A Simple Thing (8 page)

Chapter 8

Susannah 2011

Susannah loved Betty's kitchen right away, with its warm oak floors and blue tile counters and pale yellow metal cupboards. Low-watt lights cast a soft glow, and the open window above the sink let in the cool night air and the quiet murmur of waves in the bay. She paused several times during dinner—listening, waiting, only to realize at last that what she was waiting for was
noise
. The humming, throbbing, buzzing sounds of home—furnaces, refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes washers, computers, televisions—were absent. No cars or trucks revved outside; no sirens wailed; no phones or radios or televisions blared. The only sign of technology was a laptop computer, sitting in a corner on the counter next to a tin breadbox.

They had eaten at a long pine table with benches on either side, like at a logging camp or a ranch. Katie chatted with Hood and Baker throughout the entire meal, while Barefoot and Quinn talked turtles, and Jim and Betty told Susannah stories about other Sounder residents. Now they'd cleared the dishes away, put them to soak, and sat at the table drinking Barefoot's plum wine, which
was
sweet but also spread a pleasant warmth in Susannah's chest and belly. The kids were in the other room playing cards. And after the long past few months of fear and worry, Susannah felt the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders start to relax. She pushed her empty wineglass toward Barefoot, who refilled it from the bottle at his elbow.

Jim lit a fat cigar and leaned back in his chair across from her. The candles on the table flickered in the reflection on his glasses so she couldn't see his eyes.

“So,” he said. “You know us now. We've shared a meal. Want to tell us what really brought you here?”

Susannah paused. She didn't want Katie's past mistakes to haunt her here before anyone got to know her. And Susannah herself didn't want to feel judged the way she did at home, as though the scarlet BP of Bad Parenting were branded into her forehead.

“We're here because Katie was in trouble,” she said. She twirled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, trying to decide how much to say. She trusted the Pavalaks already; surely they wouldn't judge her.

“Katie was dating an older boy behind our backs,” Susannah said. She kept her eyes on the purple wine in her glass. She told them about Zach's Web site, about his contest to see if he could have sex with Katie by November 1. Then she told them about Katie's drinking at the party, the alcohol poisoning, the terrifying trip to the ER. She paused. “I had to get her out.”

“This is why they should bring the belt back to public schools,” Barefoot said. “Or the paddle. Whip the hell out of a little bastard like that boyfriend and he'd be highly motivated to treat young ladies with more respect.”

“Amen,” Betty said.

“We have our own—” Jim started to say, but he was interrupted by Hood, who came into the kitchen and began to open drawers. “We're going to play flashlight tag,” he said. “Where are the flashlights, Grim?”

“Where they've always been,” Betty said. “Bottom drawer on the right.”

The others came in and began to grab sweatshirts and jackets. Quinn looked nervous. Susannah could see how much he wanted to be part of things, be game for anything, but she could also see his fear—about
what
exactly she didn't know. Baker seemed to sense his hesitation, because he grabbed a large yellow flashlight from the counter and handed it to Quinn, saying, “We'll be partners. Here, you take this one.”

Susannah looked at Jim, who sat at the table, puffing away at his cigar. He didn't look at all nervous about the idea of the kids running around in the pitch black of a Sounder night, with the bay so close by.
So it must be okay
.

Quinn twirled his hair with one finger. He looked around the room, and his eyes lit on Toby, Barefoot's black Lab, sleeping on the braided rug by the door. “Can Toby come?” Quinn said. At the sound of his name, Toby sat up and wagged his tail.

“Sure, take Toby,” Barefoot said.

Quinn took the flashlight from Baker in one hand and put his other hand on Toby's head. He looked down at the flashlight, then at Susannah. “Do I need hand sanitizer?” he said. Susannah shook her head.

Jim raised his eyebrows as the door closed behind them. “Hand sanitizer?”

“He's afraid of germs.” Susannah sighed. “Another reason we came here.”

Barefoot snorted. “Because there are no germs on Sounder?”

“No, of course I know there are germs here. But the germs were just part of it. He was afraid of getting sick and throwing up at school, and then having everyone make fun of him. Quinn's always been different, and so sometimes he's been a bit of an outcast.”

“Have you taught him how to throw a good punch?” Barefoot said.

Susannah smiled. “You sound like my husband. The problem in a place like Tilton is that if Quinn punched another kid, even if it was well deserved, we'd get sued by the parents for assault.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Barefoot said. “I've had my nose broken twice.” He rubbed the crooked bump at the bridge of his nose. “And I've broken a few noses myself. I'll give him boxing lessons.”

Susannah thought of a fist landing on Quinn's sweet, freckled face and felt sick to her stomach. “Oh, God, no. I don't want him to fight. He's just got to learn to let things roll off him more easily, you know?”

“He won't be an outcast here,” Jim said. “The group's too small. And honestly, people who choose to live and raise their kids in a place like Sounder tend to march to a different drummer anyway.” He grinned. “We're all different.”

“Speak for yourself,” Barefoot said. He turned back to Susannah. “Listen, even if he never actually breaks someone's nose, it would be good for him to know that he
could
. It boosts confidence. The boy could use a man's help here, since you're a single parent.”

Susannah felt a sudden rush of longing for Matt. For some reason an image of Matt as she'd first seen him arose in her mind—age seven, standing on the sand in his swim trunks, skinny and nut brown, watching her race T. C. McNeely across the beach. “Hey, new girl!” he'd said. “Bet I can beat you.” She remembered the tears of frustration in his eyes when he'd stumbled and lost. He avoided her after that, but she kept an eye on him. Wiry and athletic, he was the best at most sports, always team captain, obsessed with fairness. More than once he walked off the baseball field in a rage after a flagrant call. But his wary eyes and quiet intensity hid a tender heart. One year he gave his stash of candy bars to a boy whose parents hadn't sent him a single letter all month. At night, he would sneak out to free the fireflies the kids had trapped in jars.

Growing up in a home where nothing seemed fair, Susannah was drawn to Matt's integrity, his stubborn perseverance. After that first summer, when he'd cried after losing the race, Susannah never saw him cry again. Year after year he worked harder—at sports, at school, at hiding his embarrassment about his family's poverty. He didn't talk a lot, or laugh easily.

Susannah, in contrast, talked and laughed a lot at camp, because she was free. At first camp was a respite from the chaos and unpredictability of home; later it was a respite from grief. She danced under the stars on the beach, made up silly songs, told jokes—all the things she couldn't do at home, in case her father got angry, or her mother was sad. Accustomed to being a caretaker at home—where her father was often drunk and her mother often in bed with a headache or a backache—Susannah naturally took care of others at camp. She cheered Matt on at athletic competitions, teased him about his love of vanilla ice cream, and helped him craft funny, anecdote-filled letters home. To Matt, who'd had to work at odd jobs since age ten and fend for himself while his parents worked long hours for never enough money, Susannah's interest and concern were remarkable. No one had ever had the time to listen to his stories, remember his likes and dislikes, root for him. She saw in Matt someone serious and fair, a champion of the weak or outcast, unlike her father. He saw in her, she realized later, all the feelings he wouldn't allow himself to acknowledge or express. They became unlikely allies, and friends.

The summer of the accident he had written her a letter. He didn't mention the accident—what adolescent boy would know what to say in such circumstances?—but he had made a little quiz full of silly questions all about Susannah that had let her feel, for a few moments at least, as though she could hold her head up again, as though there was still
something
inside her someone could like.

For years, their constant mutual attraction was like a firefly dance against a dark sky—brief, abrupt, lovely. Then, when they were both seventeen, working as camp counselors, his kisses and his hands and their mutual desire unleashed what had been building for years. They tumbled together late one night in the boathouse, their frantic fumbling evolving into something slow and passionate and so intense that when the first rays of the sun hit the dusty glass of the boathouse window, they were still exploring each other's bodies, hungry for more.

“I'm not going to get all silly about this,” she said, as they hurried to get dressed.

“Why not?” he'd said. And he had not stopped loving her from that moment on—even though they lived hundreds of miles away from each other, even though he had other girlfriends, even though she had other boyfriends. As time went on, Matt became the pole around which she centered her life. Her father might divorce his second wife (or third); her mother might withdraw into grief; Susannah herself might transfer colleges or abandon a career or paralyze herself with guilt. But Matt would be the same, smooth and solid as the lake in early morning, with a similar strength underneath that calm surface.

But once Katie was born, something roared forth in Susannah. Matt's easygoing attitude veered sometimes into carelessness, his emotional reticence into indifference.

“I guess I am a single parent,” Susannah said. “Although I don't think of it that way because I'll be talking to Matt every day, and he'll be out here once a month.” She cleared her throat. “That was the hardest part in deciding to come here. Matt started a new job last year. He's a geologist—I think Quinn told you—and he took a job with the Department of the Interior. He's teaching, too. He couldn't take a sabbatical, not now.”

“I understand,” Jim said.

“What kind of a man lets his wife and kids leave?” Matt had said, the day she'd decided to go. The question had hung there between them, along with its unspoken corollary:
What kind of a woman takes her kids and leaves her husband behind?

“It's okay,” Betty said. “This is a good community. You'll have a lot of help.”

Silence fell around the table for a few minutes. The call of the kids' voices outside the open window had faded, and now Susannah heard splashing, the sound of something moving in the water.

“Are the kids still playing tag?” she said.

“They probably took the kayaks out,” Jim said. “The moon's coming up.”

“They took the kayaks out at night?” Susannah stood up. She felt a sudden panic.

“Only on nights like this, when it's dead calm and there's moonlight,” Jim said. “The phosphorescent trails behind the boats are pretty amazing.”

“I don't want my kids on the water at night,” Susannah said.
You'd never find a body in that big bay, even in daylight
.
And never at night
.

She opened the door, her heart racing. Fear had driven her here to Sounder. But it was like escaping from a wolf by hiding in a cave with a bear. She remembered her longing all those years ago to live on the little island in the middle of the Fox River, her desire to think only about the next meal, the next bit of warmth, the next shelter, like Shackleton. But it was a stupid, childish fantasy, and the reality was that she had brought herself and her children to a remote place surrounded by water, far from medical care.

She felt a hand on her arm. “Whoa, woman. Calm down.” Barefoot's hand encircled her wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.

Susannah turned a white face to him. “If they fell out we'd never find them.”

“Your kids can swim can't they?” Jim said. “But it's okay. I'll go get them.” He went outside and she heard a long, piercing whistle cut through the night, and an answering whistle from the bay. “Come in!” Jim shouted. Another whistle answered him.

Jim came back into the house. “You look like you've seen a ghost,” he said. “You're going to have trust that we know what we're doing here. My boys are smart kids. They're pretty responsible, too.”

“I was in a boating accident when I was thirteen,” Susannah said. “On Lake Michigan. With my father and brother and sister. My sister drowned. I've been afraid of boats ever since. One of the reasons I came here was to try to get over it, finally. I don't know what I was thinking.”

Betty looked at her. “I'm sorry,” she said. She looked at her a long time, her eyes studying Susannah's face as though she'd never seen her before. “How old was she?”