In that space between wakefulness and asleep, between dream and reality, Gabe stands before her. Hope springs up, a crocus in dark earth. Maybe this time, in this dream, she’ll get near enough to ask him why. Then she’ll know who to look for as she scans faces without meaning to, day after day.
But, no. In her dream she is nearly buried alive in a pile of notes raining down from the sky. All of them say, “Mae, I’m sorry.”
Paper airplanes are a lost art. Try making one. It’s harder than you think.
Gabe is drunk. He can hear Natasha talking to him but he knows she isn’t there. Until you either make her real or exorcise her, you won’t be whole, she says, over and over.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to find Mae, not that he hasn’t thought about her every day forever, not that her name doesn’t surface at moments he can never predict, felling him with the strength of it, the strength of her, even after all this time. He could look her up on the Internet, he knows, but also, he can’t. On the last night he spent in Alex Bay, Mae’s grandmother, Lilly, had made it clear that he should stay away. Forever. And he respects it because he has to. If he had a daughter or granddaughter and a guy like him was sniffing around—well, he would have done the same thing, or worse.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss her, even now. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Natasha is right, yet again. He loved Mae. Probably still does love her, for what it’s worth.
He can remember her so easily, in all her incarnations: first, a little girl with messy curls asking him—him!—if he wants to come over and play; then a young girl with glasses and braces and freckles; then a teenage girl with tawny-brown eyes and a sunshine smile that one day, out of nowhere, makes him see the good in a world he always thought was against him. Then a girl with skin that turns from ivory to pale bronze as the seasons change, like winter giving way to spring giving way to the gold of summer, except where her bathing suit straps go. There: the white lines on her shoulders, cultivated by sunlight and the straps he wants to gently push away, to reveal soft shoulders that sometimes peel after long, hot days. He came to know that skin, all of it. Indelible, the mark that skin left upon him.
He’s staring at the water stains again. This is why Natasha left him. Because she knew that as soon as it was officially over between them he would end up on an epic bender, the highlight of which was thinking about someone he hasn’t seen since he was eighteen.
What a fuck-up he is. Maybe he should go for a walk or something, get out of this apartment, dump the bourbon down the sink, break the vicious cycle—but then his phone rings. He looks at the number, sees the area code, reflexively hits the decline button because it’s an Alex Bay number and how can that even be possible? Can’t be his father, whom he hasn’t spoken to since he left. And it can’t be . . . anyone else. He drinks more bourbon, gets up and starts to pace. But eventually he can’t stop himself from listening to the message.
A throat clear. “Hello, Gabriel, it’s George Summers calling . . .”
Would Gabe have recognized his voice after all these years if he hadn’t said his name right away? He sounds much older, his voice a little reedy, but, yes, he would have known his voice anywhere, the cadence of his words: careful, measured, kind. “I found your number because—well.” Another throat clear. Then he starts talking faster, as if he were nervous. “Your father has been carrying your number around and I thought I ought to try to get in touch because— Now he’s asleep and I’m with him and . . . I think you need to know that Jonah is not well. And he needs help, and I don’t mean because he’s been drinking. He’s not drinking. I thought you’d want to know that. Gabe—the other thing is, seeing your number made me realize that . . . I hope you’re well. I’ve always wondered how you are. I’d like to see you—I just hope you’ll come. Bye, then.”
Gabe listens to the message again. He puts the phone down. He swore when he left home that he’d never go back, not for anything. Now George is telling him that Jonah has stopped drinking. Isn’t that wonderful? Gabe drinks enough for the both of them at this point, and he can’t see George in his current state, or ever. And what the hell is George doing hanging around with Jonah anyway? Nothing makes any sense. You’re drunk. Didn’t happen. He picks up the bottle again. He drinks almost all of it in an endless gulp that makes his throat and chest feel like they’ve been filled with gasoline, then ignited. He pours the rest of the bourbon over the phone and watches the screen go black. A few minutes later, he passes out.
Watch the rain fall on the river from the screened-in porch.
The last time George looked Jonah in the eye was thirty years ago, after Virginia died. Jonah had come to the door of the inn and banged hard.
“He killed her!” Jonah had shouted, over and over, when George answered.
“Be quiet!” George said. “Calm down, right now! My wife is sleeping.” She had not slept for days, and finally, she was out. It was precious, this sleep, and he couldn’t allow Jonah to interrupt it. He led Jonah out to the porch, closed the door behind them. “Now, what are you talking about?”
“Gabe killed her. My boy. He killed them both,” Jonah said, and then he had told George a tale that had no merit, that disgusted George even now when he thought about it, that a grown man could blame a child for an accident, when it was Jonah’s fault, or no one’s. Or when it was George’s fault alone. He shook with anger, and he shook with shame.
When Jonah was finished, George composed himself and said, “I’m taking him. I’m taking Gabriel away from you, Jonah. I’m going to the cabin in my boat right now, and I’m getting him and I’m bringing him here, and this is where he’s going to live.” Never in his life had he been so prepared to hurt another person. He doesn’t like to think about what he would have done if Jonah had fought him on it. He didn’t consult with Lilly on this decision; he didn’t have to. He knew she’d agree because there were only so many times you could see a little boy bruised the way Gabe was sometimes bruised, and know it was happening at the hands of a father who drank too much to know better, or perhaps had never known better, and not do a damn thing about it. Maybe if someone had saved Jonah from his own abusive drunkard of a father years before, things would have been different. But they weren’t different.
Lilly and George spoke of it only briefly, later. He told her what Jonah had said and he told her he wanted them to take Gabe in, for good. She closed her eyes, then opened them and explained the steps. George had been about to leave the room and set about the somewhat complicated business at hand, to add this to the pile of things he never discussed with his wife—another item buried in their graveyard of painful subjects—but found he couldn’t.
“How did you know all this, where I would need to go and what I would need to do?”
“Virginia,” Lilly said. “In the hospital, before she—she asked me to take care of him. So I asked Viv to look into it for me.”
For many years George had been glad to know this. But his guilt surrounding Virginia was not to be so easily pacified. That awful business with Gabe and the money, that sad, confusing night and the days that followed with Gabe gone and Mae heartbroken—all that happened.
George needed to avoid looking at Jonah when he saw him on the street after that, needed to pretend he was no one, and especially not the father of the boy they claimed as their own. It worked, somewhat. So long as you didn’t get too close to him, you could forget that a man such as Jonah Broadbent existed.
But then, just last week, Jonah walked into town and checked into The Ship. One morning, when George was sitting at Cathy’s café drinking his coffee and trying to do the crossword, he saw Jonah shuffle over to a nearby table. George stood to leave, folded up the crossword, threw money on the table, passed Jonah’s table with his head held high. Except he couldn’t help it: he looked at him. And Jonah’s face was different. His eyes were—the only word George could use was dead.
“Jonah?” he found himself saying.
“D
o I know you, sir?”
“Of course you do. George Summers.”
Jonah shook his head. “Sorry. Doesn’t sound familiar. Would you like to sit?”
George did sit, and every single person eating breakfast or drinking coffee in that restaurant stared.
“I know you because you knew my”—the word daughter halted him—“because you knew Virginia. And also because . . . because I knew your son quite well. Gabriel. Gabe. He lived with us.”
Jonah shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anyone named Virginia. And I don’t have a son.”
Jonah was not feigning. George could see that plainly. And he wasn’t drunk either. He was just lost.
“Would you like a saltine?” Jonah asked. “I always ask for extra, but I got a few too many, and I don’t want to waste them.” Jonah’s hand shook badly as he passed George the little packet.
“Thank you.” George took one out, chewed, swallowed. He tried to think of what to say next, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Jonah seemed happy just to have him sitting there.
“See you tomorrow?” he asked a little later, his voice full of hope.
“See you tomorrow.”
The next day at Cathy’s, Jonah asked, “How long have you lived in Alex Bay?”
“My whole life,” George said. “You?”
“Awhile.” That blank, vulnerable look.
“I think you might need a doctor. Can I take you to the doctor?”
Jonah shook his head. “No. Don’t need a doctor. Don’t have any money.”
“You were in Vietnam.”
“Wasn’t in Nam.”
“Yes, Jonah. You were. So you should have some veteran’s benefits. I can help you with that.”
The waitress came over with a fresh pot of coffee and more saltines. They sat in silence and George thought about how angry Lilly would be at him right now if she could see him sitting here with Jonah. And, if the rumor mill was as well oiled as it always had been in this town, she’d know about it soon enough. “Let’s go see a doctor,” he said again, gently.
“No,” Jonah replied. “No doctor.”
George thought about Gabe, too. Impossible to make anything up to the boy from such a great distance in time. But it felt like he was trying.
It was a few days later when Jonah took the phone number out of his pocket. He said, “You mentioned that I had a son the other day. And I said I didn’t, but the thing is—I have this.” He unfolded the piece of paper and handed it to George. “I used a computer at the library, and I found it on a website. He does art of some kind—do you remember those comic books he would make? His number was there, and a picture of him, too. The librarian helped me find it. Him. Who you said. Gabe.”
Jonah’s hands were especially shaky that day as he put the slip of paper back in his breast pocket. George walked him back to The Ship later, and helped him to his room, where Jonah lay on the bed and almost immediately fell asleep while George stood in the door frame, not sure what to do.
He walked over to the bed and looked down at Jonah. And in a move so fast it felt like a reflex, he reached into Jonah’s breast pocket and took out that piece of paper. It wasn’t his to take. But Lilly’s keepsake box hadn’t been his to take either. When the paper was in his hand, he felt there was nothing else to do but shove it in his pocket and leave the room.
Except there was something else to do. George called Gabe. He heard the boy’s voice. He asked him to come back. He asked him to come home because it was what he wanted, and he didn’t think about how Lilly was going to feel. And that felt damn good.
Plan what you’ll do on your next trip here. You’ll be back. This place has a magnetic pull. You’ll see.
Mae, we have confirmation that Bradley was on a flight to Cape Town Tuesday night. But the South African authorities then lost track of him.” In the distance, Mae hears a phone ring, car horns honking outside, someone coughing. There is a bag at her feet. The landlord came back to the apartment and said it was the last time he was asking. Mae didn’t have the money and this time she admitted it. He told her she had to get out. He said she could have a few hours. She took her wedding dress out of the closet, crumpled it into a ball, shoved it into the bottom of a duffel bag. She packed some other clothes, she packed her mother’s list, she took the dog and some food for him and she left.
“Did he ever mention South Africa? Do you know if he has any connections there?”
“It’s where he said he wanted to go on our honeymoon,” she says. “He was doing a lot of research on it. He said he wanted to find somewhere very remote. Somewhere we could hide away. Then I found this island, Tristan da Cunha. He said he was going to book it once a few checks came in. Maybe that’s where he was heading. To the place we were supposed to go on our goddamn honeymoon.” She laughs, a bitter sound. The looks of pity on their faces are making her sick again. “Look, I can’t keep coming back here. I have to go home. Okay? This is too much, this is more than a human being should be expected to take.” Her voice is rising, she can hear her anger rather than feel it because all she feels right now is numb. “I’ve literally told you everything I know about him, and it’s not much, and I need a break. Let me answer questions by phone or something if you need more from me. But, really, enough is enough!”
They tell her to calm down. They tell her the case is about to be transferred to the FBI; they tell her they won’t need her again until he’s found, if he’s found, if there’s a trial. They tell her she’s free to go, but they don’t ask her where she’s going, and she wishes they had. She would have apologized for shouting at them; she would have thanked them for trying to find him, for at least trying to get the money back for the people who lost it so unwittingly; and she would have told them about the islands, about the legends and lore of her town, about Pirate Bill, about the invention of Thousand Island dressing, about the ghosts, about her dreams.
She would have told them that she was someone else, that there was more to her than this life they had caught a glimpse of, that this was not her, none of it was.
Except she wasn’t sure she believed that anymore.
So instead, she wrote down her grandparents’ phone number and address, and she left.
* * *
Bud slumps on the sidewalk, taking up so much space that people trying to walk past glare at her. Her phone battery is dying, and she left her charger in the apartment. The landlord has changed the locks already; she wishes she hadn’t checked. She stares at the screen for a moment, thinking about whom she could call before it dies. Her grandparents? No. Better just to explain everything, or try to, when she gets home. A friend? But who? All her new friends want an explanation she can’t give, and all her old friends haven’t heard from her in too long. She can’t call anyone and burden them with this. It’s hers to carry, alone.
She stands. Bud walks beside her slowly, stopping to look up at her every few paces. “Everything is going to be fine,” she says. He presses his nose against her leg and she pats his head, pulls him along until they reach a pawnshop. Its front window is filled with jewelry, musical instruments, car stereos. She pushes open the door. “You can’t bring that dog in here,” says a male voice, raspy. Mae backs out and ties Bud to a parking meter, says, “I’ll be right back. Promise.”
“What can I do you for?” The man behind the counter is fat and red faced with small yellow teeth.
Mae puts her hand on the counter. She’s been putting the ring on every day for fear of losing the only thing she has of any value. “It’s a carat and a half yellow diamond, plus the little ones around it, in a platinum setting.”
The man lifts up her hand, flops it back and forth, peers at the stone. His fingers are warm and damp.
“Eight hundred bucks.”
“Come on! It’s worth way more than that.”
He laughs. “Darlin’, that there is no yellow diamond. It’s a yellow topaz. Which is worth a helluva lot less.”
“
But . . . those are diamonds around the”—she grits her teeth against this new information—“topaz, aren’t they? Please tell me those are real at least.”
“They’re real, all right. Real crappy diamonds.”
She takes the ring off and clenches her fist around it. She needs money if she’s going to take the train to Syracuse and then a long taxi ride, since Bud won’t be allowed on the bus. She hasn’t driven in so long her license has expired. Peter always drove. “Fifteen hundred.”
“Not a chance.”
“Thirteen hundred.”
“Nope.”
“Fine. Forget it.” She turns to go.
“Offer stands for eight hundred!” he calls after her. “Your only other option is to keep it on account of the sentimental value. No one will offer you more.”
She returns to the cash register. He opens it, counts out the money, hands it to her.
* * *
On the train, she sits beside a window and looks outside as it gathers speed. She worries about Bud in the baggage compartment, worries about what George will say at the sight of him. Her grandfather hates dogs. Something about the war. Will he make her take Bud to a shelter? It doesn’t seem like something George would do, but she worries about it anyway.
In the seat in front of her a young woman is talking on her cell phone. “Yeah, I’m heading home for a few days. Going to spend some time with the parents before they completely lose it.” The girl laughs and Mae tries not to hate a person she’s never met simply because she doesn’t understand how easy it is to lose people. Mae watches the city lights spooling out and then fading away. Then the city is gone. I’m going to see the river, she imagines herself saying into her cell phone, to some best friend she doesn’t have. I’m going to see my family. And at least there is that: Lilly and George, older and slower but still a reassuring presence in her life, still constant, still something she can believe in.
Things to Do When It's Raining Page 4
