The Forms of Water (17 page)

Their parents needed looking after, and watching over, and she and Win and Lise and Delia were going to rescue them and bring them home. This time it wouldn't turn out the way it had when she and Win were children. They were adults now, capable and smart. They could fix whatever it was that had gone wrong, and when they were done they could put the past behind them and move on.

“Let's go,” she said. “If we're going. They're hours ahead of us.” She went into the living room and grabbed her flipflops, a light jacket, and the big embroidered bag. The dolls looked forlorn, propped against the pizza boxes, and at the last minute she took them with her as well.

S
OMEONE HAD WANTED THE RESTAURANT TO LOOK OLD. THE
outside was clothed in the same white concrete as the sporting goods store and the discount outlet, but inside someone had paneled the walls with barn boards and installed ceiling fans and a long, scarred wooden bar with brass footrails. The tables were round and sturdy and the chairs were soft; the pink glass of the sconces cast a kind light on the middle-aged crowd. Wiloma had had two margaritas already, although she hadn't had more than a glass of wine in years. And after the long, dark drive, and the excitement of finding the park at the reservoir's southern tip, and then the disappointment of discovering that the Visitors' Center was closed until ten on Sunday morning, the drinks had hit her like a hammer.

She and Waldo had arrived too late for a real dinner; their waitress, no older than Wendy, had offered them a snack menu composed almost entirely of batter-fried foods. Fried onion rings, fried zucchini, fried mushrooms and mozzarella sticks—the potato skins had seemed like the safest bet, but the orange cheese stuck to her teeth like gum and left a waxy film on her tongue. She looked across the table to Waldo and he said, “Another?” Before she could stop him, he'd ordered a new round of drinks.

He was at home here, Wiloma saw, at ease with the waitresses, familiar with the crowd and the food. She wondered if Sarah often brought him to places like this. He touched her hand lightly and said, “Those skins okay? I'm sorry we couldn't get something more substantial.”

“They're fine. It's nice here.” And it was pleasant enough, especially now that the drinks had made her so relaxed. Her feet and fingers tingled. Her face felt warm. And Waldo had been kind all night, even before they'd finally found this place. At the park, when they'd driven up the narrow road and found the gates closed in front of the Visitors' Center, with the Ronan Dam shining huge and dim in the moonlight just beyond the building, he had patted her shoulder while she wept.

The sight of the dam had broken through the discipline of her detoxification and made her remember all the Sunday mornings her father had taken her and Henry and her mother there. It had made her remember him—how he'd cried when he'd first seen her and nearly crushed her in his arms. She had been almost four when he came home from the war, and she'd never heard his voice before or seen more than a picture of him. He'd been a stranger, thin and pale and hoarse, his skin splotched and scarred. He slept beside her mother, in the warm hollow that had always been hers, and she had been moved to a cot in Henry's room. At first he'd hardly talked at all. But slowly, as they got used to each other, he'd begun to take them on walks around the edges of the reservoir. They'd explored the peninsula that stretched around their home; he'd pointed out the roads that ended in water, the cellar holes, the crumbling stone walls. Later, after he bought a car, they'd driven to the north tip and the narrow western finger, and then finally to the base where the dam rose up. That had become the place they'd visited most often. For three years, until the accident, that had been the place where she'd begun to know the stranger who was her father.

There had been no park then, no paved lots or neat signs or picnic tables: only the one road to the dam, which was closed to the public, and a handful of trails winding through woods and weeds. The trail Wiloma's father always took them on led to a knoll quite close to the dam. They had sat there on an old blanket and gazed at the long, low mass holding back the water.

“I watched them build that,” her father used to say. “It's just dirt inside the facings: packed dirt. That's all that's holding the water in.” He'd pointed to the islands dotting the water and said, “Mt. Washburn. Mt. Doubleday. Those used to be hills—we used to climb them.” Then he'd launched into stories about the drowned towns. Winsor, Stillwater, Pomeroy, Nipmuck; where he used to live. The tiny branch of the railroad that had run north and south through the valley, following the Paradise River and stopping every few miles. On and on he'd gone, using words she couldn't understand, describing sights she couldn't imagine—she'd been five, and then six and then seven, and it was all she could do to get used to his presence.

She'd loved the water, which sparkled and danced and was full of fish and harbored long-legged herons and ospreys, but she thought of the dam as a monster. Men were buried in it, her father said. Men who'd died working on it. There were fish who'd been sucked up by the huge hydraulic pumps and laid down in the silt, snails and weeds and clams and tools and lost gloves and toads. After he showed her the cemetery, just beyond the dam, where the dead people from the lost towns had been reburied, she had nightmares in which she saw the dam as a dragon, devouring everything and then wedging itself across the river's mouth.

She'd forgotten all that until she saw the dam again. In the moonlight, the dam had looked clean and pale and benign, but she had bent over the dash of Waldo's car and cried.

“What is it?” Waldo had asked. “Is this where your house used to be?”

“No,” she'd managed to tell him. “Not here—it's miles north of here, this is only the dam. This is just where I thought we'd start looking.”

“Do you think your uncle's here?”

“No. Maybe. I don't know—he could be anywhere.”

“We'll find him in the morning.” Waldo had been sweet and soothing; he'd given her his handkerchief and then had taken charge of finding them places to eat and stay. A little motel lay just down the road from a restaurant he liked the looks of, and he'd driven up to it and checked out the rooms and taken two in the back, where it was quiet. She hadn't had to do anything. He hadn't asked her what she wanted or what she thought; he had taken the rooms, brought back the keys, driven them to the restaurant and steered her in, ordered their drinks. He had listened patiently to her choked tales of childhood. Now he sat tipped back in his chair a bit, with his legs crossed and his shirt collar open and his jacket unbuttoned. His left hand, resting on the arm on his chair, tapped in time to the music playing in the background.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “Feeling better?”

“Much.” She had been so calm when they started their trip, and the trip had been so pleasant and civilized, that the upswelling of emotion she'd felt at the dam had caught her by surprise. She hadn't cried like that in years, and certainly not in front of Waldo. But she felt calmer now, numbed by the noise and the alcohol.

The music pulsing through the restaurant had gentled and slowed, and she saw that some people had risen and were dancing in a small cleared area near the bar. Waldo said, “Would you like to?” and she said, “What?”

“Dance.” He gestured at the spinning couples. “We used to be pretty good.”

“I don't know. I haven't danced in years.”

He rose and took her hand and helped her up. “Come on. We'll dance a little and then we'll call it a day. Things will sort themselves out in the morning.”

Her legs were floating, disjointed. He held up his left hand and she folded her right hand into it and placed her other on his shoulder, against his jacket. His right palm pressed firmly between her shoulder blades, steering her among the other couples. Her feet followed his as if they had eyes, remembering the hundreds of times they'd danced together. Weddings, parties, anniversaries—they had always danced well together, or at least they had whenever they weren't fighting. He led firmly, without hesitation, and when she wasn't angry at him she had always loved letting her body relax and follow his.

He pulled her a little closer and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. His neck was still as heavy and muscular as it had been when they'd first met, and the same smell still rose from the skin pressed next to her nose—a mixture of soap (Dial soap, which she'd long since banished from her house after being haunted by visions of Waldo every time she stepped in the bathroom) and after-shave and starch from his shirt collar and the underlying tang that was purely him. When she moved her cheek up she found that his skin was scratchy; his beard was heavy and he'd always needed another shave in the evenings, before they went out. He said, with his lips right next to hers, “You feel exactly the same.” She said, “You smell the same. It's so strange.”

They danced for half an hour, drawing closer until they were pressed together like teenagers at a prom, and when Waldo finally said, “Shall we go back?” she could answer him only in a whisper.

Outside, in the parking lot, she stumbled over the curb and Waldo wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Tired,” she murmured. “A little drunk. I hardly ever drink anymore.” They drove to the motel in silence and walked around to the back, to the two rooms Waldo had taken side by side. “Well,” he said as they stood before her door. “Who would've expected this to be so nice?”

He bent down—this man who had fathered her children, beside whom she'd slept for fifteen years—and he kissed her. He might have meant no more than a gentle, friendly kiss, good night, sleep tight; he might have meant no more than to be kind and reassuring; but her mind was lost at the dam, at the bottom of that pool of water or in the depths of the glasses she'd drained, and she kissed him back without thinking, the way she had when his kisses had been a question before they got into bed at night. She kissed him back yes and touched his neck, and he ran his hand down her back and over her hips, and they stood in the lighted doorway necking like kids.

She forgot about Sarah and Courteney. She forgot her dislike of him, and all her suspicions—that he had driven her here, that he was being so kind, only because he wanted a crack at the land that Brendan had promised her. She heard herself say, in a husky voice, “This is crazy, standing out here like this.” She heard him answer, “Let's go inside.” She watched his free hand fumble with the key in the oversize lock, but it was only when they moved inside her darkened room and he held the side of her head in his hand that she realized what she was doing. If they fell into bed, into their old, practiced embrace, she would never be able to let him go again.

She drew back from him. She tried to smile, although she knew he couldn't see her in the dark. She said, “You're sweet, taking care of me like this—really. I appreciate it. But maybe we should get some sleep.” Her tongue was thick in her mouth.

She heard Waldo take a deep breath and then laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “All that dancing—I got carried away. I don't know what I was thinking.”

You were thinking of us, she wanted to say. The way we used to be, all the time we spent together—how could you give it all up? She said, “We're both exhausted. Will you wake me early?”

“Seven? We'll have some breakfast and then we'll take a look at the maps and start wherever you want.” He touched her hair and then he left.

Wiloma undressed in the dark and then lay down carefully on the bed. When she closed her eyes the room began to spin. She sat up, her spine pressed against the headboard, and she turned on the reading lamp. Her body felt prickly, warm, oversensitive; next door, through the thin wall, she could hear Waldo moving around. He brushed his teeth. He dropped his shoes on the floor with a thump. She tried not to remember the slow, deliberate way he used to undress in their bedroom. She tried to tell herself she was glad she'd sent him away.

She did some breathing exercises and then meditated for ten minutes. Body is a reflection of Spirit, she reminded herself. The body cannot desire what the Spirit does not want. Her Spirit did not desire Waldo, not at all; she and Waldo were totally unsuited. And the yearning she felt in her skin and bones was false, an artifact, a creation of the alcohol that had poisoned her system and of her exhaustion and fear. It was insignificant, nothing, and she was glad she'd had the sense to send him away.

She was glad, and yet she could not sleep. She picked up the phone, thinking that she might, despite the lateness of the hour, check in with Wendy and make sure she and Win were all right, but when she dialed her number, a voice she couldn't place right away answered, “White residence.”

“Hello?” The voice clicked in her brain. “Christine? Is that you?”

“Wiloma,” Christine said.

Wiloma held the phone away from her and stared at it. Christine—what was she doing there? “I thought you were coming tomorrow. I'm sorry, I meant to call you earlier. There's been a little problem with my uncle.”

“I heard. Wendy told me all about his disappearance. But I know you'll find him—you know how important it is that I start work with him immediately.”

“I know,” Wiloma said. “We haven't found any trace of him yet, but I think I know where he's headed—with some luck I'll find him tomorrow morning. I'll have him home with you by dinnertime.”

“Your husband's with you?”

“Ex-husband.”

“Whatever. Don't let him distract you—remember that he does not have the best interests of this Healing at heart.”

With her words, Wiloma suddenly saw the evening's events in a different light. Christine was right, she thought—Waldo had not come on this trip to help Brendan, nor had he held her out of desire or love. He wanted something, several somethings, and none of them were worthy. She would have to guard herself against confusion. He was sleeping already, in the room next to her; she thought she could hear his gentle snores. He was sleeping, and dreaming of Sarah and Courteney, and plotting the houses he hoped to convince her to let him build on Brendan's land, and she'd been a fool to let his warm hands and the bewildering fragrance of his neck seduce her. She was here to find her uncle; nothing more.

“I'm all set up here,” Christine said. “We're ready to go. But you have to bring your uncle to me soon. We don't have much time.”