Then she let out a warbling animal-like sound that was half scream, half moan as she strode over to the clothes and began picking them up, shaking them out and then draping them over her left arm. Ben watched for a while, not sure what to do next, but then he went over and started helping. He picked up a few items and shook them, snapping the water and muck off as best he could.
“This is absolutely crazy, you know?” he said.
“I know. It’s nuts.”
Louise looked at him, and then a wide smile spread across her face. It looked like dawn spreading across the land. “It’s absolutely fucking out of our skull insane!”
“We’ve lost it,” Ben shouted, and he started laughing, too, at the utter absurdity of it all.
“Out of our ever-loving minds!” Louise wailed.
Ben realized this was the only way to relieve the tension … to see the absurdity of it all and embrace it. So he and his sister made it a game, scooping up clothes that were so saturated with water they were twice their weight, wringing them out and waving them around their heads as they carried them back to the car and threw them onto the backseat. They whooped and hollered and laughed like little kids. All Ben could think was: This is exactly what she needs … This is what we both need.
It took about ten or fifteen minutes to get everything off the lawn and into the car. The last thing Louise did was pick up the screen that had fallen from the upstairs window and set it up at an angle against the house. With a savage giggle, she brought her foot down on it, ripping out the screen and bending the frame beyond repair. To be sure, she kicked it again and snapped it in two places.
“There!” she shouted. “See if the dickhead can fix that!”
Ben was roaring so hard with laughter that his belly began to ache, but the sound of a door slamming open brought both of them up short. The sudden crack of a pistol shot split the air. Louise let out a piercing scream when a clump of damp earth less than five feet from where she stood jumped into the air and then landed with a soft plop at her feet. The sound of the shot was still ringing in Ben’s ears as he turned and looked to the house. Tom was standing in the doorway, but Ben saw a memory from the other side of the world.
A sudden rush of adrenalin surged through him, and he reacted with years of training honed by raw experience in the field.
“Sniper! Get down! Get down!” he shouted as he dashed over to Louise and, grabbing her by the waist, threw her to the ground. He covered her with his body, pressing her flat against the grass.
“What the hell?” she shouted, her voice distorted because he was mashing her face into the grass. She wriggled under him, trying to see under his arm.
Panting heavily, Ben scanned the area, looking up at the rooftop, expecting to see a sniper up there, zeroing in on them with his rifle and scope.
“Jesus! Get off me!” Louise wailed. “I can’t breathe!”
“There’s sniper fire,” Ben shouted as he shifted his full weight off her, but he didn’t let her up. The rain pelted his face, stinging like blown sand. He wanted to make sure they weren’t surrounded by enemy enfilade fire. He eyed the distance to the house, calculating the time it would take to reach it if they ran in a crouch, in a zig-zag pattern …
“I could have you both arrested for trespassing and vandalism,” Tom said. He was standing on the front steps, wearing a thick, black rubber raincoat with the hood pulled down low over his eyes. His service revolver was aimed squarely at them.
Neither Louise nor Ben said a word as they stared at him. The initial rush of adrenaline was slowly seeping away, and Ben began to realize what had happened. He’d had a flashback to combat back in Iraq. He blinked stupidly as reality crept back in. For one thing, it never rained like this in Iraq. His body began to tremble uncontrollably.
“Both of you,” Tom shouted, “get the fuck off my property. Now!”
“This is as much my property as it is yours,” Louise said. She cast a worried glance at Ben as if still unsure what had just happened to him. Her face was smeared with mud from being pushed into the dirt.
As his pulse slowed, Ben was aware of the quaver under his sister’s belligerent tone. He hadn’t been wrong, shielding her with his body. He’d rather take a bullet than let her get shot. He looked from her to Tom, convinced Tom was crazy enough to shoot both of them if they weren’t careful what they said and did next.
“Get back into your fuckin’ car now and get the hell out of here.” Tom’s voice was low and rigid with command. The look on his face convinced Ben he meant business. He raised his hands and slowly got to his feet, then helped Louise get up. She was scowling as she sluiced water and dirt from her arms and chest.
“C’mon, Lou-Lou,” Ben said, moving so he was between Tom and his sister. “He means it. We gotta go.”
But Louise didn’t move. She stood there, glaring past Ben at her husband. She folded her arms across her chest as if that would protect her from any bullets.
“We got what we came for,” Ben said, turning to her and speaking harshly. “Let’s go before this gets any uglier.”
“Oh, it’s gonna get ugly, all right. You wait and see.” Louise spoke in a low, controlled voice that had real iron in it. Then, shaking her fist, she shouted past Ben at Tom. “You wait and see!”
Tom didn’t flinch. A cold gleam lit his bloodshot eyes as he raised the revolver and sighted down the barrel at them. Then he pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past them, whining like a bee above the steady downpour of rain.
“You can’t shoot us in cold blood,” Ben said.
“You think I care? I’m protecting my property. I have a constitutional right to defend my —”
“Shut the fuck up!” Ben shouted.
He was seething with rage and frustration because he knew if Tom didn’t have a gun — or if Ben had one himself — things would be playing out much differently.
“Lou,” Ben said, dropping his voice low. “Go down and get into the car. The keys are in the ignition.”
“Do what your asshole of a brother says,” Tom shouted. “For once, the dipshit is making sense.”
“You are such a jerk,” Louise said, her upper lip curling into a sneer. “You know that? A total limp dick.”
“Get off my property,” Tom said, his voice low and steady.
When Louise still didn’t move, he fired a third shot. This one ricocheted off the side of Ben’s car with a loud whine that left an angled crease in the rear wheel panel above the back tire.
“You gonna flatten my tires again? Is that it?” Ben said.
Louise turned and walked over to the car as slowly and easily as if she were out for a morning stroll.
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned your goddamned tires. I don’t have the faintest fuckin’ clue what you’re talking about, but if you don’t get out of here now …” He waved the gun around, inscribing small circles in the air as if to encourage Ben to move along.
Behind him, Ben heard the car door open and slam shut. Once he knew Louise was safely inside the car, he started backing up, his hands raised, all the while keeping a wary eye on Tom.
“Get the fuck out of here and don’t ever come back,” Tom said.
“I’m gonna file a complaint with the department about this,” Ben said. “You wait and see.”
Tom snorted with laughter and spat onto the rain-soaked ground.
“Look at me shaking. I’m so scared.”
Ben’s body was coiled with tension, and a chill reached deep inside him. He was shivering by the time he got to the driver’s side of the car, opened the door, and sat down on the front seat. Rainwater ran down his face, blurring his vision. He was so tense he thought he was going to vomit, but as he gripped the keys and started the car, the feeling soon passed.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Louise said.
He didn’t need to be told twice.
Ben was glad when Louise agreed that they couldn’t very well show up at Harbor’s Edge soak
ing wet and covered with grass stains and mud, so they went home, started a load of laundry with their muddy clothes, and took showers.
“You still might want to go buy some new stuff,” Ben suggested once they were dressed in clean, dry clothes and sitting in the living room. He was sprawled on the couch. Louise sat in the armchair that used to be their mother’s, one leg slung over the padded arm. Fitful gusts of wind drove rain hard against the windows, making the living room feel warm and cozy with a single table light on casting soft shadows across the floor.
She heaved a deep sigh as she gazed off into the distance, her eyes fixed on the large picture window as she watched the trees across the way bend and sway in the wind. Gray clouds shifted rapidly across the sky.
“It can’t keep up like this for long,” Ben said.
“You mean the rain?”
Ben nodded but realized that wasn’t all he meant. After a lengthening moment of silence, he said, “So … I guess you and Tom’ll be heading for a divorce.”
“You think?”
Louise kept staring out the window, her jaw muscles clenching and unclenching as though she was chewing a wad of gum. The patter of rain hitting the picture window sounded like tiny pellets hitting the house. Ben exhaled as he eased back on the couch and closed his eyes. He wanted to relax and absorb everything that had happened this morning. He was particularly concerned about the flashback — there was no other word for it — he’d experienced when Tom shot at them.
He was still angry enough about being shot at that he considered reporting the incident to the police. If it hadn’t been raining so hard, he might have gone down to the station right then, but he convinced himself that it wouldn’t do any good. In a small town like The Cove, the police department wouldn’t do a damned thing. They’d take his complaint, file it away, and then forget about it. Ultimately, nothing would come of it. That’s how things worked.
If Ben was going to get even with Tom — and he had every intention of doing so — he was going to have to do it on his own terms.
The only question was how and when?
He thought to call Julia and see how she was doing. He wanted to understand what had happened last night at her place, but the way he had reacted out at Tom and Lou’s house only made matters worse. He wished there was someone to talk to about it all — his sister, his brother, his father, Julia, or a friend — anyone, but he was absolutely alone with this. The anxiety and stress churned and twisted in his gut as if he’d gulped down a gallon of spoiled milk.
As if she was reading his mind, Louise spoke.
“So you gonna talk to someone about this war stuff? The dreams and whatever the fuck happened today?”
“What dreams?”
Fucking Pete and his big mouth, thought Ben
“Pop told me last night, after you left. He hears you at night. And then the other night you thought everyone was under attack or something and you were sleepwalking — “sleepcrawling,” he said — all around the room looking for your rifle and screaming to wake the dead.”
“Lou-Lou, I’m readjusting to being back in civvies after four years.”
“The hell! You never talk about what you did over there. I watch the news. I read the newspaper. I know about guys who lose it and go crazy over there and rape and kill people or off themselves. I’m not stupid. I’m worried about you, Ben. I really am.”
They sat in silence, listening to the storm. Sometime later, a car pulled into the driveway, the tires crunching on the gravel.
“Goddamn! If that’s him … I swear to Christ,” Louise said.
In a flash, she was out of the armchair and running to the front door. She was trembling as she looked out one of the sidelights. Ben got up from the couch, but before he reached the door, he heard Louise call out, “It’s only Pete.”
Moments later, their brother clomped up the steps to the kitchen door. Relieved, Ben and Louise went back into the living room and sat down.
“Christ on a crutch,” Pete muttered. He slammed the kitchen door shut behind him hard enough to make the pictures on the living room wall vibrate. He stomped his feet a few times and then he scuffed them on the throw rug; but Ben knew from a lifetime of experience that Pete wouldn’t remove his shoes — no matter how wet and muddy they were — before he walked into the living room.
Sure enough, Pete walked in, leaving wet, dirty streaks in the entryway and on the carpet.
“You raised in a barn or something?” Ben said, indicating the mud on the rug.
“Screw you. This ain’t your house.”
Obviously Pete hadn’t forgotten or forgiven that punch in the gut last night. The way Ben was feeling right now, he’d be damned if he was going to apologize.
“What you two been up to?” Pete asked as he dropped down onto the other end of the couch, bouncing it hard enough to irritate Ben.
“Nothing. You?” Ben said.
Pete shrugged but didn’t say a word.
“Still on the outs with Mona?” Louise asked.
Pete frowned and shook his head. He looked like he was about to say something, but then he got up off the couch and, without another word, clomped into the kitchen. Ben and Louise listened as he knocked around, getting himself something to eat.
“We out of mayo?” he shouted from the kitchen.
“There’s some in the cupboard, I think,” Louise said with a tone in her voice that asked: Why is it always the woman who knows these things?
They heard Pete walk over to the cupboard and open the door, but then he called out, “Christ. There’s just this mother-fucking industrial-sized jar. Why does Pops buy these big fucking things?”
“Saves money, I guess,” Ben shouted back, thinking it was just like Pete not to offer to make a sandwich or something for them.
“Not if half of it spoils before you use it.” They heard the clink of a dish and glass as he set them out on the counter. “So what happened to your car?” Pete called out.
Louise started to say something, but Ben caught her attention and hushed her with a quick wave of the hand.
“What d’yah mean?” he said.
“You got one helluva dent on your rear panel. Looks like you might’ve been hit by a bullet.”
With that, Pete leaned around the edge of the doorway and looked at Ben as though trying to gauge his reaction. Ben shrugged as if he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Someone takin’ pot shots at you now?” Pete said.
Ben caught the malicious glee in Pete’s eyes, but he still played the innocent.
“I’ll have to check it out once it stops raining,” he said.
Before Pete said anything more, the telephone rang. He shouted, “I got it,” and disappeared from sight. Ben, who was sitting on the edge of the couch, eased back against the cushions while exchanging meaningful glances with Louise.
“Why not tell him?” she asked.
They heard Pete say into the phone, “What? … Right now, you mean?”
Ben frowned and shook his head.
“’S none of his business,” he said. “That’s why.”
“You afraid he’ll say something to Tom?”
Ben pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Jesus Christ!” Pete said, and then they heard a heavy clang as he slammed the phone back onto the hook. After some muffled sputtering and other noise as Pete slammed around, knocking things over and throwing things around, Ben called out, “What’s the problem?”
At first, Pete didn’t reply. He kept banging things around, making one hell of a racket. Then he stormed into the living room, his face pinched with anger.
“Fuckin’ Pops.”
“What about him?” Louise asked, looking suddenly fearful.
Pete glanced at her, then at Ben, and then he looked out the window. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, looking like he was about to punch a hole in the wall.
“He wants me to come down to the wharf.”
“Now?�
�� Ben asked.
Pete nodded, too angry to say anything more.
“He can’t be heading out.” Ben looked at Louise as if for affirmation. “It’s stormin’ a bitch. Did he say what he wants?”
“Fuck, no. This is Pops we’re talking about.”
Ben cast another quick glance at Louise and then said to Pete, “How ’bout we all grab a quick lunch, and we’ll go with you?”
Pete didn’t say a word as he turned and strode back into the kitchen. They heard him kick the cupboard door shut hard enough almost to split the wood.
“It’s always something, isn’t it?” Ben said, smiling thinly as he looked at his sister.
Chapter Fourteen
Undertow
Louise decided to stay at the house and keep the laundry moving while Ben and Pete went down to the wharf to see what their father wanted. As soon as they were out the door, though, fearing the worst from Tom, she went up to her father’s bedroom and got the shotgun from his closet. She and her brothers had known it was there since they were kids. A few times — when they were sure their father would be out lobstering all day and their mother was off running errands — Ben and Pete had taken the gun and gone out to the dump to shoot cans and bottles and — if they were lucky — some rats.
After loading it with shells from a box on the top shelf, she went back downstairs, confident now that she could protect herself if Tom was stupid enough to show up at the house. She hoped he wasn’t that far gone, but she kept the shotgun close by her side, carrying it from room to room as she set about dusting and tidying up just to keep herself busy. When she went down to the basement to get the first load of laundry from the dryer, she brought the gun with her. She filled the laundry basket and was bending over to shift a load from the washer to the dryer when the telephone started ringing upstairs. She ran over to the foot of the cellar stairs but stopped before going upstairs to answer it.
“Go fuck yourself,” she whispered, positive it was Tom calling to harass her.
The Cove Page 27
