Beach Girls (22 page)

Chapter 20

THE NEXT THREE MORNINGS, WHILE
Nell was at recreation, Jack went over to Lovecraft Hill. He got Jim Mangan, an engineer from the Boston office, to drive down and meet him. They walked the property with a site map; Jim was a licensed surveyor, so he shot lines and marked boundaries.

While they hiked, Jack thought about Stevie. “Don't go to Scotland. Stay,” she had said. His patented way of dealing with pain was to walk away from it as cleanly as possible. He needed only to think of his sister to realize that that was true.

But Stevie had said
Stay,
and he was thinking about staying.

Deep in the woods, they found trails made by deer or other animals. They discovered caves hidden under rock ledges, streams, a pond, miraculously huge dawn redwood trees. Jack made notes as he walked along. He thought the widest stream called for a bridge, and he thought that placing large natural stepping stones in the flow would work the best.

“Thanks for coming down,” he said to Jim.

“No problem,” Jim said. “You really got me out of a jam on that Piscataqua River project. I'm just sorry to hear that you're leaving. Francesca's burning that you went over, or past her, to get to Ivan Romanov.”

“He advertised the position,” Jack said. “I applied.”

“Hell hath no fury, and all that.”

“I'm sorry she took it that way,” Jack said, feeling like a heel. Talking about Francesca with Jim—as good a guy as he was, he was trying to pick up the office dirt—and leading her on in the first place. He hadn't meant to.

“Like my brother always says, ‘Men are scum,'” Jim said.

“I hope that's not true. I've got a daughter.”

“Yeah, well. We sure manage to screw up royally at the worst possible times. My wife'll be happy to tell you. She's living in my dream house, the one I designed and built, while I'm sleeping on my brother's couch.”

“What'd you do?” Jack said. Their footsteps sounded loud, tromping through fallen leaves and underbrush.

“Fell in love online. Janice figured out my password and read my e-mails.”

“That's bad,” Jack said.

“Which part?”

“All of it,” Jack said. E-mail was dangerous.

His mind took an unexpected turn back to a time in Atlanta, just before Emma's accident. He hadn't known it then, but looking back, he realized that he had started to feel restless—it wasn't just her. Being married had been like swimming. Sometimes it was smooth and cool and buoyant, and other times it was hitting cold patches that made him want to get out of the water.

During one of those cold patches, he had started e-mailing a woman in the Cleveland office. Had he sensed what was going on with Emma? She had gotten so involved with the church, and volunteering at the prison. That's what he told himself now—to excuse his own secret behavior.

The e-mails had started out completely innocently—all about a Cincinnati suspension bridge project they were both involved with. The woman was witty and warm. Jack was feeling cold and unappreciated. The business e-mails had led to more-personal sharing. He remembered mornings when he'd wake up before dawn, just to see whether she'd sent him something during the night.

“Did anything actually happen between you?” Jack asked Jim, stepping over a narrow brook. “Your e-mail friend.”

“Yeah. That's what got me kicked out. I deserved it.”

At least Jack hadn't acted on anything. He thought back to those weeks, though—feeling alienated from his own marriage, seduced by his online intimacy with a woman he barely knew. It sort of stunned him to remember; since Emma's death, he had put a lot of effort into idealizing his marriage. The calls to Madeleine, hearing her voice, had been like opening a Pandora's box of things he really didn't want to face or remember. She had only been the messenger, Jack thought. The betrayal had been Emma's alone.

“The Internet is the devil's workshop,” Jim said, stepping over a narrow brook. “That and the male mind. My crosses to bear—
but
now that I'm separated and you're no longer an item, maybe I'll ask Francesca out for dinner.”

Jack didn't reply. He wanted to protect Francesca from Jim, but he figured she would be able to take care of herself. He continued through the woods with Jim, wondering at the thoughts raging through his head. Other memories of his marriage came up. He remembered how infrequently he and Emma made love. Why think about that now? What good could it do?

He and Jim measured the westernmost boundary line. While Jim looked through the scope, Jack rustled through dry leaves looking for the “granite boulder marked with ‘X.'” Looking for the buried marker, he uncovered buried feelings. He had never really forgotten, but he'd sublimated the real reason Emma had gone off with Maddie on that vacation.

Although it had been Madeleine's birthday, that was only the occasion for Emma's trip—not the deeper reason. He remembered the fight he and Emma had had the week she decided to go. He had been spending more and more time at the office. She had been decorating their new house, but had now decided that the project was excessive, materialistic—her work at Dixon proved that.

“The prisoners have nothing,” she said. “They've had to look inside themselves—find inner resources. So many of them grew up in poverty and abuse.”

“So they went out and inflicted it on other people?” Jack asked.

“You don't understand.”

“I understand that some of them are in there for rape and murder.”

“You never support me,” she said. “What I believe in. I'm there trying to help people.”

“I support you, Emma,” his expression leaving his real feelings unspoken.

“No you don't,” she said, shaking her head vio-lently. “You supported me when I volunteered in nice places—the children's hospital, or the nursing homes. But Dixon—”

“I'm worried about it, okay?” he exploded. “I don't know who you're meeting there, whether they might track you home. How about that one who got your number? What if someone found out where you lived, what about Nell? I don't want them near us.”

“‘Them,'” she spat back. “‘They.' As if they're so
other
. They're human beings who've had bad breaks. I'm helping Father Richard teach these men to read—doing important work, maybe for the first time in my life.”

“I think raising Nell is important work, too.”

“You're so sanctimonious, Jack.”

“Look, when a convicted felon calls you at home, I'm going to get upset.” He took a breath. “I'm sorry if it seems I'm belittling your work. I'm not. I know you're good at anything you do. But does it have to be the prison? Before Father Richard came to the parish—”

“I know what you're saying. But the volunteer program was so stagnant. I felt we were just being sent places . . . just to keep us busy.”

Reading to kids in the pediatric oncology ward was just keeping busy? Jack didn't say it out loud. He held it inside, his chest exploding, thinking of how fascinated Emma had gotten with the terrible stories she heard from the prisoners, how terrible their lives had been, how badly they'd been treated.

Just six months earlier, she had decided she wanted different bathroom tiles. The “old” ones—less than two years old—were Mexican, painted with flowers. Then she wanted marble. Now she thought that tiles were beside the point. She was on fire—the first time Jack had ever seen her like this—passionate about her work.

Jack had said fine, whatever she wanted. But inside, something had come clanging down—he knew she was using her prison work as a way to avoid him. He actually wondered whether she'd developed a crush on one of the prisoners—the one who had called their house. Whenever he wanted to talk, or go out, she was involved in planning her reading lessons, or talking to her fellow volunteers about how they could effect meaningful change at Dixon.

“What's wrong?” he'd asked her.

“They don't have a library,” she said. “Not a real library, anyway—just a few books donated by family members.”

“Not what's wrong at Dixon Correctional—what's wrong with us?”

“You'd know better than I do. You're always at your office. And when you're not, you're on the computer. Or watching TV.”

She was right—except, if he believed what Madeleine had told him, she was lying then. Still, how could Jack tell her he did those things because she seemed so hostile—or, worse, indifferent to him? They had had so much fun when they were first married. She'd gone on every business trip with him. They had laughed about everything. Then Nell was born.

Jack had never thought he could love anyone as much as Emma. Ever. But then Nell had entered the picture. She had shown up, taken complete control. Instead of being jealous of the time Emma spent with the baby, Jack was jealous that she got more time with Nell than he did.

Nell changed everything. She made Jack a new man. She made the sun brighter, the ocean deeper, color, truer, the moon whiter, peaches sweeter. She got Jack up at two in the morning, she got him to love being spit up on, she made him go to work exhausted and count the minutes till he got to return home, she got him to love finger painting, and to replace his office art with her crayon drawings, to go to every nursery school recital, to hang a wreath made of a circle of her green handprints.

She got him on roller skates, and on the merry-go-round, and to matinees of the latest Disney cartoon, and to the ice cream stand, and the peach orchard, and PTA meetings, and church. Jack even went to church, because Nell sang in the children's choir.

And as close as he got to his daughter, he seemed to veer that much farther from his wife. He didn't love her any less; he just noticed that they changed toward each other. They still talked, but they didn't laugh as much. There seemed to be so much planning, so much duty. They both preferred nights at home with Nell, so they didn't hire many babysitters; maybe if they had, they wouldn't have lost each other.

Jack worked a lot—he was ambitious, and he wanted to succeed. He wanted to provide for his family, have enough money so Nell could go to any college she wanted. Emma stayed home, but she had started talking about going to graduate school—getting a master's degree in social work.

Emma never used to be so involved in the church. She and Jack used to joke that they were “cellular Catholics”—they felt it in the cells of their bodies, in their bones, even though they weren't devout. Jack didn't go to church every Sunday, but Emma made sure he got to St. Francis Xavier on major holidays. Nell made her First Communion, and went to catechism on Wednesday afternoons.

As time went on, Jack began to notice that Emma seemed to yearn for something more. Their big house wasn't fulfilling her—and she seemed to almost feel embarrassed by it. She started doing weekend retreats at their church—sleeping home at night, but spending Saturday and Sunday in spiritual workshops. Her circle of women friends shifted, from the country club to Xavier. Even her dreams seemed to change. Everything Jack had thought she wanted, now began to turn on him.

She seemed enraptured by Father Richard, and the idea of public service. She was drawn to the edge—to help those who'd had hard lives, the men at the prison. Jack had failed to notice her depths, her great reservoir of compassion. He had categorized his own wife—he really had. He had thought of her as a woman made happy by Mexican tiles, a house in the right neighborhood, staying home with their daughter. He had missed the rest of her.

By the time he started to notice, she was completely involved in her volunteer work. It wasn't that they didn't have free time, it's just that they always seemed to use their free time for everything but each other.

Jack thought back to that last trip, when Emma went away with Madeleine. He knew his sister had meant to help—she and Chris had been down the prior Christmas, and she'd felt alarmed by the coolness she saw in Emma. The phone rang in the middle of dinner—until after her death, Jack hadn't known who it was from. But Emma took the call—while he carved and served the turkey—and she didn't come back till everyone was starting on seconds. Jack remembered how red and puffy her eyes looked, and how Nell had dropped her fork and asked, “Why are you crying, Mommy?”

Emma had said something about an eyelash in her eye. . . .

So when Madeleine began calling, a month or so later, to try to get Emma to go away with her for a “girls only” birthday trip that next June, Jack was all for it. He knew that if anyone could get Emma to talk about what was bothering her, Maddie could. He wanted to ask Maddie himself—what she knew, what Emma told her. But he held back.

Emma herself was unsure of whether she should go. She loved St. Simons Island, and she yearned for the beach—one of the drawbacks of being in Atlanta was how long it took to get to the Atlantic coast. But she hesitated about leaving Nell. Not Jack—Nell. He kept pressing her, encouraging her to go and have fun.

Selfishly, he thought that maybe the hot sand and blue water would loosen her up; maybe he would get his old Emma back. Maybe she'd touch him again, act like she wanted him; maybe she'd stop pretending to be asleep every time he reached for her. It was during those post-Christmas months that he started e-mailing Laurie in Cleveland; he felt so lonely in his own home, but he'd started hating himself for how much he looked forward to “you've got mail.”