Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (15 page)

“Royal is here,” he said. “I don't know how.” He touched her shoulder gently. “You can't be here anymore.” He paused. “Come back with me. We can leave tonight.”

“Don't,” she said, standing with her back to him, even as Henry appeared at the door.

“Antonia,” Henry said, pulling her to him. “What are you doing here?” he asked of her father. “How on earth did you find her?”

“Life's nothing but a small town,” her father said, casting a quick glance at Ezra, who was seated on the hood of Calvin's car. In this single glance of his, Antonia thought she understood.

“You,” she said to Ezra. “You told him where I was.” Ezra made no movement. He went on smoking, as if he hadn't heard her. “You conniving—”

“What in the world is this all about?” Henry asked.

“Then she hasn't told you about Royal,” her father said. “No, I guess she wouldn't have.” Then he was down the steps, adding, “Antonia, if you need me—and you will—I'm staying at that fancy hotel near the river.”

She watched him leave, becoming just another shadow in the dark, and she wanted to go after him, to leave the house and the town behind. There was Henry, following her through the door, Henry saying, “Who is Royal? What haven't you told me, Antonia?” He slumped down in a chair, his head in his hands. He kept his eyes on the floor and wouldn't look at her, although she longed for him to. She longed to tell him everything, yet Henry was a smart man, and she understood that he was quickly coming to his own conclusions. “Two brothers, both soldiers, and a cabin the woods. The short story, your novel—not a single word of it is fiction, is it? That's why your father's here, isn't it? Royal's your uncle, isn't he?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “He came to me with a story, Henry. An amazing story about my father . . .”

“He really murdered that girl, then?” he asked, with horror. “He raped and murdered her?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice emotional. There were no tears, though. She'd expected to cry, but she couldn't. She went to him and sat at his feet, looking up into his face. “It is a novel, Henry. That's all it is. It's the only way it would work. Can't you see that? You told me to write it and that it'd sell and I wrote it and it sold, Henry. It is as much your novel as it is mine.”

He shoved her away and stood, saying, “I want nothing more to do with it,” and he left her seated on the floor and walked out of the house. She still wore her mother's coat, her knees tucked under her chin, and she rocked in place, her eyes shut. Even after all of this, she didn't shed a single tear. It's not my fault, she thought. I did a good thing. I wrote the truth. Besides, it's just a novel, and that's how everyone will read it. So what if I borrowed from real life, Henry. So what if it's based on people I trusted, who turned out later to be untrustworthy. I gave her a voice, Henry. I let the victim speak. Isn't that what matters? Isn't that the cardinal rule? Give a voice to those who can't speak, you said. Keep yourself out of the text, you said. That's just what I did. So, no, you can't hold this against me.

She thought back to her eighth birthday party—the vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting, the magician with his top hat and colorful handkerchiefs, her friends around the picnic table, her mother with the Hawaiian Punch, and her father with his camera, and her uncle Royal, who showed up that day with a beat-up porcelain doll. I like to call her Sylvie, her uncle had said. She remembered the smell of the doll, of mildew and ferment, like the beer her father drank alone in the basement. She remembered showing Uncle Royal her bedroom and the way he staggered and fell on the stairs. When it came time to take pictures, Antonia wished he'd just go away. Not only had he stepped on her favorite picture book and left his footprint on the cover, he'd also spilled his drink on her bedspread. She didn't know what to make of him, but he was her father's brother and he was amusing and he had brought her the doll, so she hugged him around the neck and said she couldn't wait to see him again. Then she dashed into the kitchen while her friends were out back with the magician, and she wrote her name and address on a scrap of paper.

When she gave it to him, he said, “I'll never lose my way again.”

Her mother told her she needed to go play with her friends, yet before she went out back she lingered at the door, watching her father and her uncle. They were arguing, and Royal pushed her father so hard that he lost his balance. Her mother yelled at her to get outside, but Antonia stayed. Her father pulled out his wallet and handed his brother all the bills in it. Antonia knew this because he blew into the wallet, as if it were dusty, held it up and said, “See, that's it, Royal.”

When she'd run into Royal on the subway that day in December, just six months after she'd moved to New York, she couldn't quite believe it. She'd heard about such random meetings from Calvin, who'd grown up there. It was as if the city's grid were more than an arrangement of streets but of destinies, too. She'd no idea hers would change so drastically that day, as she agreed to have coffee with her uncle, no idea he'd gone to such lengths to “accidentally” run into her. She had not seen him since her eighth birthday.

She realized then, as they went to the Hungarian on Amsterdam Avenue and had napoleons and coffee, with her paying for it all, that there was something terribly off about him. He didn't look like a transient in his dark blue serge suit and shiny black loafers, but when she asked him where he was staying, he gave her a vague address downtown on the Bowery. The way he stared at her, with his wet blue eyes, it was eerie how drawn she was to him, how her writer's mind went immediately to the details, trying to fill in the last thirteen years of his life.

It was when they were leaving the cafe and she told him she couldn't wait to call her father to let him know about their unexpected meeting that Royal became agitated. The tension had been there, just below the skin, and it erupted then: “I wouldn't like it if you did that,” he said, suddenly angry.

She thought back on that chance reunion, thinking how it had both undone her past and created her future. She stood and went out onto the veranda. Henry was nowhere to be seen, but there was Ezra still on the hood of the car, still smoking. She hurried through the grass, which was sharp against her ankles, and when she approached him, she said, “You told my father exactly where to find me. You gave him this address.”

This time, without any hesitation, he said matter-of-factly, “Yes, I did.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked, her voice jagged.

“He came to the magazine offices a couple of weeks ago,” Ezra said. “He was distraught.”

“You did it out of spite,” she said, “because you hate that I'm with Henry.”

“My father's a fool,” he said, flinging his cigarette to the curb and climbing off the hood. “Maybe I did it because it was the right thing to do.” He paused. “I wish I had a father like yours, who'd come looking for me. You have no idea, do you?”

“No idea about what?” she asked.

“The kind of man my father is,” he said. Then, “At least your father cares about you, despite what you've done.”

“My father is a liar, plain and simple,” she said.

“If you believe that, why are you crying?” he asked.

Sure enough, she touched her face, and there were tears. “I want you out of here,” she said. “Right now.”

“I think you need to take that up with Henry,” he said.

“This is my house,” she said. “My house and my yard and my trees and my town.”

Ezra smirked at her, his eyes calm and unsurprised, looking almost pleased with himself. She felt suddenly as if she were an accomplice in his conspiracy to ruin the weekend, and she hated herself for playing along. Without another word, he wandered up the steps and through the door.

A few minutes later, on her way into the house, Antonia met Calvin on the veranda.

“You want him to go?” he asked sleepily.

“I can't bear having him here,” she said.

“Antonia, you're being crazy and unreasonable,” he said.

“He can stay at Henry's,” she said. “He can stay at the cottage.” She knew logistically that this would never work, however.

“He doesn't want to be here, either. He wants us to drive him back to the city,” Calvin said. “I think Ernest is of the same mind.”

She wanted to say, “Then let them go and you stay. I'll drive you back to the city on Sunday,” but she didn't. Calvin was her best friend, yet Calvin's love for and allegiance to Ernest ran deeper than any other. If the situation had been reversed, she would have gladly sided with Henry and left as well.

“Calvin,” she said as Ezra pushed past them with his duffel bag.

“I'm ready whenever you are,” he said, heading for the car. He climbed in and slammed the door.

Moments later, Ernest shuffled past with their bags, saying nothing, and then Antonia was hugging Calvin good-bye, reminding him of the book party at Leland's the following week. “I'll try to make it,” he said, taking a couple of steps down the walk. Then, turning, he added, “Congratulations, Antonia. I hope it was all worth it.”

As they drove away, the headlights cutting through the darkness, she herself began to wonder if any of it—the writing, the money, the fame—was worth it. Still, she felt she'd done nothing wrong, nothing to evoke such hostility. She had to see Henry, to explain. Antonia dressed and headed to the cottage, passing Catherine's house, in which lights were still shining, as they were in the cottage. She called out his name and banged on the cottage door. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Henry,” she said. “Please open the door.” But he didn't open the door, and a few minutes later Antonia slumped down in one of the lawn chairs she'd bought for him. Just then Catherine appeared on the deck.

Gazing up at Catherine, Antonia now wondered what might have happened if she'd just had the sense to call her father the day Royal had confided in her, how different the story among the three of them might have been. As it was, her father was still out there and her insane uncle was on the loose, perhaps heading straight for her at this very moment, she thought, shuddering. She was afraid for herself, for her father, afraid of what would happen when her uncle caught up to him. Catherine called to her and Antonia stood, drawn to the warmth and concern in Catherine's voice, and pushed through the gate and up the steps.

On the deck, Antonia let Catherine hug her close and lead her into the house. “And I thought
I
had a bad night,” she said. “Remind me never to go on a blind date again,” and she laughed. As Antonia collapsed on the sofa, Catherine poured them wine and handed a glass to her. “Tell me everything,” she said.

So Antonia related fragments of the evening, told her about the mangled typewriter (without mentioning that she now suspected it might have been her uncle's doing), and about her father, though she omitted any mention of Royal, who was, she imagined with a shiver, creeping through the town. She did not tell Catherine, however, about her real reason for moving to Winslow, or about this new trouble with Henry. Later, she thought. Later she'd tell Catherine about that afternoon when her uncle had found her, about the pastries they'd shared, and about the story that sifted off him, like the dust and dandruff on his tattered blue suit. She'd keep all of this for another night, when they were better acquainted, and she could trust Catherine with her secrets. She hoped that then Catherine, in turn, might feel more at ease and more inclined to share her own secrets with her, especially those that lived between her and Wyatt.

Before she went to bed, Catherine disappeared into the study and came out with a typewriter. “Wyatt's,” she said. “You can borrow it. It's just sitting in there gathering dust. Sleep here tonight; you can take it home tomorrow.”

“Oh, Catherine, I couldn't,” she said, though the idea of using the same machine on which Wyatt had written his novel touched and thrilled her. “I'll take good care of it, promise.”

“Just write something wonderful on it,” she said.

Antonia lay awake for another hour, staring at the typewriter, running her fingers over the keys. She imagined all the novels he might have written on it if Henry hadn't come along. Poor Catherine, she thought, rising and going to the kitchen window. There was still a light on in the cottage, which meant Henry was still awake, too. I'm sorry, Henry, she thought, hating herself for ruining the weekend. She hoped he'd let her make it up to him. She hoped that in a couple days his resentment would have faded and he'd open the door to greet her as if nothing had changed.

A Revolver in the Room

_____

Antonia was still asleep on the sofa when Catherine snuck out of the house the next morning. A solid sheet of low-slung clouds leached all color from the warm, humid day. Though the cloud cover was a welcome relief from the scorching sun, it worsened the quality of the air, trapping the heat and making it difficult to breathe. Everything is muted and washed out, the color of nothing, thought Catherine. It was, she realized, like her date the night before, full of dampened conversation and muffled desire. Still, she'd gone through with dinner, then dessert and coffee, because, though she didn't enjoy the man's company, she appreciated that she was not sitting at home, alone. It had kept her from having to socialize with Henry, yet in hindsight she would have given anything to see Ezra again. She'd met him only once, many years ago, when he was just a boy. He'd spent much of that afternoon at Central Park Zoo, holding her hand and leading her from animal to animal. At the end of the day, he'd cried, throwing a tantrum, not wanting Catherine to leave. “I'll see you again soon,” she'd told him, though she hadn't.

Now, on the porch, Catherine stared out at the street, scanning in all directions. This had become her habit since that frightening night when she'd fainted after nearly being attacked. At least, that was how she imagined the gruesome moment—the figure hovering at the lilac bush, his eerie smile, a flash of menace. While the terror of the moment had subsided into a dull if persistent throb, the image of the figure remained vivid, and she'd taken to keeping the porch light on day and night.

All the years she'd lived in New York City, she never once felt scared or unsafe, but in the last week here in quiet Winslow she'd found herself more insecure and uneasy than ever before. Still, if pressed, she'd have to admit that the dread and anxiety she carried around was more than compensated for by the intrigue she'd experienced over the past several days. It was as if she were caught inside the plot of some mystery and that each day her role was being written more indelibly into it. The thing was, Catherine didn't want to be written out, not just yet, because, when she examined the last few days closely, she couldn't help but see just how silly and out of character she was behaving: there was no correlation between what was going on around her and what she imagined was going on around her. Furthermore, she had no clear evidence of any true malfeasance other than the defiled cottage, and this she could wholly dismiss, if she wanted to, as a fraternity prank, as the police officer had suggested.

Yet as she climbed into her car, Catherine thought about Antonia, the typewriter thrown through the window, the note. Was that also just another fraternity stunt? She didn't think so. It seemed all a part of a plot that was playing out, and like it or not, she was as much a character in the summer's drama as Henry and Antonia were. Perhaps even more so, since she'd had her own motives for telling Antonia about the house down the block and for arranging Henry's move into the cottage.

I lured them to me, she suddenly realized. A startling, upsetting revelation, it stayed with her throughout the day at the bookstore, lingering as the sky darkened and a strong wind bowed the tops of the trees. There'd been no talk of rain in the forecast—they'd just issued the first of many drought alerts—but sure enough the first fat drops fell around four o'clock, little welcome explosions against the sidewalk and windows. After rushing around, helping one customer even as another took his place, Catherine left Jane at the register and went out into the thunderstorm. Lightning flared and died in the green-black sky, the air electrifed and cooler. It was, she sensed, fall's first push against summer, a tease of what was to come, and she rejoiced in the downpour. She watched the air grow yellow and hail begin to fall, cracking against the sidewalk, ricocheting off the cars. She didn't care that the hail might split the branches of the ancient sycamore, put holes in the roof of her house, and damage the untrustworthy Corolla. Blow, winds, blow, she thought, but this time, blow us all away.

She stood under the awning and shut her eyes, imagining the falling ice crushing the spirits of Antonia's disavowed father, of Henry's disturbed Wren, of the terrible person who'd gutted Antonia's typewriter. She wanted it to fall and to keep falling, not only obliterating the spirits of those people, but their presences in the town as well, because the things they were doing and had done made no sense to her. She wondered as she stepped back into the store if it were high time that she stopped looking at them as people and thought about them more like characters in a book, because, as she reminded herself, you can never know anyone completely, but you can imagine a character indefinitely.

It was something Wyatt used to say, and she thought about him now, wondering what he'd make of her situation. She still missed him, but the missing felt different to her today, less keen. Her memory of him was breaking down, which upset her because Wyatt wasn't a character, he was a man, and she didn't want to have to imagine him indefinitely.

The store was crowded now with people who had come in from the rain, and she busied herself with helping them. The hour flew by, and then she was saying good-bye to Jane and walking out into the cool evening. The sky was clearing, and everything around her seemed washed clean. She stepped around the puddles on her way to her car and marveled at the heavy, curling mist rising off the asphalt. How fast things can change, she thought. If only it would last. Once she got to her car, she checked it for hail damage but found only the same usual dings and dents and spots of rust. After rolling down her window, she released the stale, hot air trapped inside and, with it, her own sense of worry. I am involved, she thought. I am not a woman of cool restraint.

Yet with this thought came another—in letting herself get involved, she'd also allowed herself to hope, to dream of a great, long-lasting friendship with Antonia, and of forgiving Henry. By the time she arrived home, though, Catherine had concluded that there would never be a real detente with Henry since she could never truly forgive him, and he could never truly make enough amends. He will have to go sooner than later, she thought as she stepped through the mud and muck on her way to the cottage. She called out Henry's name, and when he appeared at the door, unshaven and unkempt, wearing yesterday's clothes, she didn't know what to make of him.

“Henry, you and I have to talk,” she said.

“Is this necessary? Important? Because I'm a little busy right now,” he said curtly.

Catherine wasn't sure what to say or how to go on, stunned that her heart was beating heavily, not with anger, but with excitement. “Yes, Henry, it's very important,” she said, trying not to sound shrill. She kept expecting him to invite her in, but he didn't. You rude, insufferable man, she thought, flashing back some ten years to the last time she'd shared his bed.

As she'd left his spacious Upper West Side apartment that last time, he'd presented her with a gift—
Liars in Love
—because she was as fond of Richard Yates as he was. On the subway ride downtown, she pulled the book out of her bag, flipping through it. A used copy, it was full of underlined passages and notes in the margins. She skimmed through a few of the jottings, then turned to the first page, where Henry had inscribed a message. She read what he'd written, then shut the book, dumbfounded, struggling to breathe.
We are liars in love. I cannot go on with this.

The following day, in class, he treated her coolly, and later, when she went to his office, she found the door locked, although she knew he was inside. With no further explanation other than this tattered book and two hurriedly scrawled sentences, he'd ended their affair.

Now, today, remembering that hurt, Catherine nearly pushed past Henry, smelling cigarette smoke and whiskey, in the air and on his breath. Who was smoking—he or Antonia? Was she in there?

“You aren't smoking, are you?” she asked as pleasantly as she could, though it was impossible to keep the scold from her words. “We had an agreement.”

“Our agreement,” he said, laughing. “God, but you haven't changed a bit.” Then he slammed the door in her face.

Suddenly losing control, Catherine banged on the door, screaming, “Henry Swallow.” After a minute, realizing that he was not going to respond, she turned to go but first called out, “Fran, Laurel, Rachel, Wren—are you doing to Antonia what you did to them?” (To me as well, she wanted to add but didn't.) “Is that it, Henry?” But even this outburst did not provoke a response.

The clouds had gathered again, and it was beginning to rain as she gave up and went into the house. She changed clothes, then poured herself a glass of wine. For a moment she considered storming over to the cottage again, considered demanding that Henry join her in a glass of wine because they had business to discuss. Hadn't she made herself perfectly clear? Hadn't she expressly forbidden cigarettes? While nothing about Henry should have surprised her, everything about him did. Still, the most surprising to her of all was her own odd, unsettling feelings upon seeing him at the door, the surge of affectionate concern that had come over her. What's wrong, Henry? she wanted to ask. Let me help.

For years, long after their affair was over, she'd followed his career, poring over his writings, many times disagreeing fervently with his take on a novel she herself had loved, though always amazed at his style, the way he skinned the fruit of the prose to get at the pith of the story. It didn't matter if the writer had one book or several, if he were unknown or famously read, Henry went after each one with the same bloodthirsty abandon. He'd told Catherine once that he was lucky he didn't write fiction, because if he did, he didn't think he'd be able to take even one negative review. Certainly that had not kept him from going after Wyatt or from understanding how his horrible attack might change their world.

Now Wyatt lay buried in a small cemetery not far from the house, but Catherine did not visit him because she knew he was not there. He was here, in these rooms, piled in the untouched boxes and hidden among the pages of books. He was in the cottage. He was beside her on the sofa, in the bed, on her skin. He was everywhere and nowhere, inside of her and beyond. “I'll be back soon,” he'd said that day. Soon became hours, though, and hours became the first snow of the year, and the world outside was white and thick with drifts by the time she answered the knock at the door.

The officer had called her Mrs. Wyatt Strayed, which she'd found absurdly formal. It made her feel leashed, his name snug around her throat.

“Yes,” she'd said, uncertain why the man was there.

“I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband . . . We found his car . . . in the river.”

The leash around her throat loosened, then evaporated, and she no longer belonged to anyone.

“Yes, I understand,” she'd said, but what was there to understand?

“Would you come with me, please,” he'd said.

“Did you find the groceries?” she asked. “We needed things, you see.”

“Ma'am,” the officer said, “we didn't find any groceries in the vehicle.”

Then she was grabbing her purse and pushing past the officer on her way to her car. “We needed things,” she said again. “He was supposed to do the grocery shopping.”

“Ma'am, please,” the officer said. They were at the Corolla and the snow was falling, blanketing the windshield, which Catherine cleared with a swipe of her hand. “Ma'am, it's too dangerous to drive,” he said.

“We needed things,” she'd repeated, climbing into the car.

She'd gotten halfway down the block before the car skidded into the curb. The attempt, she remembered, gave the day meaning. She was going to get the groceries, because they were married, and she loved him, and they needed things. Isn't that what wives of absentminded, brilliant writers did?

Now it was summer and there was rain instead of snow, and here was Catherine going to the credenza and taking Henry's latest book with her to the sofa, a collection of his essays, signed by him, of course. She flipped to the table of contents, looking for what she didn't know. Most of the essays' titles looked familiar, as she'd read them all before in various magazines and journals. She dragged a finger down the page, until she came to the second-to-last title and she paused, her heart galloping—“My Crime and Punishment: New Notes on
The Last Cigarette.
”

She read the title, saying each word aloud. She turned to Henry's handwritten inscription:
Even this is not enough.
No, nothing was enough to bring Wyatt back. Nothing was enough to erase what Henry had done.

She thought about last night and Antonia, standing at the cottage door, trying to get through to Henry. She thought about this evening, her own unsuccessful, frustrating attempt to break through his stubbornness. She rose and looked out the window at the rain, increasing now, the storm building.

Catherine stood at the window, the abrupt darkness of the room overtaking her as the lights flickered and went out. She hunted for candles and lit the three she found, returning to the sofa. Against her better judgment, she picked up Henry's book and turned to the essay, straining to read in the quivering light. Though she'd imagined herself struggling through the essay, incapable of separating the critic from his work, her impartiality shocked her, though it was Henry himself who shocked her all the more. She read slowly, unsure what to expect. When she finished, Catherine was stunned. Henry had not only retracted and recanted what he had previously written, but he also went on to attack his own earlier arrogance and myopia, turning on his own sentences—the reviewer becoming the reviewed. “I was wrong,” he concluded, “so very wrong about Wyatt Strayed and what he attempted and ultimately succeeded in doing in his debut (and, sadly, only) novel,
The Last Cigarette.
Over my career, I have laid siege to many outstanding novels, and though some of them deserved excoriation, others, like
The Last Cigarette,
did not. If I had been a better man, I would have kept my grievances with the writer to myself. I was not a better man, and in this case I will always regret what I wrote. Wyatt Strayed was a great writer with great potential, and his was an outstanding novel.”