Nervous Water

by William G. Tapply

She shook her head. “I need to do some thinking first. Work up some courage. Tomorrow, I think.”

  “What about your…Hurley.”

  “My husband?” she said. “I’ll divorce him as soon as possible. His own daughter?” She shook her head. “I don’t want to ever lay eyes on that…that monster again.” She looked at me. “You’re a lawyer…”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I said. “We’ll get you a tidy settlement.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want anything from that man. I should never have married him in the first place. I did it for all the wrong reasons. I just want it over.”

  I shrugged. “We can do it any way you want.”

  “It’s weird,” she said, “you know? I kind of feel sorry for Becca.”

  “Speaking of monsters.”

  “I know,” she said. “But how did she get that way?”

  “How does anybody?”

  She nodded. It was a rhetorical—and an unanswerable—question.

  We sat there for a few minutes, saying nothing. Then Cassie turned to me. “Hey, Cousin. Will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What?”

  “Take me home?”

  “Home?”

  “I’ve only had one home in my life.”

  Uncle Moze’s house, she meant.

  “I’ll be happy to,” I said. “Your bedroom is waiting for you.”

  “Huh?”

  I smiled. “You’ll see.”

  She stood up. “It’ll only take me a minute to get my stuff together,” she said. “What I took from—from that man’s house—it’s in a trunk. I haven’t even unpacked it.”

  The same trunk, I thought, that Howard Litchfield watched Cassie and Grantham Webster carry out of Hurley’s house on Church Street in Madison that Saturday night just a few weeks ago.

  While Cassie packed her trunk, I went outside and called Evie.

  She answered on the second ring.

  “Honey,” I said, “it’s me. I’m up here in Maine, but I’ll be heading home pretty soon.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “I just got tied up with a few things.”

  “Tied up.” She laughed. “Sounds like fun.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the sandy driveway in front of Uncle Moze’s little house in Moulton. I turned off the ignition and opened the car door.

  Beside me, Cassie remained sitting.

  “Coming?” I said.

  “Yup.”

  I glanced at her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Take your time,” I said.

  She turned and smiled at me. “No, I’m good.”

  We got out, slid her steamer trunk from the back of my car, lugged it to the front door, and put it down.

  Cassie turned the knob, and the door pushed open.

  “He never locks up,” she said. “It’s a stupid point of pride with the old coot.”

  “Let’s get the trunk inside,” I said.

  “Just leave it here.” She turned to me. “I want to do this by myself. Is that okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “You can go,” she said. “I know you want to get home. Go ahead. I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be happy to stay with you for a while if you want.”

  She shook her head. “No. Thank you. I’d like to be alone.”

  “Want me to pick you up in the morning,” I said, “take you to the hospital?”

  She looked at me for a minute. Then she nodded. “I should be able to do it myself. To—to see him again. To get reacquainted. To apologize. But…yes. That would be nice. It would be really nice.”

  “I’ll be here around ten, then?” I said.

  She put her arms around me and hugged me close. “That’s perfect.

  Thanks, Cuz. Thanks for everything.”

  By the time I left my car in the parking garage and started walking home, the streetlights on Charles Street had come on. I was thinking I should’ve called Evie again, given her a better idea of what time I’d be home.

  She’d turned on the porch light for me. I went in and called hello, but Evie didn’t answer, and Henry didn’t come bounding at me with his tail wagging.

  I walked through the house and looked out through the backdoor window to the garden.

  Evie was sitting in an Adirondack chair. She was wearing a flowery summer-weight dress with a scoop neck. High heels. Her hair done up in a complicated bun. A string of pearls—inherited from her mother—hung around her graceful neck.

  I tried to remember. I was pretty sure this was not the outfit she’d worn to work, which meant she’d changed into it when she got home. Which raised the obvious question, since Evie loved to “get out of her school clothes,” as she put it, first thing upon getting home from work. She loved sweatpants, T-shirts, cut-off jeans, no bras.

  She’d hitched her dress halfway up her thighs, and her long bronze legs were stretched out in front of her. Her head was tilted back. I couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or she was staring up at the sky.

  Then I noticed that our silver ice bucket was sitting on the picnic table. The neck of a bottle was sticking out of it, and two tall stemmed glasses sat beside it. Champagne, I assumed.

  Huh? Champagne?

  I stepped out on the porch. Henry, who’d been lying beside Evie, lifted his head, blinked at me, then pushed himself to his feet and came limping over.

  I scootched down, gave his muzzle a scratch, then went over to Evie.

  She looked up at me, smiled, and lifted her hand to my face.

  I bent down and kissed her cheek.

  She steered my mouth to hers, then hooked her arm around my neck to hold it there.

  It was a long kiss.

  When she finally let me up for air, I waved my hand around the garden and said, “What’s the occasion?”

  “Does there need to be an occasion?”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “But I’ve got the feeling that there is one.”

  She looked at me for a minute, then smiled and said, “I got it.”

  “Got what?”

  “The promotion. The raise.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “Brady,” she said, “sit down, okay?”

  I sat down.

  Evie reached over and grabbed my hand in both of hers. “I’ve been such a bitch lately.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You’re entitled to be a bitch sometimes. I just wish I’d known what was going on, that’s all. I could’ve been there for you better.”

  “I didn’t want you to be there for me,” she said. “I was—I was so afraid I wasn’t going to get it. That’s why I never told you. I didn’t want your pity if I didn’t get it. I don’t know why I wanted the stupid job so bad, but I did. I kept getting mixed signals. I almost pulled out about a dozen times. Wanted to tell them, fuck it. Fuck you. I don’t need this. Except I did. I felt like I needed it. It’s a great job. A big step up. Huge raise. More responsibility. More fun, too.” She paused. “I guess, mainly, I just wanted to know that they appreciated me.”

  “I could never pity you,” I said.

  She smiled. “I know.”

  I picked Cassie up at Moze’s house at ten the next morning, and the nurse let us into the ICU around eleven.

  Moze was lying on his side facing away from us.

  I went over to his bed. Cassie stayed behind me. When I turned to look at her, I saw that her cheeks were wet.

  I touched Moze’s hip. “Hey, Uncle,” I said. “Come on. Wake up. You got company.”

  He twitched and groaned, then slowly rolled onto his back. He blinked at me. “Sonnyboy,” he said.

  I turned around, reached for Cassie’s hand, and tugged her beside me.

  Moze stared at her.

  “Hi, Moze,” said Cassie.

  “Cassandra,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
>
  “It’s me,” she said.

  “You are a sight for old eyes,” he said. He hitched himself into a sitting position. “I was thinking I’d never see you again.”

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Moze blinked. His eyes were glittering.

  “I’ve been awfully mad at you,” Cassie said.

  I found a chair in the corner of the room and dragged it over beside the bed.

  Cassie looked at me, smiled quickly, and sat in it. She reached for Moze’s hand and held it in both of hers. “How are you feeling?”

  “Cooped up,” he said.

  “I found out about Mary and Norman,” said Cassie. “My real parents. You lied to me all that time. It was hard to understand.”

  “Me and Lillian was your real parents,” he said. “We raised you.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I should’ve told you. I meant to. I knew it was the right thing. You deserved to know. It just—I never found the right time to do it.”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s okay. I’ve got my head around it now.”

  Moze smiled. “Grudges are no good.”

  “You gonna forgive me?”

  He nodded. “Sure. Forget about it.” He cleared his throat. “It’s awful good to see you, you know.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You, too.”

  He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Something I got to get off my chest, honey. Ever since I found out about my—that goddamn aneurysm—I been needing desperately to talk to you. I kept thinking, I can’t die before I clear the air with Cassie.”

  “Well,” she said, “now I know. You weren’t my real father. You and Mum—you weren’t my real parents. It’s okay. You were the best parents in the world.”

  “That ain’t all of it.” Moze looked at me. “Come over here, sonnyboy. I want you to hear this, too.”

  I found another chair, pulled it over, and sat beside Cassie.

  Moze was looking at me. “You remember Norman?”

  I remembered a white, bloated body floating in the Piscataqua River. I remembered how the flesh had flaked away when my old man stuck a boat hook into his leg.

  I nodded. “I’ll never forget it.”

  He looked at Cassie, then back at me. “It was me and Jake,” he said. “We—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t say anything. I’m going to leave the room.”

  “No,” he said. “I want you to hear it, too.”

  “Then you’ve got to hire me,” I said.

  “Huh? Hire you for what?”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Why the hell would I need a lawyer?”

  “Moze,” I said, “just ask me if I’ll be your lawyer, okay?”

  “It’s bullshit, ain’t it?”

  “No. If you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say, and if you want me to hear it, it’s best if you’re my client.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. Will you be my lawyer?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now, what were you going to say?”

  He closed his eyes for a minute. Then he opened them, looked at Cassie, and smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Here it is.” He cleared his throat. “One night, it was back thirty-odd years ago, my baby sister Mary shows up at your grandmother’s house all beat up and crying. She’s pregnant out to here, and she’s sayin’ how her husband, Norman Dillman, punched her and busted her arm and kicked her out and called her a whore so all the neighbors could hear. So me and Jake, we went to Norman’s trailer to have a little talk with the sonofabitch about the way a man is supposed to take care of his wife.” He looked at Cassie. “I’m sorry. I know he was your father. But he was a sonofabitch.”

  Cassie nodded. Her eyes were wet.

  “Talkin’ to Norman didn’t turn out to be all that satisfactory,” said Moze, “so me and Jake, we drug him outside and took him around back, and we talked to him some more, and then Jake said the hell with it and plugged him in the head with his old army forty-five. Then I backed up my truck and we loaded Norman in back. He was a big bastard. We drove down to the river, piled some rocks in my dinghy along with Norman’s body, and rowed out to my boat. We piled everything—Norman and them rocks—into the boat, started up the engine, and drove out to that deep hole near the bridge, where the currents swirl around?”

  He made it a question for Cassie. She knew the river as well as he did.

  She nodded.

  “So then,” he said, “me and Jake, we filled a lobster pot with them rocks, and Jake trussed Norman to the pot with the buoy line, and we dumped him in the river. I made Jake toss his pistol over, too. He didn’t want to do it. He brought that thing home from Korea.” Moze shook his head. “Jake always did tie poor knots. Otherwise Norman would’ve stayed down there, been lobster food, done somebody some good for a change. I shoulda tied them damn knots myself.”

  “You guys murdered Norman?” I said.

  “Guess we did. Don’t know what else you’d call it. I never regretted doin’ it, I don’t mind telling you. Not even for a minute. Oh, I worried about gettin’ caught, and I worried about Mary and my mother learnin’ about it. Worried plenty on them subjects. Otherwise…” He looked at Cassie and shrugged.

  She was staring at him. I couldn’t read her expression.

  “Who else knows about this?” I said.

  He shrugged. “Just me and Jake. I think Faith might’ve figured it out, the way she looked at me sometimes. She never said nothing, though, and maybe it was just my guilty conscience. I never regretted it, exactly, but it still weighed me down sometimes.”

  “What about your wives?” I said. “You and Jake. Did they know?”

  He smiled. “Tell a woman something like that? You know better.”

  “What about neighbors, people who knew Norman, knew what he did to Mary, knew how you and Jake felt about it?”

  “Folks had their suspicions, all right,” he said. “But as far as I know, nobody liked that sonofabitch except Mary, and she stopped liking him about the time he started hitting her. I reckon just about everybody figured the world was a better place without Norman Dillman in it.” He looked at Cassie. “Sorry, honey. But that’s how it was. I never felt bad, you thinking I was your daddy. Because I knew your real daddy got what was coming to him.”

  “I guess you did the right thing,” she said.

  He looked at her. “You mean that?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Moze,” I said, “Jake was in here the other day. I ran into him when he was leaving. He seemed awful mad.”

  “Oh, he was.” Moze smiled. “Me and Jake, we made a pact that night after we shoved Norman and his lobster pot over the transom of my boat. We promised each other we’d never say a word about it to anybody. Police or relatives or anybody. I never trusted Jake, though. He talks too goddamn much. Always shooting off his mouth. And I suppose Jake never trusted me. Hard to blame him. Brother or not, that’s a damn big secret to be sharing. So after that night, me and Jake, we pretty much avoided each other. We lived in the same town, couldn’t help running into each other now and then. But we pretty much decided we didn’t like each other very much.” Moze paused and looked from Cassie to me, then back at Cassie.

  She nodded.

  “Anyway,” said Moze, “the other day when Jake come in here, I told him that if I caught up with Cassie, I was going to tell her about it, because sonofabitch or no sonofabitch, Norman was Cassie’s real father. And I also told Jake that if it looked like I was gonna croak before I saw Cassie, I was gonna tell you, sonnyboy, give you the job of finding Cassie and telling her.” He looked at Cassie. “That’s why I been so damned desperate to see you, honey. That’s why I asked Brady here to help me out. You had the right to know this, and I knew Jake’d never tell you.”

  Cassie bent over and kissed his leathery cheek. “I’m glad you told me,” she whispered.

  “So you gon
na forgive me?”

  “Anybody would’ve done the same thing,” she said.

  “That don’t make it right.”

  “You made it right today,” said Cassie. “Now your job is to get better.”

  Epilogue

  Uncle Moze was sitting on the old lobster pot that Cassie and I had wrestled aboard Miss Lil for him. He was wearing his long-billed fisherman’s cap, a blue denim shirt rolled up over his elbows, a pair of worn and faded blue jeans, and black hip boots folded down to his knees. A half-smoked unfiltered Camel stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and he was squinting into the midday September sunlight that blazed down from a cloudless sky and ricocheted off the riffled surface of the Piscataqua River. He kept one hand on top of his head so that the salty breeze from the moving boat wouldn’t catch under the bill of his cap and lift it off. His alert pale eyes kept scanning the horizon. He was looking for a flock of diving gulls and wheeling terns that would signal feeding striped bass.

  The boat rods were lined up in their holders, all rigged with trolling plugs and ready to be grabbed the instant we spotted fish. The stripers, Cassie said, had been swarming into the river on the incoming tide, hungry, aggressive gangs of them. The big predators, responding to the changing angle of the sun and falling water temperatures and other signals beyond our understanding, had started their southward migration from the Atlantic waters off the coasts of northern Maine and Nova Scotia. They chased the thick schools of peanut bunker that in places darkened the water. They corraled them against the bank and slashed and swirled at them, vicious and mindless and lethal.

  Pretty soon they’d be gone. Then it would be winter.

  I’d promised Evie that if we landed a keeper striped bass, we’d actually keep it, and I’d bake it with lemon slices and Ritz cracker crumbs and fresh-ground pepper the way Gram Crandall used to cook them. The fillets from a twenty-eight-inch striper would feed four people amply.

  I generally put back the fish I caught, regardless of what the regulations allowed. I didn’t disapprove of people who killed a fish or two for the table. It was a personal thing with me. I just liked the idea of giving big fish another chance to pass on whatever gene they had that enabled them to grow big.