Remarkably Bright Creatures(6)

One week later, they found the boat: a rusty old Sun Cat no one had noticed was missing from the tiny marina that used to be next to the ferry dock. It washed ashore with its anchor rope cut off clean. Erik’s prints were on the rudder. Evidence was thin, but it all pointed to the boy taking his own life, the sheriff said.

The neighbors said.

The newspapers said.

Everyone said.

Tova has never believed that. Not for one minute.

She pats her face dry, blinking at the reflection in the powder room mirror. The Knit-Wits have been her friends for years, and sometimes she still feels as if she’s a mistaken jigsaw piece who found her way into the wrong puzzle.

TOVA RETRIEVES HER cup from the sink, pours herself some fresh oolong, and slips back into her chair and the conversation. It’s a discussion of Mary Ann’s neighbor who is suing his orthopedist after a poorly done surgery. The ladies agree the physician ought to be held responsible. Then there’s a round of cooing over photos of Janice’s little Yorkie, Rolo, who often comes along to Knit-Wits in Janice’s handbag. Today, Rolo is home with a sour stomach.

“Poor Rolo,” Mary Ann says. “Do you think he ate something bad?”

“You should stop feeding him human food,” Barb says. “Rick used to give our Sully plate scraps behind my back. But I could tell every time. Oh, the smelly shit!”

“Barbara!” Mary Ann says, eyes wide. Janice and Tova laugh.

“Well, pardon my language, but that dog could stink up a whole room. May she rest in peace.” Barb presses her hands together, prayer-like.

Tova knows how dearly Barb had loved her golden retriever, Sully. Perhaps more than she’d loved her late husband, Rick. And in the space of a few months, last year, she lost both. Tova wonders sometimes if it’s better that way, to have one’s tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness. Get it over with in one shot. Tova knew there was a bottom to those depths of despair. Once your soul was soaked though with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed, the way maple syrup on Saturday-morning pancakes always cascaded onto the table whenever Erik was allowed to pour it himself.

At three in the afternoon, the Knit-Wits are gathering their jackets and pocketbooks from the backs of their chairs when Mary Ann pulls Tova aside.

“Please do let us know if you need help.” Mary Ann clasps Tova’s hand, the other woman’s olive Italian skin young-looking and smooth, comparatively. Tova’s Scandinavian genes, so kind in her youth, had turned on her as she aged. By forty, her corn-silk hair was gray. By fifty, the lines on her face seemed etched in clay. Now she sometimes catches a glimpse of her profile reflected in a shop window, the way her shoulders have begun to stoop. She wonders how this body can possibly be hers.

“I assure you, I don’t need help.”

“If that job becomes too much, you’ll quit. Won’t you?”

“Certainly.”

“All right.” Mary Ann doesn’t look convinced.

“Thank you for the tea, Mary Ann.” Tova slips into her jacket and smiles at the group of them. “Lovely afternoon, as always.”

TOVA PATS THE dashboard and steps on the accelerator, coaxing another downshift from the hatchback. The car groans as it climbs.

Mary Ann’s house sits in the bottom of a wide valley that once was nothing but daffodil fields. Tova remembers riding through them when she was a little girl, next to her older brother, Lars, in the back seat of the family’s Packard. Papa at the steering wheel, Mama next to him with her window down, clutching her scarf under her chin so it wouldn’t fly off. Tova would roll her window down, too, and crane her neck as far out as she dared. The valley smelled of sweet manure. Millions of yellow bonnetheads blurred together into a sea of sunshine.

Nowadays, the valley floor is a suburban grid. Every couple of years, the county has a big to-do about reworking the road snaking up the hillside. Mary Ann is always writing letters to the council about it. Too steep, she argues, too prone to mudslides.

“Not too steep for us,” Tova says, as the hatchback pulls over the crest.

On the other side, a spot of sun glows on the water, squeezing through a crack in the clouds. Then, as if pulled by puppet strings, the crack opens, bathing Puget Sound in clear light.

“Well, how about that,” Tova says, flipping down the visor. Squinting, she turns right onto Sound View Drive, which runs along the ridgeline above the water. Toward home.

Sun, at last! Her asters need deadheading, and for weeks the chilly, wet weather, unseasonable even by Pacific Northwest standards, has dampened her enthusiasm for yard work. At the thought of doing something productive, she presses the gas harder. Perhaps she can finish the entire flower bed before supper.

She breezes through the house for a glass of water on her way to the back garden, pausing to press the blinking red button on her answering machine. That machine is perpetually full of nonsense, people trying to sell her stuff, but she always clears out her messages first thing. How can anyone function with a red light blinking in the background?

The first recording is someone soliciting donations. Delete.

The second message is clearly a scam. Who would be foolish enough to call back and give a bank account number? Delete.

The third message is an error. Muffled voices, then a click. A butt dial, as Janice Kim refers to them. A hazard of the ridiculous practice of keeping phones in pockets. Delete.