Beach Girls Page 21

  “I don't want Nell to know, ever,” he said. “I wish I never knew. I wish Madeleine had never told me.”

  “But she couldn't lie. . . .”

  “I wish she had,” Jack said with despair. “It's why I decided to take Nell to Scotland. I wanted her as far from here as possible—but now . . .”

  Stevie waited, holding her breath.

  Jack didn't say anything more and Stevie's heart turned over. He leaned forward, his lips brushing hers. The sea wind blew harder, drowning out the movie.

  Nell was back. She raced to the blanket with Peggy, snuggled on the other side of her father. Jack squeezed Stevie's hand, then turned to Nell

  The every-day, every-night being-a-father took over. Stevie felt him slip his hand out of hers, reach over to wipe the ice cream off Nell's face. Nell was riveted by the movie, the strange friendship between Hayley Mills and the sailor. She watched, openmouthed.

  The movie continued, and when it ended, half the kids had fallen asleep. Nell was drowsy, but on her feet. Everyone packed up their blankets, and Bay and Tara called to Stevie and told her to stop by soon. She thanked them and said she would.

  Nell walked a little ahead with Peggy, sleepily making plans to get together the next day. Stevie took the opportunity to grab Jack's hand. She wished so much that she could give him the strength, the grace he'd need to face what was happening.

  “I shouldn't tell you what I hope for,” she said.

  “But I want you to,” he said.

  “Stay here,” she whispered. “Don't go to Scotland. Stay.”

  He touched her cheek, but he didn't seem to trust his voice. Stevie said goodbye for both of them. Nell ran over to give her a hug. And then she watched the Kilverts walk through the sandy parking lot toward their rented house, with their family's big secret shimmering between them.

  Chapter 19

  MADELEINE TRIED TO STOP STARING AT the phone, waiting for it to ring.

  Her brother's silent calls had given her more hope than anything in an entire year. Hope: she hadn't even realized that that was what she had—that little glimmer of positive feeling, of faith, the thought that maybe the next time he called he'd actually talk, that maybe they could begin to straighten out what had happened between them.

  But then the calls seemed to stop, and Madeleine plunged into a darkness she hadn't known existed. She barely had the energy to get out of bed in the morning. She had to force herself to do the smallest things. The sight of a woman with Emma's hair color made her burst into tears. Driving home one afternoon she heard a song on the radio that reminded her of Jack, and she had to pull over and weep.

  Chris was worried, and wanted her to get help.

  Although she had seen a therapist after the accident, she didn't feel that it had helped at all. Talking about what had happened just seemed to stir up terrible feelings; instead of then flowing out, the emotions felt trapped in her body and mind, in her heart, under her skin. Her doctor's way of dealing with her torment was to put her on Denexor—which totally blocked her feelings and left her feeling alienated from herself. So she'd thrown out the medication—and the doctor.

  One evening Chris gave Madeleine an article by a psychologist practicing in Providence, teaching at Brown. Her name was Dr. Susanna Mallory, and she specialized in the treatment of trauma. The title of her piece was “Waking the Dead,” and it opened with accounts of accident victims, their bodies recovering but their lives on permanent hold. “Alive but hibernating,” was how one of them put it.

  Chris had left the article on Maddie's desk with a note: “This doctor seems to see things differently—do you think she would understand?” His tenderness and gentleness was so touching, it nearly did Madeleine in. She didn't have much confidence in “treatment” for what she'd been through—how could a doctor cure her relationship with Jack? But she decided to look at the story—more for Chris than for herself.

  Chris was like a one-man hospital, giving her love, care, and almost endless patience. He didn't seem to mind that she sometimes drank too much, or that she cried in her sleep, or that she missed a lot of work. It was only when she stopped wanting to leave the house at all, and when he saw how much she was suffering, that he had really reacted.

  “You love going out,” he said. “I know you do. But you never want to eat out anymore. You don't want to take rides to Newport or Little Compton . . . you don't even want to go to the beach.”

  “No, that's not true,” she'd said, trying to deflect him. “I'm just tired.” Or, “I have a headache.” Or, her personal favorite, trying to joke: “I'm in perimenopause. I'm having hot flashes and bone loss.” “These are the calcium years,” she'd say to him with a shaken smile. “I'm just not my old self. . . .”

  He had gone along for as long as he could—letting her struggle through in her own way, understanding that she needed to cling to whatever control she had—but then he'd drawn the line. It was a month or so after her visit to Hubbard's Point, and another two weeks since Jack had stopped calling.

  Periods of the day passed when she couldn't remember what she was doing. She felt stuck, emotionally paralyzed. At night, trapped in the horror, she relived the crash over and over. She heard Emma's scream. And she found herself imagining, almost all the time, how it would feel to walk up the Newport Bridge and dive off. . . .

  Chris finally made her call Dr. Mallory.

  The doctor's office was in a brick house at the Fox Point end of Benefit Street in Providence, with black-and-white photos of mountains and bare trees on the walls. She was in her mid-fifties, tall and slender, with great hair, compassionate eyes, and a deep capacity for listening.

  Madeleine talked. She was an administrator, and she knew the value of getting to the point. Without tears or any apparent emotion, she told the doctor why she was there: she felt frozen, that she was having a hard time doing things. She was grieving for her sister-in-law, who had died in a car accident. Madeleine had been driving. Although she, Madeleine, had been hurt, her injuries were far from life-threatening. A concussion, and her shoulder had been torn.

  What sort of therapy had been required? The doctor wanted to know.

  Several surgeries and occupational therapy, Madeleine reported.

  The doctor watched her for a minute; Madeleine knew she was waiting for something. Her eyes were steady and kind, and even without speaking, her unasked question made Madeleine's throat ache, as if she were choking on tears.

  “Occupational therapy . . . surgeries,” the doctor said. “The injury must have been very serious.”

  Madeleine wondered whether Chris had told her—that Madeleine's arm had nearly been severed. She swallowed the story—she had talked about it with the other doctor, and it had made her crazy with grief. Because, how could she stand to complain about what the accident had done to her arm—when it had killed Emma?

  Her husband had been wonderful through it all, she told the doctor instead. Her brother and she, though, were . . . well, estranged.

  Then she started off giving the rest of the history, in as dispassionate a way as possible, to get to the point, and to show that she was capable, in control, and completely sane. Where she was born, who her parents were, her brother, Jack . . . a happy, close, well-adjusted family. She gave the rundown on her health—generally good. Not much exercise—she'd stopped playing tennis, which she used to love.

  “Were you close, you and your brother?”

  Madeleine nodded. “He was four years ahead of me,” she said. “But he always walked me to school. He'd let me tag along with his friends, to Goodwin Park. The tennis courts didn't have lights then, but we'd play till dark anyway—sometimes long after! We'd play by sound—listening for the ball. And he used to take me downtown—sometimes we'd hitch a free ride on a bus—sitting on the back bumper!” She'd smiled to show the doctor that she hadn't been scared. Telling the story brought back a strong memory—the feeling of her brother bracing her with his arm, saying “Nothing's gonna happen to
you, Maddie. I won't let it.”

  Maddie hadn't even replied—it hadn't even occurred to her that she could get hurt with Jack around. Telling Dr. Mallory brought back the powerful feelings of loving and trusting her brother that much, and it made her smile.

  “Why am I telling you this?” she asked. “It doesn't have much to do with why I'm here.”

  The doctor smiled.

  “Our family took summer vacations at a beach called Hubbard's Point. We didn't have much money, but our father always saved, and wanted to give us everything he could. We were teenagers then, but Jack still let me hang around. Before I met my own friends there—one would turn out to be Emma, and the other Stevie,” she paused, looked at the doctor. “But before that, he took me under his wing. We didn't know anyone there.”

  “But you had each other.”

  She nodded. “He drove up to Hartford whenever he could—he had a girlfriend there. But we'd play tennis together, or he'd take me fishing. We'd race out to the raft. One day we just rode our bikes all around . . . we explored the roads. And we found this old water tower, up by the railroad tracks. I climbed up the ladder, to impress him . . .” Madeleine closed her eyes, remembering. “He called to me to come down, but I wanted to show him I could do it.”

  The doctor listened.

  “It was a rickety old ladder. Made of some kind of silver metal—but very thin and rusty. I got all the way to the top—and made the mistake of looking at the ground.”

  “You were high up?”

  Madeleine nodded. “Thirty feet or so. I just froze.” Her body tensed, and her fingers involuntarily tightened, as if around the ladder rung. “I couldn't move—I couldn't move a muscle. I just clung to that ladder, sure that I was going to fall off and die. I was paralyzed.”

  “And your brother?”

  Madeleine swallowed. Tears sprang into her eyes. “He climbed up to get me,” she said.

  The doctor was silent, watching Madeleine's face. Maddie let the memories come—the heat of the day, the way the ladder shook as Jack climbed up, the terror she felt.

  “‘Hold on, Maddie,' he said. You're fine—just don't look down. I've got you.' He was down below me, and I felt him grab my ankle. I told him to let go—that if I crashed down, I didn't want to take him with me.”

  “And did he? Let go?”

  Madeleine shook her head, tears freely flowing now. “No. He didn't. He told me that I wasn't going to fall—that I was strong, all I had to do was move one hand at a time. He stayed with me . . . talked me down . . . and never let go of my ankle. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “That if I had fallen, he was completely prepared to hold on—and not let me crash.”

  “It sounds that way,” the doctor said gently.

  The doctor sat in her chair across the small office while Maddie sobbed quietly. She reached for a tissue from a box on the table beside her. Madeleine's left ankle tingled, as if his fingers were still around it.

  “I grew up thinking he'd save my life if he could,” she cried.

  Dr. Mallory's eyes were kind, filled with sadness—as if she was feeling Madeleine's pain right along with her.

  “He got you safely down to solid ground when you felt paralyzed on the ladder.”

  Madeleine nodded, weeping.

  The doctor was quiet, and Madeleine's thoughts moved slowly, tangled like a ball of yarn. She held a tissue to her nose, trying to stop crying. When she did, she saw Dr. Mallory watching her.

  “You said at the beginning of the session,” the doctor said, “that you felt ‘frozen.' That sounds something like feeling paralyzed.”

  “Just the way I felt on the ladder,” Madeleine said, her ankle prickling again.

  “And this time your brother . . .”

  “Isn't here to save me,” Madeleine blurted out. “Doesn't even want to.”

  Dr. Mallory sat silently, letting Madeleine's words resonate. Maddie pressed the wadded-up tissue to her eyes, trying to stop the tears. “He thinks I killed his wife,” she whispered. “And I did.”

  The horrible words rang in her ears, but the doctor's kind expression didn't change.

  “I didn't mean to!” Madeleine cried.

  “I know,” the doctor said.

  “Why won't he forgive me? How can I live, or why should I, if he really hates me that much . . . thinks I killed his wife, Nell's mother?” Madeleine turned her head, gasping for air. “Can you help me,” Maddie begged, “so my brother will forgive me?”

  The doctor was silent for a moment, but then she leaned forward—so far that her knees were almost touching Madeleine's. “I can't promise you that,” Dr. Mallory said, her hazel eyes glinting with compassion. “But I can help you forgive yourself.”

  The words were too much for Madeleine to take in, so she just closed her eyes and let the sobs wrack her from the inside out.

  Chapter 20

  THE NEXT THREE MORNINGS, WHILE Nell was at recreation, Jack went over to Lovecraft Hill. He got Jim Mangan, an engineer from the Boston office, to drive down and meet him. They walked the property with a site map; Jim was a licensed surveyor, so he shot lines and marked boundaries.

  While they hiked, Jack thought about Stevie. “Don't go to Scotland. Stay,” she had said. His patented way of dealing with pain was to walk away from it as cleanly as possible. He needed only to think of his sister to realize that that was true.

  But Stevie had said Stay, and he was thinking about staying.

  Deep in the woods, they found trails made by deer or other animals. They discovered caves hidden under rock ledges, streams, a pond, miraculously huge dawn redwood trees. Jack made notes as he walked along. He thought the widest stream called for a bridge, and he thought that placing large natural stepping stones in the flow would work the best.

  “Thanks for coming down,” he said to Jim.

  “No problem,” Jim said. “You really got me out of a jam on that Piscataqua River project. I'm just sorry to hear that you're leaving. Francesca's burning that you went over, or past her, to get to Ivan Romanov.”

  “He advertised the position,” Jack said. “I applied.”

  “Hell hath no fury, and all that.”

  “I'm sorry she took it that way,” Jack said, feeling like a heel. Talking about Francesca with Jim—as good a guy as he was, he was trying to pick up the office dirt—and leading her on in the first place. He hadn't meant to.

  “Like my brother always says, ‘Men are scum,'” Jim said.

  “I hope that's not true. I've got a daughter.”

  “Yeah, well. We sure manage to screw up royally at the worst possible times. My wife'll be happy to tell you. She's living in my dream house, the one I designed and built, while I'm sleeping on my brother's couch.”

  “What'd you do?” Jack said. Their footsteps sounded loud, tromping through fallen leaves and underbrush.

  “Fell in love online. Janice figured out my password and read my e-mails.”

  “That's bad,” Jack said.

  “Which part?”

  “All of it,” Jack said. E-mail was dangerous.

  His mind took an unexpected turn back to a time in Atlanta, just before Emma's accident. He hadn't known it then, but looking back, he realized that he had started to feel restless—it wasn't just her. Being married had been like swimming. Sometimes it was smooth and cool and buoyant, and other times it was hitting cold patches that made him want to get out of the water.

  During one of those cold patches, he had started e-mailing a woman in the Cleveland office. Had he sensed what was going on with Emma? She had gotten so involved with the church, and volunteering at the prison. That's what he told himself now—to excuse his own secret behavior.

  The e-mails had started out completely innocently—all about a Cincinnati suspension bridge project they were both involved with. The woman was witty and warm. Jack was feeling cold and unappreciated. The business e-mails had led to more-personal sharing. He remembered mornings w
hen he'd wake up before dawn, just to see whether she'd sent him something during the night.

  “Did anything actually happen between you?” Jack asked Jim, stepping over a narrow brook. “Your e-mail friend.”

  “Yeah. That's what got me kicked out. I deserved it.”

  At least Jack hadn't acted on anything. He thought back to those weeks, though—feeling alienated from his own marriage, seduced by his online intimacy with a woman he barely knew. It sort of stunned him to remember; since Emma's death, he had put a lot of effort into idealizing his marriage. The calls to Madeleine, hearing her voice, had been like opening a Pandora's box of things he really didn't want to face or remember. She had only been the messenger, Jack thought. The betrayal had been Emma's alone.

  “The Internet is the devil's workshop,” Jim said, stepping over a narrow brook. “That and the male mind. My crosses to bear—but now that I'm separated and you're no longer an item, maybe I'll ask Francesca out for dinner.”

  Jack didn't reply. He wanted to protect Francesca from Jim, but he figured she would be able to take care of herself. He continued through the woods with Jim, wondering at the thoughts raging through his head. Other memories of his marriage came up. He remembered how infrequently he and Emma made love. Why think about that now? What good could it do?

  He and Jim measured the westernmost boundary line. While Jim looked through the scope, Jack rustled through dry leaves looking for the “granite boulder marked with ‘X.'” Looking for the buried marker, he uncovered buried feelings. He had never really forgotten, but he'd sublimated the real reason Emma had gone off with Maddie on that vacation.

  Although it had been Madeleine's birthday, that was only the occasion for Emma's trip—not the deeper reason. He remembered the fight he and Emma had had the week she decided to go. He had been spending more and more time at the office. She had been decorating their new house, but had now decided that the project was excessive, materialistic—her work at Dixon proved that.

  “The prisoners have nothing,” she said. “They've had to look inside themselves—find inner resources. So many of them grew up in poverty and abuse.”