by E H Davis
Over bowls of chowder and more drinks — Jean had stopped putting her hand over her glass and was keeping up with him — Jens recounted the story of how facing down the bear and saving the doctor’s life, and maybe Teddy’s too, had opened up something inside him and had led to his “discovery” of the story he had to tell, of Cassie Melantree and the missing children.
Perhaps it had been the proximity of death, he went on, that had triggered his own sense of mortality, made him feel the urgency of writing something ... different, before it was too late. Perhaps it had triggered his worst parental horror — that of losing a child, a subject he had never wanted to write about before, for fear, superstitiously, of attracting harm to Teddy. But now he felt compelled to. There was emotion in his voice. He stopped talking, waiting for her reaction.
They had been there so long that they hadn’t noticed the sky darkening or the wind picking up, chopping the waters. As the sun ducked behind a cloud, the banks across the river receded against the skyline, looking smudged, painted by an inept artist. It grew cooler, and Jean shivered, her lips turning blue.
Jens noticed her discomfort. “Let’s go inside,” he said, pushing away his gin glass. “Get a hot drink.”
________
Insulated from the elements by floor-to-ceiling glass windows, they sipped steaming hot coffee and cognac, caught up in their own thoughts. Jens had no doubt that his story had touched her. It had touched chords in him, too — of a vaguely grasped epiphany, hard-won, lurking at the end of a long and treacherous writing journey.
Finally, Jean glanced up and frowned.
“I really don’t know what to say, Jens.”
She shook her head, looked him square in the eye.
Hers, he noticed, were clouded with anger.
“You’re jeopardizing everything we’ve worked for. Do you have any idea how many publishers I sent your first Honore Poulon to, before we even got anyone to read it?”
He fiddled nervously with the spoon on his coffee saucer. Jens recalled her once telling him, in the heat of landing a major New York publisher on his behalf, that she’d sent his book to over one hundred publishers.
“Are you and Vivian on the same page with this?”
Jens thought about telling her about Laurent and how it might have effectively brought him and Vivian closer together. He hadn’t really broached the idea of starting a new series to his wife yet; he wanted things to settle in the aftermath of last night’s blowout.
Instead, on an inspiration, he spoke the lines from his pitch card, beginning with the ones he’d cut: Their melancholy faces stare out at us from milk cartons, accusing us of indifference, taunting our complacence. Then he repeated his story about when he thought he’d lost Teddy in a department store. He was trembling. Finally, he told her about Daniel’s life slipping away the next morning after saving him.
He stopped, grew silent, inward.
________
Jean inhaled deeply and sighed. This was the part of her job she hated — telling artists what to write, knowing that it was their very insecurity that allowed her to influence them. It was harder in Jens’ case because she really cared about him.
She knew his foibles as a writer, which included fragile self-confidence common to artists; an overweening need to please, offset by arrogance and a temper to match; and a dark side, the legacy of his childhood trauma, which she’d observed on numerous occasions washing over him unbidden, without warning, in a wave of despair. Like now.
Yet she knew that the darkness was his source of creativity and drive. Therapy had taught him the danger of ignoring it, at the expense of his identity — and sanity. Writing what he believed would free or destroy him. That was his dilemma, cutting both ways.
“I think you should write it. You have to write it.”
He smiled back. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He breathed a troubled sigh.
“How could I not? I heard the conviction in your voice — the call.”
He nodded. “But can I afford to? And what if it flops?”
“You can always go back to writing Inspector Poulon novels.”
“Will I have to return my advance?”
She grimaced. “I don’t know. Do you still have it?”
“Some of it,” he answered. “It would be tough if I had to give it back. There’d be a lot of changes at home.”
“Look, I’m not going to tell you what you already know — that you’re putting aside a well-established literary product and reliable source of income to gamble on an unknowable. At a turning point in your career.”
“But?”
“No but. I’ll stall Cathcart House as long as I can. You get to work. We’ll see how it goes.”
He took her hand. “Thank you.” He smiled.
She nodded. “Does Vivian know you’re doing this?”
He didn’t answer.
“Good luck with that.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Driving home to Lee, Jens took the back roads, using Route 33 through Greenland and Stratham, instead of coming over Route 4 and the Little Bay Bridge at Newington. He found the countryside conducive to thought. He needed to strategize how to approach Vivian about his decision to drop his Poulon series for Cassie.
Despite the tentative encouragement he’d received from Jean, he realized that he was nervous about breaking his decision to his wife.
Even if he didn’t have to give back his Poulon book advance, or at least not right away, they would have to economize. Teddy would go to public school instead of his expensive prep school at Exeter. Household expenses would have to be sharply trimmed to make the advance last, which meant little dining out, less entertaining, less alcohol, and no trips.
As for assets, if push came to shove, they owned some valuable art, collected in good times when they lived in L.A., mostly prints and etchings, along with a couple of original model sketches by Aristide Maillol and an exquisite oil from the 17th century French Baroque school of Georges La Tour that together might fetch $250, 000 — 300,000, if placed in the right Sotheby catalogue. He knew that Vivian would object to selling them because they were earmarked for Teddy’s college expenses. She’d make Jens sell the cabin in Conway before sacrificing Teddy’s “college sketches.”
________
As if on cue, his cell phone buzzed, flashing Vivian’s thumbnail photo on the mini-screen. He fumbled for it on the seat beside him.
“Where are you?” she asked without preamble.
“I just left a meeting with Jean in Portsmouth. I’m coming home.”
“We’ve got an event this afternoon, or have you forgotten? The Centennial.”
“Shit!” As board members of the Lee Library, they were expected to attend the 100th year anniversary celebration.
“Meet me at the library.”
“Viv, there’s something important I want to talk to you about — it affects us all.”
“It’s not about —”
“No,” he said, cutting her off, “this is about us.”
“Okay, let’s talk there,” she said.
The light had turned green and behind him cars were honking. He stepped on the accelerator and sped off, suppressing the urge to give his impatient fellow citizens a piece of his mind or, at the very least, the finger. So much for the peace and tranquility of the countryside.
________
He spotted Vivian’s Volvo at one end of the parking lot and pulled in opposite. They nodded across their dashboards. She turned off her engine and walked over to his car. He felt her looking him over, a snarky look on her face. The discordant din of a brass marching band could be heard seeping from the library. They started for the entrance.
“That must have been some meeting by the looks of you.”
“Does it show?”
She nodded, pointing to his shirttail sticking out.
“You may want to do something about that.”
“We had a lot to talk about,” he said, tucking in his s
hirt, “and I just kept ordering one drink after another.” He turned her to face him. “Jean and I talked it over. I’m putting the Poulon novel on hold; there’s another book I have to get out of my system first. A book about stolen children ... the anguish ... how parents can go on ...”
He watched her face shift gears, pinch with anxiety.
“Do we have enough money?”
“We do if I don’t have to give back the advance.”
She walked on, considering.
“And if you do?”
He shrugged. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there.”
She turned back and shook her head in dismay. He recognized the flush of anger on her cheeks. “Have you thought about how this will affect us?”
“It’ll be tight, but we can do it. I’ll be juggling a lot. Jean agreed to look for an advance on the new novel, but it may be a while. We’ll just have to tighten our belts. Teddy can go to public school for all the attention he puts into his studies.”
“You’re not going to put us in jeopardy — not again.”
He controlled his anger. “What about you bringing in some money for a change?”
He started walking away, aware that her questionable liaison with Laurent put her in a weakened position to argue with him. He regretted lording it over her, but he knew he had to stick to his convictions.
She caught up with him. “I get it — you think you can do anything you want now because of Laurent.”
“Vivian, it’s not like that, honestly —”
“You’ll dump the cabin before I let you take Teddy out of Exeter, away from his friends. And don’t even think about selling Teddy’s paintings!” She started to walk away, her torso rigid, arms swinging.
“You, you don’t get me — I’m not a machine,” he said, running after her. “I have to believe in what I write.”
“Then believe in the Poulon series, it’s our bread and butter.”
He said nothing. Thwarted again; nothing had changed.
“You’re such a fool, Jens. I’ve really had it with you.”
“And I’ve had it with you!” he exploded. “Have you ever been there for me? Never! Thank God we don’t have to depend on your paintings to support us. Why don’t you get a job — a real job — instead of dallying at that shit you call art?”
The slap caught him off guard. It stung.
“Fuck you! I want a divorce!” She stormed into the library.
Chapter Thirty
Teddy was waiting for him when he got home, suited up in black Nike gym shorts, a matching body shirt, and sneakers. Jens was glad to see him; it helped diffuse his despair in the aftermath of Vivian’s eruption.
“What’s up, Daddio? You’re late. I already drank my energizer.”
“Give me a minute, pal.”
He emerged from the bedroom in a blue outfit like Teddy’s to find the boy pacing in the foyer. Jens was used to his occasional agitation, a symptom of his ADD.
“Let’s do it!” Jens scooped up his car keys. He was hungover from his meeting with Jean, but he knew it would burn off after ten minutes of lifting.
On the road to Durham Teddy was silent, staring out the window. Jens didn’t know where to start. He felt it was time to warn Teddy about the changes that were likely coming. They passed a farm on the right, with its rows of cow corn, high and ripe.
“Did they smoke corn silk back in your day, Dad?”
Jens laughed. “They smoked a lot of stuff in my day, but tobacco was the poison of choice.”
“I heard the hippies smoked banana peel.”
“First off, I was not hippie, I was born way too late. Second, I was too serious about my studies to experiment with every new fad or drug.”
“C’mon, Dad, I know you smoked pot and tried LSD. What was your bad trip like?”
“Let me ask you something. If you give me a straight answer, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Deal?”
Teddy nodded. They bumped fists.
“How many times have you smoked pot?”
Teddy hesitated. “A couple of times ...okay, maybe three.”
“Thank you for your honesty. Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Not until you tell me about the LSD trip. Quid pro quo, right?” Teddy grinned.
“You might benefit from my cautionary tale. Are you listening? It begins with my brother Nils.”
Teddy nodded.
“I was fourteen. A few years older than me, Nils could hunt, fish, fight — everything I was never very good at. He had a girlfriend who was in love with him, friends who were loyal, and my parents adored him. One day he asked me to go deer hunting. I was flattered he would want to take me.”
Jens shook his head, remembering.
“Because of the damage to his face, the casket was closed.”
Teddy looked at him, a quizzical expression on his face.
“How did Nils die? I forget.”
“An accident, a horrible stupid accident. We were over in Northwood Meadows, the first day of deer season. Nils had gone on ahead, tracking this buck, and I’d lost sight of him in the woods. He’d taken a grunting tube with him to call deer, so I thought it was him, calling from a position upwind, safe. When the buck — a beautiful eight-pointer — stepped into the clearing, I was so nervous I barely got him in my sights. Just as I fired, Nils stood up, directly in the line of fire. He’d been crouching behind some trees downwind. It was horrible ... never a day goes by that I don’t think, why did he stand up? Why? If only ... an experienced hunter like him.”
“Jesus, Dad.”
Jens fumbled, trying to pick up the thread of his narrative.
“I was devastated. In a moment of inattention, I’d shot and killed my own brother. It destroyed our family. Kids are more resilient than adults and I went on with my life. But Dad drank himself into an early grave and my mother ... never forgave me.”
The hum of the automobile’s tires on asphalt seemed to fill the car. The road was a blur. He swiped at his eyes.
“Dad, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the adult here.” He smiled at his son. “Thanks, pal.”
They were coming into Durham, home of the University of New Hampshire, Jens’ alma mater, driving past the horse barns and football stadium on the outskirts of town. Jens glanced at Teddy to see if he still held his attention.
“You want to hear more or you had enough?”
He went on.
“It was my senior year in college; I was very depressed. I was looking for an escape, for a breakthrough. I went from pot to LSD, which was being touted by New Age avatars as the panacea for all psychological and spiritual ills, a silver bullet to mental health and happiness.”
“Was it?”
“At first, maybe. There was the illusion of insight, of relief. Then there were vestiges, hangovers ... seeping into waking consciousness. Soon, that’s all I saw, pictures in my mind of Nils, and blood and mayhem, disembodiment. And there was a girl ... with whom I was very much in love. It broke us up.”
He paused.
“Look, Teddy, I’m not saying the same thing is going to happen to you, but why don’t you get on your path before you start destroying your brain cells with pot?”
Teddy shrugged. “Did you?”
They were driving down Main Street, past the ivied brick buildings of the campus. Jens pointed out Thompson Hall with its picturesque clock tower dating back to the 1800s; then Hamilton-Smith Hall, equally venerable, with its white Georgian columns and contrasting brick facade.
“That’s where I found myself,” he said, pointing at Hamilton-Smith. “Literature, and teachers who wrote novels. It was like manna.”
“I don’t feel like that about anything.”
Jens ruffled his hair, a universal gesture, like his own father had done.
“Don’t worry. It will come.”
Teddy looked at him sympathetically.
“I’m sorry about your brother,
” he said paying him back in kind. Suddenly he brightened. “You ready to pound some iron, old man?”
Jens pulled into the mall behind Main Street and parked in front of “Wildcat Fitness,” named after the university mascot.
________
Vivian was not home when they got back, so Jens made dinner for the two of them. Over burgers, Jens steered the conversation to the possible changes they’d all have to make, in order for him to write the book he had to.
Teddy nodded, not really sure how it would affect him. Jens thought they’d cross that bridge when the time came.
“Right now, your mother’s not onboard with my decision to put the Poulon series on hold. We had a fight this afternoon, and she may be staying away to let things cool down.” And punish me, Jens thought.
“Don’t worry, she’ll show up.” There was a pause. It seemed as though Teddy had something he wanted to ask him. He glanced at his father, then looked away.
“What did you fight about? Did it have something to do with me telling you about Laurent?”
He shook his head.
“Because of him?”
“No, that’s — I think I misunderstood.”
“About Laurent?”
Jens nodded. He wondered how much to tell a boy about his parents’ relations.
“There’s a possibility Mom and I will split up.”
Teddy’s look was skeptical. “C’mon, she’s threatened to kick you out before, but she never does. Buy her some roses like you always do, take her out to a fancy dinner — that’ll bring her around.”
“Not this time.” Jens smiled. “Maybe.” He gathered his thoughts. “I’m an aging, mid-sales crime writer, one among dozens, and I need to stand out from the crowd.”
“You’re a great writer.”
“Have you ever read one of my books?” Teddy was silent. “Anyway, up on Black Mountain, facing that bear, I felt ... my mortality.”
“You’re still young.”
