Selma Weiss wiped the perspiration off the bridge of her nose with the forearm of her white sweatshirt, being careful not to clonk herself with the pink plastic barbell-shaped weights that she clutched in her pudgy hands. She managed to do all this without breaking her power-walk stride along the well-worn towpath beside the canal.
She felt righteous striding along in the twilight. She decided that when she got home she would treat herself to a glass of wine while she fixed dinner. The thought of it filled her with a longing to be home, but she put it out of her mind. Dusk. It was a lovely time of day for a walk, she told herself dutifully. And so beautiful around here.
But no matter how often she told herself this, it was no use. She would never get used to it. Norman, her husband, had been in seventh heaven ever since they sold their Philadelphia townhouse and moved to Monroe. As they had gotten older, especially after his bypass surgery, Norman had become more and more leery of city life, more worried about crime.
Whenever they would go to visit friends who had moved to Bucks County, Norman would rave about the place, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. If they lived out here they would be safe. It was peaceful, they would be out in nature, and they could go to those little health-food restaurants and eat couscous and barley soup for lunch. It was what he was dreaming of. And, Selma thought now, as she thought then, he was a good husband, and he’d worked hard all his life. If that’s what he wanted for his retirement – a little house by the river up here – he should have it. So, three years ago, they did it. They sold the townhouse and moved up here. They walked, they bird-watched, and they had eaten mountains of couscous and supped gallons of barley soup.
It was a good life; their grandchildren loved visiting here and it was peaceful all right. But face it, Selma, she told herself as she strode along the canal, pumping her weights, you’re a city girl through and through. Norman could go on and on about the colors and the beauty of nature. To Selma, it all looked the same. She gazed around her, trying to appreciate the sunset, the falling leaves, the river on one side of her, the canal on the other. It was pretty. Very nice. But the same. Everything the same.
Up ahead, Selma saw the little hill leading up to the bridge that crossed the canal. There were lots of bridges over the canals. She hadn’t quite been able to figure out what this canal business was all about. Something left over from the olden days. Look it up, Norman had said. Read about it. You’re always curious. You’ll find it interesting. Humph, Selma thought. What was interesting about a ten-foot-long bridge in the middle of nowhere? Paul Klee was interesting. De Kooning was interesting. A canal bridge was a bore.
Selma shrugged and then barreled up the hill to the bridge. She stood at the top for a moment, catching her breath before she crossed over and started down the other side. Dutifully, she looked out at the pattern that the falling leaves made on the shallow, green-black water in the canal. Very nice, she thought. Very … strange. Selma peered out over the wooden railing to the water below.
Just down the path, near a fallen tree which trailed its upper branches in the canal, she saw something that didn’t fit into the soporific autumnal twilight color scheme.
Something black and white, a checkerboard pattern, floating in the water. She strained her eyes to see, and then felt her heart do a flip as she realized it was a garment of some sort – a shirt, or a coat. And there was someone face down in the water, wearing it.
‘God help us,’ she cried. She dropped her weights on the bridge and began to run down to the edge of the canal, shouting as loud as she could, ‘Help, somebody help.’ As if anybody in this lonesome, Godforsaken little paradise could ever hear you.
Captain Van Brunt pulled his squad car up beside the Emergency Rescue Van. All the official vehicles were parked as far as possible up on the shoulder, so that the front ends seemed poised to pitch into the canal. The roads beside the canal were winding and twisty. Even with his headlights on, a driver would hardly have time to avoid hitting you if you left the butt end of your car out in the road. They’d had plenty of accidents like that in the past. Van Brunt leaned across the seat and took his flashlight out of the glove compartment. Then he got out, slamming the door.
He looked around. On the bridge a patrolman was talking to a woman in a white sweatshirt that seemed to glow in the growing darkness. Beside the water, the body was laid out on a plastic ground sheet. The medical examiner, George Taylor, was kneeling down beside the sodden, shoeless figure. Van Brunt decided to head that way first.
‘George, what’s the story?’ he asked.
George Taylor, who was making notes in a book beside the body, squinted up at the captain. ‘Looks like a drowning, Captain. That woman up there on the bridge spotted her while she was out power-walking. Victim is a female Caucasian, about fifty-five, no apparent traumatic injury. She’s been dead about, oh, five or six hours, I’d say.’
Van Brunt nodded and looked down impassively at the woman in the checkered coat. ‘Any ID?’
The ME shook his head. ‘Nothing on the body.’
‘Captain!’ Ken McCarthy slid down the bank in a skateboarding stance and ended up next to him. ‘We found her car parked down the road about half a mile. A little purple Geo. Her wallet and license were in the glove compartment.’
‘You sure it’s hers?’ Van Brunt asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ said the young cop, grimacing as he looked down at the corpse. He handed the open wallet to the captain. Van Brunt aimed his flashlight at it.
‘See? Photo ID on the license,’ said Ken. ‘Her name is Brenda Kelly. She lives in Riverside.’ It was a town about half an hour away on the highway.
Van Brunt nodded, examining the mug-shot-quality photo under his flashlight beam, and then he frowned up at the bridge where a few onlookers were clustered. ‘You think she jumped?’ he asked George Taylor, who was straightening up. He practically had to shout because the news vans were beginning to arrive, reporters and technicians with camcorders piling out.
Taylor shook his head. ‘If you wanted to kill yourself, you’d pick something higher than that bridge. Besides, even from that height, she would have had some fractures. I can’t find anything like that. I think she was just out taking a walk – might have twisted her ankle or something like that – and she slipped, and fell in.’
‘It’s not very deep,’ Van Brunt observed.
‘Well, maybe she couldn’t swim. She might have panicked. Or, she might have blacked out for a second. I’ll check for a head injury during the PM. But she definitely drowned. That’s the cause of death. No question.’
‘OK,’ said Van Brunt. ‘We’ll find the next of kin and find out if she could swim or not. First, I want to take a look at that car.’ Van Brunt started back up the embankment, passing the EMTs, who were carrying a gurney down the embankment to collect the body.
It did not take long for Dena to realize that she was going to be like an anchor to the expedition west. After sitting in the car for three hours she felt dizzy and slightly sick to her stomach. Her ankles were swollen to twice their size. She told herself that she just wasn’t used to sitting still for long periods of time. It was probably something you had to get used to. Perhaps tomorrow, after a rest, she would be better able to travel. ‘Peter,’ she said, after enduring the discomfort as long as she could, ‘I know this is a pain for you, but do you think we could stop before long?’
Without realizing it, she expected him to be sympathetic. He was always sympathetic where the baby was concerned. But, instead of replying, he stared angrily through the windshield. She could see his jaw muscles working like gears, even beneath his beard.
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s a nuisance trying to travel with somebody in my condition. I don’t want to hold you guys up. Let’s keep going for a little while longer.’
Peter exhaled a noisy sigh, but headed for the next exit on the highway. He mumbled something that Dena could not understand.
‘Peter, I mean it. I’m sorry I complained. Keep going.’
‘No, no, we’ll stop,’ he replied. After driving in silence for a while, he pulled into a convenience store and looked around at the children.
‘I’ll go get a few things we need,’ Peter said to the girls in the back seat. ‘Then, we’ll go find a place to spend the night.’ Dena tried to shift herself around to look at the children. Tory seemed oblivious to discomfort. During the ride she had chattered intermittently to the doll and stuffed animals she had in the back seat. Megan had been silent the entire way. When Tory tried to draw her into the fantasy, she merely whimpered. Looking sympathetically at their pale, unhappy faces, Dena thought that they would probably enjoy a break. Their hurried departure had been tough on all of them, but children seemed to be so ritual-oriented. It must have upset them not to be able to carry out their farewell ceremonies. My fault, Dena thought. Peter only did it for me.
She opened the door on the passenger side and swung her legs out. ‘I’m going to go in and get some milk,’ said Dena. ‘How about some ice cream for you girls?’
‘No ice cream for them,’ he said. ‘It’ll be supper time before long. If you want milk, I’ll get it for you while I’m in there.’
‘Well, I really need to get out and stretch my legs,’ she admitted.
‘Why don’t you just wait in the car with the girls? We’ll soon be at a motel. You can stretch your legs then. We don’t want to leave them alone in the car.’
Dena sat at the edge of the car seat, looking down at her swollen ankles. Not for the first time that day she thought, why didn’t you just fly? Why did you listen to your sister’s urban legend – pregnant women shouldn’t fly. That was it, wasn’t it, she asked herself? You pretended you didn’t believe her, but you did. She could tell this trip was going to be difficult. Peter was used to telling the children what to do, and was out of the habit of dealing with another adult. He’ll just have to get used to it while we’re together, she thought.
‘I have to pee,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I’ll only be in there a minute.’
Peter sighed. ‘All right,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘We’ll all wait while you go inside. We’ll wait for you to get back.’
‘Maybe the girls would like to come in, too. They could pick out a treat. Something small that won’t spoil their appetites.’ She looked back at them, her eyebrows raised, as if encouraging a response.
For a moment Tory brightened, and made an excited bounce on the seat. ‘I will buy them an apple,’ he said.
Tory sank back down in the seat and resumed staring out the window.
They are better behaved than you are, Dena scolded herself. You’re not exactly setting a good example. Try harder. ‘Right,’ said Dena. ‘Well, I’ll hurry.’ We’re tired, she thought. We’re all tired and irritable, and Peter has kindly stopped for your sake, when he could have gone on.
She left him drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel, and lumbered into the store. She was tempted to buy something at the candy counter for the girls, but she hesitated with her fingers poised over the M&Ms. Don’t do it, she thought. If he doesn’t want them eating sweets before dinner, that’s his prerogative. They’re his children. She made a quick visit to the ladies’ room, and then picked up a pint of milk for herself, knowing it was best for the baby, and brought it up to the counter. The uniformed girl behind the counter was talking and joking with a similarly attired young man. While Dena waited, she glanced at magazine cover lines and, at the very last minute, while the girl was already ringing her small order, she scooped two loose, foil-wrapped peanut butter cups from the bin beneath the cash register and put them beside her milk. Peanut butter, she thought. Semi-nutritious. ‘These too,’ she said.
The girl nodded and totaled up the tab. ‘Do you want a bag for this?’ she asked.
‘Please,’ said Dena. She stuffed her change into her purse and headed back to the car, which was parked near the entrance to the store. She opened the door and slid onto the front seat, rearranging her jumper beneath her.
‘All set?’ asked Peter, pleasant again. Dena nodded.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he said.
As she watched her father enter the store, Tory asked, ‘Did you get us anything?’
Dena turned and gave them a conspiratorial smile. She reached into her bag and handed them each a peanut butter cup. ‘Here. Do you like these?’
Tory looked at the little candy in its gold wrapper as if it were a nugget of poison. ‘Dad said no sweets.’
‘But you’ve been so good. I thought you deserved a treat. You asked me to get you something.’
‘A toy or something,’ said Tory. She snatched the little candy away from Megan, who was examining it curiously, and handed it back to Dena. ‘We’ll wait for the apple,’ said the child. Megan immediately began to wail.
Dena promptly handed Megan’s candy back to her. ‘She wants it,’ Dena said. ‘It won’t hurt her.’
Tory watched in horror as the child put the chocolate into her mouth, and then smiled delightedly. ‘Quick, swallow it,’ Tory cried. ‘She’s got chocolate on her mouth. Give me something to clean it up.’
Dena fished a hanky from her purse and Tory wiped the chocolate off Megan’s mouth while she was still chewing.
Tory handed the hanky back over the seat. ‘Hide that,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him see it.’
‘Don’t worry, honey,’ Dena said. ‘I’ll tell him it was my idea.’
‘Please, just hide it,’ said Tory anxiously. ‘Here he comes.’
Peter got back into the car carrying a plastic bag, which he laid on the seat. He reached into it and handed an apple over the seat to each of the children. Then he turned on the ignition. ‘I asked them where it would be good to stay around here. The manager said there were little cabins down by the lake that were still being rented that might be nice.’
‘That sounds good,’ said Dena.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I might want to stay here for a day or so. Tomorrow I want to take this car over to that lot we passed on the highway and see if I can’t trade it for a van.’
‘Is there something wrong with your car?’ Dena asked, confused.
‘It runs pretty ragged,’ said Peter.
‘Why didn’t you trade it in Monroe?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t have a chance,’ he said, a slight edge in his voice. ‘Besides, it might do you good not to have to get on the road again right away.’
‘OK,’ said Dena. ‘That’s fine.’ She stared out the window as he carefully backed out of the parking space. When will I get to Chicago, she wondered? Oh well, it was Peter’s trip. She had to be a cheerful passenger. And he was right. It would probably do her good to have a day where she wasn’t in the car the whole time.
They passed several motels, most of them seedy and deserted-looking on the way to the lake where the manager had directed them. The sign for Hideaway Cabins pointed them down an unpaved road with a dark tunnel of evergreens. Tory looked around excitedly, but Megan whimpered that she didn’t like it here.
‘Don’t be scared,’ said Dena. ‘It’ll be like spending a night in an enchanted forest.’
‘Like Ratty and Mole in the Wild Wood,’ Tory chimed in.
The bumpy road opened out onto a starkly beautiful vista. There were a series of little cabins which dotted the side of a wide, silvery lake. In the gathering darkness the lights of a few houses were visible through the trees across the lake, as well as a cluster of trailers on the far side.
‘This is nice,’ said Dena.
‘Yes, this should do,’ he said. ‘The girls can play by the lake while I’m gone tomorrow.’
‘I don’t see any other cars,’ said Dena. ‘I hope they are still renting these places.’
‘I’ll go find out,’ said Peter.
She watched him as he got out of the car and walked up to the nearest cabin, which had a ‘Register Here’ sign hanging over the door.
‘This looks great, doesn’t it?’ she said.
‘Can we go swimming?’ Tory asked.
Dena looked at the dark trees and the gray, unbroken surface of the water. ‘I think it might be a little cold for swimming,’ Dena said.
‘Oh, please,’ Tory begged.
‘Well, we’ll see tomorrow,’ said Dena. ‘Maybe it’ll be one of those really hot, sunny fall days and you can.’
‘Oh, I hope it is,’ said the child with longing.
‘Me, too,’ said Dena. She could see a little dock jutting out into the lake. On the bank, secured to the dock with a rope, was a little blue boat with an outboard motor on it. It looked as if someone had come in from fishing and just left it there. Dena thought how nice it would be to sit in the sunshine, and dangle her feet in the water for a lazy day. Maybe if she had a day to relax, without a lot of pressure, she would be able to sort out some plans for her life.
Peter emerged from the office carrying papers and a set of keys, which he waved to indicate he had succeeded. He climbed into the car and handed the papers and the keys to Dena. ‘We’re all set,’ he said. ‘Cabin number five.’
They drove down a short, rutted driveway and pulled up beside a tiny, cedar-sided cottage with leaves piled up to the front step. Peter led the way, unlocking the door, and flipping on the weak overhead light. The three others followed, looking around inside the cabin. It had a central room with two cushioned, wood-frame chairs arranged around a fireplace, a TV on a rolling stand, and a card table with a tablecloth and four folding chairs. There were three doors off the central room, one for a bath, and two bedrooms.
Dena switched on the lights in the other rooms, and was relieved to discover that both bedrooms had twin beds. She didn’t mind sharing a room with Peter, but she was not about to share a bed.
‘This is our room,’ Tory crowed, setting her bag down in a sparsely furnished bedroom with pink spreads on the beds.
Dena looked at Peter. ‘Is that OK?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ said Peter. With his approval, the girls ran out to the car to collect their little duffel bags for their room and get unpacked.
Peter was unloading his bag from the Wawa convenience store onto the card table, as well as a paper shopping bag he had brought in from the car, which contained food he had brought along from the house in Monroe. There were plastic plates and utensils, cold drinks and a bag of sandwiches. Dena had to admire his preparedness. ‘You are a very good provider,’ she observed.
‘I never neglect my children,’ he said.
‘I’ve noticed that,’ said Dena. She was feeling more relaxed, now that they were settled in for the night. She walked over to the cushioned chairs, lay down on the braided rug on the floor and rested her feet on the seat cushions. Immediately, her legs felt better.
Peter stared at her. ‘What are doing lying on the floor?’
‘Elevating my feet,’ she said.
‘That rug is probably filthy,’ he said.
‘It’ll be OK,’ said Dena, thinking: you’re treating me like one of the children again. ‘I’m completely washable.’
‘You wouldn’t let a baby crawl on that rug,’ he said pointedly, putting cans away in the cupboard.
‘No, of course not,’ said Dena, aware that he was counseling her on childcare.
She looked up at the little peaked ceiling, thinking about her baby. Was she going to be anticipating every hazard, as he seemed to do? Somehow she doubted she would be as careful as Peter. As … particular.
‘A lot of people are not capable of taking care of their children,’ he went on, as he unpacked. ‘Like my dear mother.’
Dena turned her head to the side and looked at him. ‘You said she was an attorney. Did she leave you with nannies?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, she would just leave me alone. One time a neighbor heard me crying in the apartment. They called the super who let them in. They found me climbing up on the counter, trying to find food in the cupboard. I was three years old.’
‘Good lord, Peter. Did they do anything about it?’
‘About me? No. My mother did manage to get the super fired, and the neighbor evicted. I found out about that much later.’
‘Well, you’ve become a good parent in spite of all that neglect. You should be proud of yourself.’
‘I have fought against it,’ he corrected her. ‘I won’t allow history to repeat itself.’
Dena got up off the floor and went around the room, turning on table lamps. Then, she snapped off the weak, overhead light. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That gets rid of the gloom a little bit.’
‘Am I depressing you?’ he asked.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I just got the urge to make it a little cozier.’
The girls emerged from their room, Megan carrying a stuffed dog in a protective embrace. ‘I like it here,’ said Tory. ‘You can see the lake from my window.’
Inside her belly, the baby kicked, and Dena gasped, clutching a spot just below her breast.
Peter frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ said Dena, when she caught her breath. ‘Just the baby kicking.’ She smiled at the girls. ‘He must like it here too.’