How a Woman Becomes a Lake (ARC) Read online

  tequila. The snow-covered woods of Squire Point were visible to the

  left, Jesse somewhere within, out of sight.

  Leo tapped his cigarette against the window. His eyes were water-

  ing and red. He looked at Dmitri. “You all right?”

  “I’m okay.” Dmitri bit his lip. He couldn’t tell whether his father

  was drunk. He often wanted his brother to be punished, but now,

  thinking of Jesse, cold and shivering by some lousy tree, he felt a sort of sorrow. Maybe Jesse will freeze to death, he thought, and then dug his nails into his palms to punish himself for such an ugly thought.

  “We’ll go back for him in a bit,” Leo said. “Let me cool off first.”

  He took another swig from his flask then held it upside down and

  shook his head.

  They drove through the snow to the liquor store, and Leo bought

  a little bottle of something and some peanuts for Dmitri. He asked a

  woman in a red coat if he could buy her a cup of coffee and when she

  turned away, Leo made his hand into a gun and shot at her butt.

  They got back into the car and Dmitri found his face again in the

  side mirror. It looked okay; he looked okay. He could tell everyone at school he’d been punched. He could say Jesse had done it.

  “Jesse should live with Mom and I should live with you,” he said

  to his father after they’d been on the road for a while. He was proud of his idea, which seemed so clever. But his father’s voice came out harsh.

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said. His jaw was clenched and Dmitri

  cowered a bit, wondering if his father was going to hit him again.

  “Heading down south in April,” his father said instead, his voice

  lighter. “You remember Holly? Well. Be gone a few days is all.”

  He knew that when his father talked about going “down south,” he

  meant San Garcia, where he was from. Dmitri wanted to see it more

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  than anything. But he had asked his father for things like that before—

  day trips, even an hour with just the two of them—and his father had

  said no. Dmitri sensed, too, that any demands placed on his father

  right now would backfire. It was better to stay small, to keep quiet.

  “I wanted to tel you boys something today but—” His father

  stopped speaking. He held his hand out in front of him, stared at the back of it as he drove. “I’m going to marry Holly,” he said to Dmitri.

  Dmitri did not know what to say. Maybe he had misheard him;

  maybe his father was going to a place called Merry Holly.

  “It doesn’t mean I don’t love your mother,” his father said.

  “Okay,” said Dmitri.

  His father kept looking at him and so he nodded vigorously, like,

  Yes, yes, it’s all right, Dad, it’s all right, Dad.

  “Wasn’t so bad leaving him out there, was it?” his father was say-

  ing, the car picking up speed, headed down the snow-covered country

  road that led to Squire Point. “Leave him out there for no more than

  an hour—couldn’t have been thirty minutes. Think it over. Sort it out in his head. Right?” He turned to Dmitri. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “I did a good thing just now. Could’ve gotten real angry at him.

  Could’ve made a real mess of it.”

  Dmitri bit his lip again.

  “Could’ve let him have it,” said Leo. “This way is better.”

  His father was slurring his words and Dmitri wondered how

  much he’d had to drink, and why he kept lighting one cigarette after

  the other, even after he’d told Dmitri he was going to quit.

  “I did the right thing back there. I did the right thing.”

  “You did, Daddy.”

  His father was making strange, gasp-like sounds and wiping his

  eyes. Perhaps his father was crying, but Dmitri had never seen anyone cry like that before.

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  “Your nose okay?” his father asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it, right? So don’t go telling your mother.”

  “I won’t.”

  “That’s my boy.”

  Up ahead, the sign for Squire Point appeared, then the turnoff for

  the first parking lot. An inch of snow had fallen since they’d left, covering their tire tracks, the place they’d parked before. The car slid a bit.

  “Shit,” his father said. “Hate this stupid crap.” The car slid again

  and he put his hand over Dmitri’s chest to keep him from falling for-

  ward. “There we go. No problem now. Okay.”

  His father took another swig, wiped his eyes once more, and turned

  to face Dmitri. “You stay here. I’m serious this time. When I tel you boys to stay somewhere, I mean it.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “I’m going to have a talk with him, then I’ll take you both home,

  all right?”

  Dmitri nodded, and watched his father disappear down the trail

  and into the woods. His father had left the engine on, but the air

  coming out of the vents was cold. Dmitri swished his body back and

  forth against the seat for friction. He was crying before he knew it, then angry at himself for crying, for being a baby. Despite the cold, his face felt hot to the touch and he pressed his fingertips to it, then sucked them for warmth.

  “Please,” he said. “Please come back.”

  He watched the dashboard clock. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. What

  was taking so long? He prayed for his father and brother to return.

  Dear God, please, I’ll do anything you want me to do. Finally, the back-seat door opened and Dmitri swivelled his body to see Jesse climbing

  into the car. His brother’s face was white, and Dmitri wondered if the snow had gotten into his veins.

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  He watched his father lean over the seat and fasten Jesse’s seat

  belt, tug it a little afterwards to make sure it was secure before closing the door. “Watch your hands,” his father said.

  “Did you get a whooping?” Dmitri asked in a whisper so his

  father wouldn’t hear. “Did you, Jesse?” His brother was silent, save for a scratching sound he was making, running his fingernails over the

  back seat. “What took you so long, huh?”

  But his brother wouldn’t answer him. He was shivering, and little

  icicles were in his hair, making him look older than his ten years.

  “Huh, Jesse?”

  Dmitri turned away from his brother and looked out the window.

  His father was on his knees, combing through the snow with his

  hands—then he stood, scanned the parking lot, moved to a new spot,

  crouched again and moved his hands through the snow. Finally, on

  the fourth try, Dmitri watched him pick up a beer can and put it in

  his pocket.

  His father started the car, but the tires spun out, and so he

  reversed, stopped, went forward, reversed, bunny-hopping the car.

  Dmitri felt his body jerk back and forth against the seat belt, as if he were riding a mechanical bull. He hopped in his seat a bit, enjoying

  the motion.

  “That’s okay,” his father said. “We’ll get out of here. Have to get

  the tires to catch is a
ll. No problem. Don’t worry.”

  The birch trees covered in snow. The empty parking lot, the

  snow falling in little clumps, all different sizes. The footprints from his father and Jesse filled in until they were invisible. The sky darkened, it seemed, with every breath Dmitri took. The windshield misted over

  until it was white, and his father rubbed a patch in it so that he could see. His brother’s fingernails continued to scratch the back seat. The tires caught, finally, and the car sped free. Dmitri could smell the booze on his father’s breath, and even his father’s mouthwash, his deodorant, Celo_9780735235823_4p_all_r1.indd 61

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  his cologne. “This did not happen, it has never happened,” his father said. His voice was gentle, almost a whisper, and as they began the long drive back into town, he told his boys that this day had never happened, this day had never been.

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  c h a p t e r N i n e

  Evelina

  She sat in a play area for children at the hospital. Her chair was

  slippery, and she spent the first few minutes figuring out how to

  anchor herself. A poinsettia was on the table beside her. Jesse fiddled with his cuticles. Dmitri sat cross-legged on the floor, assembling

  a jigsaw puzzle. They were the only family in the waiting area, and

  Evelina wished desperately for some other family to join them. She

  put her hand over Jesse’s.

  “Stop,” she said. “Stop fidgeting.”

  Just as she had been about to call the police and report her sons

  missing, Leo and the boys had returned, pale-faced and weird-acting,

  all of them. Leo said it was an accident, that Dmitri had slipped on

  the ice and fallen face down. Jesse nodded, corroborating. She had

  put the boys to bed after Leo left, but Dmitri had woken an hour

  later, crying, holding his little face.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said but Dmitri shook his head.

  “We were playing a game,” Jesse said to her. “It got out of hand.

  Dmitri slipped.” His voice was quiet. She could detect a note of terror in his tone.

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  “Is that all?” She looked at her son’s face, his big dark eyes, his

  high cheekbones.

  “He fell on the ice. That’s all.” His voice trembled and Evelina saw

  he was fighting something, an outburst of anger, or maybe tears.

  A nurse appeared at last, and they were ushered into an examina-

  tion room. Evelina told Jesse to sit quietly, and helped Dmitri up

  onto the hospital bed. “My boy,” she said to him, and kissed his forehead. His face was puffy from the blow, his nostrils crusty with blood.

  It was a small room. Linoleum floor. The smell of burnt coffee.

  The ceiling too low. The walls water-stained. She wondered—she had

  often wondered this about anyone who worked indoors—how they

  survived each day in such a depressing setting. She needed to see

  beautiful things. It’s why she had done well on the fishing boats. No matter how hard the work was, she could look up and see the ocean.

  She should quit her bookkeeping job and get back on the water,

  where she belonged.

  The doctor was a woman in her forties. She prodded Dmitri’s

  nose, apologized when she hurt him, and told him that his nose was

  not broken and that he would be fine in a couple of days. She gave

  him a sticker of a golden retriever.

  “There will be bruising,” she said to Evelina. “He’ll need to sleep

  with his head elevated. And come in if his nose starts to bleed and

  you can’t stop it.” She gave Dmitri a tiny ice pack tucked into a fleece pouch. “Of course I have to ask,” she said to Evelina, her voice soft, her hand on Evelina’s shoulder, “whether you want to press charges.”

  “Against whom?” Evelina said. Dmitri had taken the ice pack out

  of the pouch and was squishing it between his hands.

  “They don’t stop,” said the doctor. She raised her eyebrows at

  Evelina. “It isn’t easy, I know.”

  ——

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  After the boys were in bed, she drank a beer, quickly, embarrassing

  herself. She was not a drinker. She wouldn’t buy dahlias again. They

  had wilted instantly, sad yellow husks of themselves. Once she was

  sure the boys were asleep, she slipped out the door, her coat buttoned to the neck so the store clerk wouldn’t see that she was in her pyjamas.

  The clerk was wearing a V-necked sweater and a ball cap (to hide his

  baldness, she knew), his face covered in ashy stubble. He looked more like a bookstore owner than a man who worked at a corner store. He

  was the owner, of course, she reminded herself when she considered

  whether they might have a future together.

  When he saw her, he slipped a couple of scratch-and-win cards

  out from under the counter and held them up for her to choose.

  “Oh, all of them,” she laughed. “And a couple of those Pac-Man

  ones, too.”

  He gestured to the stool he kept at the end of the counter, where

  she sometimes sat and scratched the cards. “I could make us tea,” he

  said, after she had told him that her boys were finally home.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” Evelina said.

  The store was brightly lit and Evelina felt revealed, as though every thought was visible beneath her skin. The smell of licorice—those red licorice cigars—was bothering her, making her feel sick.

  “Take a couple of treats for your boys,” he said and plucked two

  lollipops from a rotating stand. “So glad they’re home safe.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just out a bit late with their dad. I overreacted.”

  “No matter,” the clerk said. “You know, I’m always here if you need

  to talk.”

  A good man. Possibly a little too old for her, but a good man.

  How to transition to a good man after she’d been with Leo? She wor-

  ried that the clerk would bore her. And not after a few years—rather, she worried that he would bore her the second she reciprocated his

  interest. What a shallow person she was. The clerk had a bulbous

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  nose, which she inspected too closely in the fluorescent light, trying to convince herself to leave. She wanted to feel something for someone again. She wanted someone to take her mind off Dmitri’s face.

  Could Leo have done it? It seemed too brutal an act, even for a man

  who she had seen being brutal.

  She tried to figure out how tall the clerk was. He was elevated

  behind the counter, but by how many inches she couldn’t tel . She

  had only ever seen the top half of him. He was the kind of man who

  would cook her dinner. Do the dishes afterwards, too. The kind of

  man who would take her sons to the museum. Buy them books. Be

  patient with them. Kind. A family man. Or a man who wanted a

  family. She wasn’t sure, of course, of his situation.

  In the distance, the sound of sirens. “Uh-oh,” said the clerk, ges-

  turing out the window, where a police car went speeding by, lights

  flashing. “They’re coming for m
e.”

  She tried to laugh but all she wanted to do was cry.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” the clerk began. He leaned on the

  counter and looked at her.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a member of the church around the corner. We have a weekly

  potluck. Of course, anyone is welcome. I wondered whether you

  might—”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “That’s all right, no matter,” said the clerk. He rang up the lottery cards, his cheeks flushed. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

  “No, no, no,” she said, wishing she were a different sort of person,

  a person who would love to go to a church potluck. “It’s—”

  “No need to explain,” he said.

  ——

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  The next morning, she sat at the kitchen table and pulled the

  scratch-and-win cards from her pocket. A church potluck. She imag-

  ined herself in a high-collared blouse, a Jell-O salad in her hands, in the basement of some community church. Nope, not a weirdo fish

  like her. She turned on the radio and tried to make herself pay attention to the news.

  A woman was missing. Her car had been found at Squire Point

  yesterday afternoon, abandoned, engine running. Before she’d gone

  missing, she’d placed a call to the Whale Bay Police Department

  about having found a little boy. Helicopters and a canine unit were

  searching the woods of Squire Point.

  Squire Point. Where Leo had been yesterday with the boys. She

  felt furious with herself that she had let them go into the woods with their father in such bad weather. What kind of a mother—what kind

  of a parent—

  “Oh, god,” she said to her empty kitchen, thinking of this poor

  woman, lost in the snow, with someone’s lost child. Someone’s

  poor, dear child.

  “Mom?” It was Jesse, in the doorway, in his plaid flannel pyjamas

  and bare feet. “A policeman called last night while you were gone,” he said. He handed her a scrap of paper where he had scribbled a phone

  number. “I told him you were asleep. He wants you to call him.”

  “That doctor,” said Evelina. “Oh for heaven’s sake. You’d tell me if

  your father hit your brother, wouldn’t you?”

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