The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  “I need to tell you something,” Steph had said during her last phone call. “I don’t want to tell you on the phone. Can we meet somewhere?”

  Shane had still been in the apartment then, and he remembered standing there by the refrigerator, clutching the phone to his ear, unsure what he should say. Some small, petty part of him said he should refuse her. If she had something to say, she could damn well say it on the phone, or she could come back to their old apartment and tell him there, maybe right there in the kitchen with the butcher block between them.

  But he didn’t say that, of course. For the most part, Shane wasn’t a petty person. And besides, he still loved her. He knew her. He understood her well enough to recognize the tone of her voice. Something had changed. She hadn’t sounded like this ever since that awful day two months earlier, the day he’d lost both his job and his wife in a single hour. The divorce had gone remarkable quickly from that point—Janice Hayes was exceedingly efficient—and Shane had signed the papers only a week earlier. So why was Stephanie calling him now? What had happened to bring about that change in her voice?

  “Can we meet at the Spring Garden?” she’d asked, and Shane suddenly thought he knew. After all, the Spring Garden was more than just an outdoor bar on the corner of fifty-seventh and Park. It was where he had proposed to her, seven years earlier. He realized that the tone of her voice didn’t so much signify a change of heart. It signified weariness and resolve, as if she’d finally dropped a charade that had been very difficult to maintain. What he heard in her voice was sincerity and relief. She was doing something she’d wanted to do for awhile, but had chosen, for any number of complicated, convoluted reasons, to resist. She was coming clean.

  Somehow, Shane had always expected this. After all, she laughed at his jokes. He understood her. You didn’t just throw something like that away. The divorce might be final, but they weren’t. How could they be? Fate wouldn’t allow it.

  He agreed to meet her at Spring Garden for lunch that day. He kept his own voice casual, as if there was nothing particularly special about her choice of meeting place. It was almost as if he didn’t want to jinx it.

  She’d never arrived, of course. Shane had sat at one of the tall tables that lined the wrought iron railing, nursing a Rolling Rock beer and watching the crowd mill past.

  Stephanie had been living in a small apartment in the Meadowlands at the time, less than ten minutes away on ninety-five. She had her own particular brand of punctuality; she was almost always ten minutes late, but never more than fifteen. Shane imagined that she’d barely even left her apartment until the time she was supposed to be meeting him, and that she’d come breezing along the sidewalk at a quarter after one, breathing heavily and fanning herself with one hand, apologizing distractedly. Shane had seen it a hundred times, and it was, if anything, somewhat comforting. It had been one of the familiar small dramas of their marriage.

  He’d waited and sipped his beer and watched the people on the sidewalk, gazed over the cabs that crawled beetle-like in the hard afternoon sunlight. By twenty after she still hadn’t come. After half an hour, Shane had begun to wonder about her.

  By one-fifty, he’d known something was very wrong.

  It had happened less than a mile before her exit. The pickup truck that hit her Honda had been traveling at over a hundred miles an hour, driven by a young man named James Herk. He’d been very drunk, and as was so often the case, he had managed to survive the crash. Shane had never spoken to him, but Janice Hayes had assured him that Herk was very sorry for what he’d done, that he had no memory of the event whatsoever, and that he’d promised, tearfully, to join Alcoholics Anonymous as soon as he was released from the hospital.

  Shane doubted it, but he didn’t really care. James Herk didn’t matter. Shane had expected to be angry at the guy, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t muster the strength for it. All that mattered was that Stephanie was dead. She’d never make it to Spring Garden again, never tell him whatever it was she’d meant to say.

  He’d meant to give her back her tee shirt, the light blue one that said ADDICTED TO ENDORPHINS. He still had it in his backpack, freshly laundered and folded. When he’d gotten home that night, he’d taken it back out again and just looked at it. Folded, it read ICTED TO END. He read it over and over, not really seeing it, his mind reeling numbly.

  “This isn’t an official part of the proceedings,” Janice Hayes had said on the day Stephanie’s assets were disbursed. “All of your wife’s belongings will be turned over to her mother, her closest surviving relative. This, however, was retrieved from the car after the accident. I understand she was on her way to meet you. I thought you might like to…”

  For once, Janice Hayes had seemed to be at a loss for words. She’d shrugged and set the object on the table of the conference room. It was Stephanie’s purse. “I’m just going to go get some coffee. Would you like some coffee?”

  Shane had said that he would. Janice Hayes had nodded and left, closing the conference door softly behind her.

  The purse was scuffed. The strap had been broken off, leaving a ragged hole on one side. For nearly a minute Shane had simply stared at it. Finally, he’d pulled it toward him.

  He’d felt strangely guilty opening it, almost as if he was snooping. After all, at the time of her death, she had no longer been his wife. Nevertheless, he had loved her, and this had belonged to her. It had been with her when she died, had probably been propped on the passenger’s seat next to her. Sitting on the conference table, scuffed and torn, it had still smelled like her, the mingled scent of her perfume and the hand lotion she used.

  Inside had been a mostly empty package of Raspberrymint Orbit gum, a tube of Blistex, her lipstick, a travel pack of Kleenex. He’d placed the objects reverentially onto the table next to the purse, lining them up as if they were museum exhibits, or crime scene evidence. Her tortoiseshell compact had been cracked; brittle bits of the mirror sifted onto his hand when he moved it. Her cell phone, broken, the battery dead. Her wallet. A granola bar. A travel-size bottle of Anacin.

  And then Shane had stopped. Everything he had taken out so far he had expected. Seeing her things laid out on the table was strangely cathartic. Seeing the gum she would never chew, the lipstick she would never wear, the phone she would never again forget to charge, all of these things were heartbreaking, and yet they made the reality of her death seem somehow manageable, like something he could begin to grope around the edges of. These were her things, things she would never again touch or see, things he himself had seen a thousand times during their marriage, things that represented her, even symbolized her.

  Except for the last thing.

  It had settled to the bottom, buried beneath her sunglasses and a paperback copy of Zagat’s restaurant guide. Slowly, Shane had reached in and felt the object, gripped it, drawn it out into the light. It was small, mostly yellow. It made a happy little clattering sound as he lifted it.

  It was a baby rattle. The handle was plastic, but the top was soft plush, fashioned to resemble Paddington Bear. His little stitched mouth was black and demure, smiling slightly, as if he knew a secret. Shane was still holding the little rattle, staring down at it in his hands when Janice Hayes came back. She settled two coffees onto the conference table, near the collection of Stephanie’s things, and sat down in the chair at the end. After a moment, Shane drew a breath. His voice came out very calmly, so much so that it surprised him.

  “Did you know?”

  She looked down at the two coffees steaming on the table, and then up at Shane, meeting his eyes. She pressed her lips together slightly. She didn’t say anything at all.

  Shane figured that was answer enough.

  Stephanie had been pregnant when she died. Shane knew it, knew that’s what she’d meant to tell him at Spring Garden.

  He imagined it over and over in his mind, dreamed it relentlessly, as if he could change reality just by willing it hard enough. In his dream it was always the same. In
the dream, she met him at his table, took a sip of his Rolling Rock beer while she waited for her own drink, an iced tea with lemon. In the dream, Shane commented on her choice of beverage, and she nodded cryptically, unsmiling. In answer, she reached into her purse and drew something out. She took Shane’s hand and placed the object in it, watching his face, watching to see his reaction. The little Paddington Bear rattle sat in the palm of his hand and he stared at it dumbly, speechless, his mind racing.

  Finally, he met her eyes, saw the scrutiny in her face as she watched him, hoping he’d understand.

  “Does this mean…?” his dreaming self asked her.

  The dream Stephanie’s expression didn’t change. Her eyes remained on his, unguarded. Her eyes were two different colors; one green and one blue. Not many people noticed that. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nodded, and Shane realized that the reason her eyes looked so bright was that there were tears in them, trembling, not yet spilling over her lashes.

  “I found out after I left,” the dream Stephanie said, keeping her voice low, almost a whisper. “I swear it, Shane. I didn’t know it that day in the kitchen. I’d stopped hoping. But later, after things had gotten going with the divorce, I missed my period. I told myself it was just stress, but… well… after two months, there was no denying it. I didn’t want to tell you until I was absolutely sure. Oh, Shane…”

  In the dream, Shane touched her hand and held it, and his own eyes thickened with tears. He’d shed a lot of tears in the last few months, but never like this. Never out of happiness. The two of them looked at each other, blinking back tears, and laughing a little helplessly, and the Paddington Bear rattle clattered merrily between them, held between their clasped hands.

  But that hadn’t happened, of course. Instead, Stephanie had been hammered to death by a drunk kid in his dad’s GMC pickup truck. She’d died with the baby still inside her, died probably before she even knew if the baby was a boy or a girl, before seeing it born and healthy, before discovering if it had two different colored eyes.

  There’d been no funeral for the unborn baby, of course. If it hadn’t been for Janice Hayes and her uncharacteristically gracious choice to allow Shane to find the Paddington Bear rattle, he never would have known at all.

  Sometimes he wondered if the baby wasn’t even his, but never for very long. Of course it was. Steph wouldn’t have told him to meet her at Spring Garden to tell him she was pregnant with someone else’s child. Nor would Janice Hayes have led him to the discovery that his dead wife had been pregnant if the baby hadn’t been his. She was a lawyer, but she was also a woman. Shane didn’t know her very well, but he knew that Steph had considered her a friend. Janice Hayes had known, and she had decided Shane deserved to know as well, regardless of what was legally required. Maybe even in spite of it.

  Shane thought about all of this as he painted that morning. The scenes played over and over in his head, full of heartbreaking clarity and forgotten details.

  He remembered the sound of Stephanie’s voice when she laughed, and the way she looked in the morning before she got dressed, the annoyed sound she always made when her hair got in her face.

  If she had only divorced him, it would have been much easier. He could tell himself that she was still out there, probably with another man, that her rejection of him had been final and complete. It would have been awful, but he could have moved on.

  Instead, he was left to wonder. Had she wanted to get back together? Would the baby have been healthy? Would the three of them have been happy together? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. It was easy to create elaborate idyllic fantasies about it, to gnaw on the infinite possibilities of a failed what-if. And yet he couldn’t let it go. Her last phone call hung over him, vibrating in the air like an unresolved chord, constantly nagging, teasing, speculating about an answer that could never come.

  Shane painted quickly, almost feverishly. By two o’clock, he was nearly done with the third of the Florida paintings. The Marlena portrait sat on the smaller easel in the corner. It was finished, and Shane was glad. Whatever bizarre passion had gripped him and pressed him to create those two strange images, the Riverhouse and Marlena, it had fallen away now, at least for the moment.

  Maybe he would put the portrait in the attic after all. Or maybe he’d merely leave it there on the little easel. On its own, it was a rather captivating picture. It told a story. The woman in the painting was beautiful, if only because of the stunned vulnerability on her face as she looked down at the letter. Her white hands were perfectly crafted, lovingly shaped and shaded as they gripped the paper.

  Where the Riverhouse painting had been disturbing, the Marlena painting was strangely heartbreaking. The viewer didn’t need to know what the letter said to know that it had devastated her. One couldn’t help wanting to reach out to the woman, to comfort her and soothe her, if that were possible. In its own way, the Marlena portrait was no more pleasant to look at than the Riverhouse painting, and yet her misery was undeniably enthralling to the outside viewer. It was very nearly indulgent.

  Shane found himself staring at the portrait once his shift was over. His arm ached and he was ravenously hungry, and yet he didn’t feel like moving. He sat on his stool, his head turned to the side, and studied Marlena. He thought of Stephanie, but no more tears came to his eyes. He seemed to have used up all of his tears over the past few months. He no longer felt that exquisite sadness at her loss. That was old hat now. Now, he just felt empty. Empty and alone.

  He stared at Marlena, because he thought she knew that feeling. He thought she knew that feeling very well.

  Downstairs, the phone began to ring.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing. There was a clatter, a sound like a car with the windows rolled down. A shiver coursed down Shane’s spine, but then a voice spoke.

  “Shane?” It was Christiana.

  “That’s me. Chris? What’s going on?”

  “Hi. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have called. I… believe it or not, I don’t have a lot of friends at the moment. Not since I dropped out of school and started working for Morrie. I… where are you at?”

  Shane blinked. “I’m at home, standing here in my library. What’s wrong?”

  “Of course,” Christiana said, as if talking to herself. “You don’t have a cell phone. I knew that. I forgot. God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.” She sounded strangely hectic, distracted.

  “Chris, just tell me what’s wrong. Where are you?”

  “I’m driving. I’m downtown. I’m… I guess I’m heading back to work. I was supposed to have the afternoon off, but…”

  Shane was becoming alarmed. “Chris, I can tell something’s wrong. What is it? You obviously called for a reason.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, and laughed. It sounded high and forced. “I just wanted to chat with someone. Sometimes you just want to hear someone’s voice and say hi, talk about whatever. You know? Maybe that only happens to girls. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” Shane said, clutching the phone to his ear. “You want me to meet you somewhere? We could get a drink or something, like the other night. That was nice. What do you say?”

  She replied immediately. “No, no, that’s fine. I don’t want to interrupt you. I’m sure you’re in the middle of work. That Florida series must be keeping you plenty busy. Morrie would probably kill me if I kept you from your work.”

  Shane frowned as an idea surfaced in his thoughts. It was an awful idea, but it was strangely compelling. “Chris, are you all right? Is someone with you?”

  “I’m fine, I told you. I’m alone. Why do you ask?”

  “You sound… I don’t really know. You sound like you’re afraid.”

  She laughed again, that high, forced laugh that sounded so unnatural coming from her. “You’re imagining things. I’m a little stressed out, that’s all. Things have been crazy since the show. Everything’s fine. Look, like I said, this was stupid. I was just feeling like chatting, taking
a little sanity break, you know? Maybe we will get together for a drink again soon. I think I’d like that. Not tonight, though. Gotta take a rain-check. All right?”

  Shane nodded to himself, slowly. “All right. You can call me anytime you want, Chris. I mean that. I like hearing from you. Do you believe me?”

  There was another long pause. Shane could hear the wind blowing through the car, whistling and roaring. Christiana blew out a breath. “Yeah, I do,” she said, sounding a bit more like herself. “And there’s something I need you to believe, too, all right?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m fine. Believe me when I say that. I’m a little shaken, yes, but that’s no big deal. Life’s a little crazy right now. Look at how pathetic I am. I’ve spoken to you, what, twice? Three times counting this phone call?”

  Shane was perplexed. “Why’s that pathetic?”

  She laughed a third time, but there was no humor in it. “It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you later. Not on the phone. I should get off now anyway. I’m about to get on the highway.”

  Shane shuddered again, but forced himself to keep his voice even. “Look, you can come over. I’d love it. I don’t have any wine, but beer’s in the fridge. I can grill us up something. Strictly business. Well, business and bratwurst. What do you say?”

  “I gotta go, Shane,” she said, distracted now. “I’ll take you up on that soon. I promise. See ya.”

  “Wait—!” Shane said, almost barking into the phone, but she was gone. The whine of the wind through her car clicked off. He lowered the phone and stared at it, his eyes a little wild. He considered calling her back, was already reaching to press star sixty-nine for the automatic trace-back, but stopped himself. It wouldn’t do any good. In her own way, Christiana was a lot like Steph. Once she’d made up her mind, there was no changing it. Slowly, as if in a daze, Shane placed the phone back onto its charger.