The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

by Hannah Tinti

  “Stop it,” she said.

  “You’re in shock. We need to get you to a hospital.”

  Lily’s eyes darted left, then right.

  “I pushed the barrel against his chest. He let me walk right up and do it.”

  “You had to.”

  “No. I wanted to kill him,” she said. “The shotgun made a hole so big—I could have put my hand right through his body.”

  Every movement she made seemed both frantic and slow. Beneath their feet, the dock was splattered with guts and fragments of bone. While overhead the sky was filled with the sound of a sputtering engine. A Cessna was chugging somewhere above the clouds, the pilot probably looking down on this very patch of blue water.

  “What if she drowned? What if the boat sank?”

  “It’s a good boat. A steady boat.”

  Hawley kept his hand tight against her waist. Lily’s breath was coming in short, small bursts.

  “You could have saved her. Instead of me you could have saved her. But you didn’t.”

  “I was trying to save all of us,” said Hawley.

  The sun emerged from behind a cloud and the lake began to shimmer. Hawley could still hear the airplane. He imagined it falling, wings askew, the propellers churning empty air. And then he was certain the crash was going to happen, as if he’d dreamed fragmented pieces of this lake and this plane and this exact sky all before, and was only now understanding how they fit together. He grabbed Lily’s arm and waited for a plume of smoke, the smell of gasoline. He cast his eyes on the horizon, and the flash of aluminum came like a sign.

  “There,” he said, and pointed across the lake.

  The canoe was nestled in a grove of trees on the opposite shore. A large branch covered the nose of the boat. Hanging over the edge, soaking up lake water, was a corner of the elephant blanket.

  Lily ripped away from him and then she was stumbling along the length of the dock. She ran past the shotgun, past Talbot’s blood soaking through the boards. She leapt from the edge, pushing the splintered wood away with her feet, and dove headfirst into the waves. She stayed under for a long time but then surfaced, some twenty feet away, and as soon as she did she started working a fast crawl, until there were only her arms churning, elbows bending in and out of the waves and the occasional flash of her face dipping to the side to snatch a breath. The silver canoe that held their daughter floated in the distance, and his wife swam toward it, met by her own reflection, moving away from Hawley and the dock with such speed that she left a wake behind her, a V of flattened water that spread from her body like a formation of birds flying south for the winter.

  And then, about halfway across the lake, her pace began to slow. Her face tilted more often for air. Her arms lowered and then barely lifted. She switched to a breaststroke, and then a sidestroke and then she stopped to rest. Her head tilted back. Her mouth open.

  Hawley jumped off the dock. He tried to make his way to her.

  He thrashed.

  He sank.

  He choked.

  He tried.

  He sank.

  He choked.

  He grabbed the dock. He looked out across the lake. She was still treading water.

  “Lily!” he shouted. “Come back!”

  But she only started moving away again. The wake around her was widening into a rippling circle, with her at the center. Then she slowed once more, her neck craning, her mouth at the edge. Her hands moved in place like she was climbing an invisible ladder. She looked up at the sky. And then her head dipped under the surface.

  “Lily!” Hawley pushed away from the dock. He let go of everything. He coughed and sputtered and willed his arms and legs forward. But he could not get himself closer to her. His body was lead. It dragged him under the current. His lungs filled with water. The waves churned with his own blood. His chest twisted tighter and tighter until he felt he would split in two. When he broke through the surface again, the spot where Lily had been was empty and the lake was as flat as a mirror.

  Hawley’s mind raced back to when he’d opened his eyes that morning, Lily’s skin sealed to his own—no—back to when she pushed him out of the car and kept driving, if only she’d kept driving—no—back to the church, Lily at the baptismal fountain and the baby in his hands under the colored lights and the priest saying a blessing. A prayer, Hawley thought. If only he could remember the words. That’s what he needed now. Some way of sending a flare to the heavens. Like bones broken apart and made to look like flowers. A pattern of some hidden meaning that Hawley carried inside his own body, but had no way of tearing open to read, and no witness but the Cessna, circling in the sky like some kind of mechanical bird, and between the choking sputters of its engine Hawley heard no answers and no reasons for living except the cries of his daughter, echoing inside the metal canoe.

  Pandora

  “I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU to show up,” said Mabel Ridge when she answered the door. Her hands were still tinged slightly blue, but this time there were no goggles strapped to her head, no heavy apron around her waist. She was wearing a cardigan sweater and a turtleneck, her gray hair pulled back neatly in a bun. She did not seem surprised to see Loo. She did not seem surprised to see the Firebird in the driveway, either.

  Mabel’s porch was covered with pumpkins that had been carved too soon. It was only the beginning of October, and already one of the angry jack-o’-lanterns had its teeth caving in, and one of the happy jack-o’-lanterns was leaking a sticky substance across the steps. Loo wiped her sneakers on the mat. The screwdriver she’d used to crack open the panel beneath the dashboard was inside the pocket of her sweatshirt, and she turned it over and over with her fingers. “I brought your car back.”

  Mabel patted the railing. They stood facing each other on the dull gray porch. Then the old woman turned around and left the door open. “I’m making some tea,” she said. “Why don’t you join me, Louise.”

  Loo stood on the threshold for a moment longer, then stepped inside. Mabel Ridge’s living room looked the same as before. The corners of the end table baby-proofed for some long-ago child. The arms of the sofa showing pulls from some long-forgotten cat. The rug threadbare from shuffles along one side. The loom in the corner, looming.

  She followed the old woman down the hall into the kitchen, which was small and cramped as ever, the giant pots used to dye her yarn still on the stove. Mabel Ridge dragged one off and set it on the floor. Then she filled a kettle with water from the sink and lit the empty burner.

  On the table was a copy of the local newspaper. Loo picked it up and read the headlines. PETITION PUTS PRESSURE ON POLS. LOCAL FISHERMEN ARRESTED. COAST GUARD DOUBLES PATROLS NEAR BITTER BANKS.

  “Which side are you on?”

  “No one’s,” said Loo.

  “I thought your father was friends with those fishermen.”

  “He is.”

  “Well,” said Mabel Ridge, “the TV show was one thing, but if the Banks really gets turned into a marine sanctuary, it would mean big changes around here.”

  Loo set down the paper. “You’re probably right.”

  It had taken her nearly a month to finish the signatures. She had added Mabel Ridge’s name, along with thousands of others, and mailed the petition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the EPA, city hall, the governor, state representatives and state senators, as well as the newspapers and local TV stations. She’d brought all of the packages to the post office, put them in manila envelopes and mailed them off like bombs she’d cooked up in her basement. Now they were starting to go off. But she still hadn’t heard from Marshall.

  Loo sat down in one of the creaky kitchen chairs, the screwdriver tight against her palm.

  “Don’t you want to know how I got the car back?”

  “I think it’s better that I don’t.” Mabel opened the cabinet and took down two teacups and saucers. She set the cups on the table.

  “Are you going to call the police?”

 
“Not unless you want me to.”

  Mabel reached into the cabinet again and removed a teapot, then started rummaging around for tea bags. The china cups were thin and white with gold around the edges. The suggestion of rose petals was traced into the sides, the saucer a perfect single leaf, the handle a ring of porcelain thorns. Loo slid her fingers inside the ring and lifted. The cup was light and delicate, the edges strangely comforting in her hand. Loo pressed her thumb against one of the thorns.

  The kettle began to whistle. Mabel used an oven mitt to lift it off the stove.

  “I want to know whatever it is you think you know,” said Loo.

  “Seems to me you’ve already figured it out,” said Mabel, “or you wouldn’t be here.” She poured the hot water into the teapot, steam rising around her shoulders. “Your father’s been lying to you.”

  The kettle went back on the stove, the lid set in place.

  “That doesn’t make him a killer.”

  Mabel Ridge sighed. “Your mother used to look at me like that. Like she knew all the answers. But she didn’t know anything. And neither do you.”

  Loo shifted in her seat. She pressed her nails against the screwdriver.

  “He’s your father but he’s not a good person. You should know that by now.” The old woman took out a carton of milk and filled the small white creamer on the counter. “I was married to a man just like him. Gus was all caught up in the same world. I took Lily and I got out.” Her hands twitched at her sides. She brought the creamer over to the table and set it on a placemat. “A year from now you’ll be eighteen. Old enough to choose your own life,” she said. “You can get out, too.”

  “Get out of what?”

  “Trouble.” Mabel Ridge poured out the tea. “Your father acts like he’s got nothing to hide but that trouble is a part of him and he’s a part of it and as long as you’re with him you’re in danger.” She added milk and a spoonful of sugar to both cups.

  “I don’t take sugar,” said Loo.

  The old woman smiled a tired old smile. “Try it anyway.”

  Loo wrapped her fingers around the porcelain. She brought it to her lips and took a sip. The tea was the color of toffee, the sweetness of the sugar and milk coating her tongue. The cup warm against her hand. She took another drink. She ran her thumb along the side of the handle, and then she felt it: a small rough spot, where a thorn had been broken off.

  And then: she remembered breaking it.

  Loo held the cup tightly in her hands, but in her mind she could see the china hitting the black-and-white tile at her feet. The single thorn snapping off and sliding into a crevice near the wall. She saw herself crawling underneath the table, and trying to fish the broken thorn out with her finger. Loo put down the teacup. She glanced under the tablecloth. There, in a crooked gap against the baseboard, was a fleck of white, no bigger than a grain of rice. It was as if she’d placed it there for herself to find.

  Suddenly the tea in Loo’s mouth was too sweet, so sweet as it went down her throat that she nearly gagged. She stood up and dumped the rest into the sink.

  “It’s the only way I could get you to drink tea when you were little,” said Mabel Ridge. “Lots of milk and sugar.” She reached for the pot. “Here. I’ll pour you another.”

  Loo’s legs felt weak. She watched Mabel refill the cup. The tea was hot and steaming, tiny dark specks swirling against the porcelain and then coming to rest.

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “I thought you remembered that night when I gave you the car. And then I realized you didn’t. That your father had never told you.” Mabel took a drink, slurping a bit, and then let out a small sigh of satisfaction. She set the teacup back down on the saucer. “I didn’t want to scare you off, so I decided to wait. But that’s why I wanted you to come back. So I could tell you the truth.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Loo.

  “Your father abandoned you. After Lily died. He left you here with me. You spoke your first words in this house. You took your first steps on this floor.”

  Loo stared at the baseboard, the tiny white speck. Everything Mabel Ridge had said was impossible. And yet—she could feel the past tugging at the corners of her mind. It was like trying to remember a dream while dreaming another.

  Mabel’s eyes narrowed. She was watching carefully, and as Loo grew more confused, a look of pleasure spread across her weathered face. “You’re remembering.”

  “No. You’re lying to me.”

  “I have proof.” The old woman pushed herself up from the table. “Wait here. I’ll show you.”

  As soon as she shuffled out of the room, Loo took the screwdriver from her pocket, climbed under the table and slipped the flat edge into the crevice. In one short movement, she flicked the bit of white out onto the floor. She pressed her finger against it. The thorn was real. It did not give.

  “What are you doing down there?” Mabel Ridge’s legs hobbled into the kitchen. She slid something heavy onto the table.

  “Nothing,” said Loo. She put the thorn and screwdriver into her pocket and crawled out. The old woman was fondling the edges of a leather photo album. She opened the cover and quickly turned the laminated pages, each crinkling like a layer of skin peeled away. Loo caught glimpses of faces. She could smell the dust and glue.

  “Wait,” she said. “Is that Principal Gunderson?”

  Sealed under the plastic was a glossy photograph of two teenagers dressed for prom. One was a thin boy wearing an oversize tuxedo, his face beaming and his white-blond hair like a beacon against the fake backdrop and balloons. The other was Lily as a young girl, with braces and heavy black eyeliner, wearing a short dress with matching lace gloves.

  “He told me they were just friends.”

  “They were—but he kept trying.” Mabel Ridge shook her head. She lifted the photograph from the album, rubbed the edge of Principal Gunderson’s ruffled shirt with her finger. “I always thought they would have made a lovely couple.”

  Loo looked closely at the picture. She thought of all the times Principal Gunderson had tried to help her. And then she saw the reason on his pimpled teenage face, in the brightness of his smile. He had loved Lily. And she hadn’t loved him back.

  Mabel Ridge set aside the picture of Principal Gunderson and continued flipping through the album. Then she stopped and turned the book toward Loo. She pointed to another picture.

  Lily was in a hospital bed, her face flushed, her dark hair askew. She was wearing a green kimono the same color as her eyes—the same robe that Hawley kept hanging on the back of their bathroom door—and she was looking down at a baby in her arms and smiling the biggest smile Loo had ever seen.

  “You.” Mable Ridge pressed a wrinkled blue finger against the photograph. Then she pulled the plastic and removed the picture. “She sent this to me when you were born.”

  It was an instant photograph, with a thick white border, a Polaroid—like the one of Lily in front of Niagara Falls in their bathroom—the coloring thick and slightly blurred. Which meant, Loo realized, that her mother must have held this picture in her hands right after it was taken, just as Loo was holding it now.

  Slowly, Mabel turned another page. And then another. They were all full of snapshots of the same baby, taken in this very house. The baby was sleeping on a blanket. The baby had chocolate pudding all over her face. The baby was at the beach, her fists full of sand. The baby was getting older. The baby was walking now. The baby was wearing shoes. The baby was turning into a little girl. The little girl was getting her hair cut, a towel wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes full of tears. The little girl was sitting on a swing. The little girl was wearing some kind of Halloween costume made of silver cardboard.

  “What was I dressed up as?”

  “An electric toothbrush,” the old woman said. “You couldn’t get enough of them, for some reason. I don’t know why.”

  Loo and Hawley had always used the free toothbrushes given out by the dentist. Whe
n she was little, they had even brushed their teeth together. She remembered the sound of her father gargling Listerine. She remembered contests to see who had the longest drool. But she did not remember this costume. Or the child who wore it, holding out an empty pillowcase for trick or treat.

  “How long did I live here?” Loo asked.

  “Until you were four years old,” said Mabel Ridge.

  Inside the palm of Loo’s hand was the thorn. She squeezed her fingers around it. The tiny bit of porcelain was the only thing that seemed real. The only thing connecting her to this story.

  “I raised you like my own daughter. And then he came one night and stole you away.” Mabel Ridge turned her cup in the saucer but didn’t pick it up. “I told him that if he took you he couldn’t bring you back. But he took you all the same. And then he showed up here years later, without even a phone call or a letter to let me know you were coming, and expected me to roll over.” She shook her head and closed the album. “I’m an old lady now. And I wasn’t going to let him ruin my life again.”

  Loo thought of that first day they had driven to Dogtown and knocked on Mabel’s door. Hawley breaking the radio with his fist. The blood on his sleeves.

  “But then you found me. All on your own. And you looked so much like your mother.” The old woman touched Loo’s arm, gently this time. Her fingers were thick, the skin chapped. “You’re grown up now, Louise. And you can make your own choices. You can be free of him.”

  Loo’s tongue tasted of metal—as if she had bitten through a piece of aluminum foil with her teeth. She pulled her arm away from Mabel Ridge, swept the cup and saucer off the table and sent them smashing to the floor. Tea splattered across the wall. The cup flung itself apart in white pieces. Now all the thorns were gone.

  “That’s not my name,” she said.

  —

  WHEN SHE GOT back home to Olympus, Loo started with the guns that she knew about. The derringers in the bottom drawer of Hawley’s dresser. The high-powered rifles he kept in the back of the closet. The snub-nosed revolver wrapped in a towel beneath the bed. The Beretta, the Smith & Wesson, the .38, the Ruger, each in its own special box inside the trunk in their living room.