Bodies of Water

by T. Greenwood

  We could pretend on those walks that we were alone in the world. That Frankie did not exist, that Ted was not waiting for Eva with questions and demands. Of course, we were not alone, not ever truly alone, as we walked through town, the illuminated rooms like eyes in the night, in sight of any of those moving silhouettes inside. But in those twilight hours, we felt as though we were the only two people left on earth. As we walked farther away from town, through pastures and empty parks and forests, we whispered our secrets into each other’s hair, and, when twilight acquiesced to evening and only the watchful eyes of the stars peered down at us, we sometimes dared to touch. And we comforted ourselves by talking about the summer, about the lake.

  If not for these nightly walks, our nightly talks, and Vermont, if not for the prospect of those two weeks together in August, I might not have made it through the rest of that winter and spring of 1962. It was the promise of the water, the moon, and Eva that sustained me. Whenever I felt like I might not be able to take another moment inside my house, inside my life, I had only to assure myself that soon enough we would be free again.

  Then one evening in early June, when summer no longer felt quite so far away, Frankie came home with a bed frame. It was an old, iron bed frame, the kind we had at the lake. He had strapped it to the roof of the Studebaker and was busy untying it, gleeful, as though it were a Christmas tree instead of another piece of junk.

  “What’s that for, Frankie?” I asked. “We already have enough beds.”

  “It’s for Theresa,” he said. “She’s going to be spending the summer with us.”

  It felt like a sinkhole had opened up underneath my feet.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  Theresa was Frankie’s baby sister. She’d gotten engaged on Valentine’s Day; her wedding was just weeks away. We’d received the fancy invitation a month ago, with its scented paper and calligraphy.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She got a letter from Joe yesterday, says he’s calling the wedding off. He took off with some other girl to Nevada or some other godforsaken place.”

  My first reaction should have been sympathy. Poor little Theresa. Her life, while only twenty-two years, had been a series of disappointments. Her first boyfriend was killed in a car accident. And now this. But it wasn’t sympathy I felt.

  “We’ll set her up in the basement for now, and then she’ll go up to Vermont with you in August,” Frankie said. “Help her clear her head.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “There isn’t any room.”

  “Sure there is,” he said. “You can make room for Eva and her kids, you can’t make room for my sister?”

  “That’s what I mean. When Eva and the kids come, there won’t be any room.” I could feel my voice breaking, my whole body breaking.

  “Well, maybe this year the Wilsons don’t come for a visit.” Frankie shrugged and hoisted the headboard onto his shoulder.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I didn’t bother wiping them away. “Frankie, Eva and I have been looking forward to this.” But then I realized that he didn’t care about disappointing me, wasn’t concerned with my plans. Desperate, I hoped he might at least care about the children’s disappointment. “Chessy and Mouse have been talking about this for months. You can’t take that away from them.”

  Frankie leaned the headboard up against the house and came back for the footboard. “Theresa is my sister,” he said. “Which makes her your sister too. She’s coming with you to Vermont, and you can tell the Wilsons they can come another time.”

  With Frankie, there was no arguing. No changing his mind. He was a small man, but he was like a big brick wall when it came to things like this. Impenetrable.

  That night, I refused to speak to him. I made his dinner, moving about the kitchen angrily, slamming pots and pans, having my own private temper tantrum, raging as I stirred and fried and boiled. I refused to eat as well, sitting with an empty plate before me. The girls knew something was wrong.

  “Aren’t you hungry, Mama?” Mouse asked. I couldn’t look at her or else I knew I would break down.

  “I’ve lost my appetite,” I said.

  And Frankie dealt with my anger the way he dealt with everything. He drank. And as the level of wine in the jug got lower and lower, his voice raised higher and higher. “How would you girls feel if your Auntie T comes to stay with us this summer?”

  “Really?” Francesca asked, beaming. She adored Theresa. She looked up to her, more like a big sister than an aunt. “What about Joe? What about the wedding? I’m going to be a flower girl.”

  I waited to see how Frankie would handle this.

  “Joe’s an asshole,” he said.

  “Frankie,” I admonished. It was the first word I’d spoken all night.

  “Sorry,” he said, though I knew he wasn’t. “Joey’s a philanderer. Do you know what that is, girls?”

  “I mean it, Frankie. None of this concerns them.”

  But I had effectively made myself invisible, and so Frankie couldn’t see me anymore. I looked down at my hands to make sure I was, indeed, present still, that I hadn’t simply vanished.

  “He’s run off with another girl. He’s a cheat. A scumbag. Cazzaro!” Frankie said, his face red, the wine in his glass sloshing. “Found himself a puttana. Broke your auntie’s heart.”

  “Stop it, Frankie!” I said, slamming my fist down on the table.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that,” he said, slamming his own fists against the table. “Disrespectful! I am the man in this house.” Frankie stood up then, gripping the table with both hands, as though he might fall over if he didn’t.

  Chessy and Mouse looked terrified, and I hated him.

  I hated all five feet six inches of him. I hated the way his chin jutted out; I hated his beady eyes. I hated his drunkenness; I hated his anger.

  “I knew it, Daddy. I knew he was no good,” Chessy started. She, like I, was always trying to assuage Frankie. Agreeing with him to quiet his rage. It killed me to see her doing exactly what she had likely seen me do a zillion times. What was I teaching her?

  “Chessy . . .” I said.

  “It’s true. I saw him wink at the waitress at the restaurant when we went out for Auntie T’s birthday.”

  “What do you know, Miss Ninny?” Frankie said. “Always think you’re so smart? Think you’re smarter than your old man, huh?” I felt all of the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

  “Girls, go to your rooms, please,” I said, trying to make my voice gentle.

  Obediently they left the room, their plates still full of food. And Frankie barely even noticed their departure, caught up as he was in his own tantrum. His world was as small as his body, every action selfish: not a single thought of anyone but himself.

  “Frankie,” I said, trying, as I always tried, to mollify him. To weaken his anger. To soften him. My main job, it seemed, was keeping Frankie from boiling over. I was the one who controlled the fire beneath him. The one who made him simmer. The one who made him steam. “Listen. It’s fine if Theresa comes to live with us this summer. I understand. She’s family. But Vermont is important to me. And it’s important to the girls. The Wilsons have already planned their summer to include a vacation with us.” I knew even as I spoke that logic was likely not the right tack to take here. Logic usually stopped working about two glasses in, and Frankie had easily downed four or five at this point. He was in that dangerous place: two glasses beyond passivity and two glasses before passing out.

  “Che cazzo mi frega?” he said. What the fuck do I care?

  And in that moment, I realized he didn’t care. He didn’t care about me. He hadn’t cared about me for years. I simply didn’t matter. Not really, not when my own desires got in the way of his.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I said, standing up from the table and grabbing my sweater and purse. Frankie poured himself another glass of wine and sat down, triumphant, at the table.

  I walked out the door,
my whole body shaking with anger. I slammed the door behind me, regretting it as soon as I saw the girls’ faces peering down at me from Chessy’s window. I smiled up at them and blew a kiss. Chessy slowly lifted the sash and spoke through the screen. “Where are you going, Mama?”

  “Get ready for bed. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  I started to walk across the street, wanting only to get as far away as possible from Frank. And as I did, the Wilsons’ porch light came on. The front door opened and Eva came out, pulling a sweater around her.

  “Hi,” she said, running down the steps. “Are you okay? I could hear Frankie yelling all the way over here.”

  There was no such thing as privacy in this neighborhood, I realized, as Mrs. Baker’s face appeared behind her curtains.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Just for a walk,” I said.

  “I’ll get Calder.”

  When I told her about Theresa moving in, about Vermont, she only nodded her head and squeezed my hand, saying, “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out. We won’t let this spoil the summer. We won’t let this ruin things.”

  Who knew that Theresa would actually be the one to make this true?

  Theresa arrived at the end of June, just as the girls were getting out of school. Frankie picked her up at the train station and brought her home, but when he opened up the trunk, he only pulled out one suitcase.

  “Where are the rest of your things?” I asked her as Frankie carried it inside.

  She rolled her eyes and waited until he was out of earshot before she said, “Frankie thinks I’m moving in, but this is just a visit. I’ll be out of your hair by the end of August. I got an apartment in the city with my friend Lucy. Do not tell my brother.”

  Of all of Frankie’s siblings, I liked Theresa best. And the fact that it wasn’t Thea or Antoinette or, God forbid, Andrea living in our basement was, admittedly, a relief. Theresa was young and wide-eyed. Gullible and fun. The girls adored her because she was more like a child than a grown woman. And it didn’t take long to realize that having her stay with us actually had some perks. For one thing, she was always willing to watch the girls if I needed to run an errand.

  “Go, go!” she said. “It’s not like I have anywhere to be. Take your time.”

  Eva and I made up excuses all summer long about trips we needed to take. And once in Ted’s car, we were, at least for a couple of hours, free. Of course, we didn’t take advantage of Theresa’s hospitality too often, because leaving her with all five children—leaving anyone with five children (especially when one of those children was Johnny)—seemed presumptuous. But Theresa never complained; I think she liked being the fun aunt: the one who played hopscotch with Mouse, who climbed trees with Johnny, who outfitted Rose in dress-up clothes and put on plays.

  Eva and I used these opportunities to drive far away from Hollyville, away from our lives, if even just for an afternoon. We went to the museums in Boston, we went strawberry picking, we just drove and parked in empty lots and kissed until our lips were swollen and bruised.

  One day in July we asked Theresa to watch the kids while we went into the city (presumably to pick up some supplies for one of the Girl Scout projects we had planned for that fall) and instead drove out into the country. We had the whole day to ourselves. An entire day. Eva wanted to go swimming, and so I suggested Lake Cochichewick. We packed a picnic lunch, left Theresa and the kids behind.

  The day was glorious: sunny, the air hot and slow. We set up underneath a shady willow away from the other beachgoers. All afternoon we alternated between swimming and lying in the cool shade, only the tips of our fingers touching.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked Eva as she peered through the lacy canopy above us.

  “I’m thinking that I love you,” Eva whispered, the skin of her finger grazing the exposed top of my thigh, and I felt my entire body convulse with pleasure, a single touch doing to my body what Frankie had never ever been able to do.

  The trip should have gone off without a hitch, but on our way home, we got a flat tire. Eva was driving, and she lurched off the side of the road into a ditch.

  “Shit!” she said, her eyes widening with fear. “Did I hit something?”

  “It’s a flat,” I said.

  “Do you know how to change a tire?” she asked.

  I shook my head. My father had never taught me, and Frankie wouldn’t have dreamed of showing me how. He didn’t even like me pumping my own gas.

  Eva looked around frantically as though she could find the answer to our problem in the ditch.

  “Let’s go ask to borrow a phone,” I said, peering down the road at a farmhouse. “I’ll call Frankie.”

  “What will you tell him?” she asked. “We’re supposed to be in Boston.”

  “I’ll tell him we changed our mind. That we came to scope out a new camping spot at the state forest.”

  Eva nodded, but she still looked nervous.

  A kind old woman answered the door at the farmhouse, and we both used the phone. Eva left a message with Ted’s secretary, and I got in touch with Frankie, who left work early and came all the way up to North Andover to get us. We hid the picnic basket and our wet towels under the backseat and hoped that our sunburned shoulders wouldn’t give us away.

  “Looks like a nail,” Frankie said as he rolled the flat tire into the ditch and put on the spare. (I was careful to watch exactly how he did it just in case we ever found ourselves in this sort of predicament again.) And then we followed him home.

  Frankie bought the story about why we were here rather than in the city, but Ted apparently did not. Frankie had stranded him at work, so he’d had to get a ride with a coworker and then hitchhike home. His face was red when we pulled up into the Wilsons’ driveway, and he grabbed Eva by the arm as soon as she got out of the car and pushed her toward the house.

  “Who were you seeing?” he hissed.

  “She was with me, Ted,” I said.

  Ted turned around, and Eva ran into the house.

  “She didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “Really. I was the one who decided we should go to North Andover instead. It’s my fault.”

  Ted stepped toward me, and for a minute I thought he was going to hit me. His hands were curled into thick fists, and the muscles in his neck were straining against the collar of his shirt.

  “This has nothing to do with you,” he said.

  I nodded; I couldn’t keep my head from nodding. As though simply agreeing with him could make it so.

  “Does it?” he said. And he looked at me, his eyes studying my face, as if everything I had done, that we had done, were written on my skin.

  “Of course not,” I said. “No, no, no.”

  Ted disappeared into the house after Eva, and I stood, paralyzed, on the sidewalk.

  “You better look out, Mrs. Valentine!” came a voice from above. It sounded as though it were coming from the heavens. It was not God though; rather, Johnny perched in the high branches of their tree. “My dad is steamin’! ” I peered up, but the sun was too bright and I couldn’t see him hiding amid the leaves.

  That night, when Eva did not come outside with Calder after dinner, I sat smoking on our front porch swing, listening to the muffled sounds of Ted bellowing at Eva across the street. I must have gone through half a pack of smokes out there waiting for it to stop. And later, I lay in bed, imagining what was happening inside their house. I didn’t sleep the entire night, wondering what on earth he’d meant.

  The next morning, as soon as the men had gone off to work, I ran across the street. Inside, Donna had made breakfast, and the children sat grimly around the table.

  “Where’s your mama?” I asked gently. They all looked shell shocked.

  “Johnny?” I said. Johnny was sitting at the table, shoveling cereal into his mouth. He wouldn’t look at me.

  “Upstairs,” Donna said. “She doesn’t feel well.”

  “I told you he was mad,” Joh
nny said.

  I ran upstairs to the bedroom and found Eva still in bed, a cold cloth pressed against her eyes. I took the cloth from her and examined her face. Her eye was swollen, the skin marbled in blues and greens: fresh bruises. I recoiled, as though I’d uncovered a pile of rotting meat instead of the face I knew so well.

  Anger welled up inside of me as she winced at my touch. I sat down next to her on the bed and reached for her hand, which lay like something pale and strange next to her. Like a shell, it struck me suddenly; her hand was like an empty shell washed up on shore. I stroked her skin with my fingertips, and she responded to my touch. “How could he do this?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Did the children see?”

  She wiped a tear from the corner of her battered eye. She nodded. “I know they were watching from the stairs. I don’t know how to explain.”

  “He can’t do this,” I said. “He has no right to do this.”

  “Of course he does,” she chortled. “I’m his wife.”

  The word, wife, was something bitter tasting, its flavor like coffee grounds, detergent, orange rind. I leaned forward and kissed the damaged skin by her eye. I didn’t even bother to make sure we were alone, that none of her children were peering in at me. She squeezed her eyes shut and tears streaked her cheeks. I kissed the salty tracks until her face was dry. Calder sat at my feet, her chin resting on the bed.

  “Calder’s worried about you too,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m okay as long as you’re here,” she said. Though I knew this was a lie to make me feel better. One of those lies that Chessy despised.