Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

  Tony remembers this: that Marge used to call him her funny lover. Funny lover, stand up straight and dance with me!

  Ann remembers Marge’s song about the rain.

  Does it always rain the day after someone drowns?

  Try this: was there ever a time, Marge, when you were lying in bed watching the television screen fade to black and Tony came in from the bathroom wearing his boxers, smelling fresh from the shower, and he climbed up from the end of the bed, ducked his head under your nightgown, ran his tongue along the inside of your thigh and crotch, kissed you, sucked you, played in you with his fingers, and then pushed in his dick as you lifted your hips? Tony remembers something like that — the wild, mucky fun of it all. Dancing the Watusi in the living room. And of course the money you would give him when he came by for a visit after the divorce — a wad of twenty-dollar bills secured with a rubber band.

  But that was nothing compared to the money you sent to Jenny twice a year. And did Jenny ever pick up the phone to say thank you?

  What is true, what is misremembered, what is a deliberate lie? Who can be trusted? What would you change if you could live your life over? Why didn’t you ever learn to swim?

  What happened, Marge? What did Eddie do to you? He did something terrible, didn’t he? Where is Eddie now? And why won’t Tony get up from the kitchen table and come join Ann and the others at the lake? And who does Dorrie Jelilian think she is, passing around a tray of fudge brownies to the deputies like it’s coffee hour at the Presbyterian church? And that old Rebecca Horton wearing her frisette of white hair — what right does she have to weep? And there’s Joe Simmons leaning against the hood of his car, squinting through the needles of mist as though he expected to see Marge climb out of the water intact. And Mervin, just back from smoking a joint — don’t even think about putting your arm around Ann right now, Mervin!

  Marge, are you there? Ann wants to know what flowers to plant in your garden next spring and who would you name as a friend and why is the dining room window cracked?

  You should tell her what happened. You should tell her how Eddie held you back when you wanted to run after Bo.

  Wherever Eddie is, he will not drive more than five miles over the speed limit, he will keep his registration updated, he will not smoke a cigarette or drink alcohol, and he will find a church service to attend every Sunday. In his own assessment he is devout, not fanatical. He doesn’t have to be born again to experience the grace of God. All he has to do is go his own way — faith will keep him well.

  Listen to the raindrops singing you to sleep.

  There will be talk all right, plenty of talk, there’s no stopping it, the gossip, the accusations and assurances, and every time someone turns around there’s Dorrie Jelilian offering a fudge brownie.

  Marge fell through the ice and the world turned upside down. Now people are standing on their heads, feet in the sky. Is that what it looks like from inside the lake?

  Go ahead, Marge, say it. Tell Ann that yes indeed you saw Tony Templin standing on shore. You saw him, didn’t you, in that moment after you slipped and were falling toward the ice? At least you could have seen him. In that brief suspension, before you plunged into the water, you could very well have seen Tony’s red cap, the one he’d bought at McCurdy’s years ago. Even from a distance of one hundred yards, you could have seen with the kind of clarity possible only in moments of intense fear Tony’s three-day beard and the smirk of his lips, the cigarette dancing between his fingers, even the dirty stains on the knees of his jeans. And if you’d seen that much you would have seen the trees behind him, the gull soaring overhead, the smoky ice, the bruise purpling across your little grandson’s face, the confusion in Bo’s eyes. Isn’t it true, Marge, that as you fell you saw everything there was to see, a confluence that would have to be called miraculous if each distinct part hadn’t been, on its own, so ordinary?

  Tell your daughter what she deserves to know, Marge. Tell her that Eddie Gantz is the reason you are gone.

  First there was the uproar, beginning with Bo throwing food and ending with Ann and Mervin walking out. The startle of unrepentant hatred, the complete sundering, an entire dinner left to grow cold. And all Bo had done was flick a forkful of dressing across the table. Such a streak of wildness in that child, no denying, though after enduring Jenny’s wildness and Ann’s stubbornness Marge didn’t put much stock in discipline. She was always frank about her resignation. Children will do whatever they please. Still, she wasn’t about to tolerate bad behavior on Thanksgiving Day, all the trouble she’d gone to, and if Bo couldn’t mind his manners he’d sit out the meal in his room.

  So maybe Eddie lifted Bo a little too roughly. Maybe he looked like he was trying to pull the boy out of his skin. Still, Marge would have continued to insist that there had been no need for Ann to pounce the way she did, coming up from behind Eddie and slamming her fist against his back, right between his shoulder blades, bam! Oh, the fight that followed, the shouting, the names Ann called her stepfather, pile of shit, fascist, pervert, nothing that had any relation to reality, Marge tried to point out, moving to Eddie’s side to defend him. But Eddie didn’t need anyone’s help. In the same calm voice he used to order meat at the deli he ordered Ann to get out of the house, to get out for good. She shouted that she could do what she liked, she was eighteen years old and her own boss. So Eddie told her to sit down, and Ann yelled that she was getting out of there for good. So out she stomped with Mervin at her heels, and Marge didn’t try to stop them, just as she didn’t try to stop Jenny when she left home. She just folded her arms and scowled as Mervin saluted good-bye and pulled the front door shut behind him.

  The whole meal spoiled, and Marge had worked so hard — that’s what annoyed her in those first minutes of quiet. An eighteen-pound turkey, fresh cranberry relish, sweet potato rolls and pumpkin pie made from scratch. The only person she thought about was herself as she calculated the waste. And her bad mood expanded to include everything she’d ever done, all of it a waste.

  No one cared about you, Marge, no one noticed your efforts. Your fifty-ninth Thanksgiving Day, and look at the mess of your life.

  Marge and Eddie were both silent as they carried dishes into the kitchen and wrapped uneaten food in cellophane. The anger weighed heavily; Marge felt the weight of Eddie’s fury growing, though his face remained as placid as ever. He grew frustrated trying to make space on the cluttered shelves in the refrigerator — he slammed the door shut, leaned against it, and punched his fist into his open hand.

  Marge assured him that everything would be all right, things take time, whatever that meant, and Bo would come around eventually.

  What about the kid? Blowing bubbles, throwing food. The little brown hoodlum. So where was the kid?

  Hiding underneath the table — Marge had to suppress a giggle when she told this to Eddie.

  Now would Eddie stack the rinsed dishes in the dishwasher as he did after every meal? This was the nightly routine, one of many, and Eddie was always reliable. This time, however, he had a more important job to attend to first, a lesson to teach a child who did not understand the range of consequences that follow any significant cause.

  With the dishes piling up on the counter, he abruptly left the kitchen, and Marge turned off the faucet to hear him. A few seconds later he was shouting. What did he say? Marge couldn’t make out his words, heard only the roar of his voice, an animal sound, not hateful exactly, more like the roar of a challenge: Come on and fight! Marge wiped her hands on her apron and hurried into the dining room, arriving just in time to see Eddie raising Bo up over his head.

  Sure she screamed — screamed like nobody’s business — and she caught Eddie’s arm, slowing but not stopping the motion. Eddie heaved that little body across the room, and the side of Bo’s head hit the wall with a terrible thump, then the child twisted so his feet came round and snapped against the window, forcefully enough to crack but not shatter a pane, and his whole body dropped and lay moti
onless. Marge thought for certain Bo was dead. She stared at him, forgetting completely about Eddie, who stood rooted to the floor beside her. She tried to derive from the tumult of her thoughts an adequate response.

  Then Bo began to cry, whimpering at first, then wailing, a beautiful sound, the sound of a newborn baby. Marge threw herself over him, squeezed his arms and legs, smoothed his hair, kissed his face. There was no blood, no obvious injury. Marge could feel his little muscles bunching, his fingers flattening as he tried to push her off. Big fat Grandma Marge. Here she was so full of gratitude she nearly smothered him.

  Maybe Eddie was worried about the same thing, for he pulled Marge up by her wrist, and Bo sprang to his feet as soon as he was free of her weight and ran out of the room. Bo, you Bo! She called to him even as Eddie dug his fingers into the flesh of her arms, she tried to lean to the side to see where Bo was going, she begged him to stop. But the next moment Marge couldn’t speak because Eddie had pressed his lips against hers. Eddie, who hadn’t given her more than a good night peck for years, kissed her with the kind of passion seen in old movies, grinding with closed lips, bending her backward. She felt him shaking, then he straightened and shook his head, gulped a broken sob.

  He was sorry, he said, he couldn’t help himself. Please, please, please. Please, Marge echoed. Please would Marge explain to Eddie what had happened. Please would Eddie let Marge go. Please, Marge, please, Eddie. Please. He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her head away. He grabbed a fistful of hair and held her so she couldn’t move. She tried to slip out from beneath the manacle his arms made, but he held her tight.

  What did he want? He was desperate to want something, to decide for them both what would happen next. How could he have been anything else than desperate after his astonishing loss of control? He was a stranger to himself, and as a stranger he could do anything he pleased. He pulled Marge’s hair, tripped her, and as she fell to the floor he fell over her. She landed on the hardwood floor between the living room and dining room, with the arch of the entranceway looming overhead.

  She tried to fight him off, but this only enraged him, and in his fury he ground the top of his head against her clavicle, breaking it, Marge thought, for she heard a sickening crack, though she didn’t feel much pain there, not yet. She was too busy pounding at him with her hands, tried to wedge a knee between his legs, but he must have realized what she was attempting, for with a strength Marge didn’t know he could muster he flipped her over onto her belly and pinned her to the floor.

  She gave up quickly, but her acceptance came too late, she’d already incensed him, he’d lost his mind, he’d lost himself. He tore and tugged at her clothes and yanked down her panty hose, actions that struck Marge as no worse than bizarre; Eddie was an old man with a weak heart, and just as she could have warned him, a minute later he collapsed in exhaustion.

  He lay on top of her, mucus rattling in his throat. She felt dizzy, her collarbone ached. She tried to remember who Eddie was — someone she knew, but who? This compression of flesh against flesh was improper, she suspected, though she couldn’t think clearly enough to be sure. She tried to remember what they’d been doing before they fell to the floor. With a great effort she traced the motion backward — Eddie had grabbed her hair, before that he’d kissed her, before that he’d grabbed her wrist. And that’s when she remembered Bo.

  Eddie rolled off her when she curved her back, and he lay on the floor like a sack of sawdust, though as she stood he roused himself from his stupor and begged her to stay, even reached out and tried to help her pull up her stockings. He asked her what had happened, what he’d done, as if it were up to her to explain. He said he was sorry, so sorry, couldn’t she see how sorry he was. He began praying softly, still tugging at her sagging panty hose. May the Lord come with all His holy myriads and convict me of my deeds of ungodliness. I will wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. But she easily slipped her leg loose, whirled around, and started to run toward the kitchen, for that’s the way Bo had run, through the kitchen and out the back door, out into the dangerous world.

  She felt nothing for Eddie. It was as though all memory of him had been swept from her mind, and when she turned one last time to see him cowering on the floor, his face buried in his hands as he muttered his prayers, she wondered if she’d ever see him again. She knew what she was supposed to feel. It occurred to her as she slid into her black flats that an acceptable action would be to go up to the man and give him a good strong kick in the jaw. She paused, trying to figure out if she had to do this or if she wanted to do this. She couldn’t decide. And to think that all her life she’d believed she could choose what to feel. So she just left Eddie there and went on, ran out of the house after Bo, and as she’d done every other time she’d gone in search of him, she headed straight for the lake, the place she had come to fear most.

  When the upper layer of a lake cools in autumn, the surface water sinks, its density begins to decrease, and the near-freezing water at the surface turns to ice. Thick ice and snow screen out light, causing winter stagnation, or winterkill. Plants and animals die due to lack of oxygen. The cover of ice prevents the wind from circulating the water. Beneath the surface, the liquid world is dark and still, disturbed only by the occasional form of a pike gliding across the lake in search of food. It is like the inside of an ancient temple that is visited only by centipedes and rats. The stillness seems eerily permanent. Nothing worthy can live in such a place, and the few creatures that do survive here are like phantoms themselves, shadowy, evil, immortal. Except that there is no evil here because there is no true singularity. Water, the universal solvent, dissolves singularity. Everything that exists in a lake is always on the verge of becoming something else. Algae is eaten by mayfly nymphs and beetles, the small insects are preyed upon by fish and dragonflies, birds and mammals eat the fish, and everything that dies and is not eaten turns into protoplasm that becomes food for the plants.

  Marge would be happy here, drifting suspended in the water, free at last of her big, ungainly body, which the divers would retrieve before the freeze. She’d be as happy during the quiet of winterkill as she would be during the spring overturn and the abundant summer, passing continuously with other molecules between plants and animals and the water that sustains them, existing in a state of constant change, dissolving, being absorbed and dissolving again, no part of her untouched by change. Change was total in this world, inexorable, and whoever said change depends upon changelessness didn’t live in water.

  Marge would be happy because all she’d wanted as she drowned was to be free of herself, to leave her singular life behind.

  You want to know about happiness? Happiness is a stone sinking into the water; that’s what Ann would say. If you’re flesh and blood, too bad.

  No, Ann will never swim in Hadley Lake again. But she can’t stop looking at it, searching it for evidence of what has been lost.

  Marge, are you there?

  There she is, rising through the wintery mist on the wings of a wood duck taking off to head south.

  Ann is no fool. She doesn’t believe anything for the sake of comfort. She doesn’t even believe she’s capable of spontaneous feeling. If she feels anything at all it is the sludgy anxiety of being awake for two days. She isn’t hungry or thirsty, she doesn’t love Mervin anymore, and she doesn’t know what she feels about her mother.

  Marge?

  Ann is no fool.

  All Mervin has ever wanted to do is smoke pot and hang out. Now Ann wonders if she’d be better off alone. Marge never liked Mervin anyway and she’d be pleased to know that Ann and Mervin might be on the verge of breaking up. What else would Marge like to know? That Ann isn’t going to let herself fall through the ice. Also, Tony has had nothing but coffee since he’s been back home. Also, Sam and Erma Gilbert arrived at the lake shortly after Joe Simmons and the rescue crew, and Erma rode with Bo in the ambulance up to the city hospital. There would be no more argument about
custody — Eddie doesn’t want anything to do with the kid. Fucking Eddie. Where is he? He left a crack in the dining room window. Left town, left his job, left the state, folks say.

  Marge, please explain to Ann why you married Eddie Gantz.

  At the west end of the lake a hawk plummets through the dusky air and disappears into the marsh. A moment later it rises, beating its narrow wings against the air, clutching only muddy grass in its talons.

  If Ann could have chosen she would have been a turtle, for in aquatic food pyramids they are the top carnivores, feeding on smaller animals but rarely being eaten themselves. Unlike Marge, however, Ann doesn’t think she has much of a choice about anything.

  For example, Ann wouldn’t have chosen to work as a cocktail waitress in Gifferton, but that’s what she does. Marge should have seen her wearing a wrinkled purple tulle skirt and an ostrich feather in her hat. The owner keeps inviting Ann to his house for dinner — luckily she has Mervin as an excuse. Mervin is still useful in some ways, even if his only ambition is to buy a Jet Ski and spend the summer zipping around the lake.

  A brown bittern stepping along the slippery shore stops when Ann coughs. Ann tosses a pebble onto the ice near the bird; it stands stock-still, its tiny legs half submerged in the rainwater that has collected on top of the frozen surface; the bird keeps one black eye fixed on Ann. She whistles at it, but still the bird won’t move. Only when she stomps her clog through the thin lip of ice does the bird take off in a panic.

  That’s as close to swimming in the lake as Ann will ever come. She used to be a strong swimmer and had even competed one season on her high school swim team. Marge had never learned to swim, though she’d lived up the road from Hadley Lake for more than thirty years. Now Ann understands her mother better. All the icky, slippery life within this shallow lake. You have to share the water with fish and water snakes and rats. Yuck! And the bottom inhabited by snails and bloodworms. And the ice! The murky chill! No thank you! Ann plans to keep herself dry and to grow old in a delicate way, like that old Rebecca Horton who lives alone with her parakeets.