The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [10]
The name, spoken aloud, was too sad, too harsh. She could see, in the tightness of his mouth, the cost of this.
—The boat was waterlogged and rotten. The head smelled. You could hear Rich fucking in the forward cabin . . .
For a moment, he could not go on.
—We were on our way to Maine, he said, the tremor in his voice momentarily under better control. Rich and his girlfriend were on the boat. And Jean, my wife. He glanced up at Linda. And our daughter, Billie.
—Thomas, stop, she said quietly. You don’t have to do this. I read about the accident when it happened. Indeed, she could remember only too well the way she’d been turning the pages of the Boston Globe as she did every morning (Vincent with the Times at the other end of the table; her hand was sticky with jelly, she remembered), and the way the words THOMAS JANES and DAUGHTER and DROWNED had been, with what seemed like impossible and screaming capitals, all contained within the same headline. The way Vincent had instantly put down his paper, saying: Linda, what’s the matter?
A waiter, balancing plates, created an artificial pause.
—It wasn’t Jean’s fault, though I blamed her.
Linda watched Thomas’s fingers tighten on the stem of his glass. She could not dictate how he would tell this story.
—God, how I blamed her. I would have killed her on the boat if I’d had the strength or courage for it.
Linda pressed her folded hands against her mouth. How we struggle to hold in what we would say, she thought.
She looked around the room, at all the faces — avid and intensely curious — turned in their direction. This was awful. They could not do this here.
—Thomas, she said, standing. Come with me.
* * *
They moved along a quay that jutted into the lake. The drizzle made a net around her hair, her face. Thomas walked with his shoulders slightly stooped, his hands tucked into the long pockets of his trench coat. He had knotted the belt loosely, one of the ties longer than the other. His shoes had not been polished in some time. It wasn’t poverty that made him so unkempt, she knew; it was merely lack of care. Another’s care or his own.
—You live in Hull still, she said.
—Yes.
—And how is Rich?
—He’s fine. He’s married now, with two boys. He married a doctor, as it happened. The boys are great.
She could not imagine how Thomas managed to play with other people’s children, or even to talk to them. Would the ache be constant? Would there be an hour, five hours together, when one simply — and blessedly — forgot?
—I see your aunt occasionally, Thomas said. She always tries to pretend she doesn’t know me.
—Can you blame her?
—No, of course not. I hardly blame anyone now except myself. I suppose this is progress.
The wind was raw against the open neck of her blouse. She clutched the lapels of her raincoat. I won’t ask about your wife, she said. Though I would like to.
—You mean Jean?
She nodded, knowing they couldn’t speak yet of Regina. Possibly not ever.
—Oh, I can talk about Jean. He seemed to have recovered from his tremulousness in the restaurant. Linda imagined that grief might show itself in a random pattern: some moments would be unbearable; others would be merely bits and pieces of a bad story. I don’t blame her, he added. I said that. She was a good woman. Well, still is, I suppose.
—You don’t see her?
—Oh, God, no. I don’t think either one of us could bear it. After a year or so, she moved inland, to Indianapolis, where she was originally from. It’s safer there, I imagine. No possibility of ocean. I assume she’s still alone. Yes, I know she is. She writes occasionally to Rich.
And why did Thomas continue to torture himself with ocean? she might have asked.
They had walked to what appeared to be an industrial park. She remembered a Christmas Day, years ago, when she and Thomas had strolled empty streets in Boston, the only persons in a deserted universe. But then she had a troubling thought: though she could remember the day — the sense of endless time available to them, the promise of possibility around every