“I’m not crazy. I just need to go.”
She stood there while he pulled on his boots and fastened his raincoat.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she burst out. “There are fallen wires all over. You’ll be electrocuted, if you aren’t drowned first.”
“I’ll watch where I’m going. I know what I’m doing.”
“Then I’m going with you,” she said.
“No, no, not you!”
“I’m as determined as you are, Dad.”
Yes, she thought, I know what you’re thinking. And following him, she did not have to question what direction he would take. She knew that too.
From the door he turned left toward the river. Except for a huddle of sodden, pathetic sparrows in some naked shrubs, there was no life on the street. There was no one, either, at the top of the bluff, where they halted to look down on the darkened river. Tons of earth, and the Dawes mill with it, had toppled and washed into the torrent. The dirty mountain of trash had been swept away, to be carried along with the devastation from the north. A crate of drowned chickens, a dead cow, a live dog struggling to swim, branches, broken lumber, a lone tire—all whirled downstream. Behind the place where the mill had stood, the land stretched flat and spongy under a shallow film of muddy brown water.
“Scraped almost clean,” Bill said, as if to himself.
Rivulets ran down their yellow slickers as they stood. Their boots slid dangerously, and the rain beat into their faces. Here was nature gone wild, and fear gone wild within them both.
Charlotte was looking at Bill’s woolen scarf, the same brown-and-yellow plaid scarf he had been winding around his throat for as long as she remembered. Now it was inside out with the name tag showing clearly. Elena’s meticulous name tags and monograms …
A helicopter clattered overhead. “Rescue work,” Bill said. “I ought to help.”
“You can’t fly a helicopter.”
“There’s other work. The radio said that the deputy sheriffs have called for volunteers. I’ll drive the car as far as it can go and get into a rowboat. They have boats ready.”
“If you go, I will too.”
“No, you go home.”
“I told you I’m as determined as you are, Dad.”
She was thinking that she would not let him out of her sight, For who knew how long—?
That field behind the mill was almost bare.
In separate boats they went downriver through Kingsley and beyond. In Charlotte’s boat, along with a brawny male, there was another female, her former swimming coach, still young and strong. Together, they hauled in a stranded mother and child, reached for a terrified cat in a carrying case, and rescued two exhausted boys who had themselves been rescuing others all day. They worked their mission, going six miles downstream, until it was nearly dark. Only then, with the rain still beating down, did they return.
Bill was waiting at the car with Cliff, Charlotte was pleased to see, beside him. Perhaps this experience today had softened them.
“Cliff has nothing in the house but crackers,” Bill said, “so I invited him to go back with us.”
She smiled. “Good. I’ll make sandwiches. Without hot coffee you’ll have to make do with beer. Or whiskey might be more like it in this weather.”
At home they sat in their coats. Candlelight that in other situations could cast so lovely a glow was now merely melancholy. There was no pleasure in the simple meal. They were only hungry and very tired.
Suddenly Bill spoke to Cliff. “You saw our place, I suppose.”
“Yes. Nothing much left of it.”
“That acreage in back,” Bill began, and stopped.
Charlotte’s heart began to pound. It was uncanny that she could be so absolutely sure of what he was about to say! And she looked at her father, asking a question with her eyes.
“All right, Charlotte,” he said. “The time has come. And, Cliff, I have something to tell you. Listen.”
The candles were almost burned down, and Charlotte got up to replace them. In the fresh flare of light the men’s faces came clear, with all their fear and sadness and disbelief revealed.
The muscles in Cliff’s cheeks were taut. At last he said, “If you had told me this while Claudia was alive, I would have been—I would have wanted—”
“You would have wanted to kill me,” Bill said.
Cliff struggled for words. “I can’t imagine what it would have done to her. She lived to the very last for his return.”
“I knew that. And each time her hope turned out to be false, I felt her agony.”
Cliff interrupted. “How she suffered because of him! He was a devil.”
“A devil? No, it’s more complicated. I’m no psychologist, so I can’t explain why people do the evil things they do. I only know that it’s more complicated than that.”
Charlotte, feeling a deep compassion, looked from one face to the other. “So now you understand,” she told Cliff, “why all the plans fell through.”
“I understand.” Cliff rose, went to his brother, embraced him, and spoke softly. “Whatever happens, we’re here for you. We’ll do—” Then he choked on the words.
On the third morning the rain began to slacken. Faint light seemed about to break through the sky, so that looking upward one no longer felt as if one were at the bottom of an aquarium.
Cliff went to the car phone to call a man he knew at the newspaper office. When he came back upstairs, he was very sober.
“They found a body on the edge of the property. It got washed up near the road. That’s all I know.”
The three sat down. I’m going to be sick, Charlotte thought, and dared not meet her father’s eyes; he was studying the carpet at his feet.
Cliff’s preliminary cough was false, a sound made to fill a blank space in time and to cover his emotion. “This was no ordinary northeaster. They say that twenty-five billion gallons flowed into the river. Not million; billion,” he repeated.
No one answered because no one cared. The rain had ceased, making them aware of another kind of silence, for they had become accustomed to the rush and spatter. Now past the window lay waste and quiet water, while beyond the wintry trees, down the hill and in the stunned town, lay terror, a great beast waiting.
“I guess I’ll go home,” Cliff said. “If I can find a way to get into town and find out more, I will. The river won’t be rising now, and with my wading boots I might get down Main Street to the paper’s office.”
“Thanks,” Bill said.
Charlotte, too, had to fill the emptiness, even with trivia. “They’ll be out working on the power lines, I’m sure. They do that right away in a disaster area, don’t they? So maybe we’ll be able to use the stove soon. I’ll make some coffee.”
“Thanks,” Bill said again, there being nothing else to say.
He took a book and sat at the window in the brightening light, pretending to read. Charlotte went back to the dining-room table, on which her work was still spread, and tried to fix her mind on it. Toward noon, when the lamps turned on, she went to the kitchen and made coffee and cereal, which she carried in to Bill.
“Dad,” she said gently, “you need to eat, or you won’t be able to—to do anything for yourself. Besides, we don’t know anything yet about that body, whose it was or—”
“I’m only thinking about you. You have a career, I know, I know. But you will be alone.”
“Look!” she cried. “The telephone people are in the yard already. Isn’t it amazing how promptly they get to work on repairs?”
“You don’t have to exert yourself with all this cheerful talk to divert me. We’re not fooling each other.” And he gave her the old “fatherly” smile.
“Okay, Dad. I’ll let you be. Maybe I’ll go to the kitchen and do something about dinner, something hot for a change.”
Bless Emmabrown, she thought, as she searched the freezer and found a beef stew. There were enough greens in the refrigerator for a salad. They
would eat in the kitchen. The dining room was too big and dreary for the two of them in their despair. Nevertheless, in spite of the despair, she moved efficiently about the kitchen, mixing a salad dressing according to Claudia’s recipe. Biscuits would go well with the stew. These, too, she would make as she had learned from Claudia. Bill needed sustenance.…
She had just tied on an apron when the doorbell rang. Cliff, she thought, going weak inside, Cliff with the rest of the news, God help us. And she opened the door.
“Hello,” said Roger.
For an instant she thought she might be mistaken, that this man only resembled Roger, and she would be making a fool of herself if—
“Are you going to let me in?” he asked.
She began to cry. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and took her into his arms. She felt his hands on her shoulder blades, under her braid, stroking and stroking; he was kissing her tears, whispering her name, and talking in broken sentences.
“… drove fifteen miles north … couldn’t get through the town, all swamped … came south, back way … disaster on television … tried Pauline … knew how much I loved you … what a damn fool I am.”
When Bill came into the hall, they broke apart, and Roger held out his hand, saying frankly, “You’re shocked to see me.”
“Well,” began Bill.
“All these months I kept thinking of her. I was so angry.… She wouldn’t tell me.… She saw what was happening and wouldn’t tell me.… I couldn’t stand it, so we fought.…” Breathless, he raised his hand to prevent interruption. “But when this happened here, people homeless, people dead, I had to come. All of a sudden I was frantic. If something happened to her … I got a speeding ticket on the way. Oh, God, Charlotte, can we be all right again? Can we?”
“It certainly looks as if you can,” Bill said. “But you find us here at a strange time. There are things happening—”
Somebody was coming up the walk again. Bill opened the door.
“Bill,” Cliff said, not even seeing Roger, “it is. There’s no mistake. The wristwatch has Cliff to Ted on it. My birthday present.”
So here it was, here after all these dread-filled years. Charlotte, searching her father’s face, saw no expression. It was as if he were under anesthesia. Perhaps that was nature’s mercy for the wounded.
A moment later Bill recovered. “If you can just keep in touch for me, Cliff. It seems to be the day of reckoning.”
“Tomorrow, more likely. They’ll need some time to reach any conclusions.”
Suddenly the men became aware of Roger. Cliff was the first to speak.
“We’re all glad to see you, Roger. It’s been too long.”
And Bill added, “Yes, very glad. Very. You’ll stay overnight, I hope? I’ll stay at Cliff’s.”
Conservative as he was, Charlotte knew, he wouldn’t want to be in the house while his daughter slept with Roger. Nevertheless, and typically, he wished his daughter joy.
“So we’ll be going. Give him a good dinner, and, Charlotte, you may tell him the whole story.”
When the two men had gone, Charlotte and Roger sat down on a sofa. With his arms around her and her head resting on his shoulder, she began.
“When I was in Italy, my mother told me …”
“If they find anything,” she concluded, “he will be under suspicion of murder.”
“And if he really had done it, he would have had good reason,” Roger said darkly.
“Ah, yes! But it doesn’t work that way. You’re the only one to know this beside Cliff, and he found out just yesterday. Don’t you know that I would have told you long ago, except that it wasn’t my secret?”
“I’m ashamed. I talk so much about ‘understanding,’ and then, when I should have understood, I didn’t. I was afraid to walk in the Common, because I might see you and you would not talk to me. Still, in another way, I hoped I would see you.”
“I was so ashamed that you had all these debts because of me. And you still have them.”
“My firm—Uncle Heywood—finally paid them to save the firm’s name, and mine. So now I owe him. But that’s not so bad,” Roger said quickly. “I pay back a little every week.”
No wonder, thought Charlotte, his aunt Flo pretended not to recognize me on Newbury Street. And if there had not been a flood, she thought, he would not be here! Again the pain of loss swept through her, as she turned her head now to look at him. He asked her what was wrong, what she was thinking, and she told him.
“No, no,” he said, “I would have been here anyway. You can ask Pauline. I met her accidentally last week, and I—well, you can ask her. She told me you were about to go home for a few days. I wanted to see you and beg you to come back, to wear the ring again. Look, I’ve even brought it with me. Give me your hand.”
So they talked all through what remained of the day, had a small supper, and talked some more until it grew late.
“There’s only a single bed again,” Charlotte told him.
“I rather like that. Perhaps we should even have one when we’re married.” He laughed. And then, turning serious, asked quietly, “What time can you get the newspaper here in the morning?”
“It’s delivered early, only now on account of the flood, there’s no telling.”
“If it doesn’t come, you’ll give me your father’s boots, and I’ll go into town for it.”
But Cliff got there first. Waving the paper in hand, he cried out the news.
“Safe! Safe! We’re home free! Here, take a look.”
All bent over the newspaper to read the lead column: “ACCUSED RAPIST FOUND DEAD.… Ted Marple, long sought overseas, drowned.… Positively identified.… Fleeing with passport and large sum.… Apparently taking a shortcut to avoid roads.… Suitcase, backpack, and some extra shoes.”
Charlotte asked, “No name?”
“No name. And nothing on the bill clip.”
They must have been the only things in the house except the stove that weren’t labeled. Elena was probably rattled because she was leaving just then.
“You’re sure?” Charlotte asked.
Cliff nodded. “I’ve been downtown half the night, been everywhere from my friend at the paper to the medical examiner’s office, asking a hundred questions. It’s only natural, isn’t it? I’m so distraught that they had to tolerate me. He was my wife’s son, after all, and I loved the boy.”
Charlotte felt the tears that come with a wide, wide grin. “And Dad?” she asked.
“You can imagine. I made him go to bed. He hadn’t slept for two nights.”
“A whole lot more than two nights, I’m thinking.”
“I don’t know how he’s stood up under this. Now I’m beginning to remember things, times I wondered about his moods, silence, avoidance—things like that.”
“The terror he must have felt!”
“Yes. Well, I’ll be getting back home. They’re sending reporters. I’m going to tell them as little as I can. It’s all past and it needs to be forgotten, so people can get on with ordinary life.”
Then Roger spoke. “You realize, don’t you, that we can get on with our project now?”
Cliff smiled as he left. “I’ve already thought of that,” he said.
Sunshine out of a pure sky, with not a drop of rain in sight, lay over the breakfast table. Roger began reading aloud from the paper, but Charlotte barely heard. She was filled with a vast thankfulness, unburdened by secrets.
“I feel light,” she said, “as if I had wings, as if I could fly.”
He looked over at her. “You can,” he said. “We’ll fly together.”
EPILOGUE: 1997
A wooden fence enclosed the vast area in which, seen from the hilltop, tiny toy men were raising toy structures. Lumber trucks and cement mixers were moving in and out. Along the riverfront a brick wall, high enough to keep the next flood away, was being completed.
Despite all this activity the final plan was clearly visible: the village square
at one end, and the library, already partly finished, at the other. Between these lay an expanse of greenery, sprouting now in the spring sunshine. Where once a gloomy swamp had stretched lay a large, clear pond, fringed with willows.
“Kingsley never had a real park,” Bill said, “so I thought this would be my personal present to the town. I’ve got people coming this week to design it, with a rose plot and walks and benches, places to relax and watch the ducks.” And shading his eyes, he looked out toward the place where once the textile mill had stood. “The march of time,” he said. “Well, you two have to get back to Boston, and I’ve got things to do. See you soon.”
They watched him walk away and get into his car.
“Even his voice has a jaunty lilt these days. Have you noticed?” Roger remarked.
“Of course. He’s Big Bill again. Emmabrown says he has a girlfriend, a very nice woman, she says. I’m glad. It’s about time too.”
“That secret was too heavy for him to be thinking of anything else, poor man. Hey, it’s late, Charlotte. We’d better start.” And as she still stood unmoving, he teased, “Can’t you tear yourself away from your brainchild?”
It was not that. She was thinking there, or seeing, rather, the whole long ribbon of her life unrolling to this place and moment.
“What are you thinking?” Roger asked, as he always did.
“I don’t know. Just maundering, I guess, about how lucky I am.”
“I’ll say. Being a name already at your age, with a feature in Design and Engineering! Besides all this.” And he waved his arm toward the activity below.
“Not that. I’m glad about it, of course I am, but really more for the rest of you than for myself. It’s true I wanted the glory, but suddenly it’s not all that important to me.”
“What is, then?”
“Do you need to ask?”
“No,” he said with that lovely smile of his, that illumination that said everything. “Sweet Charlotte, let’s go home.”
BELVA PLAIN is the internationally acclaimed author of seventeen bestselling novels. She lives in northern New Jersey.