Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Samuel sat on his bed. He feared the worst for Ama. He thought of what that would mean about the twins, and forced it from his mind. Maud found him staring at a blank wall, muttering proverbs to himself.

She sounded exasperated. “I’ve called the Franks. Yvette broke down and told me they abandoned the poor girl somewhere along the Athabasca — I guess they built a raft out of garbage and the whole thing sunk. Ama’s not the great swimmer the twins are. I can’t believe they’d just leave her there and try to keep it a secret. Even then, Chloe was about to tear Yvette’s eyes out for admitting anything.”

The pain in Maud’s voice gave Samuel a surge of pity. But he continued to sit on the bed. When he suggested they inform the authorities, Maud waved a dismissive hand. She seemed to fear that legal action would be taken against the twins despite their age.

“Ray Frank’s got a rowboat and Eudora’s got her nurse’s licence, that should be enough,” she said. “Besides, it’ll take the authorities an hour to get here.”

Samuel gave in. He rose to go down and wait on the stoop for Ray’s arrival, but Maud detained him by grabbing hold of his shirt.

“I’m going with Ray,” she said, pressing her lips firmly together. “You stay here with the twins.”

Samuel was about to protest when he realized that Maud needed to get away from her daughters — to be left alone with them after that disturbing performance in their bedroom would be agony. He capitulated, leaving things in Ray’s capable hands, but resolved to call the police if the search party hadn’t returned within the half-hour. He watched Maud fuss through the drawers, pulling out blankets and muttering, and listened to her descend the stairs at the sound of the Franks’ horn in the street.

Maud climbed into the truck. Though worried for Ama, she was more concerned about her twins. When had they become so unpredictable, so resistant to discipline? Maud could only conclude that these were the delusions of puberty. She had been turbulent at that age. Samuel, too, admitted to a reckless and stormy youth. So it was not only hormonal, but hereditary. Clutching the blanket, she listened to the boat rattle in the back and tried to steady her nerves.

A cold front had broken the heat, and a sedate breeze set the leaves in motion. Without speaking, Maud and Eudora helped Ray lift the rowboat from the back and turn it upright. It felt cold and rough to the touch, scratched by a decade of outings. Ray slapped his glasses in place with an open palm, and hauled the boat by its sculls to the embankment.

The women trailed behind. Maud looked up through the trees at a sky pierced with calm stars. She hadn’t been to the riverside before, and from here the whole world seemed larger. She could hear the leaves rushing against each other with a sound like water, and then the actual water, more controlled. Earlier, the sun had opened the wild roses, and even now their cloying smell made her nauseous.

“You all right, Maud?” said Eudora, patting Maud’s back. Eudora’s skin gleamed in the weak light from the moon. “Ray! Ray … shoot, he’s already down there. Just put your head between your legs like this, just like … good, good.”

Maud’s stomach calmed down. Trying not to look at the sky, which she now associated with her nausea, she followed Eudora to the embankment. The path of stones bordering it looked luminous. Grabbing hold of cottontail and bristling grass on her way down, Maud was surprised at how the river seemed to lose its beauty the closer you got to it. It smelled of algae, and a huge concrete drain trapped piles of sewage in its grate.

“Ama,” called Eudora. Startled, as if in a dream, Maud repeated the call.

Ray had already gone off alone in the boat, and they listened to his calm path on the water, saw his remote, white form. Eudora led Maud through the trees, a copse of lean birches, and together they called out for Ama. The longer the silence went on, the more Maud began to feel the unreal quality of the night and things took on an artificial look. Eudora draped the blanket over Maud’s shoulders, and after walking around for another meaningless ten minutes, she led her back to the embankment.

They sat on Stone Road, not talking. Every few minutes Eudora would pitch a rock into the water and call out the girl’s name. Maud merely watched, unable to cope with the silence that followed her calls.

An hour passed. With each lost minute Maud felt the impossibility of ever finding Ama. And this idea — that an innocent life could be lost, and at the hands of her own daughters — paralyzed her. Another half-hour passed.

There was turbulence in the distance. Eudora rose to her feet and descended the embankment. Barely aware, Maud followed.

“She’s here, I got her,” yelled Ray, rowing with a single hand as he comforted the form beside him with the other.

Maud nearly collapsed with relief. She ran up to her ankles in the frigid water, holding out the white blanket as if to guide them in. She could hear herself laughing under her breath, low laughs that shook her entire chest and sounded like moans.

As soon as Ray docked, the women pulled the frightened girl from the boat.

Ama didn’t look at all like herself. Her face had blanched, her lips tinged violet with cold. Her hair had flattened against her narrow scalp, and the beginnings of a fever showed in her damp, bright eyes. She trembled terribly.

Ray, himself pale and drenched, held the girl against him. His glasses had fogged. “Poor thing was sitting on a barely floating raft of weeds. Hanging on for dear life. I had to jump from the boat to get her.”

“Oh, God,” said Maud. She felt dampened, as if all her stress had been alleviated too quickly. “Let’s get her in the car.”

Ray scooped the girl in his arms, putting her on Maud’s lap in the cab. The women fussed over her the whole drive, and when they reached the Tyne house, Samuel ran out to greet them.

“You found the child — is she all right?” he said. Seeing his anguish, Maud felt guilty.

“Don’t fuss, she’s fine,” Maud said. “How are the twins?”

“Silent.” Samuel touched Ama’s forehead with the back of his hand. He turned to Eudora. “She’s like an oven.”

“Well, let’s take her inside, for a start.”

Samuel was disturbed that Ama hadn’t acknowledged him. She had a monk’s composure, her eyes oddly calm. Yet it was obvious that breathing was painful to her, her body jerking up with each breath. She stank of smut from the river, sludge, the ferment of weeds. And those smells provoked a pity in Samuel, a feeling he would later elucidate as sadness, for without her usual nervous kind-heartedness, the girl seemed entirely strange to him.

They carried her to the kitchen and, clearing the table, placed her on it. Here, under Ama’s aloof gaze, they argued about how best to treat her.

“I haven’t used mustard plaster in years,” said Eudora, scoffing at Maud’s suggestion. “I brought my black bag. Let’s cup her.”

“Why complicate things?” said Ray. He removed his glasses to wipe off the fog that had collected when he’d entered the warm room. “Just give her whatever medicine her folks sent along with her, then back off and let her rest.”

Eudora looked at him as if to say, What do you know? Samuel slid away from the group and leaned against the gas stove. Taking his cue, Ray did the same, leaving things to the women. Maud gave the girl her usual medicine, while Eudora lit a candle to heat the glass cups that would suck the poison through Ama’s back.

As the women argued, Ray told Samuel how difficult it had been to save Ama, how he’d thought that at sixty-three he’d seen his last, having had to plunge into a fast current. Samuel studied Ray’s face, thinking of the slaughter of the calf, his savage opinions at dinner, his condescension.