Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797) Page 11

  She had known about Mark, Charlotte reminded herself. And she did her best to warn me. But I wouldn’t listen. I was always so goddamn smart, I wouldn’t listen to anybody.

  On the day Charlotte’s mother died, her family was all at the hospital with her—her husband, her daughter, her son-in-law.

  Daddy was on one side of the bed, Charlotte remembered. Holding Mother’s hand as always. God, how he adored her. His first marriage, what little I know of it, hadn’t been pleasant, though the few times he talked about it, he blamed himself for much of the unpleasantness. It takes two, he used to say. Two to make things work, two to break it beyond repair. I wonder if he was insinuating that he had cheated on his first wife? Abused her verbally or psychologically? Even physically? I can’t envision that he ever did. On the other hand, maybe that’s always been my problem. Me, an artist. An artist with a woefully limited vision.

  Yes, Charlotte thought, bringing herself back to the day of her mother’s death, Daddy was sitting there holding one hand, I was holding the other one. She was in a lot of pain, I think, despite the morphine. But she was lucid as hell. At one point she squeezed my hand so hard that I lifted my head to look at her, and she was lying there with her eyes wet and shining but smiling the most beautiful smile.

  “It’s so ironic,” she had said. Charlotte leaned closer because her voice was weak. “What is?” she asked. And her mother answered, “That the organ that gave me my greatest joy is now going to take me away from her.”

  Charlotte remembered struggling to keep her tears to herself but to small avail. “You’re not going anywhere,” she had told her mother. “I won’t let you.”

  Her mother had smiled a soft, indulgent smile, then closed her eyes awhile. Charlotte’s father had leaned forward then and rested his forehead on the corner of her pillow.

  Several minutes later, Charlotte’s mother opened her eyes again. “Listen,” she said, and Charlotte leaned close. “That man . . .”

  Charlotte followed her mother’s gaze to the doorway, where Mark stood each time they visited the hospital. Each time he would come into the room and kiss the older woman’s cheek, then eventually retreat to the doorway to stand there with his back against the frame. And that was why, when Charlotte’s mother said that man, Charlotte had immediately turned to look toward her husband, and found him, as usual, not even looking in their direction but smiling at something down the hall.

  “What about him?” she had whispered.

  Charlotte’s mother regarded her daughter then, but no longer with a smile on her lips. She held her daughter’s gaze for a long time but never finished the sentence, only squeezed Charlotte’s hand until her own eyes closed again and her grip went slack.

  Charlotte’s mother lasted another four hours, and during that time her eyes never opened. She spoke only one more time, though in a whisper so small that only Charlotte’s father heard. He then answered, “I won’t, sweetheart. Never.”

  Charlotte later asked him what her mother had said, and he told her, “Don’t let go.”

  Charlotte had never been entirely convinced that her mother had been speaking only to her husband, only asking him to never let go of her hand, which was what Charlotte’s father always believed. Charlotte wondered if perhaps those final words were somehow the completion of the previous unfinished sentence, if that man and don’t let go had in some manner constituted a single thought. After her father had relayed the final words to Charlotte, she had turned to the doorway, empty now, and had become suddenly annoyed that Mark had wandered away at some moment prior to her mother’s passing, was probably in the lounge or the cafeteria or at the nurses’ station flirting with a candy striper.

  Had her mother been telling her to not let go of that man? Or, more likely, had she been warning her to not let go of something because of that man? To not give away something she should keep for herself?

  During the year of Charlotte and Mark’s courtship, then the eight years of marriage, Charlotte’s mother had never warmed to her son-in-law. And Mother, Charlotte remembered, was an exceedingly warm person. But sometimes I would catch her looking askance at him, her eyes narrow and her mouth in a hard line, just like that day in the hospital.

  Two years earlier, Christmas Eve at Charlotte’s parents’ house, had been another example of that look. Charlotte had opened her gift from Mark, saw the Tiffany box, opened it, and saw the two-karat diamond ring. While she gasped and gaped, Mark started chattering about what a fortunate man he was, what a wonderful wife Charlotte was, on and on until Charlotte blushed with embarrassment. It was then Charlotte had glanced at her mother and saw the way she was regarding her son-in-law. As if he had just let loose a ripping loud fart, Charlotte thought.

  Later, when alone in the kitchen with her mother, Charlotte had said, “You don’t really like Mark much, do you?”

  “Of course I do,” her mother answered. “He’s your husband.”

  “I saw the way you were looking at him. And it wasn’t the first time.”

  “And how was I looking at him?”

  “Like he disgusts you.”

  Her mother had chuckled softly. “No, sweetie. That’s not it at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Sometimes . . .” she said.

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Sometimes he just goes on too long, I guess. He gushes.”

  “And you find that . . . what? Suspicious?”

  “Why? Do you?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  Several seconds passed before her mother responded. “I guess I was just listening to him go on and on about you, and wondering . . .”

  “Just say it, Mother. Wondering what?”

  “Wondering if he says those things to you in private.”

  “Of course he does. All the time.”

  “Good. Then that’s just the way he is. He adores you and doesn’t mind expressing it.”

  But, of course, Charlotte had lied to her mother. And that was why Charlotte had gasped and gaped so at his extravagance. Neither generosity of objects nor compliments had been natural to Mark. Anyway, not where I was concerned, Charlotte remembered.

  And then, she told herself, then came the night at Tambelli-ni’s. Our usual Thursday night. Summer in the city. The thick stench of simmering concrete and carbon monoxide.

  They were seated as usual at a small table near the back of the room, the area Mark always requested. They were waiting for the salads—his, the house, hers, the caprese.

  And just like always, she remembered, his damn cell phone started vibrating atop the table. It was always something important, of course, some junior partner to advise, a client to calm down, one of the paralegals with a question that couldn’t wait until morning. And, same as always, he picked up the phone, looked at the caller’s number, then said, straight off the script, “It’s too noisy in here. I’m going to step outside for a minute.” Every single Thursday night. And I was too stupid to question it, Charlotte thought. He’s a busy man, I told myself. Wasn’t he always telling me what a busy man he was? I never even thought to ask him or myself, “Why not take those calls in the men’s room or even the coatroom?” Not until that Thursday night anyway.

  Because the Tiffany diamond incident had been her first nudge of awareness. Her mother’s deathbed look at him had swung the door of suspicion wide open.

  What made Mark’s Thursday night disappearing act at Tam-bellini’s especially suspicious for Charlotte was that Thursday night, right after the cannolis, was their night for sex.

  The man would lay not a finger on me all week long, she reminded herself, and felt the anger blossoming again, just as it always had in June’s office, the anger and then the heat and sting of tears. Because by the time he handed the server his credit card on Thursday nights, he was playing footsie with his wife.

  Or just sitting there grinning at me with that I-need-to-fuck-you gleam in his weasely little eyes. So this time—unlike all the other
times—my bullshit detector was screaming like a banshee.

  “This might take a couple minutes,” he had told her, then stood and made his exit, the phone to his ear. But this time, instead of turning her attention to the other customers, instead of entertaining herself by checking out hairdos and jewelry and footwear, this time Charlotte watched him all the way out the door. She knew from past experience that he would stand there just on the sidewalk, in plain view through the front window, for fifteen seconds or so. Then, ever so nonchalantly, same as always, he would wander out of view.

  But this time, instead of sitting there patiently as she had always done—instead of sitting there sipping my wine like a good insipid wife, she thought—this time Charlotte stood and laid down her linen napkin, walked to the door, and peeked outside. And there was her husband, striding briskly down the block, cell phone nowhere to be seen.

  The rear door swung open on a black Lexus parked at the curb, and Mark climbed inside. And that’s when I knew, she thought. That’s when I absolutely knew why my mother had looked at him and said “That man . . .” I finally understood, without the shadow of a doubt, why he insisted on going to Tambellini’s every Thursday night. For the pasta fazul, my ass.

  If Charlotte had not followed her husband down the street that night, ten minutes later he would have come strolling back inside, pretending to be annoyed about having had to take the call. Then, halfway through the entrée he would have slipped off his Italian loafer, always the right one, and slid his foot between her legs. He would have winked at her with his mouth full of mascarpone.

  And, of course, she remembered, I’d let him fool around like that. I wanted it. I’d been wanting it all week long. A real kiss, a lingering touch, any authentic display of affection. So what did I care if it took a plate full of semolina to get him aroused?

  Until that night. When Charlotte yanked open the rear door on that shiny black Lexus, and her husband looked out at her staring in at him, he made no move to cover himself or to pull away from the woman with her face in his lap. He kept his hand on the back of her head. The dome light had come on when Charlotte yanked the door open, so she could see clearly the look in his eyes, and what she saw wasn’t fear or surprise but excitement.

  I think the sonofabitch actually pushed her head down harder, she told herself. I think he came in her mouth the moment he realized he’d been caught.

  Afterward, when Charlotte and her husband met at the elevator outside their apartment, with him coming up and she and her suitcases waiting to go down, he looked at her and smiled sheepishly and said, “You have to understand how bored I get.”

  “Get out of the elevator,” she told him. But he would not.

  “I’ll take the stairs,” she said.

  He said, “Baby, wait,” and reached out and grabbed hold of one of the suitcases, pulled it and Charlotte into the elevator with him, and held her by the arm so that she could not exit. She repeatedly jabbed the L button until she felt the jerk of descent.

  He released her arm then and dropped the suitcase to the floor and leaned into the corner. “I never go all the way with her,” he said. “It’s just prelude, that’s all.”

  “You did tonight, though, didn’t you?”

  He tried for another sheepish grin, but this one came out as a smirk. “It’s the only time I see her,” he said. “I swear.”

  “Fuck you,” Charlotte told him. Then the pain returned, another nauseating wave. She staggered back against the chrome wall. “So that’s the only way you can get aroused enough to fuck me? Is that what it takes for you?”

  He answered with a smirk and a shrug.

  “How much does she cost?” she demanded.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “I want to know. How much are you willing to pay to make you horny enough to want to fuck your wife? Tell me!”

  “She charges five hundred dollars.”

  “Two thousand a month,” Charlotte said. “You’re paying her two thousand dollars a month. She gets twenty-four thousand dollars a year from you, and I get maybe twenty minutes of mediocre sex once a week.”

  “I knew you would get nasty about this,” he said.

  “Nasty? You lousy, rotten, stupid bastard. You ruin our marriage, and I’m the one getting nasty? What, you never heard of Viagra? Five dollars a fucking pill!”

  “It’s not physical, you know that. It’s all mental. If you’d just relax and look at this rationally . . .”

  The elevator bucked to a stop then; the door slid open. Charlotte jerked her suitcase off the floor and stepped out. “You’re mental,” she told him. “You’re sick and disgusting.” And she headed for the lobby doors.

  “And you,” he said, his voice increasing in volume now, “are, as always, unbelievably provincial. I thought you were an artist. You’re supposed to be creative. Instead you’re just plain boring.”

  She made the mistake then of looking back at him. She was already halfway across the lobby, the doorman had pulled the door open for her, she had only to step over the threshold and be free.

  But I just had to turn around and look back at him, she reminded herself. Just like Lot’s stupid wife. So not only did he get the satisfaction of seeing the tears streaming down my cheeks, but I had to witness that damn smirk of his one last time.

  She spent the next two years trying to scour that smirk out of her consciousness. And she thought she had done so. Moved to Pennsylvania, bought a farm, remodeled it to suit nobody but herself, started a brand-new life. Made her own schedule: slept, ate, worked, hiked, did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to. She had at long last reached the point where she could close her eyes at night and not see Mark’s god-awful handsome face with its haunting and obliterating smirk.

  Then came the boy who shoots crows.

  19

  MIDMORNING the day after the search of the woods, Charlotte sat on the concrete edge of her rear porch. She had made a pot of coffee that morning using eight coffee singles, but even this cup, her third in a little more than an hour, did not ease the heaviness of her eyelids or lighten the heaviness of every movement. Her intention was to start the labor of working the soil in her garden, mixing in the fertilizer Mike Verner had left, and thereby distract herself one spadeful at a time from the horrors of the previous days. But she had made it no farther than the edge of her porch, had stood there awhile after her second cup of coffee and considered the distance to her garden shed, the effort required to step inside, pull down the garden rake from the rack of hand tools, go back to her garden, hack open the bag of fertilizer, spill the mix over the soil, and then drag the rake through the earth, push it forward, again and again and again several hundreds of times. The mere thought of walking to the shed exhausted her. Only two weeks earlier she had spent a quietly joyful evening poring over the new seed catalog, reading about all of the new varieties from which she might choose and envisioning the abundance of her garden come late summer, the scent of a sunny kitchen with an ever-present basket of green and yellow squash arranged in an edible bouquet: the plump tomatoes, cucumbers, red and green sweet peppers, and yellow banana peppers, the bright little jalapeños like little penises, the clumps of carrots, the scallions, and all of the herbs in little jars of water lined up across the windowsills. But this morning she had gazed upon the brown, rectangular plot and felt no joy. Her mouth no longer watered and she no longer thought of the dizzying thrill of biting into a fat tomato, warm from the vine. That morning she had appraised her garden plot and told herself, I’ll have another cup of coffee first.

  The crows had fallen silent and flown off hours earlier. In the silence, she felt only a stupefied slackness in a body no longer her own. When Mike Verner’s voice echoed through her house—“Hey, Charlotte! Good morning!”—her recognition of his voice was not immediate, and the sound only made her clutch the coffee mug even tighter.

  “I’m in your house,” she heard, “and walking toward your kitchen. Don’t bother to get dressed on my
account, I’m naked too.” She smiled then, but also felt how detached she was from that smile, how Mike’s humor registered only on the surface, only lingered on the air for a moment, and then was quickly gone.

  “I’m on the back porch,” she called over her shoulder.

  “I think I smell coffee,” he said.

  “Follow your nose. You’ll find it.”

  “Aha!” he said a few moments later. Then, “Cups?” he asked.

  “Where cups usually are.”

  She heard a couple of cabinet doors open and close, then nothing, and thirty seconds later he stepped out onto the porch. “Good morning, Miss Charlotte. How’s everything out here at Green Acres this morning?”

  “Pensive,” she said. “How’s everything with you?”

  He sat beside her, took a sip of the coffee, made a face, but quickly changed it to a more neutral expression. He said, “Pensive is one of those words I forgot to learn in high school. I’m guessing, though, judging from the look on your face, that it means something like sad.”

  “Thoughtful,” she said. “But yes, in a sad way, I suppose. It is a sad day, isn’t it? Sort of like my coffee.”

  “It’s not all that bad. Your coffee, I mean. Just not what I’m used to.”

  She said nothing for a moment. Then looked at him and said, “Did you bring more bad news this morning?”

  “Jesus, is that what I am? The messenger of bad tidings?”

  “You have too much work to just sit and enjoy a cup of coffee with me, I know that much. So what’s up?”

  “You’re a little out of sorts this morning, aren’t you? Yesterday took all the starch out of you.”

  She smiled. “My mother used to use that expression.”

  “It’s a good one.” Then, “Used to? She’s no longer with you?”

  “It’s going on five years now. Ovarian cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”

  “She was one of the lucky ones. Went very quickly.”

  “If you have to go, and we all do, that’s the way to do it.” He sipped his coffee, considered her yard, his field beyond, the distant sky, the far unseen. “How about your father?” he asked.