How a Woman Becomes a Lake

by Marjorie Celona

  “Listen,” Lewis said. “I’m going to go check on Denny. I’ll take Jesse. He can walk Scout around while I talk to him.”

  “Okay,” she said, her pulse quickening. It made her nervous to think about Jesse and Denny in the same room, but of course she couldn’t tell Lewis that. She wished Lewis would stop seeing Denny. He seemed like the last real threat to their happiness.

  She listened to the sound of Lewis and Jesse getting ready. She wished they would come in and kiss her goodbye.

  “Back in an hour,” he said to her from the doorway.

  “Okay,” said Evelina. “We’ll probably be down at the beach. Dmitri’s been asking to go.”

  “Don’t freeze out there,” he said, and then he was gone.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She could choose happiness. She didn’t have to be alone. Still, wasn’t there something weak about attaching herself to another man so quickly? She hung her head and watched her stupid tears land on her stupid thighs, then finished her cry in the shower where she could ignore it, where she could pretend it was water on her face. But she wasn’t sated, even after she’d shampooed and conditioned her hair. She stepped out of the shower and into her housecoat, then slipped into Jesse and Dmitri’s bedroom. She lay on Dmitri’s bed and smelled the sweet smell of her still-sleeping boy. Jesse’s side of the bedroom was a disaster. He had balled his sheets in the night, kicked off the comforter, thrown his clothing on the floor and then stepped on it, so that it looked as though it had been dropped from a great height. For some reason two or three pennies were always on the floor. Evelina had convinced herself that the boys were being haunted by a ghost, who left them pennies like breadcrumbs. She scooped the pennies into her hand, slid them into her pocket. She kicked Jesse’s clothing toward the laundry hamper then dropped it inside. She did not feel like doing laundry today, even though Jesse’s sheets were crusty with filth. If she could get him to stop blowing his nose on his pillowcase this year, she would feel victorious.

  She shut the door to the boys’ bedroom and slipped back into her own. She took out her photo album—the one with pictures of her and Leo. The one from before the boys were born. She found herself in a waking dream—reliving her past. She saw it play out in front of her, her nineteen-year-old self walking the docks toward the fishing boats, asking to speak with the captain, asking if she could be a cook. That’s how it worked back then—you hung around, talked to people, said you were seaworthy, and got hired.

  The sound of seagulls and the heavy clunk of a crab trap being offloaded. The slosh of a bucketful of octopus parts. The stench. Men who’d eat the head right off a herring. Raw shrimp and roe. A seal bobbing its head in the water, waiting for her to throw him a fish.

  It wasn’t Leo she missed; it was her old self. That old, dangerous self. Her old self could never keep such a secret. Could she really live with Lewis, when he was the only one who didn’t know what had happened that day at the lake?

  * * *

  —

  An hour passed and still Lewis and Jesse had not returned from Denny’s house. She felt a vague sense of panic, or fear, but told herself no harm could come to them. Maybe they had stopped at the park. Maybe they were throwing sticks into the ocean, and watching Scout run into the waves. But there wasn’t time to worry: she could hear the sound of Dmitri calling out for her, wanting cereal and then a day of playing in the sand.

  The phone rang and she held the receiver a minute before putting it to her ear. Please, she prayed, don’t do this. Don’t be someone calling to tell me awful news. Be some telemarketer. But who did she really want it to be? Did she want it to be Leo? She wished there were some way of knowing where he was and what he was doing. And whether he was okay. She took a deep breath and put the phone to her ear.

  “Is this Evelina?” the voice said.

  “It is.”

  “This is Denny Gusev.”

  “Hi, Denny,” she said. “Is Lewis with you?”

  “No,” he said. “He left already. But—something happened.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “It’s about Jesse,” he said, “and I think you should know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jesse

  The curtains were drawn in Denny Gusev’s house, but a single ray of light spilled into the living room, illuminating the mess on the floor. It was a mountain of women’s clothing and makeup, things Jesse didn’t know the names of but had seen in his mother’s cosmetic bag at home. It was a newer house, and the floor didn’t creak when he walked across it. Lewis told Jesse to wait a minute, then disappeared into Denny’s bedroom with Scout. Jesse looked around the dark, dirty living room. The furniture looked expensive, like something out of a magazine. Everything was grey or white or black. At the centre of the pile of women’s clothes was a big indent, and Jesse wondered if that was where Scout used to sleep. Dogs loved sleeping on piles of laundry; he knew that now that he had a dog.

  On top of a bookshelf were photos of Denny and the woman from the lake. Jesse held his breath and closed his eyes. Her ghost was here, ready to drag him down to hell. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the dark air. “I’m sorry. Please.” He tried to avoid her but the woman was watching him from the photographs, with a hundred pairs of eyes. It seemed to Jesse that photos of her were everywhere—on the walls, the coffee table, the bookshelf, in the hallway.

  “I’m a good person,” he whispered to the photographs. “I promise you. I’m good. I know I am.” He knelt next to the piles of clothes and cosmetics. “I promise you I am a good person.” He gripped one of her tubes of lipstick and then one of her shoes and tried to feel her spirit radiating from the objects. “I want you to know that I am good.”

  He put down the lipstick and the shoe and walked to the bedroom, where Denny was sitting up in the bed with his legs straight out in front of him and a folded newspaper on his lap. Scout was on his back on the bed, his paws curled, his eyes closed tightly in sleep. Lewis sat in a chair by the window, flipping through a stack of unopened mail. Both Lewis and Denny looked angry, as if they’d been arguing. Lewis looked up and saw Jesse and put his hand out to Denny, as if to tell him, Stop whatever you’re about to say.

  It was stuffy in the bedroom, even though it was the end of September and the air was cool. A red bathing suit was hanging from one of the knobs on the chest of drawers, the price tag still on. There were pictures of the woman in here, too, and more mountains of clothes, though on second glance Jesse realized that they belonged to Denny.

  Scout flopped over and curled into a snail. Jesse sat on the end of the bed and ran his hands through the dog’s thick fur. He tried to think of something else, something that wasn’t the dead woman. But the bedroom smelled like Scout did, like mildew and old, dead leaves. Maybe Vera had smelled like this, too.

  Jesse could see a small mountain of Scout’s dried poop in the corner of Denny’s bedroom. It looked like it had been there for a very long time.

  Denny was rifling through the newspaper. “Here,” he said, and with a great deal of effort passed the funnies over to Jesse. The big man winced even as he turned the pages of the newspaper. His hands were so stiff they looked like they were made of clay. Jesse read the funnies quickly, then began folding and unfolding the newspaper.

  Denny looked as though he were going to cry. “Have you ever had a dog before?” he asked.

  “No,” said Jesse. “I asked for one every year.” He tore a piece of newspaper free and folded it over, made a crease.

  “What was the holdup?” Denny said.

  Jesse smirked. He would use that expression sometime. The holdup. “Dunno.”

  “You have a way with animals,” said Denny. “Anyone can see that.”

  “Really?”

  “You both do.” Denny nodded at Lewis.

  “Who wouldn’t love this dog?” said Lewis.

/>   “People are assholes,” said Denny, then covered his mouth. “Oops.”

  “I can handle it,” said Jesse, folding the newspaper again.

  “Okay then, pal,” said Lewis.

  Jesse folded the newspaper over and over onto itself, then handed it to Denny.

  “What’s this?” said Denny.

  “It’s a boat,” said Jesse. “For good luck.”

  Denny took the boat and examined it. “I could wear it as a hat,” he said. He put the newspaper hat on his head and he looked at Jesse.

  After a long time, Denny spoke. “You were the last person to see her alive,” he said. He took the hat off and put it on his lap. “Could you—could you tell me what happened that day? I am trying so hard, still, to understand.”

  Jesse looked at Lewis—would he save him from this moment he did not want to have? But Lewis was looking at the floor.

  Jesse thought of his father. This did not happen. And his mother. You can’t tell anyone what you’ve told me. But he also thought about the woman, and now, Denny. He thought of Lewis. He wanted Lewis to love him. He wanted Lewis to love him so very much. In the presence of Lewis, Jesse felt he was his true self—an honest, kind, good boy. But that didn’t matter if he continued to lie. He looked at Scout, who was at the foot of the bed. Scout was staring at him with his big grey-blue eyes. Scout knew what had happened that day. Scout knew. Jesse felt he could continue to lie to Lewis and even to Denny right now, but not to Scout.

  “Do you think she killed herself?” Denny said.

  “No,” said Jesse. “No.” He looked at his hands.

  “Jesus, Denny,” said Lewis. He got up from the chair, walked to Jesse and put his hands softly on his shoulders. “We can go home if you want.”

  “I miss her,” said Denny. “I miss her so much.”

  “It’s okay,” Jesse said to Lewis. It wasn’t. It wasn’t okay, nothing was okay, but maybe if he just said a few nice things about Vera, it would all be over and he could go home. “She was a very nice woman,” he said. Lewis sat back down, and Jesse looked at Denny. “She was very nice to me.”

  Denny closed his eyes and put his hands in the air. Jesse wasn’t sure what he was doing. What he was reaching for. “I know. Vera was kind. Yes, she was. Yes. Thank you.”

  “We should probably get back,” said Lewis. But Denny shook his head, his face suddenly annoyed. He turned to Jesse.

  “Maybe,” said Denny, “if it’s okay, you could tell me a little more about your time with her.”

  “What do you want to know?” Jesse said. He could feel his bladder, full and pressing against his abdomen.

  “Anything,” said Denny. “Anything you remember.”

  “She thought I was lost,” said Jesse. “She was worried that I was cold.”

  “Were you?” said Denny.

  “I was. I was really cold.” It was true. His bones had ached with cold.

  Denny and Lewis were looking at each other. The silence was unbearable after a while, and so Jesse continued. “She gave me a ride to look for my dad.”

  “And then?” Denny said.

  He took a breath. This part he had rehearsed with his mother so many times. “Scout jumped out of the car.” Jesse hesitated, thinking it through. The woman had called the police, then Scout had jumped out of the car. Right? No, not right. “I mean, I opened the door and Scout jumped out of the car.” Yes, that was it. The reason she dropped the phone. His teeth had started to chatter, even though the room wasn’t cold. His bladder felt as though it were inflating. What would happen if he ran—ran out of the house and didn’t stop running? Could he survive, on his own, on the streets? Should he go?

  “Okay,” said Denny. “And why didn’t she call Scout back to her?”

  “She called for him,” said Jesse. “She did. But he ran into the woods.”

  “And she ran after him?” said Denny.

  “She did.”

  Jesse tried to picture it, as if it had really happened. He could see her running after the dog in his mind, her jacket streaming out behind her, Scout’s paws kicking up snow. He closed his eyes for a minute, seeing it, then opened them again. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine it—although it had been him she’d been running after, not the dog.

  “And what did you do?” said Denny.

  “I stood there, by her car. I waited for my dad.”

  “What was Scout running after?” said Denny.

  “I don’t know. A mouse maybe.”

  “A mouse?” said Denny.

  “A squirrel. I don’t know,” said Jesse. The detectives had not asked him this. He and his mother had not talked about what kind of animal Scout was after, or even if it was an animal at all. “I didn’t see what it was.”

  “And she ran into the woods, onto the trail? Into the forest?”

  Jesse looked at Lewis. He could see that he was failing the test. Denny and Lewis and Scout were all looking at him, and seeing that he was a liar.

  Lewis had been mostly silent this whole time but now he leaned forward in his chair, an expression on his face that Jesse had never seen before. “Try to see it in your mind from the very beginning,” said Lewis. “Can you describe the parking lot to me? What you looked at while you waited for your dad?”

  There were two parking lots at Squire Point, Jesse knew that much. He remembered that his father had parked in the first lot. That was where they always parked. The other lot was for people who wanted to go camping. They never parked there. “It was the first one,” he said.

  “The first parking lot,” said Lewis.

  “Where we always park. It was snowing.” But still the men looked disappointed in him. The detail he should have been able to provide was what Scout was running after. That was what he had to invent.

  Lewis got up from the chair, sat next to Jesse on the bed, and put a hand on his shoulder. Jesse felt the heat from Lewis’s hand, the weight of it, the pressure.

  “Scout was—Scout was running after—” But he couldn’t think of anything. A cat? Why would there be a cat in the woods? It was a good thing he didn’t say it was a cat. A mouse was stupid enough. He should have said a fox. A fox or a rabbit. A rabbit—that seemed more likely. “A rabbit,” he said, but Lewis was already asking him another question—

  “So you stood there until your father came?” said Lewis.

  “Yes,” said Jesse. He could feel a kind of exhaustion creeping in behind his eyes. He wanted to lie down.

  “You didn’t move,” said Lewis.

  “No.”

  “You stayed in the first parking lot, waiting for your dad.”

  “Yes.”

  He was crying, though the two men didn’t seem to notice. Denny was staring at him. Jesse thought Denny might open his mouth to reveal those five hundred teeth. His mouth might open like a great white whale, and he might eat him.

  Lewis turned to face the window. He seemed to be whispering to himself.

  “I’m sorry,” Jesse said to Denny. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “Oh,” said Lewis, turning to face Jesse. “Oh no.”

  Jesse looked up at Lewis, then realized that Lewis was staring at his legs. He had peed himself. His pants were growing dark with it.

  “This isn’t right,” said Lewis. “Let’s stop this.”

  “What do you mean?” said Denny. “We’re only talking.”

  “Denny, please,” said Lewis. “This is wrong. The boy is scared to death.”

  “I have waited for such a long time,” said Denny. “Are you my friend, Lewis?” Denny was saying, “Are you my real—”

  “Will you be quiet?” said Lewis. “Be quiet. He doesn’t know anything. It’s over.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense to me—my god, it makes no sense at all—”

  “I told you to shut
up,” said Lewis, and Jesse winced. He had never heard Lewis speak sharply before. He wondered if Lewis had another side, a violent side, a bad side, and if he would have to be frightened of him now, too. Maybe all this time Lewis had been tricking him. Maybe Lewis had known all along. And if Lewis knew, would he kill him now?

  But instead Lewis put his arms around Jesse and whispered in his ear, drowning out the sounds of Denny’s pleading. Lewis whispered that it was going to be okay, that he loved him, that he was here to protect him, and that he would take him home.

  It had been so cold in the back of his father’s car on the long drive back into town from Squire Point, his brother periodically turning to look at him. The sound of his own breath. His chest heaving. Running his nails over the upholstery, concentrating on the feeling of the fabric, and watching the snow falling in clumps outside the car.

  “Jesse,” whispered Lewis. “Jesse. You don’t need to do this anymore. I’m sorry. It’s okay.” He stood and turned to Denny. “I’m taking him home. I’m taking the boy home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lewis

  “It’s over, it’s over. I’m taking you home,” Lewis said. He searched his patrol car for a tissue but there was only a napkin from his lunch days ago. Should he stop and get the boy a chocolate bar? What good would that do? He drove around for a long time, thinking, then pulled up in front of Evelina’s house and walked with his arm around Jesse, whose shoulders were still heaving. The boy wiped his tears and looked up at him. Lewis unlocked the door, and Scout ran into the house.

  He needed to watch over this boy. Children with this much pain inside of them turned into monsters. Children with this much pain ended up in jail. They hurt people. They had to hurt someone as much as they had been hurt.

  “You don’t have to lie to your mom,” Lewis said. “I’m the one who made a mistake. I scared you half to death. I was the one who was supposed to be in charge.”

  Was that the kind of thing a good parent would say? Lewis couldn’t remember a single time that his own father had apologized for his behaviour. Lewis was the one who had to apologize; Lewis was the one who had to make everything okay. He wanted to be a good parent to the boy. He wanted to be. Was it okay to reverse the roles like that? For a parent to apologize to a child? Would the sky rip open? Would the ground fall out from underneath his feet?