here?” asks Tim.

I
may not have posed the question so directly, but Tim is right: This cozy little
marina has the sound of a frat party on the eve of a big game.

Carson
lets out a snort. “
Come on,
” he implores, in a tone that more resembles
a demand than a request. “
Relax.
”

Tim
chuckles as if the debauchery has ceased to bother him; meanwhile, Jenna shuffles
Ally to a built-in entertainment system in the corner, where the pair fiddle
with a DVD player for a bit before figuring how to spark the movie to life.

“Yay!”
Ally squeals with a clap of her hands, the image of Audrey Hepburn exiting a
taxi at Tiffany & Co. developing into view on the gigantic screen.

An
impressed reaction percolates in me but is squelched by the sight of Carson,
who has abandoned the sofa for the mini-bar, where he upends a fifth of Rémy
Martin, substitutes his gaping mouth for a rocks glass. He gulps once, twice,
three times, and then drags the back of his hand across his face, the signature
move of every soused hillbilly wife-beater in a
Hallmark Hall of Fame
presentation.

He
catches me looking and says, “Fifty bucks a shot.” If he were a peacock, his
plumage would be on full display. “First one’s on me.”

“Thanks
anyway,” I say, unwilling to even humor him.

But
soon I do drink, and aggressively so. Five-hundred dollars worth of French
cognac raging its way through my bloodstream and my mind. Enough liquor that I
may require a stomach pump. Or a morgue.

Tim
has fared better than I have, his sobriety intact enough to allow him to care for
Owen until he settles for the night in the forward stateroom. Ally lost the
battle with sleep shortly before midnight, her stringy hair draped over her
fluttering eyes, her willowy frame assuming the fetal position on an oversized
floor pillow.

With
a little stagger in her step, Jenna pecks around the salon collecting empty
bottles and stray trash, the remnants of a good time had by all. “You guys need
anything?” she asks, as she clangs the bottles against one another in the sink.
Her face contorts in an ugly yawn. “I’m fried.”

My
head is in Tim’s lap, poised to indulge his most carnal desire—or my own. “We’re
good,” I mumble in Jenna’s direction, without care for whether she hears.

Absently,
Tim fingers my hair, loses himself to the din of revelry outside that has just
begun to die down. “Ready for bed?” he asks in a tender whisper.

I
close my eyes, and when I open them again, I see only the empty Rémy Martin
bottle standing in judgment, the distinctive gold centaur on its label
reflecting in the heavy glass of the coffee table. A double I-told-you-so. “What
time is it?” I think I say, my mouth suddenly taking on the feel of cotton and
glue.

Tim
muscles an arm around my shoulder and hoists me upright, where the room does a
little spin. He chuckles faintly. “Are you okay?”

I
notice that, but for Ally asleep on the floor, we are alone; Jenna and Carson
have retired. I nod, focus on Tim’s lips and lurch ahead. His mouth tastes like
mud and honey. Organic. Sensual. Sweeter than I remember. “I love you,” I tell
him, hoping he reads the declaration as both an affirmation and a call to
action.

And
he does.

The
salon is already quite dark, but he pulls away just long enough to extinguish a
wall lantern. Now only the twinkle lights and the moon retain the power to
guide us.

Tim
sinks to his knees, shoots me a lurid grin that goes ragged on one side. And
again I think of college, dwell in the moment that I stole his heart—and his
virginity. “You’re so bad,” I tease, even though we have yet to do anything.
“What about Ally?”

He
doesn’t bother looking, brushes my concern aside. “She’ll be fine.”

A
sober Claire would hardly risk a sexual encounter mere feet from her sleeping
child, but such a version of me vanished three hours ago at the bottom of a Rémy
Martin bottle; Tim’s sensible half was lost to imported beer and the gentle
rocking of
Lucy in the Sky.

I
peel my top over my head, revealing the tired breasts that, only two months
ago, gave up trying to nourish Owen and became mine again.

Tim
comes out of his pants, then his boxers. He stares at me with adoration. I
touch him and he touches back. Before long, we are in the thick of it, that
place where, even if Ally rises and crosses her arms over her chest, taps one
of us on the shoulder and frowns disapprovingly, we will not stop.
This is
how I love him,
I will tell her.
And how he loves me.

When
I wake to Owen’s muffled cries, I know not how I made it to bed, my naked back
flush with Tim’s bare chest, a nautical-themed quilt twisted between us. I slip
off to tend the baby, soothe him to silence so Tim can rest. “Shh…” I whistle
as I hoist him from the hand-woven basket Jenna has been so gracious as to
provide. I nuzzle his cheek to mine. “It’s okay.”

He
continues to fuss and gurgle enough that I am forced to flee the stateroom for
the chilled, salty air above, where I hope a soft lullaby, even sung in my
undulating, tone-deaf attempt at a mezzo-soprano, will squelch his restlessness
and allow me back to bed.

I
hike the few steps I must with Owen hanging off the front of me, my hands
clasped behind his bottom like a sling, my exposed top half an afterthought
that becomes relevant only when my chest meets the night.

The
aft deck is still, secluded, silent, even the diehard partiers having
surrendered to exhaustion and common sense. I pull Owen closer, lower us to a
seated position on a bank of vinyl cushions, tuck a real pillow—the
non-waterproof kind Jenna must have brought from home—behind my back.

Despite
the weeks of strict bottle feeding, Owen grabs for my breast, urges a meal.
When I stopped breastfeeding in March, he was still free of teeth, his rigid
gums the harshest threat to my sand-papered nipples. Now he has a tooth and the
nub of another. And my milk is gone.

But
I let him try. “Easy there,” I caution as he suckles with the eagerness of an
inmate on a conjugal visit.

I
don’t want to think of Eric Blair, but I do, Owen’s sloped nose and elfin ears
stark reminders of what has been done to him. To us. “I love you,” I tell him
anyway, because it’s true. And because it’s my last chance.

I
feel the seizure coming before it hits, the nerve endings of my nipple as jumpy
as the pen of a seismograph. A moment too soon, he stiffens, jerks, makes my breast
the equivalent of a bite-block wedged in a patient’s jaw for electroconvulsive
therapy.

My
first horror is physical, a reaction to my own pain. Then mental, for the stress
on Owen, a destructive force he has failed to earn. The spiritual horror comes
thick and weighty, a dark curtain separating thought from action, weakness from
strength, life from death.
I must do it,
I think.
It’s time.

I
am a stagehand hovering in the wings, a taut rope in my grip, preparing to draw
the tragedy of Owen closed. And so I give a little tug.

I
wait until the sun gnaws at the sky to shine a light on what I have done, and
even this is too soon.  With a clumsy nudge of Tim’s shoulder, I begin. “Wake
up.” My voice is raspy from crying while trying not to.

Tim
rolls left, a slow smile creeping across his lips, and squints lovingly at me. “Hey.”

I
have turned a thousand phrases over in my mind, but none equal the task.
“Something happened.”

Owen’s
giraffe-print baby blanket remains crumpled in the end of the basket, where it
catches my eye. Catches and refuses to release. “What is it?” asks Tim, the
dread in me seeping into him.  

I
keep my eyes on the blanket. “There was an accident,” I tell him sideways,
allowing the panic in my voice to rise. “It’s Owen. He…”

Tim
swings his legs over the side of the bed, bolts to his feet and rushes past me.
But the basket is empty. “Where…?” he tries to ask, his palm clamped to his
temple, his fingers buried in his newly salt-and-peppered hair. “What…?”

“He
fell.”

In
an incredulous, exasperated tone, he repeats, “
He fell?
”

I
swallow hard, pin my lip under my teeth and nod.

His
gaze darts around, finds nothing. “What the hell, Claire? Where the fuck is the
baby?”

I
don’t plan to do it this way, but my body decides for me. With a soft tremor,
my hand goes to my mouth, covers it and muffles the sounds. “The water.”

Tim’s
eyes turn wild; his nostrils flare. Roughly, he jerks my arm away from my face.
“
What?
”

My
gaze meets his; I whisper, “The water.”

He
says not another word, stumbles over his shoes as he spins past the end of the
bed and tears up the stairs.

I
should stop him before he gets too far gone, lathers himself into a frenzy. There
is nothing he can do for Owen now. Nothing anyone can. But there is flat
numbness in me that undercuts action, makes me sink into the quilt and sob
silently, my eyes pinched shut, my knees drawn to my chest, my spine curled in
the upswing of a rocking motion.

The
state police dive team goes into the water less than an hour later, which I
know only from the sounds: the gruff voices of strange men, all business in
their thick New England accents; air tanks clapping against one another on the
dock, a cacophony of high-pitched ringing sounds lingering in their wakes; the
easy splash of a body to the sea, then another.  

But
I cannot rip myself from this bed, witness what my hands have wrought. Not now,
not ever. Yet Jenna wants me to. “Claire,” she says in the tender tone grownups
use to soothe small children. “Ally’s looking for you.”

When
the police arrived, I gave the briefest of statements to a female deputy from
this very spot, and that is the most I intend to do. With my eyes still shut, I
mutter, “I can’t.”

“They’ll
find him. It’ll be okay.”

I
know not whether she is ignorant or simply delusional with hope; an infant in
the ocean, regardless of how he came to be there, would surely die in minutes. Owen
has been gone much longer. I say nothing, shake my head and wish she would
leave, pray for an earth-sized asteroid to vaporize us all, post-haste.

She
eases into bed with me, pats my shoulder and sniffles. “They need you.”

I
think she means Tim and Ally, but she could just as easily be referring to the
police. “I can’t,” I say again. And I mean it literally.

She
skims her fingers along the edge of my hairline, tucks my tangled mane behind
my ear in a way that is as intimate as any lovemaking I’ve had with Tim. “Get
some rest, honey,” she tells me, already giving up on the idea of prodding me
above deck. “They’ll understand.”

Again,
the object of her reference is ambiguous, but it hardly seems to matter; she is
dead wrong. Not a soul on earth will make sense of the nightmare I have set in
motion, even the make-believe version. And that’s the only version that will
ever pass my lips. I manage the weakest kind of grateful smile. “Thank you.”

It’s
not long after Jenna exits the stateroom that Tim takes her place. As I expect,
he comprehends nothing. “They can’t find him,” he tells me, blind rage
simmering beneath his controlled façade. When he learns what I have done, the
whole brutal extent of it, he may avenge Owen’s death by returning the favor to
me.

“I’m
sorry,” I mumble, because it’s the only thing I can think to say.

Tim
keeps his distance, paces as much as he can in the narrow space between the bed
and the wall. “What happened?”

I
want to believe he will forgive me, even if I lay the facts bare. But this is
too much to ask of any man. “I was woozy.”

“Drunk,
you mean?”

“Not
any more than you were.”

“
I
didn’t…”

“He
was crying,” I say. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I took him above deck for
some air.”

He
studies the way my lips move as if they may betray me. “And he fell? How did he
fall?
When
did he fall?”

I
was once a superb liar, but I’m out of practice. “It was wet,” I say, the obvious
answer. “I slipped, and he…”

“Fell
overboard?”

I
nod, blink back a well of tears, open my mouth to say something but make only a
little sucking gasp.

Tim
asks, “What did you tell the cops?”

“That
I slipped, and Owen fell.”

“That’s
it?”

I
wonder what else he wants from me. “Uh-huh.”

“You
didn’t say we were drinking?”

“No,”
I confirm with a light shake of my head. “But that’s pretty obvious, don’t you
think? There are empty bottles everywhere.”

He
moves closer. “They might not believe you.”

“About
what?”

“Slipping.
The deck wasn’t that wet.”

It
strikes me as odd that he’s turned the conversation this way—and away from Owen.
“Well, I did,” I maintain. “Not that it matters.”

He
stares at me for a long while, as long as it takes to force one’s mind to
accept the unacceptable, to forgive the unforgivable, to form the most tenuous
peace. “He can’t be…” he says so softly I think I may have imagined it. “This
isn’t…”

If
I tell him Owen wasn’t his, it may blunt his pain. And I will. Eventually. But
now is not the time. “I’m sorry,” I say again, not just to Tim but to Owen.
Hoping the universe will deliver my message, I add,
I love you, sweet baby
boy.

Tim
recognizes the footsteps on the stairs before I do and closes the gap between
us. It’s the female deputy, checking in. “How are we holding up down here?” she
asks, directing the inquiry less at me than at Tim, who is, from outward
appearances, the more distraught of us.

In
a show of solidarity, Tim pulls me to his side, nestles me under his arm. It’s
a move that says, even now, he senses what’s to come. With a shallow nod, he
reports, “As good as we can be.”

The
deputy delivers the update, which amounts to nothing, while surveying the
stateroom with a methodical eye.

I
feel the fingers of justice tighten around my throat.

“Anything
I can do for you folks?” the deputy offers in a congenial tone.

As
much as I don’t want the police to locate Owen, I do. “When will they…?”

“Stop?”
she asks.

I
study the floor and nod.

She
shakes her head. “Not any time soon, unless they find him.”  

As
if the words have shot from her mouth to God’s ears, a flurry of activity
breaks out above. From the dock, a man’s voice barks, “Hold up! We’ve got
something here!”

I
feel as if I’ve swallowed a leaden brick and donned a suit of ice. “Where’s
Ally?” I blurt at Tim, panic the only thing left for me to feel. If we’re
lucky, we can still save her.

Tim
fails to answer for Ally’s whereabouts or anything else, the final thread of
his calm unraveling. Tightly he hugs me, then tighter.

The
deputy backs away from us, turns an ear to the commotion overhead. A look of
recognition dawns across her face. “Stay here,” she directs, her hand raised as
if she’s directing traffic.

There
is not a motivation on earth strong enough to pry Tim and me from this bed,
where we have collapsed in a tangle of sadness and regret. A dark hole of my
making. “Our daughter,” I squeak as the deputy’s feet hit the stairs. “Can you
bring her?”

The
answer is easier than I expect, especially in a case like this. “Will do.”

Tim
identifies Owen’s body while Ally keeps me company in the salon, lets me lean
on her precocious sense of responsibility. “You should rest,” she tells me,
noticing the twitchy way my leg shakes and my vacant, dead-eyed expression.

Someone
has left the
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
DVD running on the screen in front
of us, and the more I stare at it, the less real anything seems. “Did you like
the movie?” I try asking, unsure whether the words exist anywhere outside my
head.

Ally
glances at the door as if she awaits rescue. Or perhaps protection. From me.  Softly,
she says, “Uh-huh.”

I
wonder how old Audrey Hepburn was when she made this film, her youthful energy
the opposite of my haggard, defeated spirit. As I watch, she flits through an
alley in the rain, shrieking for the cat she has, only minutes earlier,
abandoned callously. And even though I know the ending, for a moment I hope she
searches in vain, suffers a fraction of the empty sadness I now feel. Yet when
the end comes, it’s the same: tied up with a neat, happy bow.  

When
I next see Tim, the look on his face is nothing short of heartbreaking.
Destruction,
I think, as he steps out from behind the female deputy,
is what I have
wrought.

“Mrs.
Fowler,” the deputy says, her posture softened, the corners of her eyes
crinkled in an understanding frown, “I’m afraid we need to ask you a few more
questions.” Seemingly by reflex, her hand drifts to the pistol on her hip.
“Would you mind coming with me?”

I
mind only for the fact that she may confront me. Or arrest me. “All right,” I
agree, because I must. Right now, the worst she can do shrinks in comparison to
the idea of withering under Tim’s accusing gaze.

I
follow her above board, then off the boat and onto dry land, where the hypnotic
flash of police and rescue lights lulls me into an irrational state of calm.
“Here,” the deputy says, signaling at the tailgate of an ambulance as if I should
make myself comfortable.

The
closer I get to where she directs me, the sicker I become, because now I am
within striking distance of something hideously cruel. Through the open
ambulance doors, I glimpse a familiar tiny form, draped in a sheet and tucked
under a blanket: my baby.

Instinctively,
I turn away, but the deputy stops me. “Your husband made a positive ID.” Her
fingers clasp around my wrist like a trial handcuff. “I’m sorry.”

I
bobble my head, force a wad of saliva down my throat and say nothing.

We
linger for what seems an eternity at the cusp of those doors, in wait of
something that becomes clear only when a ruddy-faced official in twill pants and
a polo shirt struts our way, a spiral-bound notepad in hand.

He
shoots the deputy an inscrutable look and grumbles, “Mrs. Fowler, I’m Detective
Hanscom.” He extends a hand in my direction but withdraws it when I fail to
reciprocate. “There are a few things I’d like to go over with you.” He thumbs
through the notepad two and three pages at a time, his freshly licked fingers
tearing the flimsy sheets as they go. “You say the deceased went into the water
when you slipped and fell?”

“Yes.”

I
note the explosion of flash bulbs in my peripheral vision, cut my gaze around
to find the police eagerly documenting the scene and a smattering of rabid
newspaper photographers jockeying to scoop the story of Owen from behind a
barricade of sheriff’s cars.

“What
did you slip on?” he asks.

I
shrug. “It was wet.”

“Were
there any obstacles in your path?”

“I
don’t know. It was dark,” I reply, noticing the rubber-neckers who have sprung
up to gawk from the perimeter. 

“So
you could have tripped?”

I
shake my head, and the detective scribbles away, recording more than seems
possible with the little I have said. “I didn’t see anything. It was dark,” I
repeat.

“What
time did the incident occur?”

I
want to answer truthfully, if only to satisfy his thirst for the concrete. But
I can’t. “Around seven o’clock,” I assert instead.

“Seven
this morning?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And
that’s when you called 911?”

The
deputy answers for me. “The call came in at seven fifty-two.”

“Was
it seven or seven fifty-two?” the detective says, furrowing his brow.