Two Rivers (31 page)

A
fter that night by the river, I waited. I waited for his body to be found, for somebody to discover him. I imagined someone stumbling upon his body, tangled in the bushes at the river’s edge. I waited for his family to come looking for him. Demanding to know what had happened to their son. I waited for him to arrive, alive at my doorstep still wet with the river, looking for me. It was excruciating, this waiting. Every phone call, every knock on the door jarring me into a state of terror. Ray wouldn’t speak to me, and Brooder took off for Florida, told people he was going to find his mother. I would have gone to the police but I didn’t know how to explain what had happened. I felt like I was living at the edge of a terrible precipice, in a vicious wind with nothing but fragile branches to cling to.

And still, Betsy was gone. Grief rubbed my shoulders, ground its hard knuckles into the tendons of my neck, crippling me. My muscles ached with her absence.

After her funeral, I returned to work. We settled into a sort of routine at Paul and Hanna’s. When I came home from the station, we had dinner at Paul and Hanna’s table, and afterward, I showered and went to bed. But every time I closed my eyes I felt Betsy lying next to me: the heat of her body or her breath. I would awaken, fevered and tangled in sheets I had imagined were her legs. Shelly woke up every two or three hours, and I fed her a bottle, sitting in a stiff-backed chair in the midnight kitchen. Grief and regret pummeled me alternately, two angry bastards beating me as if I were only a bag of sand. I watched the windows. I listened to the unfamiliar sounds of the house (missing her, missing her), its breaths and moans, always certain that he was out there, somewhere, waiting for me.

But after about a month when no body was found, and no one even seemed to know he was missing, sometimes it felt as if I had only dreamed that night. During the day, when I was busy with the concrete details of my life (work, bills, the baby), the details of what had happened became abstract, a string of images and smells and sounds:
moon, trees, river
. During the day, it lay dormant. Asleep. But at night, as I sat rigid, holding a bottle while Shelly slept in my arms, these abstractions assembled themselves into a continuous waking nightmare, which was vivid and real.

There is a desert plant called the night-blooming cereus. During the day, the cactus resembles little more than a dead bush. But once a year, just as night falls, its heady-scented petals open, blooming into a glorious moon-colored flower. When dawn comes, the flower closes in on itself and dies. For me, the flower opened again and again. Each and every night: its fragrance almost unbearable, its white petals blinding.

And still, Betsy was gone. Sometimes, I heard someone cry out and it would take a moment before I realized it was my own voice. As if the grief were inside me as well, living in my throat, a caged animal tearing at my esophagus.

When the first anniversary of her death (and Shelly’s first birthday) arrived, I had resigned myself to a sort of fugue state. I was alive, but living a kind of waking dream. Everything I’d known to be true didn’t seem true anymore at all. Everything I had trusted had failed me. Everything I believed about myself was no longer relevant or real.

Hanna made cupcakes; they were yellow, I remember, decorated with daisies. It was just the four of us; my father was still working then and couldn’t make the trip up from Boston. Though it was fall, it was still warm, and Hanna set the picnic table in the backyard with a daisy tablecloth, bowls filled with pretzels, and a pitcher of lemonade. She made potato salad and Paul grilled hamburgers. Hanna strung balloons in all of the trees and put Shelly on a blanket on the grass with some toys.

I was preoccupied with a loose railing on the back porch. As I rocked in the rocking chair, I kept noticing that it needed to be repaired or replaced. Normally things like that didn’t bother me, but something about this rail, wobbly and crooked in a long row of perfectly vertical rails, was unnerving.

Hanna was stringing the branches with yellow crepe paper, and Paul was lighting the coals. Shelly was sitting happily on the blanket, and so I wandered to the shed and searched through Paul’s tools for a hammer. Locating one underneath a pile of old lumber, I felt a surge of purpose. I went back out again to the yard.

Hanna was still teetering on a kitchen chair beneath the trees, yellow crepe paper ribboning out beneath her, and Paul was standing over the pile of hot coals. When I looked to the blanket, though, Shelly was gone. Panicked, I spun around, trying to catch sight of her. And then the possibility struck me hard in my stomach: the river.

I started to run down the slope of grass that led to the river’s edge, but just as I was about to scream her name, I saw her, shiny purple birthday hat on her head, toddling toward the water. I ran to her, my feet barely touching the ground, and scooped her up in my arms. And as I carried her back to the yard, pressed against my chest, I felt a clarity I hadn’t felt in over a year. As my heart slowed down again, and Shelly burst into tears, I kept holding her, rocking her, pressing her against me and apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Hanna never said anything. She offered me a glass of lemonade and fixed me a burger as I sat on the porch holding Shelly on my lap. And later, when the sun went down, and Shelly had fallen asleep in my lap, she came out onto the porch and nudged my shoulder gently. “You should get some sleep, hon.” She smiled sadly. “It’s been a long day.”

That night I slept more soundly than I had in months, Shelly nestled against me, her breath milky sweet and warm against my neck, my hand feeling the rise and fall of her chest. And I wasn’t sure who was keeping whom safe anymore.

I
didn’t tell Shelly that Maggie was my sister. I couldn’t find the words or the need. Not yet. Besides, as far as Shelly was concerned, Maggie was already family. And that’s all that really mattered. But the baby, that was something else altogether.

Maggie and her father had both agreed to consent to the adoption. The baby’s father would not have a say in the matter. Everything would be finalized within thirty-six hours after the baby was born. When Maggie told her father what had really happened, he wept. She comforted him quietly, and then she handed the phone to me. His voice was gentle, kind. He talked about Maggie, about how much he loved her, and he thanked me for taking care of her. He asked me if I thought I could do the same for her baby, and I agreed. We didn’t talk about my mother. There would be time for that later, I imagined.

“You mean Maggie’s baby will be my brother or sister?” Shelly asked.

“Brother,” Maggie said. She insisted the baby was a boy, though she had nothing other than intuition to go on. She was sitting on the couch, knitting a blue blanket. Mrs. Marigold had taught her how to knit and given her some yarn. It was bumpy and messy but so soft. I had held it once, pressed it against my cheek.

“My
brother
?” Shelly asked.

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said, shrugging. “But what about you? Why can’t you stay
too
?”

Maggie had a way with Shelly, a way I both admired and envied. “I ain’t done bein’ a kid yet. I gotta get home and finish that up.” She smiled at me. “My own daddy’s waitin’ on me.”

Lenny happily accepted my resignation at the station. I gave him two months’ notice, plenty of time to secure someone to fill my shoes. Even then he offered, “Why don’t you collect on some of that vacation time you got coming to you? Leave a little sooner?” And so a few weeks later, I packed up the few things I kept in the freight office (a baby picture of Shelly, a snapshot of Betsy and me on our wedding day, a smooth stone Shelly painted with acrylics) and rode home on my damaged bicycle, balancing the box on the handlebars. As I pedaled away from the station, I loved the cold November wind in my face. Could almost taste winter on my outstretched tongue. I stopped by Bobbi’s Beauty Parlor on the way home and asked Brenda if she’d like to join me for a cup of coffee. We sat together at Rosco’s, ignoring the whispers and heads nodding knowingly around us. I liked the way she held her coffee mug with two hands. I liked that her eyes were always smiling, even when her mouth wasn’t.

“Will it snow?” Maggie asked one afternoon when the sky was heavy and thick. “I ain’t never seen snow.”

“It might,” I said. And then an idea hit me. “Let’s go for a drive.”

“Really? In the car?” Shelly asked. Shelly had ridden in the Bug only a handful of times.

“Get some hats and mittens. Find Maggie a coat.”

Excited, Shelly ran to the closet, where she dragged out the box filled with all of our winter stuff.

Maggie was so much bigger now, uncomfortable in the backseat of the Bug as we drove across New Hampshire and into Maine. When she finally settled down and fell asleep, Shelly crawled into the front seat next to me. “Can you see the whole world from the top?” she asked.

“Almost.” I laughed.

“Do you really think it will snow?” She looked out the window at the birches lining the road. “It’s not snowing here.”

“Maybe,” I said. “No promises.”

We got to the top of Cadillac Mountain just as the sun was starting to set. The granite boulders along the roadside glowed pink in the twilight. Maggie woke up when we stopped, sat up in the backseat, rubbing her eyes. “This is pretty,” she said, leaning forward between the seats. “Is that the ocean?”

“That’s it,” I said.

“Can you turn the heat on, Daddy?” Shelly asked, shivering.

I pulled the button that opened up the vent, and hot air blasted onto my hands and face.

“Better?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled.

“Can I get out?” Maggie asked.

Shelly opened her door and leaned forward, giving Maggie just enough room to crawl out.

Maggie walked along the rocks, balancing somehow despite her misplaced center of gravity, peering out at the ocean. Despite every impulse to get out and reel her back in away from the edge, I stayed in the car, watching. She kept turning back to us, saying, “Look! Look!” For ten minutes, she just looked and pointed at the cold Atlantic below. And just as she was about to get back in the car, a few flakes of snow landed on the windshield, an answered prayer. She stopped and looked up at the sky, arms outstretched and mouth wide open. She was wearing one of Shelly’s hats: it was a long striped stocking cap that had a big pom-pom at the end. It dangled nearly to the ground behind her. I’d given her a pair of Sorels somebody left at the station; they were giant on her small feet. The coat she borrowed was Shelly’s old parka. It barely covered her now enormous belly. But still, there was nothing quite as beautiful as this. Snow falling softly, the sun setting, and almost the whole world below us.

On Monday I would start doing the books for Kinsey’s, for the bowling alley. I’d lined up enough clients to make a living working at home until we figured out what to do next. I had some ideas then, vague notions of other places, possible new lives for the three of us. But for now, I had set up shop in the living room, next to the bassinet Maggie had picked out. On Monday, my new life would begin. There would be things to worry about, but right now, there was only this. My daughter. My
sister
. A baby. And snow. And I knew then that this was forgiveness. Right here.

Nativity

O
n Christmas Eve, we went to the train station so that Maggie could catch the Montrealer, w hich would start her on her way back home to Tuscaloosa. The baby had come a week earlier, surprising all of us except for Maggie, who insisted he wouldn’t wait until Christmas.

Shelly was sitting next to me on the wooden bench on the platform outside the station, looking at the ground, as if she were only studying her shoes.

“You okay?” I asked. She nodded her head, but wouldn’t look up. I put my free hand on top of hers, which was gripping the edge of the bench.

The air was cold, but not bitter.

“I sure ain’t gonna miss this,” Maggie said, gesturing to the ink-colored sky. She shivered. “Brrr. Is he warm enough?” she asked, leaning over the bundle in my other arm. She peered down into his face, rubbing her cheek against his nose and smiling. “His nose is cold.”

When the conductor motioned for her to board the train (she was the only passenger getting on in Two Rivers), she picked up her suitcase and stepped back, looking at the three of us. Feeling awkward, I stood up, and she came to me, kissing my cheek. “I’ll be coming to visit y’all by summertime. Y’all let me know when you’re settled in your new place.” I nodded.

Shelly lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

“You help your daddy,” Maggie said, and kissed the top of Shelly’s head.

She leaned in close to the baby again and whispered, “Bye, sweetness.”

I looked at the infant nestled in the crook of my arm. She’d given him my mother’s name, Wilder, followed by my own.
Wilder Montgomery.
He looked like Maggie, his skin like a smooth brown stone. But his eyes were mine, the ones I inherited from my mother, the still blue at the confluence of two rivers.

As the train hissed and rumbled and then slowly pulled away, Shelly’s chest heaved with a pain I understood, a sorrow for something you had for a while and then had to let go. The sorrow of something lost: stolen or gone by its own free will, it didn’t matter which. It all hurt the same.

“Ready?” I asked, putting my free arm around her shoulders.

She nodded and leaned into me, crying hard.

In the distance, the whistle blew loudly, and the baby startled in my arms. Quickly, I pressed him close. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.” We walked this way, the three of us pressed into each other, all the way back to the car.

It was past midnight by the time we got home, and snowing hard. Outside the door was a cardboard box. I brought it inside and opened it up at the kitchen table.

“What is it, Daddy?” Shelly asked, peering in.

There was a handwritten note on top. “Thought you could use these. Merry Christmas. XO, Brenda.” Inside were stacks and stacks of tiny onesies and pants, little socks and tiny shoes and one puffy miniature snowsuit. Roger’s baby clothes.

Shelly had insisted on hanging two stockings—one for her and one for the baby. She had also left a note for Santa with her requests and two cookies, just like she used to do years ago when she still believed. Just before one o’clock, she finally went to bed. After tucking her in, I took Wilder with me into my old room, where I lay him down on the bed and unwrapped him like a gift.

My room was chilly, the windowpanes framed by frost, ice like lace. He shivered as I powdered his bottom, changing his diaper. Remarkably, after twelve years, my hands remembered how to fold and tuck and pin, and it made me think of Japanese paper folding. Origami cranes and frogs. I worked quickly, pulling the soft cotton pajamas onto his tiny legs, putting his little arms into the sleeves. And then I swaddled him in layers of flannel receiving blankets until he was almost mummified.

Downstairs, the bowling alley was closed for the holiday, and the apartment was strangely quiet without the crashing of pins and the hollow echo of rolling balls. I turned out the overhead light and watched snow falling in the bright white beam of the streetlight outside my window. I lay down next to him on the bed, my face close enough to his to hear the sound of his breath. I put my arm across his chest and held him. And even though—like Shelly—I knew better, it still was Christmas Eve, and because it was Christmas Eve, I let myself believe. I thought about Mary, on the night her own son was born—wondered what she must have felt like when she held him for the first time. Because despite all the fanfare, she was really only a parent, after all, just like me. And I bet she must have felt pretty much exactly the way I did right now. Like I was holding the very world. Like the future itself was asleep in my arms.