Huntley Fitzpatrick - What I Thought Was True

He counts down as Emory takes a deep breath, squints, concentrating hard on the water. “It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s . . .”

My little brother has the noodle clamped tightly under his arms, ends sticking out on either side like wings, his eyes serious, focused on the horizon. He turns and flashes me a grin, a broader one at Cass, then shouts, “It . . . I . . . Superman!” He launches himself, rockets into the world with a squeal.

* * *

And he is fine. Bobbing up a second later, shaking the water out of his hair.

Giggling. He throws his arms out in a Victory V, which sends him sinking below the surface again. Then pops back up, still laughing, and starts heading for us.

I make a move toward the edge of the float, Cass catches my elbow. “He can do it himself.”

He can. Em kicks in that overly splashy way little kids have, spiraling his arms back to the wooden ladder, anchoring it with his feet, clambering up. He splats the noodle onto the float, unself-conscious, confident. “I Superman,” he repeats, the S sound coming out perfect, beaming, showing every one of his teeth.

Em jumped off and swam back to the raft at age eight— just like Nic, Viv, Cass, and me. The only milestone he’s hit exactly on time.

Cass relaxes now, tension I didn’t even read before suddenly gone, tan legs hooked over the pier, dangling toward the water, slanting back on his elbows. Emory does the same, kicking his feet, splish, splash, smiling from ear to ear.

I take in a long deep breath, as though I’m about to jump into the water myself. But instead, I look at my brother, lying flat on the float now, little-boy straight, arms against his sides, still grinning. I look at Cass, eyes tipped closed, drinking in the sunlight. It glimmers off his hair and the drops of water on his shoulders. From here, if you look far to your right, you can make out the shadow of Whale Rock, the long grass that leads up to the Ellingtons’, the curve of Seashell around the bend of the island to where you can’t see anymore.

Where you look. When you leap.

More to life than mastodons.

“This is what comes after Tess?”

I rouse myself from the sleep I’ve fallen into on the glider during Mrs. E.’s nap to find Cass standing over me, holding one of her racy books. This particular cover features a man wearing an eye patch and all too little else, and a stupefied-looking woman in an extremely low-cut dress that he’s clearly in the process of lowering farther. They are, of course, standing on a cliff. In a brewing thunderstorm.

“I’m not at all sure this is physically possible,” he muses, squinting at the cover.

“Which part? Her breasts?” I sit up to scrutinize the book.

“No, I wasn’t thinking of those, but now that you mention it . . . anyway . . . where’s his hand?”

“Isn’t this it?” I point.

“I thought that was her, er—”

“No, it’s his hand. I’m sure.”

“Then what’s that?”

I peer at the book cover. When you examine it closely, she does indeed appear to have too few appendages and he too many.

“Stand up,” Cass directs. “If I put one hand here on your shoulder, and then you sort of collapse back, like she’s doing—farther, Gwen—I’d need to have a hand right here on your back so you wouldn’t fall off that cliff. But instead, his other hand is all over her tits . . . so why doesn’t she hurtle to her death?”

“Tits, Cass? Ew.”

“I know. There are no good words.”

“Maybe she’s a gymnast with superior muscle control.”

“She’d have to be in Cirque de Soleil to manage this. See, if I take away this hand, you—”

I fall back on the glider with a rusty clang of springs.

“—wind up exactly where I want you.”

* * *

I’m not someone who forgets where I am. But I have not spent any time lying on a gently swinging glider on a porch by the sea kissing a beautiful boy. Don’t think. All my focus, every thought, narrows to this moment, the soft sounds we’re both making, a few squeaks from the glider springs, the whole world faded to background music.

Until—“What in the name of God is going on here?” and Cass, scrambling, slides off me, landing on his butt and looking up at Henry Ellington with the same stunned expression I must wear.

Behind him is Gavin Gage, his face poised, neutral. Henry, however, is a thundercloud. An apocalyptic thundercloud turning darker and darker red. Cass moves in front of me. I shove my shirt back down. He starts to say, “This isn’t what it—” then falters because that’s one of the lamest lines ever, right up there with “It didn’t mean anything” and “We can still be friends.”

He switches to, “It’s my fault.”

“Where’s my mother while all this is going on?”

I hop up next to Cass and hurriedly explain, face flaming, that it’s okay, she’s napping.

Which makes things worse.

“If this is your idea of what’s acceptable while a helpless old woman is resting—in her own house—on my dime, you are very much mistaken.” Then: “Who the hell are you?” to Cass.

“Uh—the yard boy.”

“Not anymore,” Henry returns succinctly. “Nor will your dubious idea of caretaking be needed from now on, Guinevere.”

His mouth is screwed up in a line, he’s ramrod straight. If he were a teacher in an old-fashioned book, he’d be hauling out a ruler to rap us across the knuckles.

Anger rises in me, steam in a kettle edging toward a boil.

“Henry, maybe we should all take a moment and calm down,” Gavin Gage interjects unexpectedly. “Back when you and I were their age—”

“That’s not the issue here,” Henry barks. “Take whatever you brought with you and get out.” His voice is softer now, but no less deadly. “You’ve abused my trust, and the trust of a helpless woman. There will be consequences beyond the loss of your jobs, I assure you.”

I hate that he can do this. And he can. And with an impact far beyond this small island. My mind flicks fast. I think of our first “conversation”—itemized—his veiled threat. His muted discussion with Gavin Gage on the other side of the kitchen door. The way he folded that check and held it out to me, set it down on the counter like the ace of spades. And I can’t do it—I can’t keep my mouth shut, I—

“Listen,” I start, “what makes you think you—”

Cass puts a warning hand on my arm.

I make a strangled sound, fall silent.

This isn’t just about me now.

I need the money, yes. But Cass’s dad got him the job. Getting fired would be one more screw-up, and I can tell just by the way he won’t meet my eyes that this has already occurred to him.

“Gracious, Henry. Do be quiet!” calls Mrs. Ellington through the screen porch door. “If it’s not bad enough you’ve woken me up, your bellowing is likely reaching all the way to Ada Partridge’s house, and you know how she’ll respond. It would be most embarrassing to have her call the police and have you arrested for creating a public disturbance.”

Henry offers an explanation that is unflattering in the extreme to both Cass and me, in which the words lewd, depraved, and wanton appear more often than you’d think possible, since, maybe, The Scarlet Letter. Jesus, we were only kissing.

Instead of a shocked gasp at the end, Mrs. E. gives her low belly laugh. “That’s what all the fuss was about? The dear children were simply—obeying my request.”

Henry, Cass, and I all goggle at her. Gavin Gage sits down in one of the wicker chairs, crosses his ankles, amusement gleaming in his eyes. All he’s missing is a box of popcorn and a soda.

Mrs. E. edges the porch door open with her cane and steps out. “You know I adore the theater,” she observes serenely. “Sadly, I am no longer able to attend it in the city—such a great crush of people. It has been my dearest wish to see my favorite play, Much Ado About Nothing, performed once again. Your dear father took me to that once, when we were in London.” She leans her cane against the weathered porch shingles, clasps her hands under her chin, tips her face to the side, magnanimous. “I still remember my favorite line. ‘Lady, I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes . . .’ ”

Cass’s lips twitch. He ducks his head to hide it.

“I don’t remember that they were all over each other like white on rice in that play,” Henry says, sounding like a sulky child.

Mrs. E. waves a hand at him airily. “Shakespeare, dear boy. Very bawdy. Dear Guinevere and Cassidy were most reluctant but I urged them to be faithful to the text, and to rehearse assiduously.”

Ridiculous from the start, this is now officially over-the-top. Henry glowers. Mrs. E. gives him her benevolent smile.

There’s a long pause, and then Henry grudgingly allows that he must have misinterpreted what he saw. His mother graciously accepts his apology. Within minutes Cass and I have our jobs back.

Cass excuses himself to go back to work, but as I head to the kitchen to make tea, he pops his head in through the window. “Helpless old woman, my ass.”

Mrs. Ellington just saved my job—and Cass’s. And for the next two hours, I betray her.

* * *

Gavin Gage’s eyes don’t glitter with avarice, or bulge with green dollar signs like in cartoons, but as I go through the whole tea-serving ritual with all the silver pieces, at which I am now a semi-pro, I notice his cool appraising glance every time I pick up a new item.

Mrs. Ellington chats away, asking Gavin about his family, recalling little details of his friendship with Henry, how they met at Exeter, were on the sailing team together, this French teacher, that lacrosse coach, etc., etc., and Gavin Gage answers politely and kindly, even reminisces about some trip they took as boys with the captain to Captiva.

The only comfort is that Henry Ellington is even more uncomfortable than me. He would so lose to Grandpa in a poker game. He keeps grimacing, shifting around in his seat, pulling at his collar. When Mrs. E. tries to engage him in polite social conversation, he’s totally distracted, making her repeat her question. At one point he says abruptly, “I need some air.”

And goes out to the porch.

Mrs. E. stares after him, then smoothes things over, saying that of course, Gavin, dear Henry did not mean to be rude. The poor boy works so hard. Gavin assures her he understands. It’s all so far from what’s going on under the surface that I want to scream.

* * *

Perched on our battered front steps that afternoon, Grandpa Ben performs his own ritual as methodically as Mrs. E. enacts her tea one. Emptying out his pipe. Tapping the fresh tobacco out of the pouch. Packing it in.

I told Grandpa everything. Or almost everything. Not about Henry walking in on Cass and me. But everything else, my voice hushed but sounding loud as a scream in my own ears. I expect Emory, crashed early on Myrtle, lulled to sleep by the soporific Dora, to bolt up, eyes wide. But he slumbers on, freeing Grandpa to smoke, which he hates to do around Em with his asthma. Grandpa says nothing for a long time, not until the pipe is lit and his already rheumy brown eyes are watering slightly in the smoke.

Then finally, “We do not know.”

That’s it?

“Well, exactly, Grandpa. But . . . but . . . it’s clear Henry doesn’t want his mother to know either. That can’t be good.”

“There are things you don’t want Lucia to understand. Not all of them are the bad things.”

I feel heat sting my face. “No—but those things aren’t like . . . Those things are personal.”

“Pers-o-nal.” Grandpa draws the word out slowly, as if he can’t remember what it means in English. That happens every now and then. More this year than last, more last year than the year before.

“Personal. Belonging to me,” I translate.

Grandpa Ben tilts his head, as though he’s still not clear, but then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his worn dark leather wallet, nudges it open, hands me a picture.

Vovó.

Oh. Not that. My stomach hurts.

I think I know what Grandpa’s doing.

I remember my Vovó, emaciated and pale near the end, but in this picture she’s warm and strong, all curvy brown arms holding up a silver-flecked fish half as big as she is and laughing. The grandmother I remember, wholehearted and real, always smiling, not the solemn one formally posing on the wall, frozen in time.