Quabbin - 21. Chapter 21

I had no trouble slipping into the park, though this time I was heading to a particular place, so it took a while longer to get there. As usual, I walked till I reached the water, then I traced along the shore till I found the area Maddie had liked. At least, I thought she liked it. Maybe it was just a spot she’d remembered, or it was simply convenient that night. In the middle of February, there wouldn’t have been many visitors, and on a night that cold, there wouldn’t have been any police. Maybe Maddie had just parked along the highway and walked right in, swinging her gin bottle and rattling those pills.

And if she hadn’t been able to get in the front way, would she have hiked the long way through? Would it really have mattered? She was planning to be dead by morning, and I doubt the place bothered her all that much. But I hope she got what she wanted.

It comes pretty fast, they said. The police told us she died of the cold, but it could’ve been the pills and the gin. She’d worn a heavy coat, and a hat, scarf, and gloves, but when they found her, she’d taken them off, along with her sweater and boots. She’d done a slow, if modest, strip, then lay in the snow, her head resting on her coat, facing what would’ve been the sunrise. She left no note, but it didn’t matter. We all knew she was unhappy.

Dad had tried to stop her marriage, but he was the last person to talk Maddie -- or maybe anyone -- out of anything. Ann and Carol had reasoned endlessly with her, but that probably made things worse. Maddie knew she wanted to be out of the house, and thought she was in love. Anyone else could take one look at Del and know it was hopeless. “Of course, you wanted to sleep with the guy,” Ann had said. “Who wouldn’t? You wanted a long, terrible affair. Wanted to be broken after he left. But then you wanted to go on with your life. And you never wanted to marry a guy like that.”

“She saw that soon enough,” Carol agreed. “It was over soon enough.”

But then Maddie took the other extreme. How could she ever think of becoming a nun?

“Maybe that was romantic, too,” Ann had said, though she couldn’t make much sense of it. Maybe it was penance to Dad. And if the nuns had just let Maddie stay for month or two, it might’ve burned off.

Or she might just have found some other reason to die. Mom started it, said the psychologists. Ted on his balcony. Ron in his car. They escaped, but it could easily be what caught Maddie.

And now I was sitting by the water, close to where Maddie had died, only I wasn’t going to freeze to death. In the summer, even at night, it didn’t get down to sixty. But there was the water. It got Mom. I suppose it could get me.

Mom’s death was an accident. There was never any question. Paul’s death was an accident, too, even more clearly. He was her diving teacher, maybe her lover, definitely her friend. He didn’t share her interest in the reservoir in the same way, but he’d let her explore it. Or would have, if something hadn’t gone wrong.

It’s illegal to swim in the reservoir, so Mom and Paul had been sneaking around, a great thing for a couple of adults. It was April. Carol, Maddie, and I were in school. Ann, Ted, and Ron had already moved out of the house. Dad was at work. Mom and Paul had driven to New Salem, where they could drive into the woods with their wet suits and tanks and probably not be seen. And they weren’t. They’d parked hidden by trees, and had dragged their equipment to the lake, then suited up, slipped into the water, and swam for maybe fifteen minutes. Then we don’t know what happened.

I used to dream about it. In the beginning, I was watching, then I was Paul for a while. Later, Mom was Dane. In the dream, there were still houses under the water, still furnished like abandoned farm buildings from the thirties. Everything was grey, almost dusty. There was a bank, too -- and an inside room, with a series of connected basement offices surrounding a pair of now-deserted vaults. That’s where I always was when the walls collapsed. Dane had just floated through the doorway. I was on the other side.

I tried to swim above the vault, tried to find any other way in, as I was sure Dane was trying to find a way out. But he was trapped. We were separated. In my mind, I could hear him calling, “Jim! Jim!”

But there was no way in, and soon I knew I was running out of air. I watched the minutes pass, knowing how long I needed to reach the surface, not caring if that happened in the middle of the lake, or if I got caught. I tugged at bricks, clouded the water with handfuls of dissolving plaster, tried to force my way past rusting steel doors. When I knew there was no longer time to reach Dane, I just kept trying, knowing we weren’t that far down. We’d share the air. We’d make it. Then I’d take my last breath in the dream, accepting it. If Dane was going to die, that was fine. I closed my eyes and wasn’t going to fight.

Except I didn’t die. My mother did. And Paul wasn’t on any side of a wall -- all the old buildings had been moved, or leveled, long before the reservoir was flooded. My mother wasn’t trapped. We think they got separated. Neither of them knew the lake, and though Paul was a far more experienced diver, we know some part of his equipment failed. We know that because, after he drowned, there was till plenty of air in his tank.

My mother’s was empty. She’d never stopped trying to find him. Never even tried to get free.

And maybe that’s what hurt us most. There were seven of us -- six kids, no matter how far grown, and Dad. There was only Paul, married, with his own family. Mom had a choice, and she took it, and I’m not sure any of us ever stopped blaming her.

What would’ve happened if she’d left -- if she’d gone for the police or a ranger? He still would’ve drowned. It still might’ve taken as long to find his body as it took to find both of theirs, but at least we would’ve known where to look. There wouldn’t have been days of hoping until someone found Paul’s car. There wouldn’t have been more days of waiting while the police dragged the reservoir. And even if Mom had survived, there would’ve been no reason to suspect an affair.

We knew she was taking lessons. We knew he was her instructor. We knew each other’s families from church. Paul’s death would have been terrible, but our families would’ve gone on.

Or maybe everyone would’ve suspected an affair even if there hadn’t been one. Maybe that’s why Mom stayed. She knew it was all over and couldn’t face it. Though that wasn’t like her, at least, I didn’t think it was. But how well did I really know my mother -- how well did any of us know her -- if she was that unhappy and none of us ever knew?

Or maybe she wasn’t unhappy. Maybe she was fine. She had us. She had Dad. She had a job she loved, and the promise of a new career. She had a sense of adventure that gave us all an instinct for independence, and we loved her for that. Maybe her death was just an accident, as freak as Drew Kohler’s, and the reservoir was nothing to fear.

Then why did it scare me? The water was cold when I went in, but I didn’t mind. Actually, it was more than cold, and I knew at once that I shouldn’t have been in there, especially alone. When I let myself glide, downward, even with my arms out, I had no idea what I could find. Mom had been diving during the day, so it wouldn’t have been this black, and she’d worn a wetsuit, so she couldn’t feel this cold.

I never thought about dying. I thought about Dane. I’d lost him, and it didn’t matter that I’d been right about how much he loved me -- because we wouldn’t be spending our lives together. Which left me the rest of my life. Which led to school.

I could picture myself going though all that -- Tulane, med school, my internship, residency. It seemed like fun, though I knew from Ted’s stories that a lot of it wouldn’t be. Then I could picture myself being married, with kids, and a complicated life. I knew exactly what it could all be like without knowing if any of it would happen. And I pushed on, to Dad’s age, but not alone in a house that was empty and dark. Instead, in a life that was full of family. It wasn’t even a stretch to get there. Maybe we’d even include Dad.

I kept heading deeper I thought, unable to tell till I broke the surface. I was in the middle of the lake. When my eyes cleared, there was dark and less dark, and maybe even light on water.

I might be able to reach the shore. I might be able to find my clothes. I knew my head was even colder out of the water than in it.

I dove, staying shallow, then swimming as fast as I could. There was nothing to run into -- I was just barely underwater and just slipped along. I came up occasionally for air but couldn’t really tell where I was till I hit the mud.

It was even colder getting out, but faster moving across the rocky sand than sloshing through the mucky water. I found the picnic area and my clothes, then quickly dried myself with them and tried to pull them on without shaking. I didn’t even try to tie my shoes, just forced them on, without socks, and started running.

Forget going through the woods, I raced for the main gate. I needed to sweat, needed to try and sweat, and ran just barely able to see the ground in front of me, trusting I wouldn’t trip. At the highway, I ran for my car, knowing the one thing that absolutely worked was the heater.

I couldn’t go home, still half-wet and shaking. Dad shouldn’t be up, but now wasn’t the time to take chances. There was an all-night diner north of Amherst, and I sped there, every mile pumping heat into my car without warming me.

I ordered three bowls of clam chowder and chugged coffee waiting for them to come. “Are you all right?” the waitress asked. She was probably some kid’s mother, and I tripped all her rescue instincts.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, grinning. “I just jumped into the river on a bet.” You can blame anything on a bet, but it would’ve gone better if I’d had two dry, laughing buddies.

“You look real pale,” she warned, so I hopped it to the john.

I was white, though I must’ve run at least a couple of miles. And my fingers didn’t feel connected to my body. I ran them under water, which wasn’t hot, then put them under the heater, which kept clicking off every ten seconds. Back at the counter, my hand still didn’t feel connected, and either did my feet, but there was soup waiting.

I drank all three bowls, not even wasting a spoon. I wanted another bowl, just to soak my fingers. Holding the others tight had felt terrific, but having the soup inside me felt even better.

“More?” the waitress asked.

“Could I?” I asked. Meanwhile, she poured me coffee. I’d never sleep, but I’d seen Dane, so what did it matter? I could never sleep again. Ever. Dane loved me. I’d been right. At least, I wasn’t nuts.

I wondered if I could simply die of the chills in front of twenty people, even though I’d drunk a mess of coffee and a ton of soup. I hadn’t worried about the reservoir until I got out. It hadn’t really seemed that cold, but maybe that’s how these things snuck up on you. I really wanted to be in a tub and thought of renting a room in the motel just down the road to do that. But I was only a few miles from home, and Dad shouldn’t hear the shower in the basement.

Still, it was only after I’d sat under the water for an hour that I began to feel all right. I’d let it run over me. I’d swallowed it down. I’d hunched with my knees against my chest, squeezing in every bit of heat. I probably would’ve filled a tub, but the basement had only a shower.

Finally, everything was OK. I was OK. And I couldn’t help grinning. Without even trying, I did twenty chins, fifty bench presses, and a couple dozen push-ups. I was fine. Just fine. More than fine. So fine, I could even go to church -- comfortably -- in the morning. With Dad.