How a Woman Becomes a Lake

by Marjorie Celona

  Why hadn’t anyone ever spoken to him about his father when he was a boy? Surely his teachers would have noticed the strange man who lived alone in the woods with his son—surely they would have known about Lewis’s mother’s death. Didn’t it occur to anyone to check on the family? To make sure everything was okay? Didn’t anyone notice that Lewis had packed his own lunches from the age of six? A handful of crackers stuffed into his backpack, or sometimes nothing at all? Didn’t anyone notice the look of strain on Lewis’s face? Didn’t anyone notice that a child should not be so nervous, so quiet?

  But what was anyone supposed to do? His father was not abusive. If someone had come to the house, they might have found it a little downtrodden, a little depressing. Nothing extraordinary. It would have taken someone spying on his family—bugging the house—to see his father waking Lewis up in the night, turning on the bedside lamp and saying, I can’t go on, I’m sorry, Lewis, but I can’t do this anymore, it’s too hard, I’m so sorry that I have failed you. Biting his fingernails as he spoke. It would have taken someone spying on them to hear the little boy beg his father in the middle of the night to live a little longer, to stay a little while, come on, we’ll go birding tomorrow, I’ll stay home from school.

  How to articulate the panic he felt when his father didn’t pick up the phone on those initial nights after he had moved to Whale Bay? His hands shook, his pulse quickened, he found himself on his hands and knees, scrubbing the grout of the linoleum floor, anything to pass the time. An hour passed and then he would call again.

  “Lewis,” his father said, “I was out walking.”

  The relief that washed over him like a wave. They talked about the things they always talked about. The last time they talked, they talked for an hour.

  “Okay, then,” Lewis said, something forming in the pit of his stomach, his foot tapping anxiously on the floor.

  “Yes, okay then, Lewis,” said his father.

  “It’s getting late.”

  “It is, yeah.”

  “Okay, then,” said Lewis.

  “Okay,” said his father.

  “So, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  And then the sound of his father saying goodbye, goodbye, my son, goodbye, quieter and quieter, as Lewis took the phone away from his ear and set it in its cradle. Now, on the roof of his apartment, he wondered how long his father might have stood there, on that last evening, the phone still in his hand though the line had gone dead, saying goodbye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Denny

  A freak heat wave in April. There was no wind. His calves itched and he ran his nails over his pale dry skin until his legs were covered in angry red lines. Really, who was he kidding. If he was honest, really honest, he hated Vera a little bit. All her perfect, prim achievement. Her efficiency. Her healthfulness. Practicality. Snobbery. Superiority. Sometimes he wanted to buy a rotisserie chicken and eat the whole thing on the floor with his hands. And so he would! He hobbled to the car, gracelessly steered it to the grocery store, the gas light blinking frantically, bought a herbed chicken, a carton of milk, and a box of Corn Pops—Corn Pops!—returned home, sat on the floor, and sucked clean the bones. He poured the contents of the cereal box into a mixing bowl, drowned them in milk, and sat in the middle of his unmade bed, the lights off. He ate until he felt his bowels about to move, then took the cereal with him into the bathroom. He was reverting to a Neanderthal! He would gut a boar and wear its pelt. He stuck his fingers down his throat until he brought the whole wretched mess up, then stood there sputtering, drool and vomit on his shirt, and prayed that Lewis would return soon with his dog.

  * * *

  —

  “You doing okay?” said Lewis.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Denny said. Scout was on his belly, wiggling and licking Denny’s hands. The dog nosed around, then hopped up on the couch and sat staring at the men, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

  “You sure, Denny?” said Lewis.

  “I am well! I am fabulous!” He threw out his arms and spun around the room. “Never been better!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lewis. “I meant—”

  “There’s one moment,” Denny said, “when I first wake up but before I’m really awake—when I feel fine, rested. Sometimes it lasts long enough that I can fall asleep again, get another two or three hours.”

  “Okay,” said Lewis. He sat on the couch and began to pet Scout.

  “There’s the whiteness of the room, the whiteness of the sheets.”

  “Okay—”

  “I’m not sure my eyes are even open. I could still be dreaming. And sometimes my body isn’t there at all. But then I remember. I remember that she is dead. I get nothing but that small moment now.”

  “I—”

  “It is the only good part of the day.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lewis. “I don’t think any of us know what to make of death.”

  “All I want,” Denny said, “is one more moment with her. I want to close my eyes and when I open them, I want her here.”

  “I know you do,” said Lewis.

  “If we’d had a child, maybe—”

  Denny closed his eyes and the men were silent. How could he possibly tell his friend how bad he felt? Should he say it? Should he collapse on the floor and ask for help? He could taste the bile in his mouth, but also the sweetness of the Corn Pops, and bits of rosemary stuck in his teeth. His friends had mostly deserted him. Who would want to be around him anyway? He was so deeply, so hideously sad. Surely no one else could carry around such sadness; surely people did.

  Lewis was stroking Scout. He watched Lewis get up and walk into the kitchen, refill the water dish, and scoop a cupful of kibble into Scout’s bowl. He was such a good person—Lewis. Well, not entirely good. Lewis had broken the news to him that he had gone on a date with Evelina. It hadn’t been a pleasant conversation at first. But he had to accept it, didn’t he, even though it felt like a betrayal. He needed Lewis in his life. And didn’t everyone have the right to move on and be happy?

  I’m happy for you, Denny had said, but he wasn’t.

  Now, Denny watched Lewis as he moved the coffee mugs and plates and cutlery from the countertops into the sink, and filled it with soapy water. If Lewis didn’t come by, would he even remember to feed Scout?

  “You know,” said Denny, the sadness inside of him threatening to open up and consume him, a kind he had never felt before, “it is getting awfully hard for me to be a dog dad.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Lewis. “Scout loves you. You’re a team.”

  Lewis walked back into the living room and started straightening it up, too—magazines put back on the coffee table, plates and glasses removed and set into the soapy water of the kitchen sink.

  “I can’t even walk him,” Denny called out, Lewis invisible to him. He heard the sound of a trash bag being heaved out the back door.

  “I’m happy to keep doing this, Denny,” Lewis said, reappearing in the doorway. “It’s no trouble.”

  “It’d be less trouble if Scout lived with you. Think about it.” Denny bent down, his hands curled into claws because they were hurting him, and with a grunt he eased himself on the floor beside Scout. “That isn’t to say I don’t love you,” Denny said to Scout. “I love you with all my heart.”

  “He knows,” said Lewis. “Now, stop.”

  Good god, he was really blubbery, drooling even, from sorrow. He looked up at Lewis. He wanted Lewis to see it—to see what grief could do to a person. To see that he was undone. Denny felt the tears coming strong now, but he fought them this time. His sorrow was turning into anger, self-pity, and shame. “We have a connection,” said Denny. “Me and that boy.”

  “What are you talking about? What connection?”

  “He was the last person to see her alive.”

  “
It will get better,” said Lewis.

  “Stop saying that. I’m sick of you saying that.”

  “I don’t know what else to say,” said Lewis. “I’m sorry.”

  “I want to talk to him. I have no one left. I want to talk to him about Vera.”

  “Denny.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Look, this is destroying me,” he said to Lewis.

  “Denny, what could the boy possibly have to say?”

  “I need to know. I need to know what Scout ran after. I need to know why Vera didn’t call him back to her.”

  “What if he can’t answer that? What if he’s already told us everything he has to tell?”

  “If he had,” said Denny, “you wouldn’t still suspect Leo. I know you do. I know a part of you wants to let me talk to the boy. Let me talk to him.”

  “I can’t do it officially. You know that.”

  “Then—I don’t know—bring him over to the house or something. We’re friends. Bring him over.”

  “Denny, I don’t know.”

  “I don’t want to scare him. I want him to get to know me. And then—once he feels comfortable, comfortable enough to talk, comfortable enough to know that I’m not a monster—I want to ask him about that day. I want to know what he knows.”

  “I don’t know,” said Lewis. “I don’t want to upset him. And Evelina—”

  “I am dying,” said Denny. “I am dying here.”

  “I can get you help.”

  “I don’t want help. I want to talk to the boy.”

  “I think—”

  “Bring him over, please.” He was on his hands and knees, bearlike, and he could feel the weight of his stomach reaching the floor. He knew he looked pathetic, frightening. He did not care. He looked at Lewis. He stared him down. He let his tears fall this time, he didn’t wipe them from his face, he let them fall, and he let his dog lick the salt from his hands, and he stayed this way, on all fours, until Lewis was saying, “Okay, okay, give me some time though, this can’t happen right away, give me some time to figure this out, but, okay, yes, okay, eventually, when I feel the time is right, I’ll let you talk to the boy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jesse

  The nights were merciless, the air still and heavy. Jesse felt the blood slow in his veins. His feet swelled. His crotch itched terribly. Some sort of scaly looking thing was growing in the space between his right testicle and thigh. He locked himself in the bathroom, poked at it with tweezers, tried to cut it off with his mother’s tiny sewing scissors, poured Listerine over the wound and covered it with a paper towel.

  The woman’s face was all over the news since her body had been found. Photos of the woman’s husband, too, a large-bellied man. He was as pale as a zombie. Jesse dreamed that the man was going to hunt him down in the night and eat his body. He dreamed that the man was a great white whale with five hundred teeth. Some nights he hoped that the man would come and eat him, and he left his window open. He waited and waited but nobody came.

  It was a good story, the one he and his mother had made up. The dog jumped out of the car and the woman ran after him, into the woods. I never saw her again. My father never saw her either. He found me in the parking lot and then we drove home. Dmitri was too young to contradict the story—he hadn’t seen the woman anyway, so it didn’t matter what he said. And it had worked. And so what if her body had been found? It wasn’t like his father had shot her.

  Still, he dreamed of the woman at night, dreamed that they were swimming together but then she would start sinking and he would look down and see that her legs were encased in blocks of concrete. Or he dreamed he was in line to get tickets for a movie and when he stepped up to the cashier’s window, it was her, and she would reach for him with cold, black limbs. He woke crying so hard from these dreams that his pillowcase was wet and he was so congested he could barely breathe.

  * * *

  —

  His brother came home from San Garcia. Holly was the one who dropped him off—who knows where his father was. Maybe still down there. His mother was on the beach with the policeman, so Jesse put his hands on Dmitri’s shoulders and examined his brother. His brother needed a bath, a change of clothes, and a good night’s sleep, but seemed all right. “Was it okay?” he whispered in his brother’s ear. He wasn’t sure whether he was sad that he had not come along, or relieved.

  “Yeah,” said Dmitri. “We saw some flying people.”

  “What are you talking about? How’s Dad?”

  “Dunno. Fine.”

  He led Dmitri into the bathroom and they watched as the tub filled with water. His brother took off his dirty clothes and Jesse looked over his body, the backs of his thighs, his butt. His brother’s skin was smooth and untouched.

  “Hop in,” Jesse said, testing the water. His brother moved slowly into the tub, heavy with fatigue, and Jesse handed him a washcloth to hold over his eyes while he shampooed his hair. He made two small tufts like devil horns, then handed Dmitri one of his mother’s compact mirrors so he could see what he’d done.

  “Give me a mohawk,” Dmitri said. And so Jesse gathered his hair into the centre of his head and spiked it. “Good,” said Dmitri. His eyes were blinking rapidly, trying to stay open, and so Jesse moved the washcloth once again over his eyes, tipped his brother’s head back toward the faucet, and rinsed his hair. He ran the slippery bar of soap over Dmitri quickly, not skipping over his brother’s private parts like he used to but washing everything with a businesslike efficiency. He felt no urge to pinch his brother, or to pull his hair. No urge to make his eyes sting with soap or shampoo. He pulled the stopper and wrapped his brother in a big red towel. They both liked to watch the water spiral down the drain and so they stood a moment, staring into the bathtub, waiting for the final loud glug as the tub swallowed the last of the water.

  “Brush your teeth,” Jesse said to Dmitri and passed him his toothbrush.

  “That’s your toothbrush.”

  “I don’t know where yours is. Use mine.” While Dmitri brushed his teeth, Jesse searched Dmitri’s drawers for clean pyjamas. But the laundry hadn’t been done and there was nothing clean for his brother to wear. Dmitri’s bed was made, thank heavens, and so Jesse found a pair of sweatpants and held them out for his brother and then tucked him into the bed. He lowered the blinds and turned on their night light. Somewhere outside, a car drove by.

  “Who’s that,” whispered Dmitri.

  “Shh,” said Jesse. “It’s no one.” For the first time in weeks, the wind picked up and rattled the windows.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “At the beach. She thought you were coming home later.”

  He wished his brother were older, so he could tell him that his mother was on a date with the policeman who had been in their house. He didn’t know how he felt about it. He wished someone else, someone older, were there to tell him how to feel. He liked the policeman. He liked him a lot. And he could tell his mother liked him, too. And yet. Would they have to keep the secret forever? His mother told him to forget about it, to act natural. She told him that he would have a happy life. And that she wanted to be happy, too.

  Dmitri’s eyelids fluttered and he reached for his bear, but it wasn’t in the bed. “Where’s Brownie?”

  Jesse glanced around, then darted into the living room, where he found the bear in the bottom of Dmitri’s little suitcase.

  “He almost suffocated,” said Jesse, and tucked him in with Dmitri but his little brother was already asleep. He watched him for a very long time.

  When he was sure Dmitri wouldn’t wake, he walked into the bathroom. He kept a stash of birthday candles, an empty jam jar, and a pack of matches in a plastic bag taped under the sink. Three or four lit candles, dropped into the jar, were best. It was a special,
secret task reserved for nights like this, when he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stand to listen to his brother’s innocent breathing.

  He had seen a movie once that talked about damaged people, and that adjective—damaged—had surprised him. What did you have to do to damage a person? Was he already a damaged person?

  He lit the candles. He stared at his face in the mirror. Every part of it. And then he narrowed in on his eyes. It took a while—a few minutes—but gradually his face disappeared. The space around his eyes grew black. It was as if he were descending into himself, as though a sinkhole had opened up on the other side of the mirror.

  His father said there was a deeper place within him, within his thoughts, and it was a quiet place. A silent place. Jesse wanted so badly to go there. He searched the blackness behind his eyes for that quiet place. He searched for a long time. He dove down through his spinal cord and exited somewhere around his heart, floated around in his lungs, tunnelled through his veins. He tried to search his thoughts for the quiet place, but the inside of his skull was hollow, and because it was round there were no corners or shadows. Nowhere for him to hide.

  He went back into the bedroom and put his hand on the back of his brother’s neck. It wasn’t Dmitri’s fault the woman had died. None of this was Dmitri’s fault.

  He laid his head on his brother’s back and smelled the soap, the laundry detergent on the sheets.

  “Are you scared of me?” Jesse whispered. He wished he could take back all the times he had been cruel to Dmitri. All the times he had pinched him, dragged him around their bedroom by his ear, threatened to rip Brownie into a million little pieces.