Drowning Ruth

  Ruth curled on the bare mattress and pulled her father's big jacket tight around her. If she and her mother had fallen through the ice, she thought as she drifted into sleep, and her mother had drowned, but she had not, who had saved her? And why hadn't she saved Mathilda?

  Chapter Eighteen

  A day and a night had passed since Clement Owens had gone to take his morning swim and hadn't come home again.

  “It's that he's gone without his car,” Theresa Owens kept saying. “That's what worries me. He wouldn't go anywhere without his car.” She repeated this conviction to each of her children several times. She said it to Ellen and to Anna, the cook, and to Augie, who took care of the yard and the cars. “Are you sure there's no car missing?” she asked him, more than once.

  The question offended him. She knew as well as he did that the Owenses possessed three cars, all of which were safely in the garage. But he answered patiently each time, “No, Mrs. Owens, there ain't no car missing. Not this time.”

  She explained her concern to the sheriff, although even without a missing car, Sheriff Kuhtz didn't rule out the possibility that Owens had disappeared intentionally. You saw a fair amount of that when you were the sheriff.

  But this fellow hadn't taken a suit of clothes or a pair of shoes out of the closet, at least according to the wife—and you could generally count on the wife to know things like that. It was unusual for a man to go off without his clothes, unless he wanted people to think he was dead. Sheriff Kuhtz had heard of such cases.

  On the other hand, it was best, he'd found, to start with the obvious. Although, if Owens had been taken by cramp, it was odd that the bathrobe the maid had sworn he was wearing wasn't on the pier.

  On the third day they searched the lake. It was a matter of routine, really; it was difficult to overlook such an obvious culprit when it yawned right in front of them. The family was relieved when nothing turned up, but the sheriff knew bodies were often slow to surface in Nagawaukee Lake. People had been dumping trees and tractors, whole fleets of boats, even houses, down there for decades. A corpse could get hung up in all that junk.

  Imogene telephoned Ruth nearly every hour with the latest bulletin. Since no one knew anything, she had few facts to report, but there was still plenty to talk about. The cook had a theory that Mr. Owens had gotten himself mixed up with Chicago gangsters. Mrs. Owens had noticed that his heart pills were missing from the medicine chest. Augie, the driver, suspected a vengeful husband—this last Imogene whispered into the phone.

  Of course, she was staying at the house. None of them would have eaten a bite or gotten a wink of sleep if it hadn't been for her. Mrs. Owens had hardly liked her to go home even for her toothbrush and, obviously, Arthur needed her. The sister had come and the older brother. All of them had taken to her right away, and the sister had even invited her to share her bedroom.

  “Arthur says he's done this before, gone off for a few days, not come home when they expected him to,” Imogene said the day after the search.

  “So he'll turn up.”

  “But Arthur says this is different. Those other times they saw him off. They knew at least he was going somewhere, even if they weren't always sure where and for how long. He waved goodbye—he didn't just disappear into thin air.”

  After she hung up the telephone, Ruth opened the drawer of her nightstand and looked at the silver box she'd found. Gingerly, she touched one finger to the lid. What did it mean?

  Had Clement Owens slept in the boat like a tramp? Or had Amanda taken his pills? But why leave them in the bottom of the boat? Had he been in the boat with her? In the boat and now vanished into thin air. Or into thick water. As Ruth's mother had vanished. As Ruth had almost vanished herself.

  “Ruth!” Amanda's voice flew up from the bottom of the stairs. Ruth could imagine her clearly, standing there with one hand firmly grasping the newel post so that her knuckles stood out. “What did Imogene say?”

  Ruth opened her mouth. She felt choked and cleared her throat. “Nothing,” she called weakly, and tried again. “Nothing new.”

  Ruth

  I didn't know what to think exactly, only that Aunt Mandy had probably been with Arthur's father sometime since I'd last used the boat, which was weeks and weeks ago. Although that was less surprising than it might have been, now that I knew they'd been acquainted with each other. Still, I didn't think anyone else, not even Imogene, should find that out, at least until Mr. Owens turned up with a reasonable explanation for where he'd been. Thinking about it gave me the funny idea Aunt Mandy might be hiding him somewhere on the farm, and I started to look over my shoulder once in a while, when I was in the barn or the root cellar. I was afraid she had secrets she'd not yet told me, and I didn't want to stumble onto them unaware.

  Even less did I want to join her in one, so I assured her that Arthur and Imogene were in no danger of marrying as long as Mr. Owens was missing. We could postpone her plan.

  “I thought you told me Imogene was staying at the house day and night. Day and night,” she repeated, and I had to admit this was true.

  Once Aunt Mandy had decided what she wanted to do, she wouldn't leave it alone. That night she came into my bedroom waving the folded pages I'd brought home from the Owenses' in my pocketbook. She must have fished them out of the garbage.

  “Where did you get these?” she demanded.

  “From Mrs. Owens. I made mistakes.”

  “They're perfect. She'll know the paper, don't you think?” She held a page to the light, squinting at the watermark.

  I pulled at the sheet, trying to take it from her. “I know I shouldn't have ruined so much, but she has a lot. I really don't think she'll miss it.”

  “No, I mean Imogene. Imogene'll know it, won't she?” She ran her fingers lightly, caressingly over the page. “This is what she uses there every day. My Imogene would remember such high-quality paper.”

  After I'd gone to bed, she drew a light pencil line to be sure she'd cut perfectly straight and sliced the spoiled ends off with the kitchen shears. The next morning she'd arranged the five sheets in a row beside my plate. “Which one looks best to you, Ruth? Which one is straightest?”

  I didn't want to look at them. “I don't know,” I said, as sullenly as I dared.

  She looked hurt. “I thought you understood, Ruth, that this is for the best. For Imogene. You want to help Imogene, don't you? These little love affairs, they don't mean very much. Believe me.” She tried to put her hand on my head, but I ducked. She wasn't thinking about Imogene. She was only thinking of herself. “How about this one?” she asked, pointing to a sheet.

  Though I gave her no answer, she pretended I'd agreed. “We'll try this one first then.”

  “He probably has his own stationery,” I said.

  She seemed to consider this, then shook her head. “I don't see how you could get any of that without actually stealing it. Even if you could get into his room, you don't know where he keeps it.”

  “I'm not sneaking into his room!”

  “Of course not. I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that.” She patted my shoulder. It had been the same, I remembered, when she was keeping me home from school. She was always touching me, reassuring herself that I was with her, that we were in this together. I'd liked it then.

  When I got home that afternoon, she pushed a piece of brown paper and a pen at me. “Ruth, you have to help me with this.” She led me to the kitchen table and tried to maneuver me into a chair. “I can't get it to sound right, like he'd say it. You know him, Ruth. You know what he'd say.”

  “I'm going to hang up my coat.”

  “Ruth, please,” she said, following me, holding out her pitiful sheet of paper in both hands. “Please, Ruth. I can't do this by myself.”

  She wouldn't leave me alone. She would never leave me alone. I snatched the paper and threw myself into the chair. I made the chair legs scrape hard against the floor, scratching the wood. But, as I sat with the blank page in front of me, A
unt Mandy hovering near my shoulder, nervously rubbing the scar on her thumb, I knew something had shifted between us. Not that she wanted my help—she was always wanting my help, my advice, my opinion. But before this she'd ask me what I thought only to confirm what she'd already decided. When she asked if I liked the striped yellow curtains or the ones with the tiny red wheelbarrows printed on them, she knew which she liked, or which, as she would say, were best. I usually guessed right, and she was pleased. But this was different. This time she really needed my help; this time she really thought I did know best. She really couldn't do this thing without me.

  “Sit down,” I said, picking up the pen. “I can't think with you hanging over me like that.” And then I began to write.

  After all, we had to do it.

  No, those are her words. We didn't have to do that—there were other courses. But secretly, so secretly I hardly admitted it to myself, I wanted to do this as much as Aunt Mandy did. I even wished our story were true.

  Aunt Mandy was pleased with the sixth draft. “This is perfect, Ruth. Perfect. I never would have thought to say it like this.”

  Dear Ruth,

  I come to you in my darkest hour to ask your advice, since I know you love Imogene and would, above all others, know how best to make her happy. Something has happened to me that I can't explain or even understand myself, something I would've given all my future happiness to have avoided. There is no pretty way to put it, so I'll say it out in all its hideousness—I've fallen in love with another. Yes, there it is. Imogene will always be dear to me, but dear as a sister, not as a wife. That is my terrible secret.

  I'll keep it secret, Ruth, if you so advise. I know Imogene and I could have a fine life together. I know I could make her comfortable and happy. But wouldn't I be wrong to marry her now, knowing how I feel about someone else? Were I to let her go, wouldn't she soon find someone better who would love her as she deserves? I believe it's true, and yet I can't bear to hurt her. I want to do as she would wish, and I write to you as one who knows her wishes better than anyone. What shall I do?

  I thought it was a little formal. Words like “darkest hour” and “hideousness” and “future happiness” sounded unnatural, as if I'd copied them from a book, but Aunt Mandy claimed the letter was exactly the way a man would write, if he were trying to show he was taking a matter seriously.

  We had a model for his signature from a book he'd lent me, but we couldn't copy his hand well enough to write the whole thing out. Anyway, Aunt Mandy reasoned, Imogene probably wouldn't think it odd that Arthur would type such a letter. Who knew what form a message like that should take?

  I was supposed to type it during the noon break, but when I pulled it out of my satchel the next day, I could hardly stand to look at it. I would have thrown it in the trash, if I hadn't worried that someone like Myrtle or Lillian would pull it out.

  “There were too many people around,” I lied when I got home. “I don't see how I'm going to be able to do it.”

  Aunt Mandy went upstairs and closed her door.

  In the morning, though, she was cheerful again. “I just know you'll get a chance to type it today, Ruth,” she said. “We have to do this as soon as possible. You never know what might happen.”

  That day at noon, when Lillian, who'd gone out to the corridor to get her sandwich, came running back in, squealing, “A lady's got kittens out there,” I knew who the lady was. One of our barn cats was just weaning her late litter.

  I would never have thought that a box of kittens would distract a roomful of business students, but it did. Or at least it kept the girls I usually ate with from wondering why I was pecking away at my machine. Even Myrtle, who came back in when I was in the middle of the second paragraph, had a gray tabby clinging to her shoulder.

  “You never said your aunt was so nice, Ruth. She thinks this little sweetie is just perfect for me.” She kissed its head, and the kitten, scared to be so high off the ground, cried plaintively. “Baby, what's the trouble?” she cooed, cradling it at her breast. “I'll finish that for you, if you want to go out and say hello. Brown'll never know the difference.”

  “I'm almost done,” I said, as lightly as I could, and waved her away.

  I'd typed slowly and made only three mistakes. These I corrected by covering the words with x's. The errors didn't bother me. A letter like that shouldn't be perfect.

  That evening I remembered my grandfather's pen with its thick stock, made for a masculine hand, and without prodding I dipped it in black ink and practiced writing Arthur's name over and over until the signature looked identical to the one in my book, until I could sign “Arthur Owens” to that letter as if writing my own name. Aunt Mandy's eyes, across the table, shone in the lamplight. We had done it.

  That night we couldn't bear to part, even for sleep. She followed me into my room and watched me undress, and when she'd pulled the covers over my shoulder, she lay on top of them beside me, as she had when I was a child, so that I fell asleep, pinned tight under the quilt, her head behind mine on the pillow.

  When I awoke, I could hear her already in the kitchen, grinding the coffee. In the fresh dawn, the letter on my nightstand looked blatantly false. But I would try it, I told myself, for Aunt Mandy's sake. If it didn't work, there was always the truth.

  “Yes?” Ellen said, answering the door. “Oh, it's you.” She frowned. “I don't think Mrs. Owens is doing any work today. Anyway, Miss Lindgren is here.”

  “It's Genie, Miss Lindgren, I want to see.”

  “Miss Lindgren shouldn't be inviting her friends here, time like this.”

  “She didn't invite me. I mean, I won't stay long. I just need to talk to her about something. It's very important.”

  “Something about Mr. Owens? You know something?”

  Ruth shook her head, surprised. “No, nothing like that.”

  Ellen shut the door without another word, and Ruth waited uncertainly. She was about to knock again when Imogene opened the door.

  “Ruth!” Imogene threw her arms around her friend. “How'd you know I wanted you to come? Let's go for a walk,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her. “I have to get out of this house.

  “I'm worried,” she said as they wandered down the slope to the edge of the lake. “I don't know if they'd rather he ran away or was dead.”

  Drawn by the scudding waves, winking with white-gold sunbursts, they kept walking to the end of the pier. A keen edge to the wind, a hint of the meanness to come, routed the vestiges of summer. If not for the disappearance of Clement Owens, the pier on which they stood would have been dismantled days before, the house in which all of the Owenses now gathered would have emptied.

  Ruth was giddy with nervousness. “I've got to show you something,” she said finally, drawing the letter from her pocket with shaking fingers. Her heart beat so hard as she passed the paper into Imogene's hand that she thought it might suddenly cause her to leap into the water like a frog.

  The wind tugged at the page, but Imogene held it firmly, reading it once and then again. “I don't understand. He sent this to you?”

  Ruth nodded.

  “When?”

  “A day or two ago maybe. I'm not sure. It came in the mail yesterday.”

  Imogene read the letter again. “I don't understand,” she repeated. “How can he love someone else? Who else is there?” She looked at Ruth with eyes so stricken that Ruth's fingers quivered to snatch back the page and expose her lie. She didn't want it to be true anymore. No, she wanted to cry, he loves you, only you.

  “It's impossible. He hasn't even seen anyone else. I don't believe it.” She held the letter up to read it again.

  The paper shivering in Imogene's hand started an answering tremble in Ruth's limbs and jaw. She clenched her teeth and trained her eyes on the white triangle of a sail skimming the waves far out on the water. Under her feet, the boards rose and fell sickeningly. Imogene's hand gripped her arm, and she turned, following her friend's gaze toward the s
hore. Arthur was coming down the pier toward them.

  At first Ruth panicked at the idea of being caught in her lie. Their lie. Aunt Mandy's and hers. She had to hold herself still to keep from yanking her arm from Imogene's grasp and bolting off the pier. Shh, she told herself, shh. She closed her eyes. If they found out, all right. All right. Wasn't that what she'd wanted from the beginning? She'd tried, for Aunt Mandy's sake, but it hadn't worked. Arthur would swear he hadn't written the letter, and Imo-gene would believe him. They would look at her, mystified. What did she know?

  She'd tell them the truth. It would be hard, especially now with Clement Owens missing, to say such things about his father, their father, and Aunt Mandy would be angry. Aunt Mandy, betrayed, would be … Ruth couldn't even imagine … crazy? Murderous?

  Already, Imogene was holding the letter out to him. “Arthur, is this true?”

  “Is what true? Is it something about my father? What does it say?”

  “Don't pretend with me. You know what it says. Just tell me if it's true.”

  He tried to take the letter, but she jerked it from his fingers. “Just tell me,” she demanded, snapping the words and thrusting her face at him, defiantly. “Do you love someone else?” Her final words dissolved into a sob, and as she pronounced them, she lost her grip on the page, and the wind, seizing its chance, whipped the letter away.

  No, Genie, Ruth thought desperately, of course he doesn't. She could almost hear him saying those words, could almost see him pulling Imogene close against his warm body to reassure her.

  But he stepped back. “Why are you asking me this now?” His face twisted in anger. “My father may be dead. I can't talk about this now!”

  “I don't want to talk about it.” Imogene's voice was calm, but she reached behind her, trying to find Ruth's hand. “I only want a simple answer. Yes or no.”

  Arthur looked down. He looked, Ruth thought, like a shamed little boy. The water, rolling pebbles along the shore, was deafening. Answer, she thought, say no. But the lifeline she was trying silently to throw him fell short.