Halfway House

by Katharine Noel

  “She’s pulling ahead!” He had to shout so that Jordana would hear him. He was laughing: breaststroke was Angie’s worst. Across the pool, the Applefield team was on their feet. Pieter could see Angie’s friend Jess jumping up and down and screaming. Luke cupped his hands around his mouth. Angie hit the turn, shifting into freestyle. The girl in the green suit had fallen back, overtaken by two more swimmers. Angie twisted under for the flip turn and came slashing down the last lap. Around Pieter and inside him was a wave of sound: Angie, Angie, Angie, Angie.

  Angie slapped the wall. She raised her head and looked around herself, then shouted, pumping her arms in the air, teeth bared. She used her hands to gesture to her team, a gathering motion to mean cheer, cheer. The noise dropped back. Angie had won this race against these competitors many times. She continued to roar, pounding the water. Her mouth was jagged, like a bottle broken off at the neck. The pool grew quiet save for her voice.

  * * *

  Pieter and Jordana made their way over to Applefield’s area. On land, Angie was graceless. Her height embarrassed her so she slouched. Shoulders rounded, cap still hiding her hair, she talked emphatically to a giggling boy, his neck splotched red with razor burn and pimples. Angie was saying, “I swam my race. If you swim someone else’s race, you’re fucked up the ass—”

  “Angie!” Jordana said.

  “Up the ass. Not that their team doesn’t suck. I think I could have swum that race with one arm. I should next time, I should with one arm. The coaches from Yale are watching, though. Not them themselves, they send people to watch. You see that guy? No, don’t—Jesus. He saw you look. He’s been at every meet.”

  Embarrassed—what was she doing?—Pieter stepped between them to hug his daughter. “You swam a great race.”

  “Hi. Hi! I’m just telling him something.” She moved around Pieter and told the kid forcefully how much the rest of the swim team sucked, how all the swim teams in New Hampshire sucked, how stupid people at Applefield High were. The boy, still giggling, tried once or twice to interrupt—I need to go—but Angie talked over him. Finally she gave him a bear hug and he escaped. “Swim your own race!” she called.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that,” Jordana said. “God, Angie, that was rude.”

  Angie, glowing, seemed not to hear. “No advice is going to matter for him anyway. This whole team sucks. All’s they’re interested in is sex.”

  Pieter gave his wife a warning glance, not wanting to ruin Angie’s happiness. He said, “You swam a wonderful race.”

  “You noticed my breath. You saw that? I was trying not to let on too much. If everyone knew, they’d learn how. So be wewy, wewy quiet.”

  Angie’s best friend Jess came up behind her. She was almost as tall as Angie, with the same broad shoulders and bad posture. Around her waist she’d wrapped a maroon-colored towel that trailed the ground behind her. Jess didn’t acknowledge Pieter or Jordana except by a small dip of the head, not quite a nod. She was shy with adults; Pieter had learned that every time he saw Jess their relationship had to start again almost from zero. To Angie, she said, “We need to see the Clerk of Course.”

  “We have plenty of time. Anyways, they’ll wait for me.” To her parents, in a pinched, chirruping voice, like a kindergarten teacher’s: “Jess is such a good girl!”

  Jess bounced on her toes, looking around. “They won’t wait. Come on.”

  “You should go,” Jordana said to Angie.

  “Maybe you should go.”

  “What has gotten into you?”

  Angie laughed.

  “You’d better go register,” Pieter said.

  Angie gave him an odd, long, serious look. She cocked her head as if trying to figure something out. Then she nodded and followed Jess.

  Jordana looked at Pieter. Her hands were trembling slightly.

  “She was trying to be funny,” he said.

  “I don’t think she could swim like that if she was on drugs. Could she?”

  Recently, Jordana had been returning to this worry often. Over at the Clerk of Course, Angie was talking loudly and laughing. He said, “She was up most of the night. The pressure’s hard on her.”

  Jordana shrugged her shoulder, turning away. “I suppose we’re lucky. Beth’s daughter has been difficult since she was thirteen.”

  A whistle blew and boys lined up for the hundred-meter freestyle. He and Jordana made their way back over to the bleachers. This was Luke’s best race, after the hundred breaststroke. Like most of the swimmers, he wore shorts, only stripping down to his Speedo at the last moment. Luke had rusty-brown hair, crew-cut so short it dried almost instantly, and a heavy, jutting forehead. Pulling off his shorts and kicking them aside, he climbed to the block.

  Just as the air horn sounded and the swimmers launched themselves into the air, Angie cried out from the side of the pool.

  She was running across the wet concrete toward the racing lanes. Still a yard from the water, she threw herself into a high, arching dive that made an almost imperceptible splash.

  His wife’s hand flew to her mouth. There was a moment of stillness, then race officials scuttled toward the pool edge and Jordana pushed through the suddenly chattering crowd of parents. Pieter followed behind. The starter sounded a painful blast on the air horn; some of the swimmers lifted their heads, confused, looking around. Luke hadn’t heard the horn yet; he moved doggedly forward.

  “What is she playing at?” one lane judge asked another. “Is she from Applefield?”

  The starting horn blared again; people clapped their hands over their ears.

  Angie was swimming along the bottom of the pool. Chlorine clouded the water. The blurriness made her slow strokes seem oddly luminous.

  Jordana turned to Pieter. “Get her out. Will you get her out?”

  “What’s she thinking?” he muttered.

  Jordana was almost in tears. “Pieter, something’s really wrong.”

  Pieter stripped off his glasses, his shoes and socks and coat. Sometimes he only understood the weight of things through Jordana. Awkwardly, he lowered himself into the water. Its warmth surprised him. He took a few strokes, slowed by his clothes, then dove under.

  Without his glasses, his daughter was at first a blob of dark and light. She let him catch her in his arms. He noticed, helplessly, the press of her breasts against him. They surfaced, gasping. Angie didn’t make animal cries, or rake her fingernails down her face, like in a movie. Instead she put her arms around his neck, beaming.

  Confidentially, she said, “I’ll tell you my secret.” She leaned her forehead against his. “I don’t have to breathe.”

  He glanced around; the pool edge was crowded with people.

  Angie’s hair, dark with water, lay flat and sleek against her head; her eyes reflected the intense blue of the pool. Droplets glinted on her shoulders. She smiled at Pieter. She was strong and young and healthy, her teeth white and even, and her smile was beautiful, at once joyous and knowing. He found himself starting to smile back at her.

  Head up, she slipped from his grasp and took two short strokes away. Just before she dove back under the water, she said to Pieter—as though he had a choice—“Now watch.”

  Part One

  One

  Another windstorm had knocked the farm’s electricity out, so the dining hall was lit by candles. She’d been here three months now, and they’d lost electricity three times. Angie liked how the flickering light made the movements of both Staff and Residents oddly holy, seeming to invest the smallest gesture—emptying a cup, unbuttoning a coat—with grace and purpose. In the candlelight, the tremor in her hands was barely visible. One of the things she hated about lithium was the way she shook, like an old woman. This half-light meant she didn’t have to pull her sleeves down over her hands or turn her body so it was between other people and whatever she held. Angie didn’t know what she was going to do about the trembling this afternoon, when Jess visited. Keep her hands in her pockets, maybe.
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  “Eggs and bacon,” said Hannah, folding back the foil from a pan. She lifted the serving tongs. “What can I get you, Doug?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Doug was sitting on his hands; his long legs knocked against the underside of the table.

  “You want both?”

  “Yeah.” As he reached for his plate, a coin of scalp shone at the back of his hair where he’d begun to bald.

  Hannah was Staff, one of the college students taking a semester off to work at the farm. She’d told Angie that she would write a paper at the end and be given course credit by the psych department. Most of the college students looked like hippies, with their long hair and rough shirts, but Hannah had crew-cut hair and overalls. She wasn’t pretty, but she was graceful, and she stood out in a way the prettier students didn’t.

  She finished serving and closed the tinfoil back over the pans. Doug had already wolfed down half his food, and he held out his plate anxiously. “Can I have seconds now?”

  “What’s the rule, Doug?”

  “Not until six-forty-five.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think everyone’s up yet.”

  Doug put his hands under his thighs again. He rocked forward. “I used to have a car. A Honda Civic. It was green. They’re good cars, aren’t they? Aren’t they?”

  “Damn good cars,” Hannah said. Angie liked the way Hannah talked to Residents about whatever they wanted to talk about. Most Staff would have insisted on reality-checking with Doug every two seconds, steering him again and again back to the here and now.

  The milkers came in, stamping snow from their boots. Sam Manning poured himself sap tea from the samovar. He had gray hair, cracked hands, wrists so wide he could have balanced his teacup on one of them. Sam was the only Resident who milked—the other milkers were on Staff—and he’d been down to the barn already this morning. He sat down next to Angie. When he reached for the sugar bowl, she felt cold air on his sleeve. His boots gave off the sweet, murky smell of cow shit.

  “The big day,” he said.

  Angie nodded and looked away. With Jess’s visit only a few hours off, thinking about it made her feel as though she had something sharp caught in her throat. They hadn’t seen each other in the time Angie had been at the farm. Sometimes Angie couldn’t bring her memory of Jess’s face into focus, which gave her the crazy fear they wouldn’t recognize each other. At least the doctor had taken her off Klonopin completely now. She was fat and she trembled, but each word wasn’t its own search-and-rescue mission.

  “They’re good, they’re good, they’re good cars. They’re good cars. They’re good cars. Mine was green. Not too slow and not too fast. Not too safe and not too unsafe. Not too safe. Can I have more bacon?”

  “She said six-forty-five,” a Resident said reprovingly.

  “She said, she said, she said bedhead.”

  Hannah shrugged lightly. “About ten more minutes, Doug.”

  The door behind them opened, bringing the din of wind. Cold air rushed into the dining hall; the candle flames hunched low, wincing. The Residents who’d just come in had to struggle to close the door.

  “Do you ever see any of your old friends?” Angie asked Sam. “From before you got sick?”

  “Before I got sick was a long time ago.”

  “But do you?”

  “I’m not like you.” He turned his big hands over, looking neutrally at the dirty nails a moment before looking up at Angie again. “I’ve never been good with people. Really, my only friend is my sister.”

  Angie still hadn’t gotten used to the way people here said agonizing things so matter-of-factly. He couldn’t stay married to a mental patient. My mother says it would have been better if I wasn’t born. Angie said, “You have lots of friends here. You have me.”

  “You were asking about outside, though. You’re nervous about your friend coming.”

  “Not really,” she lied. Jess had been her best friend since second grade. Up until the breakdown, they’d seen each other almost every day. Now when Jess called on the pay phone, Angie sometimes whispered, “Tell her I’m not here.”

  Hannah yawned, covering her mouth with the back of one hand, blinking as her eyes watered. The yawn went on so long she looked embarrassed by it. Gesturing toward the long table behind her, she said, “I’ve been up since four making bread. It’s still hot, if anyone wants some.”

  “I fed on dead red bread, she said. She said, come to Club Meds in my head.” Doug rocked forward, then back. “Is it lemon bread?”

  “Just regular bread. Wheat bread.”

  Doug shook his head, making a face. He was too tall to sit at the table without hunching, and his knees hit against the underside, making the plates jump. “Sorry, sorry.” He hunched even more. His scalp showed, waxy, through his hair.

  Nurse Dave had the meds box. He poured three pills into Doug’s cupped palm: Klonopin, a green pill Angie didn’t recognize, and the same yellow and gray capsule of lithium she took three times a day. She looked away. Their movements were shadowed on the wall behind them, Nurse Dave straightening up, Doug remaining stooped as he reached for his water. The nurse watched Doug swallow his pills, then handed Angie her envelope, which she tucked beneath the edge of her plate. She’d only just gone from monitored to unmonitored meds, which meant no one watched her take them. She wanted to wait a few minutes, to make being unmonitored matter.

  “An engine is a thing of beauty,” Doug said.

  A Resident muttered, “Here we go.”

  Hannah kept her voice casual. “What did you do last night, Doug? Did you watch the movie?”

  “An engine is a thing of beauty, a thing, a thing, thing of beauty. Injector, intake manifold valve spring timing belt camshaft inlet valve combustion chamber piston skirt alternator cooling fan crankshaft fan belt oil pan gasket oil drain plug oil pan air conditioner compressor—”

  Hannah glanced at the clock. It was only six-forty, but she said, “Do you want some more bacon, Doug?”

  “Flywheel engine block exhaust manifold exhaust valve spark plug rocker arm spark plug cable cylinder head cover vacuum diaphragm, distributor cap, injector, intake manifold valve spring, timing belt, camshaft, inlet valve, combustion chamber, piston skirt alternator cooling fan crankshaft.” When someone rose, their shadow—huge and flickering—leapt up and slid across the east wall, stooped as they scraped their plate, straightened to set the plate in the sink. Doug rocked forward in his chair. “Fan belt oil pan gasket oil drain plug oil pan air compressor—conditioner—compressor flywheel engine block exhaust manifold. Inlet valve. Combustion chamber. Piston.”

  At seven, they went in to Morning Meeting. Everyone wore jeans and work boots at the farm—Residents’ usually newer and nicer, Staff’s more likely to be worn and mended. Angie and Sam found seats together. Across from them, a Resident in a denim hat licked his chapped-to-bleeding lips, over and over. Staff whispered something to him and he stopped for a moment. Aside from the attendance sheets balanced on the Resident advisers’ knees, Morning Meeting reminded Angie of Unitarian Church services she’d gone to a few times with Jess: folding chairs, announcements, singing with guitars.

  To the east, against the mountains, the sky was purple with dawn. Some Staff were knitting, needles clicking softly. It would be nice to have something to do with her hands. Sitting here left too much room to think, so that Morning Meeting often turned into a half-hour meditation on ways she’d fucked up. The last time she’d gone to Jess’s church hadn’t been long before she jumped into the pool, maybe a week. She’d gulped vodka in her room before church, trying to calm down—she’d been awake for days—and the combination of mania and alcohol meant she didn’t remember much of the morning now. She did remember banners made of felt on felt, joy, peace, an abstract chalice. She remembered screaming with laughter at the stupid banners, she remembered during the service talking loudly to Jess, she remembered falling down after the service, suddenly surrounded by legs. The way the noise was sucked out of the room. By
her face was Jess’s mother’s ankle, stubbled with hair. The silence after her fall had probably only lasted a couple of seconds, but it had seemed much longer. On Mrs. Salter’s ankle, she saw each black hair sprouting sharp from its follicle, each follicle a pale lavender indent, and under the skin the hair continuing down, ghostly, toward its root. Above the ankle bone was a small scar, white as a chalk mark. Angie could see Mrs. Salter in the shower, rushing a pink razor up her calf; the sharp, coppery taste that came into your mouth even before you consciously knew you were cut; the way that for a minute the area around the cut would have flinched back, and then the cut would have flooded with blood, not red but pink because her skin was wet, washing in a pale, wide stream down her ankle bone and foot; the way she would have cursed and pressed the cut with her fingers. Angie reached out and touched the scar. In the moment before Mrs. Salter reacted, Angie could feel a tiny seam beneath the tip of her finger, as though someone had taken two neat stitches there with white thread. Inside the scar was Mrs. Salter’s soul. The soul was just that small, tiny and white as a star. For one moment she understood the realness of Mrs. Salter to herself, how to Mrs. Salter the world radiated out from her own body. Angie could feel that for every person in the room at once; she felt the room’s hundred centers.

  Mrs. Salter jerked her leg away.

  The noise of the room had flooded back in. One of the noises was someone laughing, yelping, wildly. Someone had said, “Is that girl okay?” Someone, Jess, had said, “Stop it, Angie, stop it, stop it.”

  Sam put his hand on her arm. “Angie? We’re supposed to be going out to the truck.”

  Angie was bent over, arms around herself, face against her thighs. When they’d pulled her out of the pool, she’d been raving about the Olympics and breathing on the moon. Nothing, she was thinking—nothing, nothing—could make her fall apart in front of Jess again. She would be okay as long as she was careful, as long as she kept her hands out of sight, as long as she kept her thoughts on track. As long as she focused on the small details, as long as she made that be enough, as long as she made that be everything.