Authors: Jacqueline Sheehan
H
ow could she have been so wrong about Hill? She had trusted him, and without warning, he was having an affair with Julie. Well, they were still married, so it couldn't be called an affair. But the toxic burn of betrayal shocked her. What did she know about dating, about starting relationships? Nothing.
A piece of buttered toast sat cooling on a plate, untouched. She had wanted to tell Hill everything about the strange girl, about the Costello house, about the pressing need to call Ray about her job. She stabbed the toast with a knife and tossed it into Cooper's bowl.
This was the drop-dead date for calling Ray Velasquez to confirm the date she was returning to her job. Everyone had been understanding when she left; she had had her own mega, grieving, mental health meltdown after Bob died, and she had not inflicted her woes on her vulnerable clients. She had created her very own vision quest off the coast of Maine while ferrying sick dogs and cats from Peaks Island over to Portland.
Rocky looked at her phone, nestled in its cradle, like it was a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Rocky pictured Ray waiting for her to call. Not that the man lacked for one million other things to do with his life, but he had to know if she was coming back to her job in the fall. She pictured him in his office at the university, a remarkably quiet place during the summer. There was normally just a smattering of students taking summer classes, and they rarely made use of the counseling center.
Her house was back in western Mass along with her old life and her furniture, her finicky furnace, and her paved driveway. Her career waited for her with great sticky fingers ready to guide her back to her office. This would be so much easier if she hated her job. The truth of the matter was that she loved everything about her job. She was totally engrossed with the college students who, for the first time in their lives, sought out therapy on their own and tried to grapple with alcoholic parents, bulimic roommates, the agonies of their first broken heart, or the terrifying grip of depression. Their resilience was nothing short of dizzying at their age, and Rocky was thrilled each time a college kid came back from the brink of a personal disaster.
She took the cordless phone out of its cradle. Cooper had stationed himself in front of the screen door, catching the morning breeze, lifting his nose in celebration of a good dog day. Peterson entertained herself by pouncing on Cooper's tail whenever he moved it.
Rocky put the phone on the maple table close to the dark circular outline left by an abandoned beer can. She spoke directly to Cooper.
“You don't have to make choices like this. As much as you might disagree, I can't stay in the almighty now every single minute like you do. I know, you're a dog, and you are constantly rejoicing.”
Cooper exhaled a sigh and pushed up to a sitting position, giving her his full attention. His pink tongue rested happily in his slightly open mouth, forming the perfect Lab smile. Rocky reached for his head, and her fingers found the places along his skull that pleased him. She sat down next to him, cross-legged, and looked out the screen door and allowed the morning breezes to wash over her. She draped one arm over his back and he let her.
R
ay had phoned her in May. “Rocky, I fully supported your need to unscramble after Bob's death.” Rocky noted that the word “grieving” was no longer used. Now she was “unscrambling.” “Now it's time to come back, because if I have another year like this one, with students backed up from here to Boston trying to get an appointment, then I'm going to need medication. Call me.”
Rocky had meant to call him back in May. Then her brother, Caleb, called her. “The lease is up with your renters. You'll be glad to know that they did not burn the place down, although the fire department was called because the flue was closed when they tried to start a fire in the fireplace. Twice. Apparently English professors have a flat learning curve with all things related to fire. The house smells a little barbecued. They want to know if you'll rent to them for another year. I told them no. And let me save you from making the call where you ask me to help move you back into the house. Tell me now so that I can schedule it. I've got a life and a job. August, right?”
R
ocky needed to shoot something before she made her next phone call, even if it was just the round target tacked to some hay bales. She packed her bow and arrows, slung them over one shoulder. Cooper was never invited for archery times, and when he saw her gather her equipment, the center of his brow rose up in disappointment, his black body slumped to the floor, and he sighed with a flutter of his lips. Rocky looked back at the dog. She had one hand on the door, ready to depart.
“You're right, this is the one place that I don't take you.”
Cooper lifted his head. His ears cupped in Rocky's direction.
When she had first found him in November, left for dead with an arrow protruding from his chest, Rocky didn't ever want him within a mile of an archery range again. She figured one arrow lodged in his body was enough for this particular lifetime.
To Rocky's surprise, Cooper dropped his head to his front paws. What did he hear? Was it something in her tone? Did he discern worry, confirmation? Rocky was never entirely sure, but he seemed to understand the non-negotiable nature of her decision to leave him at home.
Rocky usually relished the walk to Tess's house. Now she vibrated erratically from the crush of seeing Hill with his living, breathing wife, from Natalie's unanswered phone call, from her new house purchase, from the call she had to make to Ray. Archery helped her think, and she longed for the solace of it.
She felt the warmth of the day on her bare legs; the moist air swirling around her was peppered with sea salt. She traveled the central paths across the island, taking a dirt road, then diving into the woods, emerging once in someone's driveway, then past a ball field tucked into the interior of the island. She trotted the last half of it, glad for the kinesthetic distraction.
Tess had already left on the ferry for her ritual day in Portland that culminated with dinner and darts with her ex-husband. The backyard was completely Rocky's, and she could shoot arrows until her arms turned to jelly. She tacked a new plastic-coated target to the stack of hay bales. She shifted into the archer. With her body taking the cue, her head began to clear, jettisoning everything except bow, arrow, target, body, and wind.
She found her spot where the grass was trampled from the consistent pawing of her feet, sometimes shod, but recently bare. It was the first week in July, and the warmth of the ground wrapped around her feet. She hefted the bow. Rocky had advanced to a thirty-five-pound bow, and it was like starting all over again. She turned sideways, her left shoulder toward the target, notched the arrow, and pulled back.
Her right arm quivered as she pulled back. She struggled to pull up and back, her thumb grazing her cheek. Hill's steady mantra had become her own: breathe, loosen the knees, exhale, find the center, allow the eyes to travel to the target and the arrow will follow. Release.
What if Bob had a child? Who was Bob if he had failed to mention something as life-altering as a child? She released the arrow, and it lodged solidly on the outer edge of the bale, leaving the paper target unscathed.
Rocky plucked another arrow from her quiver. She shook her body, trying to rid it of the distress that crawled over her like ants. If Bob knew there was a kid and didn't tell her, there was something elemental about her dead husband that she hadn't known. Would he have chosen to hide this, stashing the evidence in a secret compartment? She notched the next arrow. She pulled the arrow up and back, her muscles trembling less this time. Release. The arrow sailed over the top of the target. Her aim was off, but the process of breathing and releasing was having the desired effect of clearing her thoughts.
Hill had warned her: “Every time you go up in weight with the bow, you're going to be a beginner again. Accept it. Your body has to adjust everywhere: legs, spine, arms, even the way that you breathe. If you get mad and resentful about going back to beginner mode, it's only going to take you longer.” But then, why should she believe Hill?
Rocky pulled out another arrow and another, shooting, adjusting, observing. What if the girl was lying? Could it be a scam? What if the kid was delusional? And again and again, with each arrow, she wondered if it was true. More than anything, she wanted to hear from Natalie. What if something had happened to her? She couldn't think of a good reason for Natalie to take such a bold step by calling and then suddenly disappear.
Rocky imagined that she and Bob would have had children one day. They had thought that the time constraints rested with Rocky. But the punch line was that the time constraints had really been with Bob and his heart malfunction, not her maturing womb. Neither of them could have seen the twist that took them by surprise. Imagining that Natalie was part of Bob had opened a floodgate of unexpected maternal feelings in Rocky.
Would they have had children? They had not gone the route of fertility clinics, despite not using any kind of birth control for the last three years; they had just assumed that one day a baby would crash-land in their lives. “Let's just see what happens. Things always work out for us,” Bob had said. He was proof positive that things don't always work out. Sometimes there is a disaster of such proportions that you don't ever get over it. The disaster tosses you into a blender, shreds whatever was known before as true, then spits out all the parts and says,
Now pull yourself back together.
The resulting creation is unrecognizable.
Anyone in the same room with Bob for more than ten minutes would have said that he'd make the best father because that was how Bob was with animals and kids. Rocky had never been as sure about her potential for mothering. She was uncomfortable with kids until they turned fifteen and sullen; she understood sullen, moody, sarcastic adolescents. Toddlers, babies, and eight-year-olds with huge new front teeth all looked somewhat alien to her, but Bob would have been perfect with a small child, showing her the way.
When Natalie appeared, she presented the perfect fully grown child who had in fact crash-landed in Rocky's life. The idea of ever having her own child had grown malformed and hazy after Bob died, but the nugget of the dream was ignited again with the cold call from Natalie. “I've been looking for my father.” The feeling had started, much to Rocky's amazement, in her nipplesâor rather, around her nipples, as if she had collided with a full migration of monarch butterflies as they flapped their way to Mexico, giving her areolae a tremor unlike any she had felt before. Yet she recognized it instantly, the instinct to suckle, absurdly late in this case if Bob really had been the father, if Natalie really was an instant stepdaughter. The faucet of mothering had been turned on, blurring Rocky's brain.
She retrieved the arrows, some of which had pierced the outer edge of the target, and then she walked back to her worn spot of grass and did it all over again, thwacking arrows with her beginner's mind. After two hours, she slumped on the ground, her right arm and shoulder screaming.
She dreaded calling Ray because she had waited so long. She knew what Caleb would say.
Man up, take care of your mess.
Rocky longed for someone else to do some of the heavy lifting. She hadn't realized there were so many hard things waiting for her until Bob died. When he was alive, the jobs of daily living were dividedâmaybe not evenly, but a division of shared burdens in any equation looked attractive now.
Rocky had picked up the phone a dozen times and had not been able to call Ray to tell him that she had decided to resign. If she wasn't a psychologist, who was she? She had worked like a demon to get through grad school: four years of course work after her bachelor's degree, plus a grueling dissertation and one additional year of clinical training. What was she thinking? Did she really want to throw away a perfectly good job?
She was no longer the wife of Bob; now she was Bob's widow, a job title that made her cringe. She was thirty-nine, too young to be called a widow. And now she had been betrayed by Hill. Would she have gone back to her old life if she had never heard Natalie's voice? The catch in the girl's voice had taken hold and carved out a clearing, like chain saws chewing through a forest.
Back at the cottage, Rocky turned the tap on and filled her coffee mug with water. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. She drank the water down in three gulps. She carefully placed the mug in the uneven sink, the bottom worn into pocked erosion. She looked over her left shoulder to the phone. The cat had settled in next to Cooper along his backside. Now was the time, with everything in its place: the mug, the dog, the cat, and her parched throat.
Her watch glowed 1:23
P.M.
Ray would be at the office, either on the computer or on the phone with his youngest son, who had just graduated from high school. No matter what he was doing, she was about to ruin his day.
“Hi, Ray. It's Rocky.”
There was a pause, as if they were already staring each other down.
“So the phone lines do work out in Casco Bay. Good to hear your voice,” he said.
Rocky heard the hope mixed with irritation.
“I'm not coming back to work,” she said as quickly as she could, before the words grew fat in her throat and choked her.
Ray exhaled deeply. A door slammed. “That was not what I wanted to hear. You are leaving me high and dry. I don't want to lose you.”
“I am so sorry. . . .”
“Is there anything I can say to change your mind? You know I don't have much wiggle room with salary. Are you okay?”
“It's not the salary. Every time I think about going back to my house, it's filled with the essence of who I used to be. I was a wife, and our house fit us perfectly, but that's not who I am now. Too much has happened. . . .” Rocky stopped to catch her breath, realizing that she hadn't offered one meaningful, concrete reason for quitting her job.