He walked over and took her face in his hands and kissed her.
“I was going to come to your room,” she whispered.
“We can stay here,” he said, not in a whisper, and then he kissed her again, moving her toward the bed. She went willingly, but there was confusion in her eyes.
They kissed for a while. He moved roughly on the bed, shifting, banging the old wooden headboard off the wall, springs creaking beneath him.
“Paul will hear,” she whispered once.
He didn’t reply.
They’d shed their clothes and he’d rolled over on top of her when she pushed him back with her hands on his chest and looked at him knowingly.
“You want him to hear.”
“It’s not want,” he said. “It’s need.”
She hesitated and then nodded slowly. “I understand.”
They got back to the show then. She played her part well.
30
HE DIDN’T STAY LONG after they were finished. She watched as he dressed but said nothing. He gave her one silent look as he stood at the door, and then he opened it and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark and empty, and there was no sound from Paul’s room. He walked down the hall and opened the door to his own room and found Paul sitting in the chair by the window.
Neither of them spoke. Arlen shut the door behind him and leaned against it and waited. It was dark in the room, and he was glad.
“Of all the things to lie about,” Paul said, voice trembling, “you picked the dirtiest. Lying about my death, Arlen? Trying to scare me away with stories like that so you can have her?”
“Wasn’t a lie.”
“Yes, it was!” Paul came up off the chair, his hands clenched into fists. “It was a damned lie, and you said it because you want me to leave.”
Arlen didn’t answer.
“You bastard,” Paul said. “You lying old bastard. You knew how I felt. Sat there and listened to me tell you all about it like we were close, like there was trust between us. You heard it all, and then you went and took her.”
“She’s a woman,” Arlen said. “Not a boat. She can’t be taken or left at the whims of other people. Don’t think of her like that.”
“Don’t tell me how to think of her. You know how I think of her, and still you did this.”
Arlen folded his arms over his chest and stared at a shadow just over the boy’s shoulder.
“How long has it been happening?” Paul said. “Was this the first time?”
“No.”
“No!” he cried, and the genuine anguish in his voice slid into Arlen like a knife between the ribs. “So it’s been days of this? Days of it, and you haven’t had the courage to say a word? How much older than me are you, and you couldn’t be a man? You couldn’t say the truth?”
Arlen was silent.
“Then you lied,” Paul said, his voice softer but no less outraged. “You told me I was going to die, Arlen, told me I was going to be killed. That’s how you handle it? Instead of the truth, you tell me that?”
“That wasn’t a lie. It was just like on the train. You had-”
“Stop! Don’t tell me more of that; I can’t hear it again. None of it’s true. You’re crazy. You ought to be locked up somewhere.” His voice broke as he said, “And she picked you?”
For a moment Paul stood there as if trying to gather himself to continue speaking, but then he crossed the room in a rush. There was an instant in which Arlen thought the kid was going to hit him, and wishing for it. He’d gladly take the blows. Then he realized he was going only for the door, and moved aside as Paul shoved past him and into the hall, slamming the door behind him. The wall trembled with the force of it, and his footsteps echoed through the hall, and then another door slammed and it was silent.
Arlen found his flask and climbed into bed.
Rebecca woke him in the morning. She was standing beside the bed with her hand on his forearm, and when he opened his eyes she said, “He’s gone.”
He sat up stiffly, the now-empty flask still on his lap, and walked down the hall. The door to Paul’s room was open. Inside, no sign of the boy remained. His bags were gone. The bed was neatly made.
They went downstairs, and Arlen stepped out on the front porch and then went to the back and looked in all directions, and there was no trace of him. He went back inside. Rebecca was sitting at one of the tables.
“I wonder if there was another way,” she said.
“There wasn’t. He wouldn’t have gone.”
“I wish there’d been another way.” She sounded close to tears.
He thought that he should go to her but didn’t want to, not right now. He became aware of a ticking as he stood in the silent room, and when he looked up above the bar he felt something swell in his chest.
“He fixed your clock,” he said.
Paul hadn’t been able to get the thing back up by himself, so he’d taken the brass casing and propped it up against the wall. The hands showed the correct time, and it ticked away steadily.
“He fixed the damn clock,” Arlen said, and he didn’t like the sound of his voice. Rebecca looked up at him as if she were going to speak, but he walked across the room and out through the front door. He walked off the porch and down the trail and out to the unfinished dock. When he reached the end, he sat down with his feet hanging free above the water and pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took a long drag and looked out across the inlet.
“He’s better off,” he said aloud. “He’s safe.”
He went for another drag, but this time his hand was shaking and he hardly got the cigarette to his lips. When he did, there wasn’t enough breath in his lungs to draw any smoke. He took the cigarette away again and the shaking was worse and it fell from his fingers and into the water. Once it was gone, he bowed his head and wept into his hands.
Part Three: OWEN
31
HE WORKED ALONE ALL DAY, measuring and cutting and hammering as the wind died off and the sun rose high and hot, the air so humid it felt like moving through tar, searing and sticky. In the afternoon Rebecca came down and stood on the dock with him.
“You really believe he was going to be killed,” she said.
“I don’t believe it. I know it.” He didn’t turn to look at her.
“So he needed to leave. He had to.”
“That’s right.”
“Couldn’t we have talked him into it?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know him. If I’d gone to him and told him the truth about us, he would have been shattered, but he also would have stayed. I’m certain of that. I had to hurt him. Drive him away.”
“I hate that,” she said. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I hate that we had to-”
“I know.”
She sighed and shook her head. “It won’t be the same. It’s going to feel… empty without him.”
“Yes,” Arlen said.
“Why didn’t you leave with him?”
He turned with a board in his hands and looked at her. “Do you really need to hear that answer?”
“I hope I don’t,” she said softly.
“You don’t.”
She waited a minute and said, “Will you go with us?”
“You and Owen?”
She nodded.
He looked away, out to the mouth of the inlet, where a pair of shrieking gulls circled, looking for a meal.
“There’s no obligation to you,” he said. “I’m staying, and I’ll help. I will do what I can. If you want to take your brother and disappear, though…” He shrugged and left the rest unspoken.
“I want to disappear,” she said, “from Solomon Wade. Not you.”
“You say that firm,” Arlen said, “yet you haven’t known me long.”
“I know you.”
“Yeah?”