The Cove Read online

  They would see.

  They would know.

  How many times could she get away with the excuse that she had walked into a door or bumped into an opened kitchen cabinet door?

  Beneath her misery and pain, though, she could see how pretty she still was. No amount of insult or abuse or injury from Tom could extinguish the glow in her hazel eyes. Still, it amazed her how, after less than a year of being married, so much life and energy had drained out of her. She felt a lot older than her twenty-four years. What was it her father always said? “It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage.” It took some effort to see the happy young girl she had once been, and not all that long ago.

  I deserve someone better than him … someone who will appreciate me, she thought.

  She cringed, thinking Tom might be able to read her mind. He’d be a fool not to see the hatred burning like a banked fire in her eyes.

  “Hurry up, will yah? And call your old man while you’re at it. I need to know if he’s gonna launch on time. It’s supposed to be at nine o’clock, right?”

  “Far as I know. Yes.” She spoke precisely, trying to mask her emotions.

  She glanced again at his reflection in the mirror. She pushed back on the regret that filled her. She wasn’t about to let regret ruin her life the way it had ruined her mother’s life. She wasn’t going to put up with this much longer, that was for sure.

  She had married Tom because he wasn’t at all like her father. He was kind and caring. They had been sweethearts ever since high school, and she knew that he loved her. Something had changed drastically over the last couple of months, since sometime in the winter.

  Maybe he was upset because she had miscarried last December after slipping on some ice in front of their house. Maybe he was worried that he was shooting blanks.

  Of course, they’d have better luck if they made love more often … or at all, lately.

  He must be getting some on the side. She knew Tom was man enough, so if he wasn’t getting it at home, he’d be off getting it somewhere.

  But maybe it wasn’t another woman.

  Maybe it was his job.

  Once things straightened out down at the police station with Bob Harlan, the new police chief … maybe after Tom got that promotion he deserved for over a year now, maybe then he’d start treating her nicer … the way he had before they married.

  Until then …

  Louise opened the medicine cabinet and took out her bottle of foundation. She winced, and tears sprang to her eyes as she daubed some onto each cheek.

  “See you at the wharf,” Tom said, and then he pushed away from the doorjamb and, without another word or even a hug or kiss goodbye, walked down the hall and down the stairs.

  Louise froze where she was as she listened to him go out the side door. She jumped when he slammed the door shut behind him. It sounded like a gunshot, and she hated herself for instantly thinking — hoping he had shot himself. But then she heard him get into his cruiser — slamming the car door, too — and start it up. She didn’t relax until the sound of his car had faded away. Finally, she felt safe enough to kneel down and scoop up the bottle of Visine. By then, she was crying so hard that no amount of Visine was going to get the red out.

  Ben walked down the hill to the launch wearing tattered blue jeans and a faded green polo shirt that was so old the collar and cuffs were frayed. Sunlight streaming through the oak leaves sparkled like little flames on the sidewalk and street around him.

  The swirl of activity reminded Ben of all the Memorial Days and Fourths of July he had enjoyed when he was growing up here, when he and his younger brother, Pete, and their friends had terrorized the town. If they had been kids now, they’d be lighting firecrackers and generally goofing off. Only later, once they were in high school, did they start sneaking pot and beer and bottles of booze from their parents’ liquor cabinets, and fooling around with girls, seeing how far they could get. Second base was rare, and third base was rarer still. He wished he had known then that the girls were as interested in sex as the boys were.

  “Hello there, Benjamin!” a woman called out. Her voice sounded as fragile as glass.

  Ben turned to see Judith Harris, his former third grade teacher, smiling at him from the passenger’s side of a big, blue Buick that was moving slowly down the hill alongside him. Even back in his school days, the kids had called her “Old Lady Harris,” but never to her face. Ben had heard that Lester, Mrs. Harris’ husband of over fifty years, had died last January of the flu. Speeding up a little to keep pace with the car, Ben leaned forward to see who was driving. He gave a little nod to Mark, Old Lady Harris’ eldest son, who was hunched over the wheel. Mark, the Cove’s high school basketball legend from years ago, was so tall he looked squeezed, even in the big Buick. He stared straight ahead at the road as though embarrassed to be seen driving his mother around. The rumor was Mark was living back at home again after getting divorced by his second wife, Daisy Delisle, who had moved to Florida with their three kids.

  “Hey there, Mark.”

  “Gunner,” Mark said, using Ben’s nickname from high school. He made a point of keeping his eyes focused straight ahead. There were too many people milling about, and some of them crossed the road without looking, walking right in front of cars as if their attitude was: “Come on. Hit me. I need the money.”

  “How you doing today, Mrs. H.?” Ben asked.

  The old woman’s face was as yellowed and wrinkled as old parchment. Tracings of thin blue veins throbbed beneath her almost translucent skin. When she smiled, she exposed large, yellowed dentures that had dark brown stains between the teeth. Ben wondered if she was a smoker.

  “I can’t complain … I can’t complain,” Mrs. Harris said. “How’s your mother liking it over there to Grave’s Edge?”

  With typical gallows humor, many of the locals referred to Harbor’s Edge as Grave’s Edge. It had been going on so long that no true “Cove-ah” took offense. Ben started to explain to Mrs. Harris that he’d only gotten home last night and hadn’t had a chance to go over for a visit yet. Instead, he stopped himself, smiled and said simply, “She’s doing fine, Mrs. H. … just fine.”

  “Good to hear … Good to hear.”

  Ben returned the smile, realizing both he and Mrs. Harris were saying everything twice. He remembered that had been a trait of hers when she was teaching, but it had gotten worse, now that she was so elderly. She had to be pushing eighty or even ninety.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her you said hello.”

  “You do that. You do that. She must be so happy to have your brother back home safe and sound.”

  Confused for a moment, Ben turned his head and looked at her.

  “Beg pardon, Ma’am?”

  “From Iraq. Your brother. You must be so proud of him. I hear he was wounded over there. Was he really wounded?”

  She was obviously confusing him with Pete, but he didn’t want to make matters worse, so he smiled and said, “He’s — uhh, he’s doing fine, but — No … He wasn’t wounded.”

  “Good to hear. Good to hear.”

  “Yes, we sure are happy to have him home safely.”

  Mark took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot an apologetic look at Ben. Traffic was starting to back up behind them, and before either one of them could say anything more, he stepped down on the accelerator and pulled ahead. A thin blue cloud of exhaust trailed in their wake.

  Ben continued down the road until he was in the midst of the crowd. People he hadn’t seen in a long time — some of whom he cared about and some of whom he didn’t — greeted him and shook his hand and clapped him on the back and thanked him for his service to the country. He hated being the center of attention. Today was all about Capt’n Wally and his boat that was about to be launched. He was glad he hadn’t worn his uniform. It would have only made things worse.

  For the next half hour or so, Ben mingled with friends, neighbors, and relatives, shaking hands with some … hugging and k
issing others, all the while exchanging small talk and platitudes. He answered their questions about his time in Iraq as briefly as possible, usually with a simple, “Yeah, sure is good to be out of there” and “Nope. No end in sight s’far as I can see.”

  Before long, he realized he had been keeping an eye out for one person in particular. He knew she would be here. She would have to be here. He hoped he was ready for the heartache he would experience when he first saw her.

  After another fifteen minutes or so, someone in the crowd shouted, “Here he comes!” and everyone went silent except for scattered applause and a few boisterous cheers as Capt’n Wally’s rusted red Ford pickup truck, towing his spanking new lobster boat, rattled down the street. Pete sat in the back bed of the truck, beer bottle in hand as he smiled and waved to the people as they passed. He already looked a sheet or two to the wind as he clung to the side panel for support. Ben sighed to see that — in this particular way, anyway, his brother was following in their father’s footsteps.

  Wally’s left arm was draped out the driver’s window, the skin looking like old leather as he negotiated a precise three-point turn with one hand and then started backing up. The crowd parted like the Red Sea to make way for him. Wally angled the boat trailer down toward the launch.

  The boat was a nice one, a diesel-powered forty-footer with a bright white hull and green cabin rigged with more electronic gear than a spacecraft, including a digital depth finder and GPS navigational system. On the port side of the boat was a gas-powered winch that would take some — but not all — of the backbreaking labor out of the job of hauling lobster pots. Ben knew it was inevitable that his father would ask — no, demand — that he help him haul before he found other work.

  Seeing the new boat, though, Ben wondered how his father could afford something like this … especially if money was as tight as he’d been complaining last night. Ben’s first night home and all he got was an earful about how lobstermen were suffering this season and how the government was only making things worse. What with new regulations about what kind of rope the lobstermen could use on their traps and the rising cost of diesel fuel, no one could make ends meet without raising the price of lobster. With the economy in the tank the way it was, people weren’t buying lobster the way they used to. The regulars down at the wharf were saying if something wasn’t done to fix things and soon, they were either going to have to give up for good or this would be their last year lobstering.

  Seated in the passenger’s seat of the truck was the boat’s namesake, Capt’n Wally’s grandniece, Abby Rose. Ben was surprised to see how much she had grown. He remembered her as a skinny preschooler, but now she was almost a teenager. She was wearing a pretty white dress and couldn’t have looked happier, like a girl going to her first communion. Her mother, Sally Rider, the daughter of Wally’s younger brother, Ed, who had died of booze before he turned forty-five, was standing off to one side, watching silently with her hands clasped over her chest like she was at prayer. It looked like a weak current of electricity was tingling through her body, making her vibrate. Her sister, Nancy, was snapping pictures with a digital camera.

  Ben smiled wryly at the irony of it all, relieved that the attention was no longer focused on him. Everyone was acting like this was the most wonderful thing in the world when, in fact, within a few days, the deck would be sloshing with bilge water and bait, and Wally would no doubt be piloting his prize through the narrows out to sea with a “skinful” of rum. And if things hadn’t changed in the time Ben had been in Iraq, lobsters wouldn’t be the only cargo Capt’n Wally would be hauling. Occasional bales of weed from offshore trawlers would be the most likely first cargo to make him any real money. After all, Wally may own the family home free and clear, since it had been in the family for over a hundred years, but he would have huge payments to make on this dandy new boat.

  The crowd shifted down toward the water’s edge, surrounding the truck and boat trailer. Many of them were taking pictures with cameras and cell phones. Matt “Animal” Costello had a hand-held video camera the size of his fist. Ben realized he hadn’t seen his sister Louise anywhere. A wave of concern washed through him because of a few comments his father and brother had made last night about how Louise’s marriage wasn’t going so well. He scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but she was nowhere in sight.

  “Fuck it all,” he muttered as he patted his pants pocket, feeling for his cell phone. He was considering giving her a call when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hey there, bro,” a pleasant, light-sounding voice said. “Good to see yah.”

  “Lou-Lou Belle,” he said.

  He was smiling as he turned to her, but his heart sank when he saw her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and in the direct sunlight, the heavy makeup that covered her cheeks didn’t quite hide the purple bruise under her left eye. She angled her head to the left as though shielding it from him as she hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said with a resignation in her voice that indicated she knew he wouldn’t stop.

  “What? Lou-Lou Belle? What else am I gonna call my little sis?”

  “My real name. I’ve always hated Lou-Lou Belle.”

  Ben was about to tell her that’s why he called her that, to tease her, but instead asked, “So … how’s things?” He tried to inject a note of happiness into his voice and hoped Louise hadn’t seen his reaction to her face.

  “I’m hanging in there,” she said with a wan smile.

  “Thanks so much for coming by last night to see me,” Ben said sarcastically.

  “Well thank you for not showing up until almost midnight. Some people sleep, you know. Any call after ten o’clock, and all anyone’s gonna think is someone died.”

  “Sorry … I wasn’t thinking. I’ve crossed so many time zones, I’m all screwed up.”

  Before he could say more, Louise reached into her purse and pulled out a compact digital camera. She raised it and aimed it at the truck and boat, snapping a few pictures in quick succession. The lens made soft whirring sounds as she adjusted the telephoto in and out.

  “I’ll catch up with’cha later,” Louise said as she moved away, heading toward the truck. “If I don’t get some good shots, Pops’ll be pissed.”

  Screw him, Ben wanted to say but didn’t. They both knew how angry their father could get, and Louise was being careful not to do anything to set Wally off … not on his special day.

  “Later,” Ben said, but she was already too far away to hear. She headed down to the water’s edge so she could get some close-ups when the boat went in.

  Ben remained where he was, letting the crowd stream around him as if he were a rock in the middle of a river. He considered leaving now before anyone else spoke to him. Louise had it covered with the camera, and Pete was holding his own. The family was well represented. After the launch, there were plans for a party at Huckins Wharf, on the other side of the harbor, but Ben was thinking he might skip that.

  So far, he’d been lucky.

  He hadn’t seen Kathy Brackett yet, and the more he thought about it, as much as he wanted to see her and knew he couldn’t avoid seeing her eventually, it might be a good idea to put it off for now.

  He turned to leave but then drew to a halt.

  Kathy was standing across the street under one of the tall maple trees in front of Lester Michael’s house. Sunlight and shadow dappled her face and the large, white bundle she cradled in her arms. A baby stroller was parked next to her.

  Now it was impossible to avoid her.

  Gotta get it over with, he thought.

  She was looking straight at him as if all the activity down by the launch ramp wasn’t even happening. She looked like an illusion … one of those mirages he’d experienced while on patrol at high noon in the desert sun. She moved dreamily as she hitched her burden from one side to the other and raised a hand to wave. Ben looked left and right, making sure she was waving at him and then
waved back. He forced a wide smile that felt frozen on his face as he started across the street toward her.

  “I heard you were back in town,” Kathy said. Her voice was as light and airy as always. The mere sound of it sent a dull ache through Ben’s chest.

  “So, apparently, has the whole town.”

  “Hey. Come on. You’re the war hero, right?”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  Kathy smiled and tilted her head to one side, then looked down at the bundle in her arms. Even at a distance, Ben caught a whiff of baby powder or shampoo.

  “Well … aren’t you?” Kathy asked.

  “Hardly.”

  The bundle in Kathy’s arms was squirming. She smiled softly as she looked down at the baby and chucked it under the chin while making soft cooing sounds.

  “So how’s — ahh, how’s married life treating you?” Ben asked. A choking sensation grabbed his throat and started squeezing, blocking off his air supply. The sunlight and shadow gave Kathy’s hair a sense of motion, even though there was no breeze. A cool dampness spread under his armpits.

  “It’s good,” Kathy said with the hint of an edge in her voice that gave Ben pause.

  “And … your baby … How’s she — ahh, doing?”

  “Amanda? She’s doing great.”

  Kathy shifted to one side, cocking her hip to expose the tiny face wrapped inside the blanket. The baby was asleep, and Ben thought she looked impossibly small and fragile. He never could see family resemblances in babies, but politeness impelled him to smile foolishly and say, “She has your mouth.”

  Kathy smiled tenderly at her daughter.

  “She’s fine … She’s great.”

  “And your husband? How’s Hor —” He almost used Dwight Brackett’s nickname, “Horse Lips,” but stopped himself at the last second. No need to be insulting. “How’s Dwight doing?”

  “He’s fine,” Kathy said. “Still working at Ames Hardware and — you know, lobstering or digging bloodworms whenever he can.”

  “No clams?”