The Cypress House (29 page)

    "I
was going to come to your room," she whispered.

    "We
can stay here," he said, not in a whisper, and then he kissed her again,
moving her toward the bed. She went willingly, but there was confusion in her
eyes.

    They
kissed for a while. He moved roughly on the bed, shifting, banging the old
wooden headboard off the wall, springs creaking beneath him.

    "Paul
will hear," she whispered once. He didn't reply.

    They'd
shed their clothes and he'd rolled over on top of her when she pushed him back
with her hands on his chest and looked at him knowingly. "You want him to
hear." "It's not want," he said. "It's need." She
hesitated and then nodded slowly. "I understand." They got back to
the show then. She played her part well.

    He
didn't stay long after they were finished. She watched as he dressed but said
nothing. He gave her one silent look as he stood at the door, and then he
opened it and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark and empty, and there
was no sound from Paul's room. He walked down the hall and opened the door to
his own room and found Paul sitting in the chair by the window.

    Neither
of them spoke. Arlen shut the door behind him and leaned against it and waited.
It was dark in the room, and he was glad.

    "Of
all the things to lie about," Paul said, voice trembling, "you picked
the dirtiest. Lying about my
death,
Arlen? Trying to scare me away with
stories like that so you can have her?"

    "Wasn't
a lie."

    "Yes,
it was!" Paul came up off the chair, his hands clenched into fists.
"It was a damned lie, and you said it because you want me to leave."

    Arlen
didn't answer.

    "You
bastard," Paul said. "You lying old bastard. You knew how I felt. Sat
there and listened to me tell you all about it like we were close, like there
was trust between us. You heard it all, and then you went and took her."

    "She's
a woman," Arlen said. "Not a boat. She can't be taken or left at the
whims of other people. Don't think of her like that."

    "Don't
tell me how to think of her. You
know
how I think of her, and still you
did this."

    Arlen
folded his arms over his chest and stared at a shadow just over the boy's
shoulder.

    "How
long has it been happening?" Paul said. "Was this the first
time?"

    "No."

    "No!"
he cried, and the genuine anguish in his voice slid into Arlen like a knife
between the ribs. "So it's been days of this? Days of it, and you haven't
had the courage to say a word? How much older than me are you, and you couldn't
be a man? You couldn't say the truth?"

    Arlen
was silent.

    "Then
you lied," Paul said, his voice softer but no less outraged. "You
told me I was going to
die,
Arlen, told me I was going to be killed. That's
how you handle it? Instead of the truth, you tell me
that?"

    "That
wasn't a lie. It was just like on the train. You had —"

    "Stop!
Don't tell me more of that; I can't hear it again. None of it's true. You're
crazy. You ought to be locked up somewhere." His voice broke as he said,
"And she picked
you?
"

    For a
moment Paul stood there as if trying to gather himself to continue speaking,
but then he crossed the room in a rush. There was an instant in which Arlen
thought the kid was going to hit him, and wishing for it. He'd gladly take the
blows. Then he realized he was going only for the door, and moved aside as Paul
shoved past him and into the hall, slamming the door behind him. The wall
trembled with the force of it, and his footsteps echoed through the hall, and
then another door slammed and it was silent.

    Arlen
found his flask and climbed into bed.

    Rebecca
woke him in the morning. She was standing beside the bed with her hand on his
forearm, and when he opened his eyes she said, "He's gone."

    He
sat up stiffly, the now-empty flask still on his lap, and walked down the hall.
The door to Paul's room was open. Inside, no sign of the boy remained. His bags
were gone. The bed was neatly made.

    They
went downstairs, and Arlen stepped out on the front porch and then went to the
back and looked in all directions, and there was no trace of him. He went back
inside. Rebecca was sitting at one of the tables.

    "I
wonder if there was another way," she said.

    "There
wasn't. He wouldn't have gone."

    "I
wish there'd been another way." She sounded close to tears.

    He
thought that he should go to her but didn't want to, not right now. He became
aware of a ticking as he stood in the silent room, and when he looked up above
the bar he felt something swell in his chest.

    "He
fixed your clock," he said.

    Paul
hadn't been able to get the thing back up by himself, so he'd taken the brass
casing and propped it up against the wall. The hands showed the correct time,
and it ticked away steadily.

    "He
fixed the damn clock," Arlen said, and he didn't like the sound of his
voice. Rebecca looked up at him as if she were going to speak, but he walked
across the room and out through the front door. He walked off the porch and
down the trail and out to the unfinished dock. When he reached the end, he sat
down with his feet hanging free above the water and pulled out a cigarette and
lit it. He took a long drag and looked out across the inlet.

    "He's
better off," he said aloud. "He's safe."

    He
went for another drag, but this time his hand was shaking and he hardly got the
cigarette to his lips. When he did, there wasn't enough breath in his lungs to
draw any smoke. He took the cigarette away again and the shaking was worse and
it fell from his fingers and into the water. Once it was gone, he bowed his
head and wept into his hands.

    He
worked alone all day, measuring and cutting and hammering as the wind died off
and the sun rose high and hot, the air so humid it felt like moving through
tar, searing and sticky. In the afternoon Rebecca came down and stood on the
dock with him.

    "You
really believe he was going to be killed," she said.

    "I
don't believe it. I know it." He didn't turn to look at her.

    "So
he needed to leave. He had to."

    "That's
right."

    "Couldn't
we have talked him into it?"

    "No."

    "How
can you be so sure ?"

    "Because
I know him. If I'd gone to him and told him the truth about us, he would have
been shattered, but he also would have stayed. I'm certain of that. I had to
hurt him. Drive him away."

    "I
hate that," she said. "I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hate that
we had to —"

    "I
know."

    She
sighed and shook her head. "It won't be the same. It's going to feel . . .
empty without him."

    "Yes,"
Arlen said.

    "Why
didn't you leave with him?"

    He
turned with a board in his hands and looked at her. "Do you really need to
hear that answer?"

    "I
hope I don't," she said softly.

    "You
don't."

    She
waited a minute and said, "Will you go with us?"

    "You
and Owen?"

    She
nodded.

    He
looked away, out to the mouth of the inlet, where a pair of shrieking gulls
circled, looking for a meal.

    "There's
no obligation to you," he said. "I'm staying, and I'll help. I will
do what I can. If you want to take your brother and disappear, though . .
." He shrugged and left the rest unspoken.

    "I
want to disappear," she said, "from Solomon Wade. Not you."

    "You
say that firm," Arlen said, "yet you haven't known me long."

    "I
know you."

    "Yeah?"

    "If
you don't believe it," she said, "then why are you still here?"

    "Oh,
I believe it. Probably more than you. We're kindred."

    "Yes."

    "In
ways you don't even understand," he said, "we are kindred."

    "What
do you mean?"

    "You
see blood on your hands that no one else does."

    She
tilted her head and frowned. "And you do, too?"

    He
was silent.

    "Tell
me," she said.

    He
shook his head. "Another day."

    "I'll
wait. I've learned how to wait."

    He
wanted to smile, but it wasn't a day for smiling. He sat back on his heels and
stared at the gulls and felt the sweat bead and glide along his skin.

    "What
are you thinking?" she said.

    "That
I showed up here looking for a ride back to the CCC. That's all I was looking
for. We were supposed to be here an hour."

    "My
parents were supposed to be enjoying this place right now. People were supposed
to be coming in with hundreds of dollars in their pockets for fishing and
drinking and sunshine. I was supposed to be in Savannah." She shook her
head. " 'Supposed to be' doesn't mean much to me anymore. Everyone in this
country was full of plans a few years ago, and how many of them do you think
even dare to make plans for the future now? They just get through each day.
Times like these, it's all you can do."

    He
nodded and ran his fingertips along the edge of the board, wiping rough sawdust
clear from the cut.

    "If
I'm staying," he said, "I need to know the plan. I deserve that
much."

    She
said, "Maine."

    The
word shivered through him
. Edwin Main. Edwin and his wife, Joy
.

    "What's
wrong?" she said.

    "Nothing.
That's where you intend to go?"

    She
nodded.

    "You
ever been there? You know anybody there?"

    "No.
That's why it's perfect. We'll be strangers there, far from this place and the
people from it."

    She
lifted a hand, rubbed at her forehead, brought it back glistening with sweat,
and held it out to him as if it were evidence of something.

    "As
far from this place as possible," she said. "You don't know how often
I think of Maine. How much time I spend imagining it. Right now it's moving
toward autumn there. There are cold breezes during the day, and at night you
pull an extra blanket over yourself and in the morning the grass is crisp and a
deep breath chills your lungs instead of choking you. The leaves are going
orange and red and brown. It's not trapped in green, always green. There's
change. In a month or so they'll have the first snow. Just a tease of what's to
come, but it will snow. There will be a white dusting of it in the morning,
maybe, or a few flakes in the air. You know I've only seen snow twice in my
life?"

    She
was staring across the inlet as she spoke, into the thick green tangle that
grew there, where a few unseen birds shrilled and occasionally something
splashed in the water.

    "Have
you seen many winters?" she said. "Real winters?"

    "I've
seen a few."

    "I'll
see one this year," she said, a blood vow in her voice. "I'll see one
this year."

    By
nightfall the wind had returned, and Arlen was nearing completion of the dock.
He figured to have the last board laid by noon the next day, and then he could
start on the boathouse, though they'd need more lumber before he could make
much headway there. It was a ludicrous endeavor, working so hard to rebuild a
place that they'd soon abandon, but he didn't know what else to do. It kept up
the pretense that they'd remain, for one thing, but it also gave him a task to
handle. He needed that.