I locked the pin in my box of letters. I thought about how much time had passed. In some objective part of my brain I respected Amory for sticking with her instead of some bottle-blond twenty-year-old who laughed like a hyena and snapped her gum, though Lord knows he’d gone through plenty of those in his prime and probably still did. I thought about Bryce’s breasts: they were larger than mine, but they sagged more. I wondered where she kissed him and how.
I was alone in the house that day, and Amory called from the office to tell me he had a board of directors banquet in Chattanooga. I knew he was with her. When he came in, singing, around one in the morning, I pretended to be asleep. But I wasn’t asleep; I was lying there thinking about the two of them together. Thinking about the two of them together and me in that house by myself.
When I woke up the next morning he was gone. Around ten-thirty Bryce called. She was hot and bored, she said, and wanted to go swimming.
“I’m kind of busy today, Bryce,” I said. “Maybe another time.”
“What can you be doing that’s so dang important you can’t take out an hour to be with a friend?”
“I’m in the middle of spring cleaning.”
“Spring cleaning! Well, that can wait. I’m packing us a lunch, and I’ll be over in an hour. “
When Bryce pulled up in the little blue convertible Frank bought for her birthday, waving her hand gaily, a scarf around her head and black sunglasses sliding down her nose, it was all I could do not to lunge.
“Gosh, Clyde, darling,” she said, getting out of the car and reaching in back for the basket. “You look a little peaked this morning. Pee-kid’—is that how you pronounce it? I’m trying to learn a new word a week. You’re never too old!” She wagged a finger at me. “Now, I brought hard-boiled eggs and potato salad and cheese sandwiches and iced tea. I vote we take it down to the water and have us a picnic on the rocks. I’ve got my suit on underneath, so I’m all set. How about you?”
I told her I was feeling a bit under the weather and that I didn’t think swimming would help. “But I’ll go down there to keep you company,” I said. “I’ll sit on the rocks and stick my toes in.”
She seemed slightly irritated at this, but it was better than nothing, so I got my whistle and we made our way through the field behind the house to the narrow path that went down to the water. With a towel slung over one arm and the basket of food in the other, Bryce led the way. Walking close behind her, I could see single strands of white in the black of her hair. Her step was as sure and light as a ballerina’s. In the nearly thirty years I’d known her she had hardly gained a pound.
“Isn’t this fun?” she said, turning around suddenly. “Aren’t you glad you came? Now that we’ve got the kids out of our hair we should do this every day.” She closed her eyes and breathed deep. “There’s nothing finer than the smell of tree moss in the sun. Nothing,” she said, and turned forward again.
As soon as we reached the clearing Bryce began unbuttoning her blouse. She spread the towel on a large, flat rock and set the basket on it. I watched her as she let the blouse fall from her shoulders and stepped out of her skirt. I thought about Amory seeing the same thing and comparing her body to mine. Her skin was smooth and honey-colored, and her breasts were perky and firm in the pointy push-up bra of her black bathing suit. The only real signs of decay that I could detect were a few spidery veins on the backs of her legs.
We sat on the rock and ate the picnic she’d prepared, she in her suit, I in my plaid shift, as the sun beat down on us from directly overhead and the trees around the reservoir reflected patterns on the water. Lying back against the warm rock with her eyes closed and her arms spread wide, she whispered, “Glorious!”
After a few minutes she sat up. “I don’t know if I can hold off any longer.” She edged over to the side of the rock, stuck her toe in, and quickly pulled it out. Again she dipped her toe in, more cautiously this time, and then up to her ankle, up to her calf. “I’m going to do it,” she announced. She looked up to the left and shaded her eyes. “Off the top of that big boulder over there, all at once. It’s better just to get it over with.” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, her fingers interlaced. “Wish me luck!”
“Good luck,” I said.
I might have tried to stop her, to remind her about the whirlpool she knew herself was there, to convince her that the water was colder and deeper than it looked, to insist that she come back and wade in from the shore, where it was safe, but I did not. I didn’t say anything as she hopped from rock to rock in her shimmery black suit to get to the boulder, holding her arms out like a tightrope walker. I imagined I was Amory, admiring her strong, tanned arms, her long, perfect nose, the supple curve of her waist. When she smiled at me and crossed her fingers, standing on the slant of the big rock, I imagined Amory smiling and crossing his fingers back. When she dove in I heard the splash and then nothing, and I sat very still. I thought of Amory wanting her; I thought of him holding her in his arms. I sat there and gazed out over the water.
After a while I took off my Watch and waded in. The water was cold at first, but I clenched my teeth and submerged my chest up to my neck before dipping under to wet my hair. I waded back to shore and blew my whistle, three sharp blasts and one long one, and then climbed up to the boulder in my dripping dress, up the same path Bryce had taken, and stood at the top peering into the swirling depths below.
Jeb arrived faster than I’d expected, with Lattie right behind him. I had worked myself into a panic, and my teeth were chattering; I was freezing in that wet clammy dress. Jeb kicked off his shoes as he ran, and kept on going straight into the water. “Where she at, Miz Clyde?” Lattie screamed. I pointed down, speechless.
“The whirlpool!” Lattie shrieked. “She must’ve gone under at the whirlpool, y’all know that’s dangerous.”
“I tried to tell her,” I said, creeping down off the rock. “I know you did, Miz Clyde. And you shouldn’t have jumped in there yourself. “She spied the towel laid flat on the rock beneath the remains of our picnic and bent to pick it up. “I was always afraid something like this would happen, but nobody’d listen,” she muttered. “This is not a place for ladies to come by theirselves, Miz Clyde. I knew it would happen someday, I just knew it.”
I stood in front of her, shaking all over, while she dried me off with the towel. “Find anything?” she shouted as Jeb surfaced. “No sign,” he called. “I’m going back under.” A number of minutes passed. Jeb came up again. “I can’t see a thing right now, Miz Clyde. “He got out and sat on a rock, wrapping his arms around his stomach. Goose bumps stood up on his flesh. “Too murky to see a thing.”
The three of us sat silently, our eyes fixed on the water. The ripples from the wind looked like fish scales in the sunlight. The tree trunks reflected on the surface looked like bars.
“Well, there’s not a whole lot to do right now but get you home and dry,” Lattie said. “God bless that poor woman’s soul, her husband will be beside himself. But we done what we could. And you are lucky, Miz Clyde, real lucky that you weren’t swept away with her. You must be stronger than we all thought.”
Much stronger, I was thinking. Stronger than I thought myself. But I was glad Jeb hadn’t found the body, pale and bloated, while we waited on the rocks. Lattie walked behind me all the way up to the house, and Jeb walked behind her. We didn’t speak; none of us had much to say. For a moment I wondered if she might be at the house, waiting for us on the step, and my heartbeat quickened. But as we rounded the corner I could see her car sitting empty in the drive, and the house was still.
Late in the night I watched him sleeping. His breath was shallow, like a child’s. One narrow, almost invisible line ran across the middle of his forehead; deeper lines had started at the edges of his eyes, like tracks of a rake through sand. “Oh, Cassie” he’d said quietly when I called. His voice had calmed me. Now I looked at his strong cheekbones and full lips. I outlined my lips with a finger, and then h
is; I touched the curve of his nose, so like my own.
He opened his eyes and stared at me blankly, then focused with a start. “What are you doing?”
“Just watching.”
He turned toward the wall, wrapping the sheet around himself, tugging it off me. “No wonder I’m dreaming about you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, and he leaned back into me. When I kissed him he slid under me. Through the cotton sheet between us I could feel the tension in his legs. My hair fell across his face like straw, and he threaded his fingers through it, pushing it back over my ears.
“God, you’re lovely.” With the back of his hand he traced my cheek, down my chin. He kissed me and I kissed him back. He rolled over on top of me, reaching down to touch my hip inside the oversize T-shirt I wore. He slipped his finger under the elastic band of my panties. “Where’d these come from?”
“I don’t know you very well, Mr. Burns. I’m shy.”
“You weren’t too shy an hour ago.”
I stroked the light stubble on his face. “When I was in the fourth grade my best friend’s mother told us that we should always wear underwear to bed, in case there was a fire.”
“Afire?”
“You know—so when we jumped out the window into the trampoline none of the firemen would see.” I kissed his neck. “That sounds pretty funny now, doesn’t it? But I’ve always slept in my underwear. I never really thought about it, but I guess that’s why.”
“It’s time to break some old habits,” he murmured. “To hell with the firemen.”
His hand moved up inside my shirt to my breast, and I shifted to make room between us. He kissed my parted lips, biting the bottom one, nuzzling my ear. I ran my hand down the slope of his back, the ridges of muscle rising like hills on either side, to a small hollow at the base of his spine. I pulled him to me, running my hands along the entire length of him. We lay facing each other, side by side.
“We could have known each other all these years,” I said softly. “You were here all the time in this little town, and I didn’t even know.”
“We’d have grown up cousins.”
“That probably would’ve been better.”
“Probably, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.”
Sighing, I put my hand on the center of his chest.
After a moment he drew back and looked at me. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s an awfully big sigh over nothing.”
I put my head on his shoulder. “I just can’t understand why my mother went to that meeting. She must’ve known he was drunk when she got in the van.”
He circled me in his arms. “He was her father, Cassie. Fathers aren’t supposed to run their cars off the road.”
“I guess.” I closed my eyes. “You know, I’ve always thought of her as my mother. But she was just a girl.” I could feel tears welling up. “It seems so monumentally unfair.”
“It is. It was.”
“What was he trying to do? Was he trying to kill her? Or kill himself? Or was it that he just didn’t care?”
He stroked my hair. “Maybe it really was an accident. Maybe that drowning was too. We’ll probably never get the whole story.”
“Amory believed that Clyde killed Bryce Davies,” I said.
“I think a lot of people did.”
I sat up, sniffling. “Do you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He leaned back against the headboard. “I just don’t think she did it. I don’t think she was capable of it.” He paused. “You know, it’s funny. Because everything was so indirect and no charges were ever brought, Clyde never had a chance to tell her side of the story. She could never be cleared. And my mother …”
“What?”
He rubbed his face. “She just perpetuated it. She made it into a big family secret that none of us were allowed to talk about. But not talking about it didn’t make it go away, it just made it all the more shameful.”
“Why wouldn’t your mother want everything to be out in the open?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it gave her a weird kind of control over Clyde.”
“It just all seems so unnecessary.”
He shook his head. “My mother was so jealous of your mother, Cassie, it was ridiculous.”
“Jealous? Why?”
“She always thought your mother was Clyde’s favorite—and she was, from what I’ve heard. When the accident happened she wasn’t exactly jumping for joy, but I don’t think she was heartbroken either. She finally had Clyde all to herself.”
“That’s awfully cynical.”
“I lived with her for a long time.”
“It seems so ironic. Here I am, trying to find my mother, and you’re trying to escape yours.”
He looked down. “I do love her. I don’t want you to think I don’t. It’s just that I don’t like her very much sometimes.”
“I want to ask you something,” I said quietly. “How much did your mother have to do with that first night I met you at the bar?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were getting back at her a little bit, weren’t you? You knew that getting involved with me would be her worst nightmare.”
For a moment he didn’t respond. Then he said, “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. But maybe—at first—there was a little of that. Everything changed so fast, though. If that was a factor at the beginning, it certainly wasn’t by the end of the night.”
I drew a deep breath.
“I really never thought about it before. I’m just trying to be honest.”
I sank into my pillow and covered my eyes with the heels of my hands. “This family is so fucked.”
“All families are fucked,” he said. “You think this one is different because it’s yours.”
“Murder and betrayal and revenge.” I looked up at him. “I call that pretty majorly fucked.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “and now incest.”
“Oh, God.” I covered my eyes again.
He pulled my hands aside and kissed my nose, and then he lay down beside me. “I think I love you, Cassie.”
“Troy—”
“Shhh,” he said, putting his hand to my lips. “Don’t say anything. Not yet.”
Sometimes at night I think about the commandments.
Thou shalt not steal.
That woman was a blackbird, hair black, eyes black. She took what she wanted with long, grasping talons; she made herself at home in other nests. In the night she was invisible: the ruffling of her feathers was the wind across the water; her eyes, glinting in the moonlight, might have been reflections of my own.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
For years I smiled and pretended, hid what I felt, put up with what I put up with because I didn’t know that I deserved better. I didn’t know that I could ask.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
When I was seventeen I went to college to escape my father’s impotent rage and my mother’s infinite capacity for forgiveness. When I left that white-columned house on its wide Chattanooga street I thought I was leaving it for good. But instead of escaping my past I merely circled back to it: I went out and married a man as thwarted and confused as my father, and I became everything about my mother I used to loathe.
Thou shalt not kill.
She jumped from the boulder and the water was so cold it cut her breath. She thought a thousand thoughts, or nothing. She thought of him. In the stillness of the afternoon a lowly pigeon finally took flight—waiting, watching, beating my wings as her lungs filled up with deep, sweet water.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
From the day it happened I wanted him to believe the worst. I wanted him to know what I had discovered and put one and one together. I knew he would assume the obvious; his brain was lazy. He had learned enough to dazzle early on, to charm local girls like me; and that was enough for him. Enough
for him to repeat the pattern over and over again until I put a stop to it. I had had enough of repeating patterns. They were making me dizzy, like a kaleidoscope.
By the time I’d found out what the worst can do it was too late to take anything back.
It was midmorning. As we sat on the porch eating bread and cheese and oranges and reading the paper, we heard the telephone ring inside.
“Are you going to answer that?”
I shrugged.
It rang twice, three times, before the machine kicked in. We waited until we heard a voice.
“Cassie, you’re off my A list and teetering around C. Pretty soon you’re going to be off it entirely unless you get your act together and call me. So what’s going on? Have you run off to Cancún with this mystery man? I swear, it’s always the same with you, Cassandra. The minute a new toy comes along you drop off the face of the earth.
“Now look, I’m thinking of coming down for a visit, but maybe we should meet in Atlanta. I require running water and cable, and it sounds like both are luxuries in your neck of the woods. So call me. Soon.”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, Drew.” I laughed, embarrassed. “He’s my best friend.” I got up, tugging my T-shirt down, went inside the house, and returned with an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. I tapped one out and lit it.
Troy picked up an orange, an amused expression on his face. “So you’ve been telling people about me.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t tell him anything. I was talking to someone earlier in the week—oh, this is too complicated.”
“No, go ahead.”
“Well, there’s this guy, Adam.” I took a long drag on my cigarette. “We were talking, and somehow your name came up.”
“So… this is an old boyfriend or something?”
“Or something.”
“And you mentioned me because—”
“Because he was hassling me about coming back. I don’t even remember what I said.”
He reached over and flicked the cigarette, knocking off the accumulated ash. “You’re not used to this, are you?”