He was also a southerner, it seemed. The shelter worker, reviewing Sherlock’s papers, had explained that high-kill shelters in the South, when they got overcrowded, sometimes shipped adoptable dogs and cats to shelters in the Northeast. Sherlock, specifically, hailed from Tennessee. Perhaps he would bark with a twang.
“Can we stop at the pet food place?”
“We got dog food already.”
“No, I know, but I want a special bowl. And Sherlock should have a special collar. Danny’s dog, Gerhard, has a special collar that says ‘Gerhard.’”
Gerhard was a show-dog schnauzer who got carted off to dog shows all year long. Danny’s parents (his mother, whose name was Matilda, had insisted that both Grace and Henry call her “Til,” because “that’s my call name”) had actually turned out to be awfully welcoming and generally a riot. One night, after arriving to collect Henry, Grace had accepted an impromptu invitation to dinner and enjoyed a hilarious download about the dog show circuit, with special reference to backstage coiffure and primping. Grace, to her own surprise, had found herself laughing like an idiot throughout the meal.
Still, she told Henry now, they would not be keeping up with Gerhard and his family.
“What does that mean?” said her son, genuinely mystified.
She told him what it meant.
It was all sort of miraculous, Grace thought, looking back at him in the rearview, noting the long lock of hair falling forward over her son’s face. When he was a baby, the pediatrician had told her kids really did grow overnight. You could go in the next morning and the legs would be longer, the head larger; it really did happen that way. And over the years, she had often had cause to remember this. The day in second grade when he had suddenly leapt away from babyhood with utter finality: done! The summer two years earlier, when she drove into Great Barrington to find him some sneakers, and bought sneakers that were even a little roomy on his feet, and then barely a week later, he was complaining that his toes were sore from hitting the tips of the shoes. When they went back to the store, they ended up buying two sizes larger. Now it had happened again, not so much in his length or breadth or head circumference. He had shed, while she had been looking the other way, while she had been distracted by the unfolding disaster of their family, a large part of his little-kid-ness. Now, in its place, there was the vaguest trace of teen. Her son was in the antechamber to the land of teen, where boys with long forelocks and less than exemplary personal hygiene waited to discover that girls were different, and why that might actually matter. And he looked good. He looked … was it possible? Very good, not broken or depressed. In fact, he looked for all the world like a normal boy, a boy with friends at school and a science quiz on Monday morning and an obligation to play in the middle school orchestra and a brand-new spot (as outfielder) on the Lakeville Lions (a team sponsored by none other than Smitty’s Pizza in Lakeville, the site of that first greasy meal on the night she now thought of as their escape). Not, in other words, like a boy whose father was known to millions of people, albeit in another state, as “Murder Doc.” Or even (she tested the notion) like a kid whose parents had just enjoyed a garden-variety split and whose mother had taken him away one afternoon to an altogether different life: different house, school, friends. And dog, Grace thought. Was it possible that he was … actually … really okay?
“Maybe we should have gotten that crate they were talking about,” she told him. It had just occurred to her that Sherlock-the-dog, the first canine to enter the lake house for at least thirty years, might at some point decide to shit on the premises.
“No. I want him to sleep on my bed,” Henry said from the backseat. “And if he goes, I’ll clean it up. He’s my dog. I’m responsible.”
Grace caught her breath. She had never heard him say those exact words—I’m responsible—and they sounded sort of incredible in his voice. His new voice—a little bit softer, a little bit deeper, no longer the voice of Henry-the-boy. That was another thing that had happened while she had been looking the other way, she realized, dizzy with regret.
Because she was the one who was, or who ought to have been, responsible. It had occurred to her for the first time only a few weeks earlier, as she had lifted the edge of her vast rage and vast sorrow and vast, vast, ultimately limitless pain because Jonathan was not there (that her family with Jonathan—her life, what she had with some defensible reason regarded as her life—was just not there any longer), and she had seen, lurking beneath that great encompassing tent of awfulness, a resolute finger pointing back in her own direction. All this—it need not have happened, or at least it need not have happened as it had. The fullness of it: Malaga Alves murdered, her children orphaned, the utter shame of her own public pillory, and the scuttling of her professional accomplishments and ambitions. And more, going down the list, so much more: the rifts between herself and Vita, between Henry and his grandparents, between the blasé idea of herself and the blunt, hard reality. Jonathan had done it, but she had let him. And even after all these weeks of days lost to bedridden sorrow, and trawling the Internet reports of her own supposed cognizance of the crime (at best) and complicity in the crime (at worst), and hours out on the dock, blowing smoke to the stars as if the explanation were up there—even now, she still had no idea how it had happened.
She gripped the steering wheel, attempting to regain control of herself, attempting to hide her sudden decompression from Henry.
So she had chosen to believe in the presented reality, the unexamined reality, of her life with Jonathan. Why be ashamed of that? Sitting in her office, day after day, as the parade of awful choices sat howling on her oatmeal-colored couch, the injured parties and devastated partners—who would not have been grateful for what she went home to at night? Jonathan had openly adored and valued her, encouraged her, supported her, given her unceasing affection, given her Henry. He had been—God, the cliché of it—her best friend. Actually, she thought with a new wave of sadness, what he had been was her only friend. He had made sure of that, by parting her from Vita, by encouraging her disapproval of anyone else who came along. No one was worthy of Grace—that was the message. No one deserved her except himself.
She would have spotted that in someone else, she told herself. She had spotted it, countless times, in the men on her office couch. They were husbands and boyfriends who delicately or brutally severed the ties between their partners and parents, siblings, friends, even children, so that the women might never make it back across the wasteland. So that they might be too demoralized to even try. They were just like border collies, who cut their chosen lamb from the herd and kept it away from the others. Border collies were such clever dogs.
“I think he’s hungry,” Henry said. Sherlock had wobbled to his feet, stretched, and now had his nose up to the window, smudging the glass.
“We’ll be home soon.”
When they got there they took him in through the front door and walked him around on the leash. Once, at the living room sofa, he looked as if he might be considering lifting his leg, so Henry dragged him away, explaining things as if the dog could understand: “No, no, Sherlock, you’re going to go outside. We have a whole backyard for you.”
Grace opened the porch door and they went down the steps to the lakefront, where she watched Henry fasten on the special collar, then tighten it until it fit.
“Ready for this?” she asked.
He nodded, but he didn’t look ready. Earlier in the week, a man from the Invisible Fence company had come and buried the perimeter wire, using a special tool to burrow into the hard soil. He left behind little white flags along the boundary line, descending from both sides of the house down to the water. There was a lot of room to run around in. Once this part of it was done, the dog would be fine.
“I don’t want to,” Henry said, stating the obvious. The dog was straining at the leash, obviously dying to explore.
“I know,” Grace said. “But he has to. He has to know what happens if he tries to go
past the line. One shock, and then that’s it. If he’s as smart as we think he is, anyway.”
“But I don’t want him to get hurt.”
“He’ll get a lot more hurt if he runs out into the road and gets hit by a car, Henry.”
Her son shrugged, miserable.
“Remember what the guy said?”
“Will you do it with me?”
“Of course.”
They brought the dog up close to the perimeter. A few feet from one of the white flats, she could hear the high-pitched warning from the collar. Sherlock cocked his head but seemed otherwise nonplussed.
“No!” Grace said sharply to the dog. “No! No! No!”
Henry, rather halfheartedly, pulled back on the leash. “No, Sherlock. Don’t go there.”
Sherlock looked mildly at them both and then took another step toward the line.
“Sorry, sweetie,” said Grace. “There’s no other way.”
He nodded. He let the dog pull him forward. He was very brave, thought Grace. With another step, they heard the warning tone again. And then, two steps after that, Sherlock yelped and jumped back. The cry was sharp and, even to Grace, baldly heartrending. Clearly, he had really been hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Henry told him, dropping to his knees. “I’m really sorry, boy. It won’t happen again.”
Hopefully, thought Grace. If you’re as smart as all that.
“Let’s see what happens,” she told Henry. “Try to take him up to the line again.”
He did, but this time Sherlock wasn’t having any. Even before the warning tone, he hung back. He looked terrified.
“Good dog!” said Grace.
“Good boy!” said Henry.
They took him around the rest of the boundary, letting him hear the warning in a few more places, petting and praising him when he leapt back. Down at the lakefront, he waded into the cold water until it covered his feet and then stared out over the surface. Then he looked up at the afternoon sky and gave a great hound howl that must have traveled for miles into the woods on all sides. “Oh wow,” said Henry.
“Well,” Grace said, laughing, “I think he’s home.”
Henry unhooked Sherlock’s leash from his collar and stepped back cautiously. Nothing happened. He didn’t bolt for freedom but remained where he was, paws covered by the inky water, staring raptly across to the other side. They returned to the back porch steps to watch him and sat there for a few minutes, Grace with her arm across her son’s shoulders.
“He’s a nice dog,” Grace told him.
Henry nodded.
“I’m sorry it took so long. I think I’m going to like having a dog.”
He didn’t say anything right away. He shrugged. He seemed to have gone into himself somehow.
“What?” said Grace.
“I want to talk about it,” Henry said. “I mean, are we ever going to?”
She took a careful breath. “Of course,” she told him.
“But when? I don’t like this. I hate not talking about it. I don’t want you to be upset.”
“It’s not your job to protect me, Henry. And now’s good. Now’s fine, if you want to. Do you want to talk about it now?”
He gave a little laugh, but the laugh sounded anything but mirthful. “Now looks good. I can have my girl check on it and get back to your girl, but as far as I know, now is good.”
She turned to him. Over the past week, the cold had ebbed just a little, and they had downgraded from parkas to lesser layers. Henry’s dark hair coiled out of his dark hoodie. Over the hoodie he wore a heavy denim jacket from one of the closets upstairs. It had once belonged to Jonathan.
“I knew about it,” Henry said.
“About …?”
“Daddy. I saw him with Miguel’s mother. Once. In September. Or October. I know I should have told you. If I’d told you, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.” It came out all in a rush, and then he wasn’t looking at her.
Careful, she thought right away. Be very, very careful now. This is going to matter a lot.
“What an awful thing for you.” She willed her voice to be steady. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. But no, it was not your job to tell me about it.”
“They weren’t doing anything,” he barreled on. “I mean, they weren’t … I didn’t see something, you know, like kissing or anything. But, I don’t know. I just knew, when I saw them. They were outside on the steps. There were people around. But I saw them, and I knew. It was, like, I could just tell. But when he saw me, he just, you know, was totally normal. He kind of moved away from where he’d been standing with her, and he didn’t introduce me to her or anything. And I didn’t say anything.”
Grace shook her head. “Henry, that’s something no son should have to see.”
“He was just, like, normal Dad all the way home! Like, ‘How was school?’ ‘Did Jonah talk to you today?’ But he knew I saw it.”
Henry stopped. He seemed to be making up his mind about something.
“There was another time.”
“With …” Grace looked at him in confusion. “Mrs…. Miguel’s mother?”
“No, it was a long time ago. It was someone else.”
Grace forced herself not to react. This was not about her, not any longer. “Do you want to talk about that?” she asked him. “You don’t have to, of course.”
“No, I know. I was with Jonah over near his house. We were on the sidewalk waiting for his mom because she’d gone into a store and we were on the sidewalk. And I saw Daddy. It was close to the hospital.”
Grace nodded. The Hartmans had lived in the East 60s, a few blocks from Memorial, until the boys were in sixth grade, after which Jennifer and Gary had split up and Jennifer moved with Jonah and his sister to the West Side. That was when the friendship had taken such a turn. Before that, though, Henry had spent years in Jonah’s neighborhood—Memorial’s neighborhood.
“So I saw him coming up the street to where we were waiting. He was walking alongside the playground. You know that playground at Sixty-Seventh Street where we used to go?”
Grace nodded.
“He was with somebody. Another doctor. And they were just … I mean, again, nothing. Like, he wasn’t doing anything, so I didn’t realize it right away. They were just walking together and talking. She was a doctor, too. She had the same scrubs. He didn’t see me right away. And when he crossed the street he still didn’t see me. He was going right by me with the … her. So I said: ‘Daddy!’ And he, like, jumped, and he looked at me and went, you know, ‘Hey, buddy!’ and, ‘Hey, Jonah!’ and he hugged me and just started chatting away about something, I don’t remember. But I turned around because the doctor he was walking with just kept walking. She didn’t stop, and he never looked at her. I just thought that was so strange. It was … I don’t know how to describe what it was, but like with Miguel’s mother, I just knew. Well,” he corrected himself, “I didn’t know. I mean, I didn’t know, like, exactly what I was seeing, only that I was seeing something that was … it was not right. Do you know what I mean?”
Grace nodded sadly.
“Maybe I should have told you that time, too.”
“No, sweetie.”
“But you might have gotten divorced.”
“There was no right thing and no wrong thing. It’s not your responsibility.”
“Well, okay,” Henry said sadly. “But then whose responsibility is it?”
The dog, having tired of the freezing water, was walking languidly up the slope back to the house.
“The grown-ups’,” Grace told him. “Daddy and me. I think there was a lot going on with Daddy, for a long time. But …” Grace steadied herself. She hated that she had to say this, but she had to say it. “Whatever he did, and why he did it, I hope you know he always loved you. I don’t think it had anything to do with you. Me, probably, but not you.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong,” Henry said, and Grace, with another clench of anguish, saw that he was cryin
g now. Possibly he had already been crying for a while.
She reached over for him, and he let her draw him close to her. He was a little boy still, she thought, though she hated that it had taken this terrible thing to return the little-boy him to her. She held him anyway, smelling his hair, which was dirty.
“Maybe right and wrong isn’t the best way to think about it. Maybe it’s more complicated than that.” She took a breath. “I’m sure I wasn’t perfect. And I might not have known what was going on with Daddy, but I think I should have known. That’s my part of being responsible.”
The dog, Sherlock, had arrived at the foot of the porch steps and looked up at them plaintively. But Grace didn’t let Henry go.
“I’ve spent a lot of nights going over this,” she told him. “Nights and days,” she amended, remembering the long hours while Henry was away at school, coiled painfully beneath the duvet of her bed upstairs. “I could spend years thinking about Daddy, and what might have happened to him. And Mrs. Alves. And poor Miguel. That poor kid. But I think … I’m not going to. I have other things I need to do. And I don’t want my life to be about this one thing. And I really, really don’t want your life to be about this one thing. You deserve a lot better than that, Henry.”
Henry pulled back. The cold air invaded the place where his body had been. Seeing his opportunity, the dog came up the steps, climbing delicately. He went to Henry, who rubbed his ears.
“They call him ‘Murder Doc,’” her son informed her. “Danny and I Googled it at his house.”
She nodded, heartbroken. “Okay.”
“There are pictures of you, too. From your book. There’s a lot of stuff about you.” He looked over at her. “Did you know?”
She knew. Grace nodded. She had known for a couple of weeks. One morning, she had dropped him off at school as usual and gone to the library as usual and sat before the computer as usual. But this time, not as usual, she had suddenly been ready. And then she had looked at herself, through the warped veil of a global community of total strangers. It was a torrent. It was endless. The articles themselves were bad enough, but the comments following them were grotesque. She was an ice queen who had stood by as her husband used, abused, abandoned, and finally slaughtered a woman who’d loved him. She was a hypocrite who had the gall to pass judgment on others, to offer “guidance” to others about relationships, to write a book—the greatest hostility was for having written a book—conveying her so-called wisdom. Her author photo was everywhere. And there were quotes from her book—plain inversions of what she had meant to convey.
The Undoing Page 40
