Beach Music (33 page)

“You can’t. That’s not fair,” she said.

“It’s not fair to Leah for me to be away this long.”

“Who’s keeping her?”

“Charles Manson just got paroled,” I said. “He really needed the work.”

“Get on, you. Come see me tomorrow. Please look out for John Hardin.”

When I arrived back home it was not yet three in the afternoon; I saw Ruth Fox sitting on the veranda of my father’s house. I turned off the motor and laid my forehead against the steering wheel of the car. I felt bruised and exhausted to the point of insensibility. Closing my eyes, I did not think I could bear one more confrontation or ghost from my complicated past. I especially had no desire to exchange harsh words with the mother of the woman I had most adored. I thought of Leah in Rome and how much I missed her. How much more had Ruth Fox suffered, I thought, by losing both Shyla and Leah in the space of a single year? I looked up at the silhouette sitting motionless and patient in the white wicker chair. Wearily, I got out of the car and walked toward my mother-in-law.

Even in the harsh sunlight, Ruth’s beauty touched me and I thought how uncommon it was for one town to have produced this generation of beautiful women. In a sudden revelation, I saw what Shyla would have looked like in her sixties.

Ruth was trim as a girl and silver-haired. As I approached her,
that long shock of hair looked like something stolen from the night sky. Her eyes, in shadows, were dark even in broad daylight, so I could not read what she was thinking as I drew near her chair.

The marsh behind the house with the tide rushing into the creeks took on a darker smell, like a beast in hiding, as I faced a damaged part of myself and my past. Though I tried to think of opening words, no gambit presented itself. I stepped onto the veranda. In silence we studied each other. We had been dead to each other for too many years. Finally, Ruth spoke.

“How is our Leah?” she said, her accent a gentle echo of the Pale of Settlement, the shifting borders of Eastern Europe.

“So,” she spoke again, “I ask you, Jack, how is our Leah?”

“My Leah is fine,” I answered.

“She is a beautiful girl,” Ruth said. “Martha brought us pictures. She even made a nice video of Leah talking to us.”

“Leah’s a great kid, Ruth,” I said.

“We need to talk.”

“We’re talking right now,” I said and I heard more coldness in my voice than I had intended. I saw in her face Shyla’s face, and there was also Leah’s face, and the connection startled me.

Ruth said, “We need to review our relationship from A to Z.”

“Start with this,” I said. “We have no relationship. Our relationship ended the day you and your husband took the stand and tried to take my child away from me. Everyone understands the nature of the mistake now, but only because I won. If you had won, I would never have seen Leah again.”

“You have every right to hate us,” she said.

“I don’t hate you, Ruth,” I said evenly. “I hate your husband. I’ve never hated you. You didn’t tell the judge that I beat Shyla and Leah. Your husband did.”

“He is the most sorry,” Ruth said. “He knows he wronged you. He would like to explain some things to you, Jack,” she said. “I would also very much like to explain some things.”

“You can start with ‘the lady of the coins.’ ”

“I have to end with ‘the lady of the coins.’ I cannot begin there,” Ruth said, her face pale and fragile in the stark light.

“Those were her last words,” I said. “They make no sense to me. Martha says you know what they mean. Tell me.”

“Those words will make no sense until I tell you the whole story, dear Jack.”

“Please don’t call me ‘dear Jack.’ ”

“Did we not love each other, Jack?”

“You loved me until I married your daughter.”

“We are Orthodox Jews. You cannot blame us for being upset when our daughter marries a Gentile. Your parents were equally upset that you married a Jewish girl.”

“I’m merely keeping the record straight,” I said, and I sat down in the porch swing and began to rock gently back and forth. “You treated me badly.”

“If I had explained to you the meaning of ‘the lady of the coins …’ ” She stopped as she fought to compose herself. Then she continued, but each word was hard-earned. “Then I could not have blamed you for Shyla’s death. By blaming you, Jack, I could take an action. I blamed you so that I would not plunge into despair.”

“So you let me plunge into despair instead.”

Ruth Fox looked at me. “Jack, you know nothing of despair.”

I leaned toward her and whispered fiercely, “I’ve got a working acquaintance with it.”

“You know nothing of it. You know its edges. I know its heart,” Ruth said firmly, quietly, and convincingly.

“Here we go again,” I said, irritated. “The Holocaust trump card.”

“Yes,” she said. “That is the card I choose to play. I earned my right to play it. So did my husband.”

“And play it you have,” I said. “If Shyla didn’t eat everything on her plate, your husband would scream ‘Auschwitz.’ ”

“Will you see my husband, Jack?” Ruth asked. “He very much would like to see you.”

“No. Tell that sorry son of a bitch I never want to see him again.”

Ruth stood up and walked over to me, but I refused to meet her
gaze. She took my hands and kissed them softly. Her tears fell until my hands were covered by tears and kisses and the touch of her hair.

“I ask you to see my husband. I ask it for me.”

“No,” I said, emphatically.

“I ask you to see my husband,” she repeated. “I ask it in the name of Shyla. The little girl that we conceived. The one you loved. The one who bore Leah. I ask it in Shyla’s name.”

I looked at Ruth Fox and saw the woman who was my wife’s first hermitage. I thought of Shyla inside Ruth’s body and Ruth’s enormous love of her troubled daughter and wondered how I could possibly survive if Leah ever killed herself. It was Leah, not Shyla, who made me rise.

“I’m going back to Rome, and Mom’s going to try to visit us if she gets enough strength back by December. Leah and I’ll fly back with her after Christmas. Mom wants to go to Mass at the Vatican on Christmas Eve.”

“Leah, here in Waterford,” Ruth said.

“I loved Shyla. Anyone who ever saw us together knew I loved your daughter. I’m sorry I was Catholic. I’m sorry she was Jewish. But love works that way sometimes.”

“We know you loved her, Jack,” Ruth said. “And Martha told us that you’re bringing Leah up as a Jew. Martha says you take her to the oldest synagogue in Rome each Sabbath.”

“I promised Shyla if anything happened to her, I wouldn’t let Leah forget that she was Jewish,” I said. “I like to keep promises.”

“Leah,” Ruth said. “Will you let us see her?”

“I’ll let you see Leah as much as you’d like, but on one condition.”

“Anything,” Ruth Fox said.

“I’d like to know what you and George knew about Shyla’s death. We don’t have to blame each other for anything. I can tell you what she said and was thinking in those days leading up to the leap. I have no idea what she knew about your past. She was always sad, Ruth, but I’m sad and that was one of the things that brought us together. We could make each other laugh. I thought I knew everything about her. But I didn’t know the important things, the ones that’d save her.”

“My husband is waiting to see you.”

“Tell George I can’t now,” I said. “But when I return with Leah … Then we’ll start.”

“Have you visited Shyla’s grave since you returned?”

“No, I haven’t,” I said, almost angrily.

“It is a nice stone. Very pretty. You would like it,” she said.

“Leah and I will go together.”

Back at the hospital, I watched as Dr. Pitts walked my grandfather, Silas, and my father in to see my mother. The brothers were again comfortable with me around them and when Dallas came in from the law firm we went over the day’s activities together. My mother’s doctor was talking about releasing her to her own bed in less than a week’s time. In the distance, we heard the honking of horns far down the river. Dallas began to tell us about a divorce case he was working on, when Dupree went to the window and looked out.

“The bridge is open,” Dupree said. “Tee, get those binoculars.”

“I’ve got them in my briefcase,” Dallas said. “There’s an osprey with chicks nesting on a telephone pole near my office.”

The horns grew louder in the distance.

“Slow boat at rush hour,” Dallas said. “Nothing worse.”

“Rush hour in Waterford,” I said.

“Town’s grown,” said Tee.

“There’s no boat,” Dupree said, looking through the binoculars.

We joined Tee at the window and looked downriver at the open bridge.

“Has to be, bro,” Tee said. “They don’t open the bridge for exercise.”

“I’m telling you. No boat,” Dupree repeated.

“John Hardin knows the bridge tender, Johnson,” Tee said. “Keeps the guy company sometimes.”

“Why did my heart just stop?” Dallas said.

My father came up behind us and said, “What’re you boys looking at?”

“Where’s John Hardin, Dad?” I asked.

“He’s fine. I just told your mother. I saw him at the house this morning. He looked like a million bucks. All he wanted was to borrow a gun.”

Dupree lowered the binoculars and looked at our father with a baleful gaze. Lifting the binoculars, Dupree studied the bridge again and said, “Jesus, I see John Hardin. He’s holding something. Yeah. Congratulations, Dad. It’s your gun.”

“You lent a gun to a paranoid schizophrenic?” Dallas said.

“No, I lent one to John Hardin,” the judge said. “The boy told me he wanted to do a little target shooting.”

As we looked back out the window a man appeared on the span in the center of the open bridge, running full speed. He did not break stride and we watched in fascination as he dove headfirst into the channel of the Waterford River.

“That’s Johnson,” guessed Tee, and the four of us took off, sprinting together down the hospital hallway toward the parking lot.

In Dupree’s car, with Dupree driving fast through the tree-lined streets, we could see the flashing blue lights of three squad cars spinning in unison at the edge of the town side of the bridge.

“They take maritime traffic very seriously, boys,” Dallas said. “This ain’t local law he’s breaking. The feds’ll be all over this one. They also don’t like motorized traffic disrupted at this time of day. And they sure don’t like guys with pistols taking over the only bridge to the sea islands. They could hurt John Hardin.”

Dupree drove, taking the back streets, avoiding the traffic that was backed up from Anchorage Lane to Lafayette Street, but he had to force his way between a line of cars that was backed up on Calhoun Street, which led directly to the bridge.

“These drivers are highly pissed,” Dallas said as Dupree bullied an elderly woman into backing up until her bumper touched the Toyota Corolla behind her.

Dupree honked his horn loudly and forced his way into the empty lane going in the opposite direction from the bridge. He raced past the stalled line of cars and disbelieving drivers and gunned it until he reached the two squad cars also parked in the wrong lane. The four of us jumped out and joined the line of police officers who stood facing a defiant John Hardin across an expanse of water. John Hardin, alone at last, confronted the rest of the world.

When we reached the bridge’s edge, we saw Sheriff Arby Vandiver trying to negotiate with John Hardin. But all of us knew
John Hardin had entered that untenable zone where the voices inside him and the buzzing confusion on the bridge made him obedient only to the authenticated world of his own interior. He had long ago created his own island and he was his own bully pulpit when the extraordinary and unruly flash of madness overcame him.

“Hey, Waterford,” John Hardin was screaming. “Fuck you. That’s what I think of the town and everyone who lives in it. What a rotten little excuse for a town. Everyone who grows up here, or is forced to live here even for a small amount of time, becomes a complete, worthless asshole. It’s not your fault, Waterford. You can’t help it that you’re rotten to the core. But it’s time. You’re just not worth a shit and it shows.”

“Makes you proud to be a McCall,” Dallas whispered.

“Okay, John Hardin,” Sheriff Vandiver ordered through a bullhorn. “Hit the switch and let the bridge swing back. You got traffic backed up for miles.”

“They should never’ve allowed this bridge to be built, Sheriff. You know better than anyone. Remember how pretty these islands used to be before they built this bridge? You could walk for miles without ever seeing a house. Wild turkeys were all over the place. You couldn’t throw out a baited line without catching a fish. But now? Hell no. A thousand generals live out here by their stupid golf courses. One million retired colonels and their stupid wives built their tacky retirement homes. There are seven golf courses between here and the beach. How many golf courses do these assholes need?”

“He’s got a point,” someone said in the crowd beginning to swell on the bridge behind us. Another crowd was forming on the ocean side of the bridge.

“I got to get my bridge back, kid,” the sheriff said.

“This used to be a fabulous town,” John Hardin shouted, appealing to what he supposed to be the sheriff’s shared sense of nostalgia.

“Yeah, kid, it was heaven on earth,” the sheriff said wearily, his voice oddly distorted by the volcano-shaped instrument. “Hit the switch and bring Daddy’s bridge back to him or I might have to hurt you, John Hardin.”

When he heard this, Dupree moved in to take over the negotiations by saying to the sheriff, “Hey, Vandiver, get this straight. You ain’t hurting John Hardin.”

“Won’t be me,” the sheriff said. “Regulations say I got to call the SWAT team from Charleston during a siege situation. They’re on their way by helicopter.”

“What’ll they do to John Hardin?” I asked.

“They’ll kill him,” the sheriff said. “Especially since he’s armed.”

“Call the SWAT team off, Sheriff,” Dallas said. “Tell them to turn back. We’ll get John Hardin to close the bridge.”

“It don’t work that way,” the sheriff said.