Love Is a Canoe: A Novel

by Schrank, Ben

  “The green really does glow,” Emily said. The canoe’s dark green canvas walls looked fossilized.

  Eli walked onto the dock, which was thirty feet long, made of beautifully weathered wood, with cattail fronds sticking up around the supporting columns. They could see other houses peeking out at them across the lake, from behind trees covered with leaves that had turned flame orange and red and deep brown and plum.

  “Any chance we could go for a ride?” Eli asked.

  Peter looked at Emily and raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Let’s send him out, just for a little while.”

  “Sure thing,” Peter said. “Let me help you bring it to the water. There’s a paddle tucked inside—there it is.”

  “There’s room for the three of us?” Eli asked.

  “How about you go alone,” Peter said. “More fun for you that way.”

  Eli nodded and Emily could see that sounded good to him. He had his hands on the canoe. “Look at this thing,” he said. “Here’s a design that hasn’t changed for well over a century. Wow, look at those ribs. Just beautiful … okay. I’ll take it for a spin and be back in ten minutes.”

  “Take your time,” Peter said. He helped Eli slide the canoe into the water. Eli jumped in and paddled away.

  Emily shivered as they watched him go. She said, “It took him a little while to wrap his head around coming here. He’s being great about it now, though.”

  “He seems like a nice fellow.”

  Eli waved from the canoe. He yelled, “So smooth!” And paddled directly away from them, toward the middle of the lake. They turned and went back to the porch. They sat down on the straight-back chairs on either side of the door and watched Eli paddle.

  “It’s good to give him this break,” Emily said. “I’m sure he’s happy, paddling.”

  “He’s fast,” Peter said. “I can see that he’s never spent time in a canoe before and he’s teaching himself.”

  “I like that about him. He’s adaptable. When I told him this was important to me, to visit you even though winning was so weird, he said yes and never looked back. I have to tell you something. I really did read your book when I was eleven and twelve, when my parents used to fight before they split up. I used to lock myself in the bathroom off their bedroom and read and imagine I was Honey and my parents weren’t about to get a divorce.”

  “My book wasn’t meant for little girls. That must have been a rough time for you.”

  Emily nodded. She said, “I wonder how much reading your book had to do with the work I do now. I explain things for a living. And so do you. Except I explain how stuff works. And you explain love.”

  “Love?” Peter laughed uneasily and turned to Emily. “Now remember, I only try to explain marriage.”

  She only stared at him and she hoped he was able to understand her expression, that she was trying to say there’s no reason to be light with me. What you do is important and I know it and so do you.

  “But what you say about when you were a child reminds me that the same was true for me,” Peter said. “I wrote because of my parents. I created this world up here with my grandparents and wrote about it because of them, because of all the fighting and the anger I had to put up with at home.”

  “Really? I always wondered about that. You shaped the stories to fit what you imagined marriage to be like.”

  “Some of it was real,” Peter said. “Anyway, when I wrote, that kind of shaping was okay. I understand that’s not true anymore.” Peter sighed. She watched him stare straight ahead at the lawn. She looked out but Eli was so far away now. She waved at him but he didn’t see. “Right there, my grandfather did tell me he was sorry about my mother and how things were. He hugged me. It helped. I don’t deny it. But that’s not what matters today. What matters is you and your husband and your future. You two want to be happy. It isn’t complicated.”

  “I wish it weren’t. When I met him I meant for it all to be simple. But it hasn’t been. The way he and I are, I can’t find a way to speak clearly about it. I try to get control of it and it just spins away. Or, he does. But he’s trying not to anymore. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Looks to me like he wants the same things you want. And you’re right. He’s not running away.” Peter nodded at Eli, who was making his way back toward the dock.

  Emily shielded her eyes with her hands. She said, “I hope you’re right.”

  “Today we’ll shape something new, a new way for you two to live. It won’t be perfect. But we’ll construct something safe and good for you. Just like you and I did for ourselves when we were kids.”

  “I’m so happy we won.” Emily stood up. “I would love that. But even if it doesn’t work, don’t worry. I will always be grateful to you for your book, no matter what.”

  “You’re kind,” Peter said. “You and I, in a way we’ve already given one another more than a happy afternoon. Now let’s get started on the hard part.”

  “What a great place,” Eli called out, as he bumped the canoe’s nose on the dock. “Is it very expensive to live out here?”

  “It’s about all I can afford!” Peter laughed. He turned to Emily and said, “Let me help him out and then we’ll go inside. We won’t sit for longer on the porch, not today.”

  After they’d set the canoe back in its place, Eli obediently trooped toward the house. Emily watched him pivot for a moment and then resist his urge to go back and play at the water’s edge, skip stones or just look about for fish or birds or whatever else.

  The three of them went up the back steps and in through the kitchen. The house was perfectly clean. Peter didn’t stop them there, so Emily could only glance at the knotty-pine cabinets and dark wood floor, at a pair of scissors with blue plastic handles on the butcher-block counter next to the apron sink and some flower stems lying in a puddle of water next to them.

  They went into the living room and stopped near a green couch in front of picture windows that looked out on the driveway and the front lawn.

  “I do want to talk broadly with you,” Emily said. “About the way you show love in a story. I want to talk about your gift.”

  “One thing at a time.” Peter looked back at her. “Let’s begin with you and Eli. Later we’ll have dinner together and you can ask me anything you want. I’ll be getting some help with that so you needn’t worry about my cooking! I don’t have a gift for it.”

  “Sweetness?” Eli reached out and touched Emily’s shoulder. “Isn’t this a great house like we were talking about in the car yesterday? Do you want to ask about that?”

  But Emily didn’t look at Eli. She sat down next to him on the couch, but didn’t respond to his touch. Emily could only look at Peter. Maybe they really could get back on the path toward the life she’d once dreamed would be hers. And here was Peter Herman, ready to help them try. His marriage and his life were everything she had imagined for herself, the marriage she would have, the happiness at holidays, all of it. Everything that Eli had nearly wasted was here, in Peter.

  “You helped explain me to myself,” she whispered. Neither man heard her. She turned and felt a flash of pure hope as she looked at Eli.

  “Let’s begin,” she said. “Please forgive how awkward we are. It’s just that I don’t want to waste a single moment.”

  “I should start by saying that I don’t have a philosophy,” Peter said. “Everyone thinks I do, but I don’t. Still, I believe I can be helpful to you.”

  No one spoke. Eli rolled his head back and cracked his neck.

  “What about the line ‘Marriage is a canoe’?” Emily asked. “That’s metaphorical philosophy.”

  “Is it?” Peter smiled. “I think it’s just an aphorism. I only mean that the anecdotes in the book don’t add up to a philosophy. For today, perhaps we could call them more of a point of view, like we discussed out on the porch. Do you see? How really it’s all about being kind?”

  “Please.” Emily waved her hands over her eyes.
“Can we just call it a philosophy?” She looked at Peter and gestured at her husband as if to say let’s keep this simple for his sake.

  “You’re very smart,” Peter said. “All right. It’s a philosophy. Would you like a cookie? They were baked by a friend of mine just this morning. Try the cardamom.”

  “But you just said you don’t have a philosophy,” Eli said. “I’m confused.”

  Emily saw Eli squint. He was a businessman, after all. He could be a little tough when someone was indecisive. And she also knew that for her sake, he wanted what happened at Peter’s house to be valuable. He did not want her to feel cheated.

  “Look,” Emily said. “We’ve been through something bad. We’re not afraid to hear real advice.”

  “I understand,” Peter said. “Forgive me. I’m a little rusty.”

  “Of course we’ll be silent and unable to talk now.” Emily tried to laugh. “It’s my fault. We started in too fast.” She uncrossed her legs, spread her knees apart and then brought them together again. She was wearing corduroys and felt the fabric on her thighs. She could see Eli to her left, crouched over, looking at the palms of his hands.

  “I hope there’s not going to be a photographer?” she asked.

  “Let’s leave all that aside and you start,” Eli said to Emily. “We both know you want to.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I will. I’m going to try again to jump right in even though this is completely awkward. I am going to trust you both.”

  “Go ahead.” Peter spoke through a mouthful of cookie. “You can trust me to listen and to keep your secrets.”

  But she didn’t speak. She could not choose what to say first. She looked at both men. The room was perfect and quiet. She didn’t mind how constructed the moment was. She understood that. It was something else. It would be easier without Eli here, she thought. She glanced at him.

  “I can’t wait anymore. I need to talk,” Eli said. “I am feeling the trust here and so I need to say this. I almost blew up our marriage.” Eli put his hands out in front of him, palms up, like a man trying to find his way in a dark room. “I got too deeply involved with my business and there was this woman—”

  “Jenny,” Emily said. “Who you hired a year and a half ago.”

  “Jenny.” Eli nodded.

  “Wait,” Peter said. “Before you get into that territory. Can you tell me about how you two are together?”

  “Like why we love each other?” Emily asked.

  “Sure. Yes.”

  “You go,” Eli said. “Emily can explain anything to anybody.”

  Emily saw that now Eli was red-faced and looking at his sneakers, possibly angry about having risen to the moment too fast and then been rebuffed just as quickly. Emily wasn’t sure why Peter had shut Eli down. Unless Peter just liked Emily better. And why not? Emily wondered. Peter should like her better. She was the winner and the number one fan.

  “If she can explain anything,” Peter said, “then why don’t you begin, Eli, with what’s good about the two of you. We can talk about what almost went wrong later.”

  Eli brushed his dark hair back and looked up at both of them. His chest was inches from his knees.

  “I can try,” he said. He drew his arms into the little space between his legs and chest so he was constricted and half his normal size.

  “In my life I’m like a workman, head down, a blacksmith working at a bench. I never look up. I just work and make things and try to … celebrate the making of them. And that’s how Emily found me. At the moment in my life when I was building something with my head down. And she, she … showed me the rest of myself. I made her happy, too. I made her laugh and she can be kind of serious a lot of the time so that’s a good thing. So we fell in love because we fit together in a way that’s complementary. That’s how we’re good together?”

  Eli looked at Peter when he was done speaking, instead of Emily. And Emily looked at Peter, too. She was afraid that Peter would accuse Eli of being hopelessly vague and maybe even dull.

  When no one else spoke, Eli slowly allowed his head to hang low, so low Emily thought it must be hurting him. She reached out and touched the back of his head and felt his greasy hair.

  “That was nice,” Emily said. “You’re still my rock star.”

  “I don’t know how to fix it.” Eli didn’t move. “I know what I did wrong. I know I hurt you, Emily.”

  “Soon we’ll want to talk about the problem,” Emily said. “I’m sure of that. But Eli is right. We fell in love for a thousand reasons, but for sure we complement each other and we’re obsessed with each other and he’s the guy for me, you know? But I didn’t know he would put me through such a test.”

  “Eli?” Peter asked.

  “I love Emily. I want us to have children together and grow old together. I don’t want to lose her to some stupid thing.”

  “I have to be so strong.” Emily looked at both of them. She said, “I think I meant that as a question.”

  Peter raised his eyebrows at her. She shook her head as if to say, No, please don’t make me explain myself.

  “Both of you have to be.” Peter brought his hand to his lips, his pointer finger grazing the space above his upper lip. She watched him sweep his hand over his mouth to show he was intentionally being quiet, to show he was listening. She thought the gesture felt fake.

  “You must be parched. And I’ve offered you nothing.” Peter stood up and went into the kitchen and came back with a carafe of water and some glasses on a plastic tray.

  There was a grandfather clock in the hall and Emily could just hear it. She could also hear what she imagined were honking geese out on the lake. She closed her eyes and breathed in. Eli took her hand and she was confused for a moment. She’d forgotten he was next to her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just enjoying being here.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too.”

  “I feel bad about how I’ve been. I want to take it back.”

  Emily shook her head no. But she thought, Yes, I want to keep you. She said, “You can’t. But I feel really good about how this is going.”

  Once Peter had sat back down, Emily said, “This is helping.” She smelled the dusty house. She poured herself half a glass of water and choked it down. “We are healing.”

  “Is there something else?” Peter asked.

  “Is that what you want to ask right now?” Emily asked.

  Peter shrugged. She was surprised. Maybe he had no idea what he was doing! Maybe he didn’t even remember writing the book. She suspected that all he had was the dim memory of a hug from his Pop in the backyard. She wanted to go away right now. Take her infinitely apologetic husband with her. She sat as far forward on the couch as she could. It was past four. When could they go?

  Peter went on, “Okay, let’s leave the other woman out for a while longer. Sounds like she’s in the past. Eli, we’ve touched on the thing, the bad thing. What about you?”

  “What about me what?”

  “Are you happy?” Peter stopped there. She watched his face and saw that he was comfortable with the silence. She changed her mind again. Peter Herman was subtle. He was in control. He was brilliant although at the same time horribly awkward! This was likely part of his brilliance. There was more silence. Emily fought her impulse to talk. Peter could do something she couldn’t do. He could help people discover themselves.

  She smiled at Eli. Likely, he had some problems with her that kept him from always being happy in their marriage. She was certainly aggravated with herself on a regular basis. So it would be good to find out about the parts of her that they could agree they didn’t like. The idea of saying this stuff in front of Peter was even kind of sexy in a way. Maybe they could fetishize her bad habits and at least have that weirdness as something new? The way she could be controlling. They could talk about that.

  “And let’s be honest,” Peter said. “I appreciate how you’ve both been honest so far.”
>
  “Honest.” Eli rubbed at the knees of his jeans. “No, things are good with Emily. She doesn’t do things I don’t like. I love Emily. But I lied to her. I have been a liar. I did sleep with Jenny. We had some times together. It meant nothing and I’m ashamed of myself. We got drunk and it happened. It was meaningless in just the way they say, too. We were at a meeting to get some funding in L.A. and it went really well. We got overexcited and we were staying at the Mondrian and, for some reason, we ended up in bed together. It had been coming for some time—this animal thing. Just a stupid thing. But we got control of ourselves. We stopped. After that, me and Emily grew so formal. I know there’s no excuse. It’s just with Jenny, I—”

  “Why do you keep coming back to her?” Emily asked. “Why can’t you stop doing that?”

  Eli’s mouth was wide open. He said, “I want to flush it out.”

  “Okay,” Emily said. “But can’t you focus on us?”

  Eli stood up and then sat down again. Then he turned to Emily, so Peter couldn’t see him. And he glared at her. The sky had grown dark. It was nearly five in the afternoon. “I want to be forgiven for real. Before anything else happens.”

  “Let’s slow down,” Peter said. “A lot has just been said. Forgiveness is a big deal.”

  Eli kept staring at Emily. She watched his glare fade to pleading. She wondered if, by returning his gaze, she had forced him to hide his secrets. Like a little boy, she thought. But I chose him. I knew he was like that.

  “May I use your bathroom?” Eli asked.

  “Yes, of course. It’s around the corner, in the nook under the stairs.”

  Eli nodded and went out. Peter reached across the table and took Emily’s hands.

  “Can you forgive him?” Peter asked.

  “Yes,” Emily said. “I think so. I love him. In some part of me, I knew this would happen. People find him attractive. They want to take care of him. I knew that when I met him. I can live with it. I was just thinking that. By which I mean, I am saying exactly what I am thinking.”

  Peter nodded. “Your heart is beating loud enough to feel.”