The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  “They’re great,” Tracy says. “You did a nice job there, Dad.” I thank her, manage a smile. She’s right; they are great kids. But none of them’s in great shape. Ari’s going it alone with her pregnancy, he’s broken up with his girl without ever really saying why. And whatever’s going on with Marissa, she’s drinking too much. And now she’s getting herself a gun? As I stand there, watching them disappear down the road, I wonder how much of the adult lives they’re living now, the decisions they’re making, have to do with their home life when they were kids. With their parents—one of them unhinged and the other asleep at the wheel.

  “Hey?” Tracy says. “You okay?”

  “Hm? Yeah, sure. They’re not even a mile down the road yet and I miss them already, that’s all. Ariane says I should drive down there. Hang out with them the morning after the wedding.”

  “Then maybe you should.”

  “Nah. But this was nice.”

  “Well, okay then. I’ve really got to go. Want to get together tonight?”

  “Sounds good.” We embrace, kiss. She gets in her car and takes off, too.

  Driving back to Viveca’s, I replay what she just said. You did a nice job there, Dad. I shake my head. Tell the guy in the rearview mirror to face up to the truth: that he made those students at the college more of a priority than his own kids. I left them alone with her too much, even though I knew she resented it. And then her resentment had curdled into anger. Rage. Was that why she targeted him? Because he was the male child, and I wasn’t around to push down the stairs? Take a mallet to? Was my son just a stand-in for the guy she really wanted to hurt? . . . They’re still covering for her, even now. That conversation I tried to start with them yesterday went nowhere. Ancient history, Andrew said. The statute of limitations. And I don’t believe for a minute Marissa’s claim that she doesn’t remember it. Even Ari had started to backpedal. “I probably made it sound worse than it was, Daddy.” But I saw the way the three of them were looking at one another, the panic on their faces. Nice job there, Dad. No. A good father—an alert psychologist—would have read the signs whether they were trying to hide them or not. Would not have left his kids defenseless. Well, he’s got a point, I guess: it’s history. Nothing I can do about it now. When I get back to the house, I’ll put on my trunks and sneakers and head down to Long Nook. Maybe I can run off this sadness that’s starting to overtake me. . . .

  I think about the run I took down there yesterday with Andrew. When I asked him who broke it off, him or her, he said he did—that it just wasn’t going to work out. . . .

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t really want to talk about it. Okay?”

  “Sure. But if you do—”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” He changes the subject—starts talking about his work down there. “Some of the ones coming back are in bad shape.”

  I tell him about one of the practicums I did when I was working on my degree, counseling Vietnam vets. “Combat takes its toll, no matter what the war is. Takes a toll on the health professionals treating them, too. It did me, anyway. What about you? You handling it okay?”

  “Pretty much. Gets to me sometimes—some days worse than others. And the hours, the double shifts, are draining. We’re spread pretty thin. But it’s worthwhile work, you know? They need help, and when you can give it to them, see the way some of them start to pull out of their depression or whatever, it’s . . . I don’t know. Gratifying.”

  I smile at him. “Sounds like you’ve found your niche.”

  “Yeah, I guess I have. Took me long enough, huh? All those times I switched my major? Five and a half years of college instead of four? But this is what I really want to do. When I first got stationed there, I was going to go into engine repair. But I kept feeling like it wasn’t the right fit for me. So I prayed on it—asked my Higher Power to guide me. And He did. Prayer is powerful, you know that?”

  “Can’t say that I do, no. I’m one of those damned heathens, remember? But your mother believes in prayer. She told me a while back that she prays every night that they won’t ship you over there. That ever worry you? That you might end up in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t think about it much. And if they do, they do. I went in with my eyes open. I’ll go wherever they need me. So Mom still prays, huh? That’s kind of surprising.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I figured with her new lifestyle . . . Casey-Lee’s the one who brought me to God. She’s pretty religious. Her whole family is. I liked going to church with them, you know? I sort of wish we’d had that kind of foundation when we were kids.”

  “Well, you did. She made sure each of you kids was christened. I don’t know if you remember, but she used to take the three of you to church with her when you were little.”

  “And then she stopped. Left us home with you on Sunday. I guess what I’m saying is that I wish we’d all gone together. You know. As a family.”

  “Maybe we should have. But it would have been an empty gesture on my part, Andrew. Don’t get me wrong. If you’re a believer, then more power to you. And hey, I’d like to believe that some supreme being is up there, making sure everything comes out the way it’s supposed to. But my mind just can’t go there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the kind of work I do. Did, I mean.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Well, you sit across from patients long enough—hear about incest or rape, or about how some nineteen-year-old’s started hearing scary voices in his head, how someone’s mother got killed in a car crash because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—and you begin to doubt that anyone’s up there doling out cosmic justice. That it’s not all just random. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just seen too much and heard too much.”

  “Or maybe you’re being arrogant,” he says.

  I look over at him. “Arrogant? How so?”

  “Well, you just said twice that you don’t have it figured out. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s the kind of work I did. Maybe I’ve seen too much.’ But you sure sound like you think you know. Like you’ve got the whole thing figured out on your own, so there must not be a Higher Power. That it’s all on you. What’s that called? Hubris?”

  I smile at him, thinking maybe I had that coming. Touché, Andrew.

  “The funny thing is, Casey-Lee’s family’s got a little of that attitude from the other side of things, you know? They read the Bible a certain way and think they’ve got all the answers. That they know what God wants and what He doesn’t, and so everybody should act accordingly.”

  He’s already established the ground rules. I’m not supposed to ask about his broken engagement. But is that part of it? Was this evangelical family he was planning to marry into a little too God-focused for the son of a skeptic and a woman who’s about to enter into a gay marriage? Or is that hubris on my part, too?

  “All I’m saying, Dad, is that I accept that I don’t know. But I have faith that my Lord and Savior does, so I’m putting myself in His hands. Humbling myself to a wisdom that’s above and beyond me and praying for His guidance.”

  Atheism as arrogance? Humility as a door that opens onto faith? I’ll have to think about that. What I don’t have to think about is how much I love this kid, this son of mine. I reach over and squeeze his shoulder.

  “Hey, what’s that?” he asks.

  “What’s what?”

  “That thing up ahead at the edge of the water.”

  When I look, I see what he’s looking at: that same carcass I’ve run past for the last few days, and on my walk with Ariane the day before. “Dead seal,” I tell him. “We better give it a wide berth. Doesn’t smell too pleasant.”

  “A shark get him?” he asks.

  “Could be. Whatever it was, the gulls have pretty much picked over the leftovers. Now it’s the flies’ turn.” I glance up at the sky. From the position of the sun, I’d say it’s somewhere around four o’clock. We
’ll have to start back pretty soon. “Hey, for dinner? How does lobster sound?”

  “Sounds great,” he says.

  “Tracy’s coming over,” I tell him. “She wants to meet you guys. Hope that’s okay.” He nods, not smiling. Says he guesses so. Maybe it’s too much at once. Tonight his dad’s new girlfriend, tomorrow his mother’s wife.

  “You sure? Because I can call her and cancel out if you’re not up for it.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. Ari says she’s nice. She’s up here studying the sharks, right?” I nod. Ask him how he’s feeling about going down there for the wedding. He shrugs. “I’m still not crazy about the idea, but, hey, it’s her life, right? It is what it is.”

  “Well, I know it’ll make her happy that you’ve made the effort.”

  “Yeah. She just better not ask me to give her away or anything.”

  “I doubt she will. And if she does, just tell her you wouldn’t be comfortable doing it.”

  “I just wish you were going, Dad. I get why you wouldn’t want to, but, I don’t know, it’d just be easier if you were there.”

  “Yeah, well . . . Tell me. Did your girl and her family know that your mother is marrying a woman?”

  “Casey-Lee did. I don’t know about her parents. I sure as hell didn’t tell them.” He picks up his pace, runs a little ahead of me. When I catch up, he starts talking about Marissa. “Did you see how bent out of shape she got when I asked her if someone smacked her? I was only kidding, but from her reaction, I wonder if maybe it did happen.”

  “Probably not,” I tell him. But now I start wondering again, too.

  “I mean, if some guy hurt her and I thought she’d cough up his name, I’d go down there while I’m out here and take care of business. Find him and beat the shit out of him.”

  “Yeah, that would be a smart move. Then when they hauled you in and let you make a phone call, you could notify your commanding officer that you’ve been detained by New York’s finest. That would go over big. How you doing with that kind of stuff, anyway?”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Managing your anger.”

  “I’m doing fine with it. Why?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you flew off the handle and led with your fists.”

  “Yeah, well, anger’s justifiable sometimes. You know?”

  “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.” I probably should have shut my mouth at that point, but I didn’t. “Did you ever try and connect the dots between your anger and your mother’s? Think that maybe, when you’ve gone out of control, it’s because she used to do that with you?”

  “Dammit, Dad. Give it a rest, will you?” He pulls his tank top over his head and throws it in the sand. “Fuckin’ hot out here,” he says. “I’m going in.”

  Watching him enter the water, I’m struck by how fit he’s kept himself. Broad-shouldered and narrow at the waist, his back well muscled. He really could give some guy a pummeling. When he’s up to his knees, he plunges headfirst into a cresting wave. I throw my own shirt on top of his and head in, too. The water’s cold at first, but I take a deep breath and go under. By the time I surface again, it feels good. No, better than good. Feels great. Refreshing. Wasn’t this one of the reasons why I wanted to come up here? So that this crisp salt water could cleanse me of the past year?

  Andrew swims up beside me. “Hope there’s no great whites around here,” he says. I tell him it’s doubtful—that there have been a couple of sightings up here in the waters off Truro, but most of them have been spotted down around Chatham where the seals congregate.

  For the next several minutes, we swim side by side, neither of us speaking. “What do you say we head back now?” I finally suggest. “Your sisters are probably wondering where we are.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he says. Back on the beach, we grab our shirts and start jogging back. Then, out of the blue, he says, “I’m going to pray for you, Dad. Ask Jesus to help you.”

  “Help me do what? See the light and become a believer?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not so sure He cares whether you believe in Him or not. But you’re a good man. He knows that. I’m just going to ask Him to help you find peace in your heart.”

  For the next several steps, I mull over what he’s just said. A good man . . . peace in my heart. What happens next is unpremeditated. I pull up short, bend over, and put my hands on my knees. He stops, too. “Dad? You okay?”

  It comes spewing out of me like a bellyful of bile: what I let happen that night in Jasmine Negron’s apartment, her trumped-up charge of sexual harassment and my colleagues’ reaction to it. And then Seamus’s suicide and my abrupt resignation, my decision to put the house on the market and move into that dinky little apartment that was making me crazy. “I just never expected that she’d bail on me,” I say, my effort to fight back tears a losing battle. “But it’s not all on her. I neglected her, took her for granted. She had a right to seek out her own happiness. But with a woman? It’s unmoored me, you know? All of it. The divorce, the accusation, quitting my job.” I point toward the open sea. “It’s like I’m adrift out there. Treading water, getting tired as hell but not knowing what I’m supposed to swim toward. Which way’s going to put me back on solid ground.”

  He squats down beside me, puts his arm around me. “Take it easy. Take some deep breaths,” he says. Even in the state I’m in, the irony hits me. How many times have I given kids in crisis this exact same advice?

  When I stand up straight again, more or less composed, I swipe my arm across my wet eyes. Look over at him and apologize for my outburst. “You’ve got enough on your plate without having your old man go to pieces on you. Dumping my crap on top of yours.” He says he’s glad I told him. Assures me that it’s going to be okay. “Yeah? You think so? I hope you’re right.”

  “Maybe this desperation you’re feeling is a gift from God,” he says. I look over at him, confused. “Maybe it’s a doorway you’ve got to step through to get to something new. Something better that’s waiting for you and is going to heal your suffering. Like it says in Jeremiah, ‘a balm in Gilead.’ ”

  He’s proselytizing, I know, but that’s okay. “Desperation as a gift, huh? A door? You’re getting to be a pretty deep thinker, you know that?”

  He smiles. Says no one’s ever accused him of that before. Then he says something that almost sets me off again. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too. Thanks for letting me spill my guts. Just don’t say anything to your sisters, okay? Jasmine’s not much older than you guys. I don’t want them to think their father’s a dirty old man.”

  “They wouldn’t think that,” he says. “But I won’t say anything. This is just between you and me. You ready?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You want to walk the rest of the way back or run?”

  “Run,” I say. “If we’re not back soon, they’re going to send out a search party.”

  When we do get back to the girls, the consensus is that we’ve had enough beach for the day. We head back up the path, shake the sand out of our stuff, get in the car, and go.

  Still thinking about the kids’ visit, I pull up onto Viveca’s driveway. Walking inside, I decide not to go down to the beach after all. I feel too tired to run. And anyway, the place is kind of a mess from their visit. Dishes on the counter and in the sink, sheets balled up at the foot of the stairs—the ones the girls slept on. I was going to make up the bed in the other room up there, but Andrew had ended up sacking out downstairs on the couch. Didn’t even go up on the second floor while he was here, I don’t think. If he had, I wonder if he’d have recognized those paintings that he and his buddies had pulled out when they were up to no good down at the house out back where Jones and his brother had lived. Probably not. He must have become sexually active pretty soon after that, and real girls’ breasts would have been much more interesting than the misshapen ones in those paintings. The floor feels gritty under my sandals—sand from
the beach yesterday. I take the upright vac out of the closet. I’ll throw the sheets and their towels in the machine and do a wash. Then I’ll vacuum up the sand before it scratches her hardwood floors. In a minute, that is. I flop down on the couch. Look over at the end table and spot the red cell phone sitting there. Marissa’s. It’s plugged into the charger, which is plugged into the wall socket.

  Love shack, baby love shack . . . And there’s my phone. I get up, go into the kitchen. It’s on the counter. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Annie says. “It’s me. I’m calling to see if the kids have left yet.”

  “Uh, yeah. We went out for a late breakfast. They took off about twenty minutes ago. They should get in somewhere between two and three unless they hit traffic at the bridge.” She asks me how the visit went. Fine, I tell her. Great. “You at the house yet?”

  En route, she says. She’s calling from a rest stop on the Merritt Parkway. Says she’s driving up with her housekeeper and her little boy, and that they had to use the restroom.

  “Quite an entourage, eh? You three and Viveca.”

  She says Viveca drove up from the city the night before and is already checked in at Bella Linda—that she wanted to make sure everything was in place for the wedding.

  “And you invited the housekeeper and her son? That’s nice.” She says she hired Minnie to help out with things, and that her kid came along because his babysitter ducked out at the last minute. “Ah. So what did you do? Rent a car?” Yes, she says. But she’s not driving. Ordinarily she would have, but instead she’s hired one of the doormen in her building to take them. “I can’t say this too loud, because he’s right outside having a smoke. He got fired last weekend for coming in late, and he could really use the extra money. So I said, what the heck. Highway driving makes me nervous anyway.”

  I picture the doorman I talked to last year when I went down there to the San Gennaro festival. Waited for her and Viveca to come down because I didn’t want to go up there to their apartment. He was affable, I remember. Wonder if that’s the guy. “Looks like you’ll have decent weather tomorrow,” I say. “Low eighties they’re saying. Low humidity.”