Black Dahlia White Rose: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Paraquarry Lake was not a large lake: seven miles in circumference. The shoreline was so distinctly uneven and most of it thickly wooded and inaccessible except by boat. On maps the lake was L-shaped but you couldn’t guess this from shore—nor even from a boat—you would have to fly in a small plane overhead, as Reno had done many years ago.

  “Let’s take the kids up sometime, and fly over. Just to see what the lake looks like from the air.”

  Reno spoke with such enthusiasm, the new wife did not want to disappoint him. Smiling and nodding yes! What a good idea—“Sometime.”

  The subtle ambiguity of sometime. Reno guessed he knew what this meant.

  In this new marriage Reno had to remind himself—continually—that though the new wife was young, in her mid-thirties, he himself was no longer that young. In his first marriage he’d been just a year older than his wife. Physically they’d been about equally fit. Reno had been stronger than his wife of course, he could hike longer and in more difficult terrain, but essentially they’d been a match and in some respects—caring for the children, for instance—his wife had had more energy than Reno. Now, the new wife was clearly more fit than Reno who became winded—even exhausted—on the nearby Shawangunk Trail that, twenty years before, he’d found hardly taxing.

  Reno’s happiness was working on the camp: the A-frame that needed repainting, a new roof, new windows; the deck was partly rotted, the front steps needed to be replaced. Unlike Reno’s previous camp of several acres the new camp was hardly more than an acre and much of the property was rocky and inaccessible—fallen trees, rotted lumber, the detritus of years.

  Reno set for himself the long-term goal of clearing the property of such litter and a short-term goal of building a flagstone terrace beside the front steps, where the earth was rocky and overgrown with weeds; there had once been a makeshift brick terrace or walkway here, now broken. Evidence of previous tenants—rather, the negligence of previous tenants—was a cause of annoyance to Reno as if this property dear to him had been purposefully desecrated by others.

  During the winter in their house in East Orange Reno had studied photos he’d taken of the new camp. Tirelessly he’d made sketches of the redwood deck he meant to extend and rebuild, and of the “sleeping porch” he meant to add. Marlena suggested a second bathroom, with both a shower and a tub. And a screened porch that could be transformed into a glassed-in porch in cold weather. Reno would build—or cause to be built—a carport, a new fieldstone fireplace, a barbecue on the deck. And there was the ground-level terrace he would construct himself with flagstones from a local garden supply store, once he’d dug up and removed the old, broken bricks half-buried in the earth.

  Reno understood that his new wife’s enthusiasm for Paraquarry Lake and the Delaware Water Gap was limited. Marlena would comply with his wishes—anyway, most of them—so long as he didn’t press her too far. The high-wattage smile might quickly fade, the eyes brimming with love turn tearful. For divorce is a devastation, Reno knew. The children were more readily excited by the prospect of spending time at the lake—but they were children, impressionable. And bad weather in what was essentially an outdoor setting—its entire raison d’être was outdoors—would be new to them. Reno understood that he must not make with this new family the mistake he’d made the first time—insisting that his wife and children not only accompany him to Paraquarry Lake but that they enjoy it—visibly.

  Maybe he’d been mistaken, trying so hard to make his wife and young children happy. Maybe it’s always a mistake, trying to assure the happiness of others.

  His daughter was attending a state college in Sacramento—her major was something called communication arts. His son had flunked out from Cal Tech and was enrolled at a “computer arts” school in San Francisco. The wife had long ago removed herself from Reno’s life and truly Reno rarely thought of any of them, who seemed so rarely to think of him.

  But the daughter. Reno’s daughter. Oh hi Dad. Hi. Damn I’m sorry—I’m just on my way out.

  Reno had ceased calling her. Both the kids. For they never called him. Even to thank him for birthday gifts. Their e-mails were rudely short, perfunctory.

  The years of child support had ended. Both were beyond eighteen.

  And the years of alimony, now that the ex-wife had remarried.

  How many hundreds of thousands of dollars . . . But of course, Reno understood.

  But the new children! In this new family!

  Like wind rippling over the surface of Paraquarry Lake emotion flooded into Reno at the thought of his new family. He would adopt the children—soon. For Kevin and Devra adored their new daddy who was so kind, funny, patient and—yes—“predictable”—with them; who had not yet raised his voice to them a single time.

  Especially little Devra captivated him—he stared at her in amazement, the child was so small—tiny rib cage, collarbone, wrists—after her bath, the white-blond hair thin as feathers against her delicate skull.

  “Love you—I love you—all—so much.”

  It was a declaration made to the new wife only in the dark of their bed. In her embrace, her strong warm fingers gripping his back, and his hot face that felt to him like a ferret’s face, hungry, ravenous with hunger, pressed into her neck.

  At Paraquarry Lake, in the new camp, there was a new Reno emerging.

  It was hard work but thrilling, satisfying—to chop his own firewood and stack it beside the fireplace. The old muscles were reasserting themselves in his shoulders, upper arms, thighs. He was developing a considerable ax-swing, and was learning to anticipate the jar of the ax head against wood which he supposed was equivalent to the kick of a shotgun against a man’s shoulder—if you weren’t prepared, the shock ran down your spine like an electric charge.

  Working outdoors he wore gloves which Marlena gave him—“Your hands are getting too calloused—scratchy.” When he caressed her, she meant. Marlena was a shy woman and did not speak of their lovemaking but Reno wanted to think that it meant a good deal to her as it meant to him, after years of pointless celibacy.

  He was thrilled too when they went shopping together—at the mall, at secondhand furniture stores—choosing Adirondack chairs, a black leather sofa, rattan settee, handwoven rugs, andirons for the fireplace. It was deeply moving to Reno to be in the presence of this attractive woman who took such care and turned to him continually for his opinion as if she’d never furnished a household before.

  Reno even visited marinas in the area, compared prices: sailboats, Chris-Craft power boats. In truth he was just a little afraid of the lake—of how he might perform as a sailor on the lake. A rowboat was one thing, even a canoe—he felt shaky in a canoe, with another passenger. With this new family vulnerable as a small creature cupped in the palm of a hand—he didn’t want to take any risks.

  The first warm days in June, a wading pool for the children. For there was no beach, only just a pebbly shore of sand hard-packed as cement. And sharp-edged rocks in the shallows at shore. But a plastic wading pool, hardly more than a foot of water—that was fine. Little Kevin splashed happily. And Devra in a puckered yellow spandex swimsuit that fitted her little body like a second skin. Reno tried not to stare at the little girl—the astonishing white-blond hair, the widened pale-blue eyes—thinking how strange it was, how strange Marlena would think it was, that the child of a father not known to him should have so totally supplanted Reno’s memory of his own daughter at that age; for Reno’s daughter, too, must have been beautiful, adorable—but Reno couldn’t recall. Terrifying how parts of his life were being shut to him like rooms in a house shut and their doors sealed and once you’ve crossed the threshold, you can’t return. Terrifying to think except waking in the night with a pounding heart Reno would catch his breath thinking But I have my new family now. My new life now.

  Sometimes in the woods above the lake there was a powerful smell—a stink—of skunk, or something dead and rotted; not the decaying compost Marlena had begun which exuded a plea
surable odor for the most part, but something ranker, darker. Reno’s sinuses ached, his eyes watered and he began sneezing—in a sudden panic that he’d acquired an allergy for something at Paraquarry Lake.

  That weekend, Kevin injured himself running along the rocky shore—as his mother had warned him not to—falling, twisting his ankle. And little Devra, stung by yellow jackets that erupted out of nowhere—in fact, out of a hive in the earth, that Reno had disturbed with his shovel.

  Screaming! High-pitched screams that tore at Reno’s heart.

  If only the yellow jackets had stung him—Reno might have used the occasion to give the children some instruction.

  Having soothed two weeping children in a single afternoon Marlena said ruefully, “ ‘Camp’ can be treacherous!” The remark was meant to be amusing but there was seriousness beneath, even a subtle warning, Reno knew.

  Reno swallowed hard and promised it wouldn’t happen again.

  This warm-humid June afternoon shading now into early evening and Reno was still digging—“excavating”—the old ruin of a terrace. The project was turning out to be harder and more protracted than Reno had anticipated. For the earth below the part-elevated house was a rocky sort of subsoil, of a texture like fertilizer; moldering bricks were everywhere, part-buried; also jagged pieces of concrete and rusted spikes, broken glass amid shattered bits of red shale. The previous owners had simply dumped things here. Going back for decades, probably. Generations. Reno hoped these slovenly people hadn’t dumped anything toxic.

  The A-frame had been built in 1957—that long ago. Some time later there were renovations, additions—sliding glass doors, skylights. A sturdier roof. Another room or two. By local standards the property hadn’t been very expensive—of course, the market for lakeside properties in this part of New Jersey had been depressed for several years.

  The new wife and the children were down at the shore—at a neighbor’s dock. Reno heard voices, radio music—Marlena was talking with another young mother—several children were playing together. Reno liked hearing their happy uplifted voices though he couldn’t make out any words. From where he stood, he couldn’t have said with certainty which small figure was Kevin, which was Devra.

  How normal all this was! Soon, Daddy would quit work for the evening, grab a beer from the refrigerator and join his little family at their neighbor’s dock. How normal Reno was—a husband again, a father and a homeowner here at Paraquarry Lake.

  Of all miracles, none is more daunting than normal. To be—to become—normal. This gift seemingly so ordinary is not a gift given to all who seek it.

  And the children’s laughter, too. This was yet more exquisite.

  With a grunt Reno unearthed a large rock, he’d been digging and scraping at with mounting frustration. And beneath it, or beside it, what appeared to be a barrel, with broken and rotted staves; inside the barrel, what appeared to be shards of a broken urn.

  There was something special about this urn, Reno seemed to know. The material was some sort of dark red earthenware—thick, glazed—inscribed with figures like hieroglyphics. Even broken and coated with grime, the pieces exuded an opaque sort of beauty. Unbroken, the urn would have stood about three feet in height.

  Was this an Indian artifact? Reno was excited to think so—remains of the Lenni Lenape culture were usually shattered into very small pieces, almost impossible for a non-specialist to recognize.

  With the shiny new shovel Reno dug into and around the broken urn, curious. He’d been tossing debris into several cardboard boxes, to be hauled to the local landfill. He was tired—his muscles ached, and there was a new, sharp pain between his shoulder blades—but he was feeling good, essentially. At the neighbor’s dock when they asked him how he was he’d say Damn good! But thirsty.

  His next-door neighbor looked to be a taciturn man of about Reno’s age. And the wife one of those plus-size personalities with a big smile and a greeting. To them, Marlena and Reno would be a couple. No sign that they were near-strangers desperate to make the new marriage work.

  Already in early June Reno was beginning to tan—he looked like a native of the region more than he looked like a summer visitor from the city, he believed. In his T-shirt, khaki shorts, waterstained running shoes. He wasn’t yet fifty—he had three years before fifty. His father had died at fifty-three of a heart attack but Reno took care of his health, he had nothing to worry about. Reno had annual checkups, he had nothing to worry about. He would adopt the woman’s children—that was settled. He would make them his own children: Kevin, Devra. He could not have named the children more fitting names. Beautiful names for beautiful children.

  The Paraquarry property was an excellent investment. His work was going well. His work was not going badly. His job wasn’t in peril—yet. He hadn’t lost nearly so much money as he might have lost in the recent economic crisis—he was far from desperate, like a number of his friends. Beyond that—he didn’t want to think.

  A scuttling snake amid the debris. Reno was taken by surprise, startled. Tossed a piece of concrete at it. Thinking then in rebuke Don’t be ridiculous. A garter snake is harmless.

  Something was stuck to some of the urn shards—clothing? Torn, badly rotted fabric?

  Reno leaned his weight onto the shovel, digging more urgently. A flash of something wriggling in the earth—worms—cut by the slice of the shovel. Reno was sweating now. He stooped to peer more closely even as the cautionary words came Maybe no. Maybe not a good idea.

  “Oh. God.”

  Was it a bone? Or maybe plastic?—no, a bone. An animal bone?

  Covered in dirt, yet a very pale bone.

  A human bone?

  But so small—had to be a child’s bone.

  A child’s forearm perhaps.

  Reno picked the bone up, in his gloved hands. It weighed nothing—it might have been made of Styrofoam.

  “It is. It really . . . is.”

  Numbly Reno groped amid the broken pottery, tossing handfuls of clumped dirt aside. More bones, small broken rib-bones, a skull . . . A skull!

  It was a small skull of course. Small enough to cup in the hand.

  Not an animal-skull but a child’s skull. Reno seemed to know—a little girl’s skull.

  This was not believable! Reno’s brain was struck blank, for a long moment he could not think . . . The hairs stirred at the nape of his neck and he wondered if he was being watched.

  A makeshift grave about fifteen feet from the base of his house.

  And when had this little body been buried? Twenty years ago, ten years ago? By the look of the bones, the rotted clothing and the broken urn, the burial hadn’t been recent.

  But these were not Indian bones of course. Those bones would be much older—badly broken, dim and scarified with time.

  Reno’s hand shook. The small teeth were bared in a smile of sheer terror. The small jaws had fallen open, the eye sockets were disproportionately large. Of course, the skull was broken—it was not a perfect skull. Possibly fractured in the burial—struck by the murderer’s shovel. The skeleton lay in pieces—had the body been dismembered? Reno was whispering to himself words meant to console—Oh God. Help me God. God! As his surprise ebbed Reno began to be badly frightened. He was thinking that these might be the bones of his daughter—his first daughter; the little girl had died, her death had been accidental, but he and her mother had hurriedly buried her . . .

  But no: ridiculous. This was another time, not that time.

  This was another camp-site. This was another part of Paraquarry Lake. This was another time in a father’s life.

  His daughter was alive. Somewhere in California, a living girl. He was not to blame. He had never hurt her. She would outlive him.

  Laughter and raised voices from the lakeshore. Reno shaded his eyes to see—what were they doing? Were they expecting Daddy to join them?

  Kneeling in the dirt. Groping and rummaging in the coarse earth. Among the broken pottery, bones and rotted fabric faded to t
he no-color of dirty water, something glittered—a little necklace of glass beads.

  Reno untangled it from a tangle of small bones—vertebrae? The remains of the child’s neck? Hideous to think that the child-skeleton might have been broken into pieces with a shovel, or an ax. An ax! To fit more readily into the urn. To hasten decomposition.

  “Little girl! Poor little girl.”

  Reno was weak with shock, sickened. His heart pounded terribly—he didn’t want to die as his father had died! He would breathe deeply, calmly. He held the glass beads to the light. Amazingly, the chain was intact. A thin metallic chain, tarnished. Reno put the little glass-bead necklace into the pocket of his khaki shorts. Hurriedly he covered the bones with dirt, debris. Pieces of the shattered urn he picked up and tossed into the cardboard box. And the barrel staves . . . Then he thought he should remove the bones also—he should place the bones in the box, beneath the debris, and take the box out to the landfill this evening. Before he did anything else. Before he washed hurriedly, grabbed a beer and joined Marlena and the children at the lakefront. He would dispose of the child’s bones at the landfill.

  No. They will be traced here. Not a good idea.

  Frantically he covered the bones. Then more calmly, smoothing the coarse dirt over the debris. Fortunately there was a sizable hole—a gouged-out, ugly hole—that looked like a rupture in the earth. Reno would lay flagstones over the grave—he’d purchased two dozen flagstones from a garden supply store on the highway. The children could help him—it would not be difficult work once the earth was prepared. As bricks had been laid over the child’s grave years ago, Reno would lay flagstones over it now. For Reno could not report this terrible discovery—could he? If he called the Paraquarry police, if he reported the child-skeleton to county authorities, what would be the consequences?

  His mind went blank—he could not think.

  Could not bear the consequences. Not now, in his life.