He says, “The last time we talked was twenty-two days ago, the night before.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I told her I was coming to see her.”
“What did she say to that?”
“She said, ‘I won’t be here.’ ”
“What did you take that to mean?”
“That she wouldn’t be there. And she wasn’t—she killed herself Monday morning.” Monday morning—why didn’t he think of this before? “That’s odd, isn’t it, killing yourself after you just wake up?”
She hesitates, trying to appear to be the one with the answer to everything. “I don’t know of any statistics on times of suicides, but it does seem unusual to wake up and take your own life.”
“Jean did love her sleep,” he offers as a possible reason. Some days she didn’t even dress, just moved from the bed to the couch, to the patio lounge chair, back to the couch, and then the bed again. So much of her life horizontal. Sometimes when she was sleeping he’d climb in next to her, feel the warmth radiating into his cold body.
“You said your wife took an overdose of …”
“Seconals.” He pictures her picking up the pill bottle, noting the dosage. What was Jean’s singular emotion as she unscrewed the cap? Was she anxious or at ease, depressed or euphoric? So much of life is one thing or another, a dialectical world. Would the moment have passed if the cap stuck at first, childproof—would that have given her pause?
“Did your wife leave a note?”
“That wouldn’t be like Jean. She wasn’t one to sum up things. Her whole life was the note. She knew I’d understand that.”
“Do you?”
“Understand? Of course. She was raped.”
“How do you know that was the reason she committed suicide twenty-five years later?”
“I lived with her for twenty of those years.”
“Most rape victims carry the pain of the experience throughout their lives, but they don’t kill themselves.”
“Good for them.”
“I wasn’t debating the legitimacy of your wife’s feelings, Mr. Chambers.”
“Would her suicide be any more legitimate if I told you she became pregnant from the rape?”
She looks up with interest. “Are you telling me that?”
He tips his head just slightly. Sometimes a nod can say so much more than words.
“Did she have the child?”
“No.”
“An abortion?”
“No.”
“What then?” As if the possibilities have been exhausted.
“She had trouble giving birth. They had to cut the baby out of her. A boy. He was born dead.”
Her face twists up in a mother’s expression of ache, a sympathetic response.
“Interesting way to put it,” Paul says, “born dead. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it.”
“That’s a terrible thing for a young girl to cope with.”
“Jean didn’t cope. She blamed herself for getting raped and then for losing the baby.”
“Did you blame her for that, too?”
“I told her once, ‘He ruined your life, and you ruined ours.’ I’d say that’s blaming her.”
“Resentment is natural,” she says automatically, and he wonders how often she has repeated this worthless observation. She even feels compelled to continue her point, as if sharing rare insight. “Spouses of people fighting cancer for years often get so fatigued being the caregiver that they lash out at their loved one sometimes, as if it’s their fault they’re sick.”
What does cancer have to do with it? People die from cancer. Women live with rape. He says, “It’s comforting to know that I reacted like so many other resentful spouses.”
She ignores this obvious sarcasm. “Did your wife know her attacker?”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Often it does. A rape by a stranger is random, and so the victim tends to become fearful of all strangers. A rape by someone she knows can lead to fear of friends, even family and intimates.”
Intimates—so that is the category in which he falls. An intimate without intimacy. “She knew him.”
“Was her attacker arrested?”
“The rapist was never arrested. Jean never went to the police.”
Her face takes on a look of recognition, eyes widening, and a slight nod. “That’s quite common, unfortunately. Did your wife reveal who he was?”
“She told me who he is. He has a wonderful life going, it seems. Loving wife, beautiful child. Of course, you can’t really tell about lives from the outside, can you? Maybe it’s a cold, loveless marriage. Maybe they have a troubled little brat of a kid. I’m sure he hasn’t told her about his rape. Secret lives are interesting, don’t you think, how much energy it takes to keep up the illusion that you’re a nice person when you know inside that you aren’t?”
“Do you know where this man lives?” she asks. She has so many of her own questions to get through, and only an hour to do it.
“That’s why I’m here.”
She looks up at him. “The man who raped your wife lives in Red Paint?”
“Is that so surprising, a rapist in the friendliest town in Maine?”
“There are rapists everywhere, of course. Did you come here to find him?”
“No, I was just passing through and thought, Wait a second, isn’t this the place where Jean said her rapist lives? Maybe I should look the fellow up.”
“You enjoy sarcasm, Mr. Chambers.”
“I confess I do. I know it’s not fashionable these days, the humor of the weak and all that, but it does seem to fit the question quite often.”
“It fits when you’re trying to deflect the question.”
“I agree,” he says, “I’m deflecting your question.” To disarm someone, just agree. They will move on.
“What do you expect to happen when you find the man?”
“I’ve given up expecting a long time ago. It’s a waste of time, and we only get so much of that.”
“So you came to Red Paint to find the man you hold responsible for the trauma in your wife’s life, and you came to me before confronting him?”
“Bad idea? Should I have just sought out the rapist directly?”
“Were you hoping I’d stop you?”
“Can you do that?”
“I think you know what I mean. Did you come to me expecting—or hoping, if you prefer—that I might help you find some way of coming to terms with your wife’s rape and suicide that doesn’t involve confronting her attacker?”
“No,” Paul says, brushing lint off his pants. Where does lint come from? Does it just float in the air till a man in black pants sits down to receive it?
“Then why are you here?”
“I don’t know.” How could he know what God has in store? No one does, perhaps not even God. Perhaps He’s winging it, like every human being on earth. We’re made in His image, after all. “Maybe I should leave,” Paul says as he gets up. He could hand over her fee in cash again, be gone. Better, perhaps, for both of them.
“That’s up to you,” she says, staying seated herself. “But whether with me or someone else, at some point you need to address the unresolved issues around your wife’s life and death.”
Addressing unresolved issues—is that what revenge is called these days?
“You’re smiling?”
“That not allowed?”
“I’m just trying to understand your reaction.”
“Don’t read anything into it. I smile at inappropriate times. People tell me that all the time.” She doesn’t seem to smile at all herself, appropriately or inappropriately—an uncommonly serious woman.
“What would you like to achieve by confronting the man who raped your wife?”
He finds it awkward looking down at her and sits again. “I want him to confess,” he says. She nods as if that is a reasonable objective, giving him a moment to expound on the subject, which h
e is always ready to do, any subject at all. “Did you know Martin Luther was obsessed with confessing? He’d confess for hours on end, then get up to leave, sit down again, and confess for hours more. He thought Satan had intruded into his daily thoughts.”
“Do you think Satan has intruded into your daily thoughts?”
“Satan, God—it’s difficult to tell who’s speaking to you.”
“Are you saying you hear voices?”
“I hear my own voice. Of course, I could be fooled. God can do that. Satan, too.”
“What is your inner voice telling you?”
“That confession isn’t really a penalty. In fact, confession can be good for the soul—it absolves the confessor. What I think is that the rapist should feel what it’s like to be raped himself.”
She nods again, perhaps just a habit. Surely she couldn’t be endorsing the natural interpretation of his statement. What kind of therapist would do that?
“You want validation on behalf of your wife’s experience,” she says, “how it affected her life and yours, and you think you might achieve that by having the man who committed the rape feel some sense of what it’s like.”
He stares at her. So many words. Too many words.
The Weekly Quotation read, “A bell cannot be unrung, but it can be smashed to bits so that it never rings again.” Simon reread the quote, trying to discern if the violent image was yet another expression of his assistant Barb’s postdivorce anger or, in a curious way, the beginning of her taking control of her life. The afternoon sun from the Common flooded in the large windows as he stood at his desk assessing the latest edition. The quotation, he decided, was a good sign, and he turned inside. Police Tranquilize Black Bear on Porch read the top headline in the Police Log on page two. Carole always led with an animal story, if one was available, and there always was. He flipped through the half pages of Religious News and Civic News and School News till he reached the Obituaries. There was just one this week, and when he saw it he couldn’t stop the words coming from his lips, “What the hell?”
Jeanette Crane Walker, 41
Jeanette Crane Walker, a native of Red Paint, died of unnatural causes on June 14. Jean should be remembered for the brutal attack she suffered 25 years ago in her hometown. Her family moved away from Bowling Green Road shortly thereafter. She is survived by her husband, who will miss her eternally.
Jean Walker. It stunned him, the girl he knew, his graduation date, announced dead in his own paper. He pictured the last time he saw her, running up the slope toward the Bayswater Inn, holding up her long dress so she wouldn’t trip. He had started to run after her but stopped because he didn’t want to appear to be chasing, if anyone was looking. By the time he reached the inn she was gone.
Margaret hurried over from her desk. “Typo, boss?”
“This obit, where did it come from?”
She read it over his shoulder. “I think that’s the late copy that came in Tuesday afternoon. We pulled a house ad to run it.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Barbara does all the late items.”
Simon looked about the newsroom, empty except for the two of them. “Where is she?”
“In the ladies’, I guess.” Margaret leaned against his desk. “Did you know this Jeanette Crane Walker?”
This Jeanette Crane Walker, as if she were merely a name in the paper, not flesh and blood. “Yes, I knew her. Everybody knew everybody in Red Paint twenty-five years ago.”
“That must have been a big story, a brutal attack.”
“No, Margaret, there wasn’t any story. There wasn’t any attack.”
Barbara came through the back door, sipping a Diet Coke through a straw. Simon waved her over. “Where did you get the copy for this obit?”
She dropped her soda can into the metal trash basket beside his desk, and the loud noise of it jolted them all. “Sorry,” she said. “What did you want to know?”
“Where did you get this obit?”
“A man came in Tuesday afternoon when you were all out back, and he had the information already written up the way he wanted it, so I rushed it in since we didn’t have any other obits for the week.”
“You didn’t check his sources?”
She looked over to Margaret for help. “I didn’t know we check sources on obits.”
“That’s because funeral homes send them in. This one just walked in the door. Anybody could come in and place an obit saying someone died when they haven’t.”
Barbara looked shocked. “You mean the woman isn’t dead?”
“That’s not the point. Suffered a brutal attack—that didn’t strike you as a claim you should question?”
“Yes—I mean no, it didn’t then, but it should have, yes. Should I call the police to see if they have any record of it?”
“No,” Simon said, “it was twenty-five years ago. There wouldn’t be any record of it. Besides, the obit has run.”
He runs the shower as hot as the faucet allows and rubs the fresh bar of soap over his body in long sweeps of his hand. An Irish Spring scent seeps into his skin. He stands under the blistering spray as long as he can take it and then shuts off the faucet. He dries himself, then drapes the wet towel over the curtain rod, one quarter inside, just enough to hold it on, the rest on the outside to dry. His whole self appears to him now in the full length of the door mirror. It’s been so long since he’s seen himself like this. His thin body has filled out over the years, rounding his shoulders, thickening his thighs. He brushes a hand slowly down his chest, following the line of dark hair to his rounded stomach, then farther down. He has a few minutes to spare.
———
It is a casual affair, the twenty-fifth reunion of Red Paint High. Women in slimming black slacks and colored tops. Men in Dockers pants and L.L. Bean shirts, the same as they have been wearing for decades. Paul comes down the broad stairway of the inn in dark jacket and gray slacks, complemented by a modest tie, maroon in color, asserted by a gold pin stuck in the center. He looks prosperous and well fed, a man who has gone off from Red Paint and done well for himself. Just outside the dining room door stands Gus, the six-foot-high wooden black bear in overalls, with a menu protruding from his belly. Paul scratches under the bear’s chin, as everyone in town always did for good luck, and enters through the double doors.
“Excuse me, have you registered?” He turns toward a woman outfitted in the high school colors, black top and red jacket. Her badge says Marge Francoeur, Class Secretary. He vaguely remembers her, a thin girl rushing down the hallways with her books clutched to her chest. “If you’ve registered then just fill out a name tag. Everyone has to have a name tag.”
He imagines a world in which everyone wears his name on his chest. It would be difficult to go unnoticed in such a life. There are eyes everywhere now—street corners, hallways, stores, parking lots. One must assume that at any given moment he is being watched and recorded, his behavior stored in some vast database, waiting to be retrieved when needed. It takes cunning not to be recognized. Paul takes a label and prints on it, in block letters, with a thick black pen. Then he strips off the backing and smacks the sticky paper to his lapel.
Marge leans over the table to see. “Guess Who?—that’s a good one.” She studies his face. “Bill Edison, right?”
Paul shrugs, the mysterious guest, and drifts into the sea of red-and-black balloons, red-and-black streamers, red-and-black tablecloths and napkins. He pours himself a cup of water at the folding table marked NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES and sidles into the crowd, blending in, preparing a face to greet the people that he’ll meet. He is sure he won’t be identified. He can be whoever he wants—a jovial sort, a studious academic, a back slapper, or his most comfortable self, the aloof observer taking it all in but not drawn in. Of this reunion but not a part of it.
By the small stage stands Simon Howe, holding forth, a shock of thick brown hair waving across his brow. So very satisfied with himself. Next to him a blond woman linger
s at his shoulder, nodding animatedly at every word. Not Amy. Paul scans the room for her, at the groups of threes and fours. He thought he would have to take care not to be spotted by her, but he senses now her absence. Is it possible that she stayed home watching their son, fearful these days of leaving him alone? Simon glances over, his eyes spanning the ten steps or so between them, locks on Paul for a fleeting moment, then moves on. No recognition, just as he counted on. He slips across the room, catching bits of conversation and laughter from people who consider it great sport to make fun of their former awkward selves, forgetting how painful it was to actually be them. He sees a single man holding a plastic cup of dark liquid, and they make eye contact. The loner lofts his drink in the air, as in a toast. Paul does, too, but neither of them moves toward the other.
He turns and finds himself suddenly in a group, three women and a man. “Join us,” the fellow says, “I’m outnumbered here.” Paul nods and they laugh for a moment at his name tag, but no one bothers to try to figure out who he is. They assume he is a spouse, of only tangential importance to this reunion. They go around the small circle, stating their professions as if it is their identity—a mason, a receptionist, an emergency room nurse, and last, a mother of four. “All boys,” she says with a sardonic tone, as if you know how that is.
He doesn’t know and moves away from them, finds an open space by the memorabilia table stacked with yearbooks and newspaper clippings. A man wearing a red-and-black scarf draped over his shoulders pushes past Paul to the microphone and taps it. “Is this on? Can you hear me?” Everyone nods and waves. “Can I have your attention, folks? I’m Stephen Greer. In case your memory is a little shaky, I ran for class president senior year, not realizing it was a lifetime position. So here I am now, the moderator of our Red Paint High reunion.” Greer clears his throat, readying himself for his speech. “Twenty-five years ago it was the best of times and the worst of times for us. We finally earned our diplomas and were ready to make our mark in the world, but at the same time we faced a terrible tragedy, the unthinkable happening to one of our own. Let’s have a moment of silence in memory of our always cheerful friend, Stanley Dumas, who left the world as he lived it, at high speed.” The voices in the room go silent, but behind the platform there’s the sound of dishes being stacked in the kitchen and one gruntlike laugh. “All right,” Greer says looking over his shoulder with annoyance, “we’ll get to the dancing in a little bit, but before that we’re going to take a stroll down memory lane. If you haven’t submitted a question yet, there are three-by-five cards on the registration table. Write down your memories of the good old days, and do it in the form of a question. We’ll see who has the best memory.”
Reunion at Red Paint Bay Page 11
