Beneath the Lake

by Christopher Ransom

  ‘She’s a neat gal,’ Warren says, topping off his Bloody Mary, gazing at her with a father-in-law’s wolfish envy. ‘Just delightful. I wish you’d told us you were engaged, Raymond. We would have sent a gift. Your mother and I couldn’t be happier and we insist on taking care of the wedding, lock, stock and smoking honeymoon.’

  ‘Maybe this is the honeymoon,’ Leonard adds. ‘Wait, where’s the ring? Or is this a shotgun deal like mine were?’

  ‘Leonard,’ Warren scolds.

  ‘Nothing is set,’ Megan says. ‘Including the ring. But Ray found me the most fabulous sapphire and we are leaning toward next spring.’

  Ray wants to burst out laughing, and yet he is oddly touched. Megan’s swift integration into the clan is both disturbing and welcome. Some part of him actually wants to believe it is real, or could be, and who knows? Maybe it is real.

  ‘Congratulations, Ray,’ Colt says. ‘I wish you far better luck than I had.’

  Ray leans over his niece, pinching her cheek. ‘I don’t know. This one looks like pretty good luck to me. What’s your name, cutie pie?’

  ‘Sierra,’ she says, turning shy. She is a towhead like Colt was, her blue eyes impossibly pure. ‘I have a giraffe and Mommy is gonna catch me a toad.’

  ‘I bet she will,’ Ray says, swallowing a pang of disappointment to come. ‘I’m your Uncle Ray. How old are you, Sierra?’

  Sierra holds up three fingers and a bent thumb. ‘Free and a half.’

  ‘Big girl,’ Ray says, immediately regretting his choice of compliment as Sierra shoves a wad of syrup-drenched French toast into her maw. ‘So beautiful.’ He looks at Colt, whose eyes are puffy, lined with crow’s-feet, as if she spent the night crying. ‘Well done, sister.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,’ Leonard says, ‘I think we’re having a family moment. I’d take a picture but my phone runs on a GSM chip through a carrier in Russia and I had to disable all the other applications for security reasons.’

  Ray sits beside Megan and leans into her. ‘Translation: my pre-paid phone has no camera and my credit score is four-ten.’

  Megan elbows him in the ribs. ‘Be nice.’

  Everyone nibbles at breakfast and refills drinks while Ray piles a plate with French toast, eggs, eight pieces of bacon, some chunked pineapple. He is ravenous, his last meal being the barbecue ribs almost twenty-four hours earlier.

  Megan slides him a mimosa. ‘Sorry I didn’t wait.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Ray mouths around a strawberry.

  ‘In the tent. Where were you?’

  The strawberry lodges in his throat.

  ‘I woke up around seven and you were gone,’ she says, not terribly concerned. ‘I figured you were already here, with your family, so I went for a walk.’

  ‘You didn’t see me on the beach?’

  ‘I was in the trees, back through a meadow. Why? What happened on the beach?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ll tell you later.’ He offers her a reassuring smile. She doesn’t seem to buy it, so he kisses her on the cheek and looks down the table to his father. ‘Did you do all this yourself, Pop? We would have been fine with Frosted Flakes, you know.’

  ‘Colt helped,’ Warren says. ‘And Sierra made the French toast, didn’t you, liebchen? Hmm? My little pastry chef, that one.’

  Sierra’s wide eyes do not leave Grandpa as her chubby little hand snatches another wedge of French toast from the plate.

  ‘Anybody have any cigarettes?’ Leonard asks the table. ‘I left mine in the tent and I’m too gutted on sausage to walk back.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Leonard,’ Colt says, pointing to the top of her daughter’s skull.

  ‘It’s cool. I wasn’t gonna offer her one until she hits the seventh grade.’

  ‘All right then.’ Warren clinks a fork against his cocktail glass.

  Leonard shoots Ray a look of warning – here it comes.

  Warren rises, surveying the table. ‘Well, one needn’t stand on formality with his own family.’ He settles back into his chair but maintains the commanding posture of a chief executive before his most trusted veeps. ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why we’ve agreed to gather here instead of in Miami or Boulder.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. It’s okay, Dad,’ Leonard interrupts. ‘Ray already knows you’re dying.’

  ‘Nice,’ Colt says, glaring at him. ‘Real nice.’

  ‘This seems like family discussion,’ Megan says, rising. ‘Maybe I should —’

  Warren snaps a finger and points at her. ‘You are part of this family now, Megan. As such, this concerns you too. Please, stay.’

  Megan sits.

  ‘All I know is what Gaspar told me,’ Ray says, but his words are lost among Colt and Leonard’s bickering. Something about upsetting Mom, and what an insensitive prick Leonard always has to be.

  Francine’s eyes are closed. She is rocking back and forth in her wheelchair. Ray imagines a thought bubble over her head: Please, God, take me away from these people, once and for all.

  ‘First off all, I’m not dying,’ Warren says. ‘Let’s be clear about that now. My heart has never been stronger. No one here is dying. Not on my watch.’

  All three Mercer children are silenced.

  ‘I apologize for the subterfuge,’ Warren continues, passing a hand over his scalp. ‘But I knew that none of you would agree to this trip unless you understood it was an emergency of the last-chance sort, which I can assure you this is, albeit a controlled one. We have some —’

  ‘Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me?’ Leonard blurts, throwing his head back, barking at the sky. ‘He lied about his own death? Jesus Christ with a rubber nut! It never stops!’

  ‘Watch your mouth, you pig,’ Colt snaps.

  ‘Ubber-nut! Ubber-nut!’ Sierra begins to sing.

  ‘Be quiet!’ Warren growls, slamming a hand on the table, making the silverware and Chinette paper plates jump. ‘Something more important than my life is at stake here, Leonard. All of you. I arranged this trip to help you. Our family is unravelling. This used to be our second home, a place to reconnect, reflect and return home stronger than ever. The purpose hasn’t changed, but we’ve waited too long. The lake, as you may have noticed, is dying. Our lake. We’ve neglected this land, this water, just as we’ve neglected one another.’

  Ray is confused. Colt shakes her head, downcast. Leonard grins like a maniac, eyes locked on their mother as if reprimanding her for allowing this, for marrying this man and giving birth to the three of them.

  ‘Now. Here’s what I believe – there is no such thing as coincidence,’ Warren says, softening his tone somewhat, now that he has their attention. ‘Our problems are not accidental, and, though they differ individually, our fates have always been and will be intertwined.’

  ‘All righty then.’ Leonard rises from his lawn chair. ‘I’ve had my fill of therapy. Thanks for the flapjacks, Pop. Hey, Ray, wanna go look for turtles and shoot the guns?’

  ‘Sit down, Leonard,’ Warren says.

  ‘Why should I?’

  Warren flicks a bagel crumb from the tablecloth. His voice turns menacingly low. ‘Because you’re hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, wanted by the IRS, you’ve left three failed marriages in your wake, and you are on the verge of sliding back into addiction any day now, if you have not already done so. There are warrants for your arrest in Washington, Oregon and California. Certain high-ranking security men within Nevada gaming corporations have you in their sights. Need I continue?’

  ‘That’s such fuckin’ hypocrisy. You don’t know shit about my life!’ Leonard is attempting to puff his chest over his belly. To Ray, he sounds like he is about to cry.

  ‘I know more than I need or want to,’ Warren says. ‘I’m offering you a way out of your messes, the whole lot of them. And that’s a promise. But only if you sit down and pay attention. I’m still your father and I can still kick your ass and, if you doubt that, try me, you goddamned overgrown punk.’


  ‘Fucking fascist,’ Leonard mumbles. And sits.

  Warren turns his steely gaze on Colt. ‘Leonard is not alone in his mistakes and misfortunes. Colette, our dear daughter and sister. I am sorry that your senses have abandoned you the way your husband did. Gaspar mentioned something about an assault… his? Yours? A little of both, as I was given. Some chain of events that sent the two of you scurrying from the city with a trunk full of clothes. Well, you wanted to swim with the big fish, and who can blame you? You have Mercer blood in your veins. But it’s time to get off the self-pity express and accept responsibility for your choices. Sierra needs you. We need you. And most of all, you need you.’

  Colt begins to cry as Sierra attempts to burrow into the cup of her mother’s shoulders.

  Ray braces himself for the next round of machine-gunning, but to his surprise the patriarch draws a bead on his wife, patting her frail hand once before speaking of her as if she were not present at the table.

  ‘Poor Mother, poor Francine, stuck with a mean old bastard like me. That’s what you’re thinking,’ he tells them. ‘Look how she suffers. And it’s true, she has. Three strokes in the past five years. Early-onset Alzheimer’s, though it’s not so early anymore. Lupus. Your mother’s ailments have attacked the body as well as her spirit. She is a victim, you say. Well, perhaps. Perhaps we are all victims of time, and nature. But we’re also victims of ourselves. Your mother traded health and sanity for snake oil long ago. She won’t see the doctors. She won’t take the medicine. She’s spent a fortune on psychics, televangelists, fortune-tellers and all manner of predatory bullshitters I won’t list here at the risk of wasting an entire morning. Irrationality has led her to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars down the toilet and the best years of our lives into a black hole of paranoid self-imprisonment.’

  Francine’s eyes are tight, her cheeks bunched high, and Ray suspects she is attempting to smile. Or cackle.

  Warren plows on. ‘God knows I’ve tried to help her, but even my most caring and precautionary measures have resulted in nothing more than hunger strikes, suicide attempts. What you see here is a shell of the mother you once knew. And it’s her fault, as much as it is ours, most especially mine.’

  ‘What is the point of all this cruelty?’ Colt wails. ‘Can’t you leave her alone?’

  ‘First we must atone,’ Leonard tells his sister. ‘Then we get cookies and wine.’

  ‘Can you leave cancer alone?’ Warren says. ‘How about alcoholism, shopping addiction, financial ruin? Shall we leave these things alone too, Colette? When the devil points a gun at your children, your wife, all you cherish in this world, do you think it wise to get on your knees and kiss his feet? Sorry, daughter. But I won’t accept that. Not me. Not my family. Not while I’m still breathing.’

  ‘What about you?’ Colt spits back. ‘What have you done with your life, Warren?’

  Warren smiles sadly. ‘Isn’t it obvious, dear? I’ve failed you. Failed all of you. And myself. Failed my employers and investors. The Mercer Corporation is liquidating as we speak. We expect to be in bankruptcy court by the end of the year. The restaurants, the flower chain, the real estate holdings. It’s all going away.’

  ‘What?’ Leonard is suddenly captivated. ‘How can that be?’

  Warren opens his palms. ‘Greed. Skirting legislation. Buying the wrong lobbyists. Living on the fumes of extended credit. You’ve read the news, Lennie. You know how these things work. Once the largest support beams begin to buckle, the entire structure comes down.’

  ‘But —’Leonard begins.

  ‘But there are more important things than money, a lesson I’ve forgotten over the last decade,’ Warren continues. ‘This is our chance to remember. To make amends with each other and ourselves. To peer once more into the darkness and tear down the big ugly curtain so that we may once again feel the light of the sun. You all know that which I speak of now.’ He eyes each of them intently. ‘It’s time to rid ourselves of our demons. Think of this trip as a long overdue cleansing.’

  Colt drains her mimosa, refills it and guzzles half of that one too.

  ‘Once again,’ Ray says. ‘I have to admit I feel a bit left out. I’m sure I’ve let you down in some way too, Dad.’

  ‘In what way might that be, Raymond?’ Warren says.

  Ray can feel the table turn on him. Their relish to see him get his own dose of the family medicine. ‘At the least, I’ve been coasting. I have abused your trust. Taken advantage of my position. I contribute nothing, I’m sure Gaspar told you.’

  ‘You’ve stayed out of jail and avoided siring any illegitimate offspring,’ Warren says. ‘Which puts you ahead of the curve.’

  ‘Siring,’ Leonard says, giggling.

  ‘Your failure is more similar to my own,’ Warren says. ‘The sin of neglect. I’m more hurt by your abandonment of your family than the workload, frankly. Though to be honest, while you haven’t done much wrong, you haven’t done anything right, either. You are sleepwalking through life, avoiding challenges, afraid of risk and success and love, until now, I suppose. But your refusal to get in the game pains me.’

  ‘I have goals,’ Ray says. ‘Plans. I just haven’t chosen to share them with you. You never ask, anyway. I didn’t think it mattered. That I really mattered.’

  ‘Oh, pah,’ Warren says. ‘After the age of twenty-five, the children are supposed to be the ones who reach out. We never hear a word, Raymond. You don’t find it important to speak with your mother? Write her an email?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ray says. ‘I should have tried harder to be there for you, Mom. Dad. All of you. I don’t want to make excuses. I could have done better. But since you’re being painfully honest here, I will be too. Every year since the last time we were here, I lost another piece of you. Each of you. You’re talking about how things have gone south in the past ten years. I’ve been watching us drift apart since I was ten. Maybe that’s what happens to a lot of families. Maybe it has nothing to do with what happened on our last trip. I really don’t know why we turned out this way because no one ever felt I deserved to know the truth. And now… Megan helped me realize something important in the car, on the way out here. Why I agreed to come, when every instinct was warning me not to. It wasn’t because I heard you were dying, Dad. It was because I missed you. All of you. You are my family, but here’s the problem. I hardly know you. I wish it were otherwise, but I really don’t understand how you expect five days out here to make up for thirty years of secrets.’

  Megan squeezes his arm, and Ray looks down in embarrassment.

  Leonard clears his throat. ‘And the Oscar for best performance in a supporting role goes to…’

  ‘Shut up, Leonard,’ Colt says.

  ‘It’s true that you were not involved in the worst hours of the unfortunate events that unfolded here thirty summers ago,’ the old man says. ‘If you understood the truth, you would take that as a blessing. But I understand how unfair our silence has been to you. What I hope you will trust me on this morning is that, while you did not encounter the things the rest of us did, your life has been no less governed by our experience. Your family needs you now. Be a good son. Lend your brother and sister some support. Give us two or three more hours of your time, Raymond, after which you will understand so much of what we could not explain back then. If you no longer care to be a part of our family vacation after we hash out a few details and complete one small errand, no one will try to stop you. I won’t judge you. I will love you as much as I always have. Is that fair?’