Before You Know Kindness Part 8

"Gwen wouldn't have cared. I told you, I've smoked pot before-two times. If I'd asked, she would have shared some with me," Charlotte said.

"No way. There is no way Gwen would have let a twelve-year-old kid smoke her pot."

"Why does everyone keep saying I'm twelve-"

"Because you are!"

"No, I'm not! I'm almost thirteen. If people want to round my age, they should round it up to thirteen!"

"Fine, you're thirteen. There is still no way that Gwen would have let a thirteen-year-old smoke her pot-or anyone's pot!"

"She wouldn't have had a choice," Charlotte said, and she lowered her voice slightly. "Maybe I would have pointed out to her that I could tell the grown-ups there were kids at the bonfire with dope if she didn't let me have some."

"You would have done that to Gwen?"

The older girl shrugged her shoulders. In reality, Willow knew, Charlotte wouldn't have dared. She wouldn't have wanted to anger this young adult whose friends.h.i.+p she cherished or do something as decidedly uncool as rat on a teenager.

"I guess I wouldn't have," Charlotte said after a moment. "But I still don't think Gwen would have minded all that much. I'm sure she would have given us a couple of puffs."

Willow found herself nodding. Sometimes this was about as close to acquiescence as you got with Charlotte. "I think my mom had a good time," she said, consciously changing the subject. "Sometimes she says she gets a little shy at parties. But I think she thought this one was fun."

"My mom sure thought so," Charlotte said, but she sounded annoyed.

"What? You don't want your mom to have a good time?"

"I want her to have a good time with Dad."

"I don't understand."

"You wouldn't. Your mom..."

"My mom what?"

"It doesn't matter."

"No, tell me."

Charlotte draped her arm over her eyes. "I'm hungry," she said. "I think I have the munchies."

"Tell me what you meant!"

She took a very deep breath, and when she exhaled it sounded a bit like the wind. "I was going to say that my mom is this really huge flirt-even though she's married. It's pathetic."

Willow was stunned. She couldn't imagine thinking such a thing of one's mother, much less verbalizing the notion aloud. She told herself this was some idea that had popped into her cousin's head because of the marijuana.

"And my dad doesn't know it," Charlotte continued. "He's completely clueless."

"They seem happy to me."

"Yeah, right. You saw Mom with Gary at the club this morning, didn't you? And then tonight at the party?"

"Your mom and Gary played tennis. What's the big deal?"

"And she's done this before," Charlotte went on, ignoring her.

"Your mom?"

"Uh-huh. I get it from her. I've seen how she is with men at parties at our apartment and at school, and I've heard her on the phone. I've even picked up the phone and listened. One time-"

"You've listened in on her phone conversations?"

"Twice. One time she was talking to a teacher and another time it was this headmaster, but I could tell there was more going on than just school stuff."

Willow realized this disclosure was not merely making her uncomfortable, it was scaring her. She felt cold suddenly and wanted to go inside, but-as if she were watching a desperately frightening movie-she couldn't bring herself to leave. "Are they going to get a divorce?" she asked, and her voice sounded tiny to her.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they did someday. You know that one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. So it wouldn't be a big deal."

"Yes it would."

"You don't understand because your mom doesn't drool over other men, and your father isn't so caught up in all the other stuff he does-cows or monkeys or something-that he doesn't even notice."

"Charlotte, divorce would be horrible."

"You just think that because you live in Vermont. Divorce is a lot more normal-"

"Divorce is never normal!"

"It happens, Cousin. You deal. Anyway, the thing that really gets me is the way she doesn't take Dad seriously. Like this garden. Dad really wanted it to work, but Mom just didn't care. I mean, if my boyfriend-"

"Husband-"

"You know what I mean. If my boyfriend or husband really cared about something, I'd take it seriously. Wouldn't you? I'm only his daughter, but I still wish I could do something to save the garden-and not because I love radishes or beets."

"No one loves radishes."

"Sometimes I get p.i.s.sed at both of them. I don't think Mom would be the way she is if Dad wasn't this public whacko. You want to know something? You've been to the Bronx Zoo more times than I have."

"I think I've been once."

"Well, that's one more time than me. FERAL doesn't approve of zoos."

High overhead Willow saw the blinking lights of an airplane, but it was so far away that she couldn't hear it. If she squinted, it looked a bit like a slow-motion shooting star. She decided right then that she wished Charlotte hadn't told her any of this, because it was information she didn't need, and then she decided she would never drink beer or smoke pot again-and, if she could, she would prevent her cousin from dabbling with either. She blamed this whole conversation-and, especially, Charlotte's revelations-on the beer and the dope.

Over her shoulder she heard a noise from the house, and when she turned around she saw her father in the lit frame of the window of the bedroom that her parents and Patrick were sharing. His hands were on the sill and he had pulled up the screen so he could lean outside. He looked around, and she realized he couldn't pinpoint them in the dark. He was already wearing the blue T-s.h.i.+rt in which he slept, and she could see the check plaid of his summer pajamas around his waist.

"Willow?" he called in a stage whisper, his voice carrying well through the tranquil night air. "Willow?"

"We're out here, Dad," she yelled back, trying to make her voice project without shouting. She guessed Patrick was either asleep in his crib or settling down with one of Mom's b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his mouth.

"There's an unopened packet of diapers in the trunk of the Volvo," he told her from the window. "Could you get it, please? There are none left in the diaper bag."

"Sure."

He nodded, closed the screen, and disappeared back into the room.

"Babies are very high maintenance," Charlotte said.

"They are," Willow agreed, relieved that her father had already gotten into his pajamas and hadn't felt like going outside for the diapers. It had taken Charlotte's mind off her own mother and father and given the two of them an excuse to get away from this conversation about divorce. Together they stood up, the two of them still wobbly, and when Charlotte nearly toppled over like a toddler Willow grabbed her around the waist and suddenly they were both laughing hysterically once again. They walked across the yard to the car after they had caught their breath, moving gingerly because it was dark and because their feet seemed strangely detached from their legs. There Willow managed to pop open the trunk, though it seemed considerably more difficult than usual to find the b.u.t.ton and press it.

At first Willow didn't think anything of the contents. She saw the diapers and she saw the jack, and she saw a moldy towel and an empty plastic bottle that once had held mineral water. But then, at the exact moment that Charlotte was opening her mouth and asking what that thing was that was shaped a lot like a rifle, she saw her dad's lambskin gun bag. Before she could stop Charlotte-her own hands were too busy hoisting the plastic-wrapped cube of diapers as big as a television set-her cousin was reaching into the trunk and lifting Dad's Adirondack into the air, feeling its shape through the leather and the fleece and the long metal zipper.

"What the heck is this?" Charlotte said, and though Willow dropped the diapers onto the gra.s.s and ripped the gun bag from her cousin's hands, she knew it was too late.

"It's nothing," Willow said, the words useless.

"It's a gun is what it is. Why does Uncle John have a gun?"

"Maybe it's evidence in some case."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm sure that's what it is."

"Then why did you grab it out of my hands like..."

"Like what?"

"Like you knew what it was."

"It's Dad's. Leave it alone." She dropped it back into the trunk and slammed the trunk shut. She wished she had a key so she could lock it.

"Seriously, tell me: Why does your dad have a gun? Is he, like, in trouble?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is some criminal after him? I know he represents some real scary characters."

"No!"

"Then why?"

She rubbed her eyes, and then reached down for the diapers. She picked the plush cube up, cradling it against her chest as if it were a ma.s.sive stuffed animal, and said, "If you must know-and before I tell you this, you have to swear on your life you won't tell your mom and dad, okay?"

"Fine. Whatever you want."

"You swear?"

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "I am way too old for this sort of thing. But sure: I swear."

"Since you must know, Dad sometimes go hunting. Deer hunting. He's not superserious about it, but he started last fall."

"Has he killed anything?"

"Not yet."

"But he hunts," she said, her voice an odd combination of incredulity and wonder.

"Yes. He hunts," Willow said, and she took the diapers and started toward the house. Before she had gone inside, however, a thought crossed her mind and she called out to her cousin, "I'll be right back, you know. So just leave my dad's stuff alone, okay?"

WHEN THE SINGLE GUNSHOT blistered the night quiet, Catherine's ears were under the water in the bath and she was only vaguely aware of the sound. She imagined something had fallen over in the kitchen, and she guessed her mother's dog had toppled the metal trash can in the corner near the sink. She didn't even pull the back of her head up from underneath the bubbles and the foam, and she continued to breathe in slowly through her nose, which was barely a fraction of an inch above the surface of the water. She was wondering which of her divorced friends she should call to get the name of a marriage counselor and then whether a divorcee was really the best route to a person who might actually be capable of preserving her and Spencer's marriage. It was only when she heard footsteps pounding down the stairs and her nephew's shrill cries a moment later that she pulled herself from the water, listened carefully, and then threw her nightgown over her damp body and ran to investigate. blistered the night quiet, Catherine's ears were under the water in the bath and she was only vaguely aware of the sound. She imagined something had fallen over in the kitchen, and she guessed her mother's dog had toppled the metal trash can in the corner near the sink. She didn't even pull the back of her head up from underneath the bubbles and the foam, and she continued to breathe in slowly through her nose, which was barely a fraction of an inch above the surface of the water. She was wondering which of her divorced friends she should call to get the name of a marriage counselor and then whether a divorcee was really the best route to a person who might actually be capable of preserving her and Spencer's marriage. It was only when she heard footsteps pounding down the stairs and her nephew's shrill cries a moment later that she pulled herself from the water, listened carefully, and then threw her nightgown over her damp body and ran to investigate.

Two rooms away young Patrick heard the blast loud and clear, and he started with his mother's nipple in his mouth, biting down so hard with his lips and small, sharp teeth that Sara yelped-an echo, almost, of the gunshot's lingering ping, the higher, less angry sound following the initial, concussive explosion-and she pulled her baby away from her breast. Then he let loose with a yowl. John knew instantly what the bang was, and he turned from his wife and his son, dimly aware of the milk and a tiny bit of blood puddling across Sara's reddish brown areola, and raced to the window with the cube of diapers still in his hands. For a split second his heart had stopped, but now it was pounding so hard and fast in his chest that each thump sounded as loud in his head as the rifle's discharge.

Upstairs on the third floor Nan heard it, too, though her first reaction was that a large vehicle had backfired. It was as if she were back in Manhattan and it was, say, early May, and a bus or a garbage truck had just pa.s.sed by her apartment and she had heard the bang through an open window. But then she realized that this had nothing to do with a bus or a truck, because she was in Sugar Hill and the house was too far from the road for the sound of a vehicle backfiring to have been so disconcerting and brutish.

And, of course, Spencer heard it, as he wandered out from the lupine that bordered the remnants of the vegetable garden, but he had no time to understand what the sound was because the bullet-the Menzer Premium that John, so new and green, had been unable to remove from the chamber back in November-slammed into his upper body and sent him flying into the air in much the same way as his daughter when she was doing an inward dive (hips thrown back high and hard, arms spread wide to the sides). He landed with his legs in the lupine and his chest and his arms and his head atop the ruined tangles of peas, and though he had heard the gunshot he did not hear the scream of the child, even though the scream-then a shriek, then a wail that sounded to anyone who was listening carefully like the word No! No!-followed the blast by no more than a second or a second and a half.

Part II

Lobsters

Eleven

It was after two in the morning when John and Nan and Charlotte and Willow finally left the hospital in Hanover to return to Sugar Hill, where Patrick was sleeping and Sara was sitting in the chair by the window, wondering just what she would say to her husband if Spencer died and what kinds of things Charlotte would say a decade from now to (it was inevitable) her therapist, regardless of whether her father survived the night. She was scared, she realized, and she was feeling left out. She didn't normally feel left out when she managed to avoid a game of golf with everyone else or a hike through the woods of Franconia Notch to the flume. Usually she felt relieved. But not this night. As she had looked through the slightly grimy screen window at the driveway and the vegetable garden, she felt-as she had at different points when she was a child and even in college-that she was on the outskirts of some place or some clique of which she wanted sincerely to be a part. She had known the feeling since the second or third grade, when her mother was the school secretary and sat right outside the princ.i.p.al's office. She knew that other children in her cla.s.s had secrets that they kept from her simply because of who her mother was.

Consequently, she was grateful when well past three in the morning she saw the headlights coming up the long driveway in the dark, and downright euphoric when she saw that Catherine did not emerge from the car with the rest of the family. It had to mean that Spencer was still breathing, because she believed that no wife would have left her husband at the hospital at that time of the night unless her husband had died.

There had been moments in her vigil by the window when she had wished that John or Nan would call her from the hospital, but she hadn't thought that was likely. Everyone was hoping that she and the baby would sleep, and everyone was so stunned by the accident that they weren't thinking sufficiently straight to realize that even a catnap was going to be impossible.

She watched her husband with particular interest as he walked from her mother-in-law's car to the house. She wanted to see whether she could detect what he was feeling, because she wanted to be able to comfort him. Comfort them. Charlotte, Willow, her mother-in-law, too. They all had to be reeling.

She presumed John was still numb, but there was also remorse because he had never bothered to deal with the jammed bullet. He'd mentioned it off and on over the past eight or nine months, but it simply hadn't been a top-priority errand-especially after their lives were thrown into turmoil with the arrival of Patrick. She'd told John that she didn't like the idea of a loaded gun in the house, but he'd rea.s.sured her that the safety was on and the gun was locked away. And Willow, they both knew, would never try to break into the gun cabinet.

Tonight the fellow from Fish and Wildlife had informed her that in some states keeping a loaded long arm in the trunk of a moving vehicle was a misdemeanor offense, but her husband was lucky because neither Vermont nor New Hamps.h.i.+re was among them. In response she'd said that her husband hadn't a choice: He couldn't unload the weapon, because the bullet wouldn't come out! She was afraid that she'd sounded defensive-almost abrasive-but she thought she detected something vaguely ominous in the uniformed man's remark, and she wanted it known that while John should have dealt with the bullet in the chamber, this wasn't completely his fault. She presumed-as she had since that November afternoon when John had returned from his day in the woods-that there was some minor defect with the gun, because otherwise he would have finished unloading it.