The Paper Palace(36)

I watch him swim away, watch the space between us widening. And then I’m swimming after him, pulling him under the water with me, kissing him hard and long, there in the blur, hidden from the knowing world, telling myself it will be the last time.

“Are you trying to drown me?” he says when we come up gasping for breath.

“It would make things easier.”

“For fuck’s sake, Elle. I spent my whole life waiting for last night. Don’t take it back.”

“I have to. I’m going to. I just can’t face it quite yet.”

“Don’t,” he says.

We butterfly our way across the pond, tandem-legs splashing, winging for lift, throw ourselves onto the little sandy beach, sit side by side in the warm air.





12


   1980. April, Briarcliff, New York.


Sunday. We’ve had a wet spring, but today is perfection, the sun strong, everything green and blossoming. Joanne has asked my father to clear out his boxes from her parents’ attic. We drive up the Hudson with all the windows rolled down. Since Joanne and my father split up, we’ve been spending much more time together. He’s been making a big effort with me and Anna—he even drove up to visit her at boarding school. But I can’t help knowing that if Joanne were still around, he probably wouldn’t be.

Dad has packed us a picnic: ham-and-tomato sandwiches, pears, sweet pickles, a bottle of beer for him, a Yoo-hoo for me. He’s in a great mood.

“I couldn’t see the back of Joanne fast enough, but I am sorry to lose Dwight and Nancy. They’ve been good to me. We’ll stop somewhere first to have our lunch. I don’t want to turn up early.”

“I loved that house. It had the nicest smell.”

“Nancy will be glad to see you. She’s been in a bit of a blue patch since Frank went away to college.”

I’m relieved Frank won’t be there. The thought of his moist upper lip, his revolting thick-bodied snake, still makes me nauseous. “I haven’t seen them in so long. Anna and I used to stay there all the time.”

“Not all the time,” Dad says. He pulls off into the parking lot of the Tarrytown train station. “There’s a decent little picnic area on the other side of the tracks.”

As I get out of the car, something sad shudders through me, indistinct but clear. It’s been years since I’ve been here, but this is the stop where Anna and I would get off the Harlem-Hudson Line when we came to visit Dad and Joanne before they moved to London—the stop where we learned not to expect to see more of our father than the short car ride to and from the Burkes’ house.

We cross the tracks and find a bench overlooking the Hudson. The river is shrugging off the last of winter, stretching itself awake for spring. I watch a large branch moving downstream, pulled by the slow, heavy current. My father fishes his old Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket, pries out the bottle opener, and opens his beer. I’ve always loved his knife—its hidden treasures: the teensy pair of scissors, the nail file, the doll-sized saw. He pulls out the large blade and begins peeling a ripe pear in a tight, precise spiral.

“Why did we stop staying with the Burkes, Dad?”

“Because I wanted my girls with me.”

“Then why did you always leave us there?”

“Well,” he says, “that was Joanne.” He slices off a piece of pear and offers it to me on the blade of the knife. “Careful. That blade is sharper than it looks. There’s a hunk of Muenster in the bag.”

With my father, everything is always someone else’s fault.

“Have I ever told you the story of how I got this scar?” He holds up his thumb. Leans in. A dramatic pause. My father doesn’t tell stories, he performs them. Narrates. Puffs up like a frigate bird, red and barrel-chested. Waits for his audience to settle in. Usually, when he’s repeating a story, I pretend I’ve never heard it before. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But right now all I want to do is pinprick him. Deflate him. Yes, you’ve told it to me about twenty times.

“Pop gave me this knife when I turned ten. Told me knives were for men, not boys—to use it with respect. I cut my thumb wide open the very first time I used it. Trying to pry the cap off a bottle of cola with that same blade. Had to get twelve stitches. Blood all over the damn shop. Like a jugular vein. Pop took the knife away for a year. Told me he’d made a grave error. Said a boy who can’t tell the difference between a bottle opener and a blade was just masquerading as a man. That was a powerful lesson.” Behind him, a train slows to approach the station, heading south. “Your grandfather taught me to whittle, you know. And to shoot straight. Do you remember that little wooden turtle I made for you?”

I shake my head no, though it is on the shelf above my bed, where it always is. I hand my father the cheese, take a sandwich from the picnic bag. I pull off the top slice of bread. It is stained wet with pink tomato juice. One by one, I pick off the seeds, flick them into the grass. On the river, a sailboat fights the current.



* * *



—

We pull into the Burkes’ circular gravel driveway at two on the dot.

“Perfect timing,” Dad says, pleased with himself.

A chocolate Lab is lying on the front porch, napping in a patch of sun. It ambles over, rubs against my father’s leg, then stands there motionless, as if that simple gesture has left it stunned.