“Will you stop telling me what to do all the time? Jesus Christ! You don’t control me!”
Ben didn’t know what to say, and he was in a quandary about what to do next. If he swam out to his brother and there was a struggle, they’d both end up going under. But it was obvious Pete was well past reasoning.
He had to do something.
But a dreadful sense of helplessness and hopelessness filled Ben, and he couldn’t help but confuse what was happening now with what he had gone through in Iraq — especially one night in particular.
“You can’t do this to me, Pete,” he shouted, fighting back the panic that twisted inside him like a fouled rope. “You can’t do this to me or to Pops or to Louise!”
“The fuck I can’t,” Pete said in a voice that had the vocal equivalent of the thousand-yard stare.
“This is because of Julia, isn’t it?”
Pete stopped treading water and turned to look back at his brother. The tension crackled between them like a lightning charge leaping from sky to earth and back to the sky.
“Who?” he said sarcastically
“You know goddamned right it is. You just won’t admit it.”
“I could give a shit about that bitch.”
Ben strained, trying not to yell. If they had been on solid ground, they’d be at each other’s throats by now. He stopped himself before he said what he was going to say and simply said, “Look, Pete. Get back to the boat. We can hang on … Together.”
Pete snorted and spat. After a long, tense silence, he started swimming back to the boat, moving slowly as though every motion took great effort. When he got to the boat, he clamped the flats of his hands against the overturned hull and rested his cheek against the slick, wet surface. He was panting like a racehorse.
In the gloom, Ben watched Pete staring at him, his eyes wide and as blank as marble. His hair was plastered in dark, wet ringlets against his pale forehead. Ben’s immediate concern — for both of them — was that hypothermia would get them before the sun came up and warmed them.
“It’s not about her,” Pete said in a low, panting voice. “It has nothing to do with her.”
“Then why was her number in your cell phone directory?”
Pete exhaled with a loud, blubbering sound.
“Because she was the finest thing I’ve ever seen, and I … I had to try.”
“So you jumped me that night out behind The Local, and you slashed my tires at Sand Beach, hoping to scare me off.”
No answer.
“Come on, Pete. I know it was you.”
“I was hoping she … she’d give me a chance.” Pete’s voice was strained to the breaking point. “And then — Bang! You come home, and she falls all over you. Like I said … I’m always second place.” Pete made a noise that sounded suspiciously like he was crying. “I went to her house tonight. I waited until after you left. I was so pissed off, you know what I was gonna do? I was gonna beat her face so ugly you wouldn’t want her anymore. But I couldn’t do it, man. I couldn’t do it.”
He let out a deep animal groan and then fell silent. For a long time, the sloshing of the waves was the only sound.
“S’ok, Pete,” Ben said after a while. “I’m not pissed. Honest. We’re brothers.”
He felt sick to his stomach thinking about what Pete had almost done to Julia, but now was not the time to straighten him out. They had to get through this ordeal first. Then they could settle whatever needed to be settled about Julia and the rest of it.
Pete was quiet, his eyes closed.
“Pete … It’s OK … Really …”
He hoped Pete knew he meant it, but he didn’t think he was getting through. The fear that he would lose his brother pierced his chest like a cold iron rod. After everything their family had suffered recently, he didn’t think their father or any of them could handle another loss.
Pete remained silent as he turned away from Ben while clinging to the boat. His shoulders shuddered from the cold and wet, and whenever he exhaled, a high-pitched whistling sound filled the darkness.
The stars wheeled around overhead, and the tiny slip of a moon gradually set into the west, but Ben felt like they were frozen in time … like prehistoric insects, trapped in globs of amber. The cold cut through him and as the minutes and hours passed — if they were really passing at all — the lower half of Ben’s body gradually went numb. He kept kicking his feet to restore the circulation, but he was increasingly convinced neither one of them was going to survive the night.
“What time’s it now?” Ben asked, but Pete didn’t reply. He didn’t even move. Ben had the sudden panicky thought that his brother had already died and was still clinging to the boat.
“Hey!” he called out. His voice sounded infinitely small against the vast ocean and night sky.
Pete didn’t move or speak.
Panic surged up inside Ben. He let go of the boat and started paddling over to his brother. His hand was numb and shaking out of control as he reached up and grabbed Pete by the waist. His wet clothes felt like they had been dipped in cement.
“You okay, man?” Ben asked, bringing his face close, searching for some sign of life.
Relief flooded him when Pete rolled his head around and stared at him. His eyes were glazed, and his mouth was split with a thin, cruel smile.
“Always the big hero,” he said. When he laughed, it sounded hollow. “Always taking care of me as if I can’t take care of myself.”
“I want you to hang on, Pete. “You have to! I’m not gonna lose you now!”
“Why the Christ is it so important to you?”
The exhaustion and resignation Ben heard in his brother’s voice pained him. His first thought was that he didn’t have to answer that. Wasn’t it obvious? Pete knew the answer as well as he did. They were family, and family stuck together, no matter what.
Especially at times like this.
“You wanna know why? You really want to know why?” Ben said.
Pete didn’t answer him. The only sound was the steady wash of waves against the side of the boat and their labored breathing.
“Because of what happened — because of something I did in Iraq.”
“You honestly think I give a shit about that?”
Pete’s words stung him, but if any time was a time for confession, it was now, when they were both facing imminent death.
“It was a day like any other.” Ben grimaced at the memory of how boring his tours of duty had been. “We were on patrol on the outskirts of some God-forsaken town in Anbar when we came under fire. Our orders were to drive right through, but the tail end of the convoy started taking fire.”
“You know what?” Pete said. “I really don’t give a rat’s ass about any of this.”
“I know you don’t, but you’re gonna listen because I’m telling you, and I’ve never told anyone else. Everyone — Pops, Lou, everyone in the whole friggin’ town thinks I’m a goddamned war hero, but you know what I did?”
He paused. The silence that engulfed them was his only answer. At this point, though, it didn’t matter if Pete was listening or not. It was imperative for Ben to say these words … to speak them out loud. By saying them for someone else to hear, maybe he would exorcise them … maybe they would lose their power over him … and maybe the guilt and shame he felt would at least begin to dissolve. Maybe then the nightmares and panic attacks would stop.
“I had my orders. My goddamn orders. I kept driving,” he said, the words burning in his throat like he’d swallowed a huge gulp of seawater. “I didn’t have the balls to defy my orders and turn back to help them.”
Ben’s memory flashed to the faces inside the Humvee — Rodriguez, Walters, Perry — their eyes burning into him … piercing through him and seeing him for what he really was — a coward.
“We have our orders,” he had barked to his men as a mortar round thumped to the left, landing close enough to punch the side of the vehicle like an invisible fist. The Humvee b
ehind them disappeared in the dust kicked up by the explosion.
Memories welled up inside him like molten lava, and shame bit so deeply into him he gasped.
“This … this was my fuckin’ platoon! These were my buddies! We counted on each other for our lives, and I … I didn’t go back for them. I couldn’t. I deserted them because, I told myself, I was following orders. I kept driving like a fucking maniac to get the four of us out of there. And because of that … because I didn’t go back to help, three men died. Three good men who didn’t have to die.” Ben’s voice choked off in a sob.
Pete was silent for a heartbeat or two, and then in a low voice he said, “So now you have to — What? Be a real hero and save my ass?”
“Yeah … Something like that,” Ben said simply.
Pete snorted again and spat, but he didn’t say another word. For a long time, he kept staring steadily at Ben. Before Ben realized it, Pete was moving away from him, inching along the hull of the boat toward the bow. In the dim light, Pete’s eyes held a glazed, distant stare that Ben tried to convince himself wasn’t really there. After an even longer silence, Pete heaved a deep sigh that came from the center of his being. At first, Ben took this as a hopeful sign that his brother was still fighting, that he hadn’t given up, but then Pete made a sudden move. Bringing his feet up underneath him, he planted them firmly against the side of the boat like a swimmer in starting position.
“You know what, big bro?” he said. Utter despondency filled his voice, leaving a terrible vacuum in the night. “Fuck it.”
“Pete.”
“Seriously … I mean it … just fuck it.”
Before Ben could react, Pete kicked away. The boat started rocking wildly. Ben had all he could do to hang on as Pete shot out into the water, carving a wide, dark wake in the water.
He didn’t flail …
He didn’t even try to swim …
He floated on his back.
And as Ben watched in horror, helpless to react, Pete flipped over and made a smooth surface dive. His legs kicked the air, and then he disappeared with barely a splash beneath the slick, black water.
Ben’s scream ripped the fabric of the night, but he didn’t hear it. He stared in horror at the trail of silver bubbles that rose to the surface and popped, marking the spot where his brother had gone under.
Forever.
Chapter Nineteen
Last Call
If anything, the next several weeks, months, and years proved the old adage: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” For some people, life in The Cove continued as it always had, with all its petty concerns, its ups and downs, its tragedies and comedies. For others, there were abrupt changes of fortune — both good and bad — and death … sometimes brutal, sometimes ironic, and sometimes damned hilarious.
As would be expected, Capt’n Wally took the death of his youngest son real hard, but some folks around town — especially down at the wharf and at The Local — thought he took it a little too hard and was trying to drink away his grief and guilt. It was as if he felt personally responsible for his son’s death. Only Ben knew this was precisely the case because he thought — but never said to anyone — that if his father hadn’t gotten roaring drunk that day, he and Pete would never have gone out at night to make the pick-up. If Wally had gone out and done the job, he might have run up on the rocks like Pete and Ben had, but, more likely, he would have known exactly which rocks were exposed and dangerous at low tide. Unlike Pete, Capt’n Wally really did know the ocean better than his own backyard.
After being rescued that morning by Henry “Dime’s Worth” Martin, who was heading out at dawn to haul his lobster pots, Ben spent a few days in the hospital, being treated for hypothermia and dehydration. Although his physical condition improved rapidly, he spiraled rapidly into a dark depression because — even more so than his father — he felt directly responsible for Pete’s death. He should have tried harder to find the right words. He should have grabbed onto Pete and never let go even if it meant they both went under together. The guilt of Pete’s death, compounded with the PTSD, threw him into a tailspin that he tried to control by self-medicating with alcohol. He began drinking mornings, and was down at The Local every night until Julia and Louise staged an intervention. The following day he checked into the VA hospital in Togus and started getting the help he needed.
Julia returned to Connecticut when Ben was discharged from the hospital after the rescue. She buried her father and set about taking care of the legal matters, including putting the Steeple Road house up for sale. A long phone conversation with Louise brought her back to The Cove to help with Ben’s intervention. While Ben was in rehab, Julia returned to Waterbury and bought what she called “a picket fence with a picket house” with money from her father’s life insurance. It was a pretty little New England cottage with perennial gardens and shade trees, and it was landlocked.
It suits me, she thought, and if it suits Ben too, that’s icing on the cake.
When Ben was discharged from Togus, she returned once more to The Cove to discuss their future. The house she had shared with her father out on Steeple Road sold, but she hadn’t closed on it yet. She still had some furniture and personal things to move out. She drove from Connecticut in a U-haul and met Ben at the house. He was thinner and paler than he was when she had first seen him at the launch of the Abby-Rose, but he flashed the old Gunner grin at her as she pulled into the driveway. The midsummer sun glinted off the river, flowing to the sea.
“Hello, handsome,” she said, as she climbed out of the truck. Ben swept her into a bear hug, and they embraced silently for a few minutes, inhaling each other.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Julia whispered, breaking the silence. He was trembling in her embrace.
“Me, too.” Ben said. His grip tightened on her as if she were the only thing that could keep him afloat in the world.
Finally, they released each other. Julia unlocked the door, and they were barely inside the house before Ben kissed her hard on the mouth.
They left a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom.
Afterward, tired but exhilarated, Julia nestled close to Ben’s sweat-slicked body.
“I never thought I’d be happy to come back to The Cove,” she murmured.
Ben chuckled, then fell silent.
I have to know now, Julia thought.
“So … are you coming back to Waterbury with me?”
“Julia, I can’t. Not now. My father’s still half-crazy over Pete’s death, and there’s all the insurance mess with the boat, and Lou-Lou …
She lifted a finger to his lips.
“Shhh...”
He turned and looked at her. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“No need to explain. You’re a Cove-ah. And I’m not.” She propped herself up on her elbow so she could look directly into his face. The sheet was tucked tightly against her body, showing her curves. “But I love you, Ben, with all my heart.”
Ben touched her face with his hand and said, “I love you too, Julia. I do.”
She smiled, and tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb. Then he grinned.
“Even if you are a flatlander,” he added.
“You bastard.”
She tickled him fiercely, and they wrestled across the bed until he pinned her underneath him, and they made love again. They shared four days of simple happiness, and then they packed Julia’s U-Haul, and she was gone.
Late that autumn, while Capt’n Wally was working to repair the refrigerator at home, he suffered what, at first, was thought to be a mild stroke. While reaching for a screwdriver, he suddenly couldn’t get his left arm to move. Louise rushed him to the emergency room where, following a brain scan, Dr. Robbins discovered a tumor growing on Wally’s brain stem. He was given six months to a year to live, but after some aggressive chemotherapy, he showed remarkable recovery. Down at The Local, he liked to brag that he was being treated
by the same neurosurgeon who treated Senator Ted Kennedy. At least once or twice a month, he came home at night with a woman half his age, but he maintained that screwing was the only thing that gave him the will to keep on living.
The next spring, Capt’n Wally was well enough to give tourists guided tours of the harbor and coast in his new boat, the Lou-Lou Belle. He hadn’t needed Richie Sullivan’s help to finance this one. The insurance money on the Abby-Rose and the life insurance policy he’d taken out on Pete paid off handsomely. Ben made up the difference with money from his savings. Wally liked to brag that he was debt-free … except for his tab down at The Local.
One curious fact: Wally never went lobstering again after Pete drowned. He also never ate another lobster. To his friends down at The Local, he maintained that he had to give up lobstering because the cancer treatments were “taking the piss” out of him, but he confessed privately to Louise and Ben that he would never eat another lobster because lobsters were bottom feeders … the carrion eaters of the ocean who lived on anything and everything that dies and rots on the ocean floor. He couldn’t bear the thought that if he ever ate a lobster, it might be one that had feasted on the rotting flesh of his dead son.
Ben continued to live at home with his father and sister. His nightmares continued, but now they were about Pete instead of the war. The image was seared in his memory of watching his brother swim away from the boat, steadily receding into the darkness … fading … fading … until he was gone. He got a job at the local hardware store, working with Horse Lips. Along with Brian Hatcher, he got involved with the fight against the big box store on Five Corners. When the townspeople voted in November, they defeated the proposal handily. Ray and Jerry Hanson were pissed, but Ben’s attitude was that they were always bitching about one thing or another, anyway, so fuck ’em both. He’d see them most every night when he went down to The Local, only now he was knocking back Diet Cokes instead of beer and whiskey chasers.
Louise didn’t waste any time securing divorce papers. She served them to Tom while he was sitting in county jail after recovering from his gunshot wounds and awaiting trial for double homicide. His bail was set at fifty thousand dollars, a sum she could have paid easily with the money hidden in the mayonnaise jar, but she wasn’t about to do that.
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