Safe Passage (8 page)

    
He had been surprised and hurt at first, striking back by refusing to defend the relationship. But his timing had been bad. He saw that his mother was disturbed by his father's eye condition and Simon's refusal to have ear surgery, and he did not wish to add to her distress. She was not unpleasant to Cynthia outright—quite the opposite really; she saved her lectures for when she could get Alfred alone. So he searched for some gesture of appeasement. When his father began talking about spending the winter in the Keys, now that the money from the
RipOffs
had come in, Alfred saw his chance. He offered to move into his parents' house with Cynthia and her boys, so his parents could sample Florida for a few months without worrying. He thought perhaps it would smooth things over, though it would not be an easy thing to do.

    
At first, Cynthia was reluctant. She wanted her own house someday, not Alfred's old one, and liked being in the apartment because the babysitter lived just downstairs. She was afraid of what might happen to the place if she sublet it and didn't relent until Alfred explained how much this meant to him. He had in mind that he might do some repairs while his parents were gone—repaint the bedrooms, prune the overgrown bushes in the yard. He thought that in the long run everyone would be pleased. Finally, with some misgivings, Cynthia had agreed.

    
"She has a friend who's willing to take her apartment through the winter," he had told his mother, though that wasn't entirely true. "You and Dad can just go, just enjoy yourselves, and we'll look after everything here."

    
His mother, hearing that, had looked stricken. She looked equally stricken now, hearing that Cynthia was still asleep. And though he had always seen it as his duty to intervene in times of crisis, he felt at a loss.

    
"I won't ask her to come over unless you want her to," he said.

    
"It's all right," she told him. But he could tell by her tone that it was not.

    
Mag
decided she would not fight Alfred about Cynthia today. There was no point. The situation was already horrible beyond words, and Cynthia could not make it worse. Anyway, Alfred always got what he wanted because he was so good at passive resistance. What he lacked in passion he made up for in endurance. She had to pick her battles. Let him have Cynthia. Under no circumstances was he going to get her house.

    
How could she think about that now?

    
But she did. She remembered how Alfred had always waited her out, even as a child when he wanted the tiny fourth bedroom that was too small for more than one boy. He would use the same tactic now. Back then, Percival had screamed that he should have the bedroom for privacy, and
Izzy
had sulked that he needed a place for his experiments. But Alfred,
more clever
, had only said calmly, "I just don't want to live in a pigsty like the rest of them," and eventually he had won out. Every time she thought of giving the room to one of the others, Alfred's words would remind her of
Percival's
and
Izzy's
detritus—scraps of balsa wood for a model, overdue library books on snake breeding, clothes uprooted from the drawers—and finally she gave the room to Alfred because he would keep it neat. Alfred had prevailed.

    
And if he wanted Cynthia here today, he would prevail in that, too. Even the way he had presented Cynthia to them was an exercise in persistence—so tentatively at first, bringing her to the house alone, letting them notice her slick dark hair and pale skin and outsized breasts; and then bringing her with her sons—not asking for anyone's opinion, just bringing them to a backyard barbecue, to a race Gideon was running, casual occasions where they would not get in the way, letting everyone adjust, until Cynthia and the boys seemed inevitable, and even the idea of their living together did not send the younger ones into dirty-minded whoops of delight.

    
So let him have Cynthia.
Because on the matter of the house
Mag
would be unswayable.
Her passion for the place would save her—the one thing Alfred could not fight against because it was a quality he lacked. Cynthia was the sort of sweaty pleasure
Mag's
grown sons needed, but real feeling carried over twenty years was something else. When it came to
Mag's
house, he would be hindered by his coolness just as, years ago, he had been unable to master the piano—able to pick up the technical knowledge but never to experience the great, transcendent joy
Mag
had hoped he'd get from the music.

    
Alfred was staring at the floor. He seemed to be anticipating his next move. "We probably ought to call Beth O'Neal," he said finally. The idea wiped any other thought right out of her. It was the sort of logical, bloodless thing Alfred would think of.

    
"I'll call her if you want," he offered.

    
"No, I will." Now that he had mentioned it, there seemed to be no other choice.

    
They've got you well trained
, the woman on the paper route had said this morning. It was quite true. She rose, turned the music off, and headed for the phone room.

    
Her fingers were unsteady as she dialed. Beth O'Neal and her son, Tim, were responsible for
Percival's
being in Beirut. The two boys were stationed in the same unit, though the truth was,
Mag
had not thought once about Tim. She resented Beth even at this moment. This call was no act of friendship, or even of charity—but of contrition, the sort of thing her late mother-in-law would have enjoyed. If she made the phone call, perhaps Percival would live.

    
To
Mag
, Beth O'Neal had always seemed the essence of those big-boned, hulking women she could never bring herself to be—the primal mothers who appeared at school and baseball games not to socialize with other parents but to hover over their young like animals scenting out the threat of danger. The children of those mothers were always treated well by the adults in charge of them—even Tim, who was as small and feisty as Percival but smiled upon because of Beth's
everpresence
as recess aide, lunchroom proctor, field-day volunteer.

    
In those days
Mag
was home with other babies and had no time to stand guard over Percival, even in a subtle way. She sent little threads of thought out to follow him, blanket him like protective fingers, but she never managed to provide her actual presence. Instead, she let Alfred know he would have to keep his eye on Percival, because
Izzy
, the closest in age, was too distracted by his own deep thoughts. Alfred's vigilance didn't help. In middle school, Tim and Percival both cut classes, but while Beth conferred with the school psychologist (a form of parental penance)
,
Mag
was finishing college course by course and yearning to go to work. A difficult child could drain you, she had decided; she needed something for herself. She took part-time jobs.
Then full-time.
Tim had only Beth to encourage him, she reasoned, and the Singer boys had each other. She prayed for her sons' well-being—she did that honestly—but she was no match for Beth's attentions.

    
In high school, after a race at Brunswick, Percival stopped speaking to Gideon, the brother with whom he'd been closest. That was when Percival and Tim O'Neal became inseparable. Beth encouraged it. She fed the two of them dinner, lent
them
 
her
car.
Mag
thought her boys would have reconciled if the
O'Neals
hadn't gotten in the way. But Tim was always there with his friendship, and Beth with her support.

    
And then, of course, Tim propagated the myth of the Marines, making it sound like a grown-up version of scout camp. His cousin, Brandon, was a drill sergeant, adding to the glamour. Percival was at the community college, looking for a way out.
Mag
believed that without the
O'Neals
, the restlessness would have passed. On the day Tim and Percival signed up for the Marines, both so pleased with themselves, Beth had said, "Maybe it will settle both of them down."
Fat chance
.

    
Mag
never forgave Beth her complacency. She ignored the fact that the Marines did seem to suit Percival. He grew confident, strong. Home on leave before he left for Beirut, he even made a guarded peace with Gideon. Patrick said there were worse things he could have done than join up, but
Mag
never believed it. The phone rang in Beth O'Neal's apartment, and the other woman answered at once.

    
"I was going to call you after a while," Beth said. "I was hoping maybe you were still asleep and didn't have to know about it yet."

    
"We can't find out anything,"
Mag
said.

  
  
"Me neither. I called Brandon. He's trying to find out what he can, but so far it's not much more than what they're saying on television. I know it must be even worse for you—with no Marine Corps ties." She sounded kind, as if she were concerned with
Mag's
well-being.

    
"Do you know where Tim and Percival lived? If they were in that building?"

    
"
Brandon
's trying to find out."

    
"Alfred called Camp
Lejeune
,"
Mag
told her.

    
"Yes. We did, too."

    
Of course, Beth had done everything. She was so efficient.

    
"I guess all we can do is let each other know if we hear anything,"
Mag
said.

    
There was a long pause.

    
"When they identify the bodies, they send someone to notify the families," Beth said finally. "That's what the Marine Corps does. They don't tell you by phone."

    
"Yes."

    
There was nothing else to discuss. After all these years, being a good mother or a bad one might make no difference. Beth might have more justification for hoping her son was alive, but still…. When she hung up,
Mag
felt it was good to have called, but she had no sense of having been helpful or kind. Outside, a rain-soaked day had dawned, illuminating a soggy yard and fallen leaves. All the lights in the house were on, but the world was gray.

    
"There's really just no way to find out anything," she said, walking back into the family room and addressing Patrick and her sons. "It's like a wall between us and whatever has happened. Even Beth doesn't know any more than we do."

    
"Shit," said Simon.

  
  
"Take your shower," Alfred said.

    
Simon looked down at his clothes as if he'd noticed for the first time that they were wet. His hands hung oddly at his sides.
Mag
had not realized how unaccustomed it was for his fingers to be still, how constantly he had snapped them. He headed up the stairs.

    
Alfred turned to her. "Mother, there's nothing we can do," he said.

    
"That's quite a situation, isn't it? When there's nothing you can do?" But it occurred to her that, with regard to Percival, there had never been anything she could do. He had yelled and fought more than the others; he was never calm like Alfred was. He was different, and he had eluded them. Not for a moment had they ever had him under control.

    
From the time he could walk, Percival could get out any door—and often did—to race his tricycle down the street. She was busy listening to music then, imagining the career she would have when she finished college. She tended the children, but distantly. Percival was three years old, vanished into a damp afternoon. She was busy with year-old twins and with Gideon, who was two. So when she noticed, she called all the louder: "Percival, for God's sake, answer.
Percival!
" But he was nowhere—an angry middle child, often ignored, given to riding off on his tricycle when she was tending the others.

    
She went out to the street, dragging Gideon along, leaving the twins behind in the playpen for Alfred to watch. A nasty drizzle was falling; the gray road was empty. They walked around the block. At the bottom of their hill
Percival's
tricycle sat, overturned at the edge of the
Durrells
' lawn, its front wheel lodged in a rut it had made on the soggy grass. The
Durrells
wouldn't be gracious about the rut—property-conscious people, childless, staid. There was no sign of Percival.

    
Then they heard him but did not see him.
A cry, faint and far away, as if he'd been caught in the drainage culvert that ran underneath the driveway.
Mag
bent to examine the culvert, but of course he wasn't in it, and still the cry came: her son, tortured, trapped.

    
She expected to faint but understood she wouldn't until she found him. She became surprisingly strong. Holding Gideon's hand, she followed the sound toward the
Durrells
' house. Realizing that he was inside—inside!—she did not knock on the door but opened the screen, which was not locked, and pulled Gideon in with her. The crying was louder now, and the sound of a woman's harsh voice led them through the hall and into the kitchen. By the sink stood her neighbor, Susan
Durrell
, dressed in fashionable slacks and a sweater, holding Percival by the arm, preparing to bring a long-handled metal spoon down on the back of his jeans.