Perfect Family (3 page)

“Even Tinker.”

“So I can be famous.”

“How's that?” he asked.

“I'll be the only girl it
doesn't
happen to. I'll be on talk shows. I'll be on
Oprah
.”

“You'll make us all so proud,” William said.

“Here's what I don't get,” Pony said. “I've seen your penis, right?
And Daddy's and this kid Eddie's in my class, and what I want to know is how is one of those ever going to poke itself into a woman like Mom says? Like hello?”

“Ask Mom,” William said. “Ask Tinker. Jeez, Pony.”

“I'm asking you,” Pony said. “Because you've got one.”

“Under certain circumstances, it gets hard, “William said, trying for equilibrium. She deserved an answer.

“Can I see?”

“No,” he said. But he felt it start to happen. Back then, just talking about it could make it happen. He turned back to the mirror to hide it from her. “Let me finish shaving,” he said. “Get out of here.”

“Why can't you show me? What's the big deal?”

He leaned against the cool sink to stop it from happening. “Scram.”

“Why does everybody always have to get so mad about this stuff? Honestly!” she said, and left the room, slamming the door.

 

He kept watching her. She was back in the water, breaststroking in circles. The wind rippled across the water. She looked so white, frog-kicking, her black-looking hair fanning out, obscuring her shoulders. She surface-dove, emerged closer to shore, and said something to Andrew. Those two were the team now. Pony and Andrew. William felt like an intruder coming in today, stumbling over Andrew's toys, smelling his baby smells. The same lousy plug of loneliness in his gut as when the girls started being born.

Pony climbed the ladder to the raft and lay down on her back. William turned away. He gathered up his things, repacked, and made up his mind to head up to Phoenicia in the Catskills, maybe do North Dome. He couldn't remember if Ruth had done that one. They were doing the Catskill 3500s—thirty-five peaks, all over thirty five hundred feet high; the task was to climb them all once in the good months and four of them again in the winter. William wanted the freedom of the mountains, the strain on his body, the exhaustion of a day climbing. The even exchange of effort and payoff.

Downstairs, he checked to see if he'd left anything, first the living room and then the kitchen. The two sandwiches Pony had made for their dinner were still sitting on a plate on the kitchen table. He took one for the drive home and laid a dish towel over the other. In the living room, he picked up the picture of their mother again. She was about seventeen in it, he guessed. He considered taking it but decided not to. It was Pony's. Her half-full glass of bourbon or whatever was on the porch rail, and he tossed the contents. He went back down to the water holding his duffel. The minute she saw him, she understood. “Oh, for God's sake, William,” she shouted. She dove in and began to swim to shore.

“Adios,” he shouted.

“You can't leave,” she shouted to him.

What was he even doing here? Whatever she wanted to tell him would have to wait. He wasn't going to be a pawn in any of her stuff again. He threw his duffel into the backseat of his car. Pony was out of the water, coming up the sand. She picked up the orange shirt and covered herself.

“Look, I'm sorry, okay?” she said.

“Tell me what's going on.”

“Can't. I promised.”

“Promised who?”

She shook her head. “Just stay, William.”

“What the hell is with you?” He gestured toward the house, toward Andrew, the lake, the whole thing. Then he got into his car. He backed onto the drive and stopped to look one more time. In the rearview mirror, he saw her turn away, throw the shirt back onto the grass, and head back toward the water. The baby, in his pen on the lawn, reached for her, but she must not have noticed. She walked past him and back into Lake Aral.

Daddy spoke in a slow, controlled voice. “Tinker. It's Dad.” He drew a long breath. “Anita Bell called. No one seems to know where Pony is. Andrew is at Anita's. I need to go up there right away. Can you drive me?”

Tinker sat down at the kitchen table, the telephone cord stretching long. “Of course I will,” she said.

Her husband, Mark, looked up over his newspaper, frowning. “Will what?” he mouthed.

“The police are involved, Tinker,” her father said. “I'll explain in the car. Just come as soon as you can. I'll be waiting for you.”

“You mean right now?”

“Of course now.”

She replaced the receiver in the cradle. She tried to get her thoughts around this. All she could think was that Pony must have left Andrew with Anita and then not come back when she said she would. But the weird part was—
Anita?
Why would Pony leave the baby with Anita? The family had nothing to do with the Bells. She
went into the living room and sat on the hassock opposite Mark. He dropped the newspaper on the floor. “Now what?” he said.

“Pony's missing. Daddy wants me to drive him up to the lake.”

Mark shook his head as if to clear it. “Missing how?”

She explained again, as much as she knew, which was next to nothing. Mark had questions. What time did Pony leave the baby with Anita? Where did she go? Was she with anybody?

Tinker hated this feeling of being interrogated when she had no answers. She felt the weight of Mark's judgment. “You should call Anita yourself,” Mark said. “And get the story firsthand.”

“I told Daddy I'd be right over.”

“I know you did,” Mark said. “I'm just trying to get a handle on it. What if it's nothing?”

“What if it's something? They called the police.”

“You didn't say that,” Mark said.

“Pony never would have left Andrew with Anita unless something was wrong.”

Mark leaned back in the chair, raised his shoulders and then lowered them.

“I can't exactly refuse,” she said.

He didn't respond.

Sometimes it felt as if she was in the middle of a tug-of-war between Mark and her father. But what was she supposed to do? Blow Daddy off? In Mark's family, people hardly ever called one another, let alone asked for help. Her family was different. She went upstairs and hauled out a suitcase. She slammed it open and filled it. In her family, people went out of their way for one another. If there really was something the matter with Pony—and part of Tinker hoped there would be—Mark would be sorry.

 

She drove the mile to her father's house on Steele Road in West Hartford, where they'd all grown up. She was there fifteen minutes after he called. He was waiting on the front walk, a great hulking shape pacing in semidarkness, his bag and briefcase at the curb. He
wore a trench coat even though it was a warm evening. The minute he saw her car, he flagged her down the way you flag down a taxi, as though she might drive by without stopping.

He got into the car, but he didn't speak. He was disheveled, his reddish-gray hair uncombed, and he had a slightly unpleasant smell. Anxiety. It caused the wings of fear to flutter for real inside her. He held a red notebook, the accounting kind he always used, a columnar book with numbered lines. There were dozens of them in his closet.

He opened the red book and flipped a few pages. “I'll read to you what I wrote. The facts,” he said. She wished he'd wait until they were out of Hartford. She needed to watch for signs to the overpass that connected Interstate 84 to Interstate 91, a tricky place. If she missed the exit, she'd be headed south without a clue as to how to get back on going north.

“At 7:46
P.M
. Officer Martine of the Hillsboro Barracks called JC. Martine had received a call from Anita Bell. Baby abandoned on lawn of Fond du Lac. Must be Andrew. Baby hysterical, wet. PC not there. Martine arrived at FdL 7:57
P.M
. JC called Anita Bell. Andrew safe. 8:02, JC informed Martine will drive up. Called Tinker.'” He shut his book.

Tinker was sitting forward, chin over the wheel, hands gripping tightly, trying to understand as she navigated a lane change. It took her a moment to realize the PC was Pony and JC was Daddy. “Abandoned? I thought Pony left Andrew with Anita.” She had to move a lane to the right to make the exit. She never trusted the mirrors and twisted around to see if there was a car in her blind spot.

“I never said that,” her father said with annoyance.

She wished her father would put on his seat belt, but he didn't believe in them. “Okay, I'm sorry,” she said. “Go on.” She was safely through the interchange, doing seventy up I-91, a clear shot until they hit more traffic in Springfield.

Her father struggled with his coat, finally got it off, and threw it into the backseat. He settled back down and spoke again. “Anita heard Andrew at the house. Crying. She went to see if there was a
problem.” He spoke deliberately, as if to a child. Tinker imagined Anita charging through the woods in her Bermuda shorts, Ohio State sweatshirt, and flip-flops. “You know, that big expandable playpen Pony uses for Andrew,” her father said.

“I never thought that playpen was a good idea,” Tinker said. You didn't see them anymore. They weren't safe. Kids could pinch their fingers in them. “I never would have used that for Isabel,” she said. Maybe this had something to do with the playpen. Maybe Andrew had hurt himself.

“Pony had left him in the playpen on the lawn. He was frantic. Anita took him inside and got him into some dry clothes. She looked all over for Pony. She thought perhaps Pony had fallen or had an accident. Pony wasn't there.”

“What time was this? Was it dark?”

“Anita heard Andrew around seven-thirty,” her father snapped. “I just told you that.”

Tinker racked her brain for an explanation. Pony had been kidnapped. She'd run away. She'd left for a few minutes on an errand and had an accident. “Was her car there?”

“Of course it was, Tinker. She would not have taken her car, leaving Andrew outside,” her father said.

“Daddy, I'm just trying to understand. Please don't snap at me.”

“Her clothing was on the beach,” he said.

“Oh God.” They were passing the exit to the airport, cars peeling off, people going on trips. She wished she were one of them. She wished she were anywhere else but here. “You said you called the cops?”

“The police. Officer Martine is there right now with some of his men.”

She couldn't say out loud what she was thinking. That Pony could have drowned. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Pony was the best swimmer in the family. Pony was strong. This worrying would all amount to a hill of beans. There was a great thought. They'd get there and Pony would be like, “What's
with
you guys?”

“Tell me, Tinker, would your sister have attempted a distance swim under the circumstances? With the baby outside?”

“She wouldn't swim across the lake naked,” she said. Not even Pony would do that.

They rode in silence after that, theirs the only car on the highway for mile after mile of darkness. At White River Junction, she was going to suggest stopping for a bite, but her father's head was back and his mouth was open, so she kept driving. Let him sleep. She reached for the radio and turned the dial a few times, but they were in that long corridor without reception.
There will be a reasonable explanation for Pony's absence,
she kept telling herself. There always was.

She felt the first stirring of anger. There had been other times like this, other times of following up on Pony and even Mira. When Tinker was little, the rules had been clear and strict. There were bedtimes, ridiculous limits on the amount of TV she could watch, no eating between meals except for fruit, and a whole weekly schedule of chores. But it always seemed to Tinker that the rules were only for her. Pony and Mira just blew them off. Maybe they were chalk and cheese when it came to personality—Pony broke the rules out loud, while Mira was always secretive. Even so, they were usually in ca-hoots. Pony did Mira's chores in return for Mira's weekly hour of TV.

Mira the disappearance artist
, Tinker thought. “Where did Mira go?” Tinker used to say whenever there was work to be done. Mira would always drift off to the bathroom while Tinker and Pony did the dishes. She would putz around in the garage while the others raked leaves. And when they were putting in the float at Fond du Lac, Mira was always around but never actually doing anything, not if you watched her closely, as Tinker had on many occasions. Mira would take up a paintbrush, do a few strokes with it, and then look out across the lake and start daydreaming. One summer Tinker decided to tell. Enough was enough. And it wasn't really tattling, it was about the injustice of the arrangement. Her mother was lying on a chaise, drying her long fair hair in the sun. It was draped over the back of her chair like a curtain, almost to the ground, and glis
tening. Her mother had on large dark glasses and a flowered two-piece. “What is it, sweetheart?” her mother said. Tinker was close to tears under the weight of what she was about to do. Tattling was the worst sin.

“Pony does Mira's chores,” Tinker said.

Her mother sat up, raised her hair in both hands, and did that thing she could do, slowly twisting the hair behind her neck into a loose knot. Then she reached over and took Tinker's hand. “You just take care of Tinker.”

 

Just outside the village of Hillsboro, there was a long downward sweep of road. The night was black, with bright stars. Tinker slowed at the crest and looked down at Lake Aral in the distance. A halo of bright light hovered over the near side of the lake. She wondered what was going on that would require all that light and then realized it was coming from their house and felt sick to her stomach. She nudged her father. “Daddy,” she whispered. “We're almost there.”

She was moving relentlessly into something terrible. There was no going back. She turned at the mailboxes onto the dirt road to their and the Bells' houses. Light filtered through the trees and became brighter as she approached the house. She slowed to a stop on the driveway between a police cruiser and Pony's car. The headlights from the police car lit up the wooded stretch between the Carterets' and the Bells'. Another cruiser sat partly on the grass closer to the water. There were two big halogen power lamps, one on the lawn and another down at the water. It hurt her eyes to look at them. Her father blinked in confusion. He looked shockingly old.

Randy Martine leaned in her window. “Tinker,” he said. “Sir. Mr. Carteret. I'm afraid we haven't found anything. We've got a man out on the water. Mr. Bell from next door went out, too, in his rowboat. Dive team was here. They'll be back at first light. We need to search the lake, given the circumstances. The child left on the lawn, her clothing on the beach.”

Her father got out of the car, grabbed his coat and threw it on, said something to Randy, and walked down to the water.

The first thing Tinker saw was an orange T-shirt on the grass by itself, and then maybe ten feet away and closer to the playpen, a pair of shorts, panties, and a bra on the sand, all bright white. To Tinker it looked as though Pony had thrown off the shirt on the run and then stopped to remove the rest before she ran into the water. Tinker's heart sank. People said that all the time, but it was accurate now. Her heart felt like a leaden object drilling down.

Randy, her father, and Anita Bell were clustered at the water's edge. Anita had on a white bathrobe and was barefoot. When Tinker approached, Anita gave her a hug that Tinker accepted stiffly, wishing she would just please go home. “Andrew's just fine now,” Anita said. “He's asleep. I finally got him down, poor thing. I hope I did the right thing.”

Her father patted Anita's shoulder. “Of course you did,” he said.

“I took his temp, just to be sure.” Anita pursed her lips. “Right as rain.” She frowned. “I knew one of you Carterets was here, but I never saw who. I was out most of the day today, right through dinnertime. Denny was here, but you know kids. Sleep until noon, and the rest of the time with the CD stuck in his ear. Right, Denny?” Anita turned toward the woods that separated the two houses. Denny was there. Tall, skinny, hair in his eyes. He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Was Pony here alone?” Randy asked Tinker.

“I didn't know she was here at all,” Tinker said. “Usually we sign up.”

“Mr. Carteret, sir, did you know she was here?”

“I did not,” her father said.

“Does she ever leave the child alone? Is it customary behavior for her to perhaps duck out for a few minutes?”

“Absolutely not,” her father said.

“Has she said anything to indicate she was depressed? Worried?”

“My daughter is not depressed.”

“Sometimes,” Randy said, “after the birth of a baby—”

“Pony is not depressed,” her father said.

“Is Pony married?” Randy asked. “A husband we should contact?”

Her father shook his head.

“Boyfriend? Ex-husband? The baby's father? Somebody who might know why she was here? Somebody who might have spoken to her?”

“No, no,” her father said. “Pony is a single mother.”

“Sorry, but I do need to ask who the father is, sir,” Randy said. “We need that information.”

“No need to concern yourself there. Pony is raising Andrew on her own.”

“But—”

“We don't know who the father is,” Tinker said. She stole a glance at Anita.

Randy did a little double take. He'd been Tinker's boyfriend for a summer during high school, and she still loved the look of him. He was what you'd call fresh-faced.

“One of our men is asking around the lake houses to see if anybody knows anything. I'm afraid that's all we can do tonight,” Randy said. “We'll have the divers come back here first thing in the morning. You all try to get some sleep. Try not to disturb anything.”