The Bay at Midnight

  She walked into the house and Mom called after her, “Remember, you’re supposed to look for a job this summer.”

  Mom began working on her sketch again as though nothing had happened, and disappointed, I returned to The Secret in the Old Attic. Later that day, I walked to the beach by myself and as I passed the little marina at the end of the canal, I saw Isabel standing on the bulkhead staring out at the water. I called to her, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Then I saw Ned pull his boat up tight against the bulkhead. He reached out a hand and Isabel climbed in.

  I stopped walking, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe she would so completely disregard our mother’s rules. I watched with envy as the boat picked up speed and raced out of the marina, and I tucked that image away for some day when I might need it.

  “Come on, Lucy,” Mom said now. “Let’s go in the water.” I opened my eyes to see that she’d arranged the sandwiches and thermos, suntan lotion and her book, all in a row along one side of the blanket. Now she was ready to swim.

  “I’m reading,” Lucy said. She was out of my line of sight, but I was certain she had not lifted her eyes from her book.

  I saw Mom kneel down in front of her. “It’s a new summer, Lucy,” she said. “You’re eight now. It’s really silly to still be afraid of the water.”

  Lucy didn’t respond.

  “Chicken,” I said, closing my eyes again.

  “Shh!” Mom said to me. “That’s not going to help.”

  “Go in the water, Lucy.” I sat up, feeling guilty. I didn’t want to be a nasty older sister. I knew how that felt. “Then later I’ll go on the swings with you.”

  With a sigh too heavy for an eight-year-old, Lucy got to her feet. My mother pulled on her own bathing cap, tucking her dark, wavy chin-length hair up inside it. Then she helped Lucy pull hers over her short permed curls, as though my sister might actually go into water deep enough to get her hair wet. I watched as the two of them walked toward the roped-off section of the water, holding hands. Mom pointed to a plane that was flying above the water, trailing a Coppertone banner behind it. As I’d figured, Lucy went in up to her knees and refused to go any farther. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I could tell that my mother spent much of it coercing and Lucy spent much of it shaking her head no. Finally giving up, my mother walked into the water by herself. I watched her dive in once she’d reached the deeper water. She swam underwater to escape from the roped area, then began swimming parallel to the shore with long, fluid strokes. She looked beautiful, like a sea creature instead of a woman. I longed to be out there with her. She’d taught me to swim when I was half Lucy’s age.

  I looked at my younger sister. She was still standing in the knee-high water, her yellow ruffly bathing suit dry, the pathetic Flintstones tube around her waist as she watched our mother swim. Suddenly I felt so sorry for her that I thought I might cry.

  “Lucy, honey,” I called, the endearment slipping from my mouth before I could stop it.

  She turned to look at me.

  “Come back to the blanket,” I said.

  She did. She trudged back to the blanket, pulled off the bathing cap, shimmied out of her tube and sat down next to me to read.

  “Lay down and I’ll put some suntan lotion on you,” I said.

  Mom had already coated her with it, but I just wanted to do something nice for her. She lay down on her stomach, and I rubbed the coconut-scented lotion on her back. I felt her shoulder blades, pointy beneath my palms. She seemed so fragile. I wanted to bend over and hug her. I wished I could give her just an ounce of my courage. I had more than I could manage.

  I was putting the lid back on the tube when I realized Mr. and Mrs. Chapman were now on the beach directly behind us. They were sitting on striped, legless beach chairs, and Mrs. Chapman had her head tilted back, her eyes closed, face held toward the sun. She had pretty blond hair, cut short in a cap around her head. Mr. Chapman was reading a book, but he must have sensed me looking at him, because he took off his sunglasses and I could see him returning my gaze. He did not look happy to see me.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hello, Lucy.”

  “I’m Julie,” I said.

  “Julie, of course.”

  I looked toward the sea grass where I’d seen Ethan lying down, but he was no longer there. Then I spotted him sitting on the pier, holding one end of a string that disappeared below the water’s surface. He was probably crabbing. If I could still stand him, I would have enjoyed doing that with him.

  “Has Charles…has your father gone back to Westfield for the week?” Mr. Chapman asked me.

  I nodded. “Don’t you have to go home during the week, too?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not since I’ve been on the Supreme Court,” he said. “We break for the summer.”

  I was confused. I’d had no idea Mr. Chapman was on the Supreme Court. “Why did you outlaw school prayer?” I said, taking up my father’s fight.

  “What?” He looked puzzled, then he laughed. His features were softer when he laughed and I could see some of Ned’s good looks in him. “That’s the United States Supreme Court,” he said. “I’m chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.”

  “Oh.” I felt embarrassed, as though this was something I should have known.

  “I would have outlawed school prayer, though,” he added, “had I been in the position to do so.”

  I suddenly understood why my father didn’t seem to like Mr. Chapman. I couldn’t remember ever seeing them talk to each other.

  “Don’t start, Ross.” Mrs. Chapman didn’t move her head from her sunbathing, but she smiled as she chastised her husband.

  “I think there should be a prayer to start the day in school,” I said, feeling immensely adult and grateful for my father’s guidance.

  Mr. Chapman leaned forward. His eyes were the color of my mother’s pewter coffeepot. “It’s wonderful that you’re taking a stand, Julie,” he said. “It’s important to get involved, no matter what side you’re on. But I happen to disagree with you. In this country, we don’t only have Christians. We have Jews and Muslims and atheists. Do you honestly think those children should have to say a Christian prayer in school every morning?”

  I only knew one Jewish girl and I certainly didn’t know any Muslims. I wasn’t sure how to respond. He had a point I could not argue against, but I clung so fiercely to my father’s righteousness that I couldn’t back down. “Atheists are stupid,” I said, my cheeks reddening instantly because I knew it was my statement that was stupid.

  He laughed. “And they might say the same thing about your beliefs.”

  “Are you an atheist?” I asked, suddenly wondering if that was his reason for wanting to abolish school prayer.

  “No, I’m Catholic. Just like you are. But even Catholics can disagree on important issues.”

  His wife suddenly dipped her head. She shaded her eyes to look at me, then smiled. To her husband, she said, “Stop badgering her.”

  “We’re having a healthy debate,” Mr. Chapman said, and I was glad he felt that way even after my weak comment about atheists.

  “How are you, Julie, dear?” Mrs. Chapman said. “We’ve barely had a chance to see your family yet this summer. Where’s your mother?”

  I turned to the bay, pointing toward the last place I’d seen my mother swimming, but she was walking out of the water, pulling off her bathing cap, her dark hair springing into curls around her face. Like most women her age, she wore a black bathing suit with a little skirt on it, but it was clear that her long, lean thighs did not need to be hidden in any way. I felt a surge of pride. She was so pretty.

  “Hello, Joan,” my mother said, picking up a towel from the blanket and patting it to her face. “And Ross.”

  “Maria.” Mr. Chapman nodded to my mother.

  “How’s the water?” Mrs. Chapman asked.

  “Chilly,” my mother said. “But very refreshing.” She turned her attention to Lucy and me. “Let’s ha
ve some lunch, girls, okay?” She sat down on the blanket, her back to the Chapmans, blocking my view of them and putting an end to the “healthy” debate.

  We were eating our bologna on Wonder Bread sandwiches when I looked over to where Isabel had been sitting with her friends and saw that the blankets were empty. On the lifeguard stand, a boy I didn’t recognize sat tossing his black whistle from one hand to another. I knew where they all were. I looked out at the water toward the platform, a heavy wooden raft anchored in the deep water and held afloat by empty oil drums. Every last one of the teenagers was crammed on top of the platform, which was really too small for all of them. I could hear them laughing from where I sat. I could hear music, too, and I wondered how they’d managed to get a radio out there in the deep water without it getting wet. My sister and another girl were standing up, dancing, moving to the music. Bruno Walker was balanced on the edge of the platform, and I watched him do a perfect dive into the water. Then he swam back to the platform, hoisting himself onto it using his muscular arms rather than climbing up the ladder. He took a seat near one of the girls I didn’t know.

  I chewed my sandwich slowly, watching them. I’d never been on the platform, although I longed to be. I was a good swimmer and I was certain I could even hoist myself up onto it the way Bruno had just done, but I was intimidated by the teenagers who always hung out there, Isabel included. It was clearly their territory. A twelve-year-old would not be welcome. Watching them, I had no way of knowing that my sister, who looked so vibrant and alive, would be dead before the summer was over. And I had no way of knowing how that platform would one day haunt my dreams.

  CHAPTER 8

  Maria

  I weeded my garden every day. Although it was only late June, I could already see weeds popping up through the mulch Julie and Lucy had spread for me. Most people hated weeding, but I didn’t. I loved being in the sun—the Italian portion of my blood, no doubt. Maybe I had more wrinkles than I would if I hadn’t spent so much of my life outdoors, but I didn’t care. It was a privilege to grow old, and not everyone got to enjoy it. I was grateful for every minute I was given.

  I liked keeping the flower beds neat and orderly, scratching out the weeds from around the red begonias and pink peonies, making order out of chaos. Julie was exactly like me in that regard. Lucy was another story altogether. She was sloppy and complicated. I tried not to think of where Isabel would have fallen in that continuum of neatness to messiness. Thinking about things like that could drive you crazy.

  That morning in late June, I was sitting on the little seat-onrollers Julie had bought for me, working on the flower bed near the front steps, when a car pulled into my driveway. It was a big car with a long hood, the kind of car an old man would drive, and sure enough, I watched as a man about my age got out of the driver’s side.

  I set down my trowel and stood up slowly. That’s one thing I’d learned—I had to take my time getting to my feet after working in the sun, or everything would go dark for a few seconds. I took off my gardening gloves and dropped them to the mulch as I watched the old man retrieve a cane from the car and begin to hobble toward me.

  “Hello,” I called out, taking a few steps across my lawn.

  He waved at me. “Hello, Maria,” he said, and my mind started the frantic racing it did when someone unfamiliar seemed to know me. My memory was not bad at all, but when I’d meet people out of context, I often couldn’t place them. Did I know this man from church? From Micky D’s? I shaded my eyes with my hand, trying to see him more clearly. He was tall and nearly gaunt, his white hair very thin on top. He limped when he walked toward me and I knew he needed that cane and that it wasn’t just for show. He looked like a complete stranger to me.

  He smiled as he neared me, and although there was something familiar in the curve of his lips, I still couldn’t place him.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” he said, without reproach.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said. “Do you go to Holy Trinity?”

  He held his left hand toward me, his right hand leaning heavily on his cane. “I’m Ross Chapman,” he said.

  I had stood up slowly enough, of that I was certain, yet my head went so light I thought I might pass out. I took his hand more to steady myself than to shake it and I could not seem to find my voice.

  “It’s been a long, long time,” he said.

  I managed to nod. “Yes,” I said.

  “You are still a stunning woman,” he said, even though I was wearing my gardening overalls and probably had dirt smeared on my face.

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t bring myself to reciprocate. Ross Chapman had once been a very handsome man, but in the fortyone years since I’d last seen him in person, he had withered and paled. After we left the summer house for the last time in 1962, I would see his picture occasionally in the papers and on TV, since he was a prominent figure in New Jersey and had even run for governor. But he looked nothing like that robust politician now.

  “Is this how you spend your days?” he asked, motioning toward the flower bed. “Working in your garden?”

  “I also work at McDonald’s in Garwood and I’m a volunteer at the hospital,” I said.

  “McDonald’s?” he laughed. “That’s marvelous. You always knew how to keep busy,” he said, nodding with what I guessed was approval.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with him. We stood for a moment in an awkward silence. I didn’t want to invite him in, but I saw no alternative.

  “Would you like to come in?” I asked finally. “Have something to drink?”

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  I walked up the front steps and inside the house, holding the door open for him. I could see that the four concrete steps were a bit of a struggle for him and I looked away, not wanting to embarrass him by noticing his frailty.

  “Why don’t you sit here?” I motioned toward the armchair in the living room, then rattled off the things I could offer him to drink.

  “Just ice water,” he said.

  In the kitchen, I took my time getting out the glasses, filling them with ice. I wished he had not come. I could see no point to this visit. I could have quite happily lived out the rest of my days without seeing my old neighbor again.

  When I returned to the living room, I saw that he had not taken a seat as I’d suggested. Instead, he was looking at the pictures on the mantel. There was one of the four of us—Charles and myself and Julie and Lucy, when the girls were fifteen and eleven. It was the last picture I had of Charles; he’d dropped dead from a heart attack in our kitchen only a few weeks after it had been taken. Then there were Julie’s and Lucy’s old college-graduation pictures and, next to them, Shannon’s senior picture. Ross lifted that last one up and looked toward me, a smile on his lips.

  “A granddaughter?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Shannon,” I said. “She’s Julie’s.” I thought of telling him more about her, how she’d been accepted to Oberlin, how accomplished she was already, but I didn’t want to extend my conversation with Ross any longer than I had to.

  “Lovely.” Then he poked a finger at Julie’s picture. “That’s Julie, right? She was the sharp one. The one with the brains and the spunk.”

  His words jolted me. Julie had brains, all right, but her spunk had gone out the window long ago. He was right, though. When he knew my girls, Julie was the one who’d had the most gumption.

  “Yes,” I said, to keep things short and simple. “She was always up to something.”

  Ross limped over to the armchair and sat down. “I have one granddaughter and a great-granddaughter,” he said. He took the glass I held out for him and looked up at me. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

  I set a coaster on the end table next to him, then sat on the hassock in front of the other armchair. “Why are you here?” I asked. The back of my neck ached a bit, and I rubbed it. My skin was slick with perspiration, more from anxiety than the heat.

  “Do y
ou know that my Ethan and your Julie are meeting for lunch today?” Ross asked.

  “What?” I’d been about to take a sip of my water and nearly dropped the glass. “Why on earth?” As far as I knew, Julie and Ethan Chapman had had no contact since 1962.

  Ross shrugged. “Ethan just said he was thinking about her and felt like getting together. They planned to meet in Spring Lake.”

  “Well,” I said, recovering from the shock. “Good for them. They were friends when they were little.”

  “Anyhow,” Ross said, “when Ethan told me he was going to see Julie, it started me thinking about you…about your family. About how I…” He set his glass down on the coaster and looked directly into my eyes. “I mishandled things, Maria. In every which way. I—”

  “Water under the bridge, Ross,” I said. “It’s not necessary to rehash it.”

  “But I think it is,” he said. I recognized his earnest look as one he’d employed when running for governor. It was a look that made you want to trust him.

  “I’m old and tired,” he said. “I really doubt I’ll live much longer and I just want to make amends to any people I might have hurt during my lifetime.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him. I wondered if he had cancer. He was so thin. “Are you sick?”

  He shook his head, brushing my question away with his hand. “I lost Joan last year,” he said, then looked away from me, toward the pictures on the mantel. “And Ned…Ned died just a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh,” I said. I understood then how his world had been altered. Ned must have been close to sixty, but that didn’t matter when it came to burying your child. “I’m sorry, Ross.”

  “It gave me a new understanding of how you felt when Isabel died.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So, I wanted to talk to you about…I just wanted to apologize.”

  “And now you have and that’s fine and enough,” I said. I didn’t like the sympathy I felt for this old man. He was a politician, first and foremost, capable of talking out of both sides of his mouth.