Philip Roth - Letting Go

“But then I won’t be able to hear it—”

June did not answer. Cynthia listened to the music, her concentration not so intense that she did not notice the tears moving down June’s cheeks. “Well, when he comes home,” Cynthia said, her hair blowing wonderfully out behind her again, “we’ll have to teach him not to fall out like that any more. He was never very careful. Even my mother will tell you that.”

Only four other cars were parked at the end of the street leading down to the ocean beach; it was not yet noon. Cynthia raced around to help June take the blanket and folding chair out of the trunk. From the trough in which the spare tire sat, she un-wedged her pail and shovel, which she had hardly played with all summer. She grabbed Markie’s pail and shovel too, and dragged both pails along the pebbles of the parking area. Then she waited for June to tell her to put Markie’s pail back where it belonged. Instead, her stepmother reached out and smoothed the top of the child’s hair.

They spread the blanket out where the beach began its slope toward the water. A wave had rolled in a moment before, and the four or five people floundering in the sudsy wake were all laughing and calling to one another. To Cynthia the waves looked large and unfriendly. She carried her pails down to where the sand was wet and started to dig, turning regularly to see what June was doing behind her. A book was open on her stepmother’s lap, though she did not seem to be reading it. She did not seem really to be doing anything.

When her sand castle had been washed away, she looked back to see that her stepmother was talking with Mr. Siegel. Pretending to hunt for seashells, she cut a zigzag path up toward the blanket. By the time she was close enough to hear, they had stopped saying anything.

“Hi, Cindy Lou,” Mr. Siegel said.

She ran to where he knelt in the sand beside June. “We saw your television program the other night, Mr. Siegel,” she said.

“Well, let’s hear the dark news,” he said. “What’s my rating, friend?” She knew that he was one of the people who liked to pick up Markie all the time. Markie, however, was in the hospital this particular morning.

“Oh I loved it!”

“Come on,” he said, “you’re kidding me.” He tossed a handful of sand at her feet. “I understand you’re a skeptic about TV. Your father tells me you’re an intellectual, that you spend your mornings looking through books on Brancusi.”

“I like TV though,” she said. She had not quite gotten the sense of all he had said to her. “It was really funny when that old grandfather started slicing up that turkey and then it fell right in his lap. Boy, did I begin to laugh — didn’t I, June?”

June smiled, barely.

“Hey, does anybody want to go in the water?” Cynthia asked.

“Water?” said Mr. Siegel. “What water?”

Cynthia’s laughter was uproarious.

“Not right now, honey,” June said.

She knew that Mr. Siegel and June were anxious to resume their conversation, and she knew what they had been talking about. “When are you going to write another program, Mr. Siegel?”

“Now I know you’re on my side, I’m going to get right home and start one this afternoon.”

“For me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Wow!”

“This time two grandfathers and two turkeys!”

“That’s great! ” she said, and she went skipping down to the water. She heard June calling after her, “Be careful—” with the result that she skipped right on down to the edge, as though she hadn’t heard at all. A wave was rising a little way out, and the sight of it unnerved her. But she took a step directly forward, into the sea — and waited. She did not have to wait very long.

“Cynthia— please— ”

The child turned. She had been able to get June up off the blanket; she had even been able to move her some five or six feet toward the water.

“Okay,” Cynthia said, and she hopped on one leg up to where her pails lay, and flopped down in the sand beside them.

“Please, be careful, Cyn, please,” June called, and just at that moment she heard Markie’s head hitting the floor. A little sound came out of her mouth, but then she saw that it hadn’t been Markie’s head at all, only a wave collapsing onto the flat blue surf. It made her think, however. When Markie came out of the hospital he would have to wear a bandage. She decided she would be very generous to him then. She would tie his shoelaces for him and put his toys away without anybody asking.

Though the hit on the head would probably knock some sense into that kid.

She spoke these words out loud; when she tried them a second time, they made her giggle. The hit on the head will probably knock some sense into that kid. Boy, that little kid didn’t know anything … What she knew for sure and didn’t need anyone to tell her, was that she was much smarter than her brother. She was an exceptional child — that was what the teachers at her new school said. She had the mentality of a ten-year-old, which made her five years older than Markie. She had reason to be proud of herself. When she was an adult she would be more intelligent than others. They would all have to come to her to ask what the best thing was for them to do.

Cynthia suddenly felt herself so full of pep, so convinced that life was made for pleasure, her pleasure, that she jumped up and went racing toward her stepmother. Because she had seen Markie’s blood she knew she could finally get June to agree to take her in the water. She wanted to walk right into the ocean holding June’s hand. She left Markie’s pail and shovel where it was and went flying to the blanket — but there was a man walking down the beach in her direction. She was momentarily stilled by the familiarity of his gait. Everything about him was so familiar, though at first she could not think what his name was. It did not take her very long, however, to remember, or to stop being able to forget. But where was Mommy? Mommy had come with him to see Markie in the hospital! Mommy would find out that she had pushed him! Well, she hadn’t — he fell! That’s what he got for committing a sin.

“June,” she called, “can we go—”

But Gabe had already seen her. He had come to catch her for her mother. All she could do now was scream and run into her room, but they were not even in the house. They were on the wide beach, under the bright sun, and he was so big that wherever she fled he would find her and bring her back.

In the second before he removed his sunglasses, she wondered if she might not be mistaken. Then his hand reached out — and yes, oh yes, oh what would happen—

“Hi, Cynthia. Hello.”

June looked to see who it was. Cynthia thought of making believe that he was a strange man, for she was not supposed to speak to strange men. But when her mother appeared, it would be evident to everyone that she had been lying — and then they would know for sure that she had pushed her brother.

“Hello,” Cynthia said.

“You remember me?”

“Uh-huh. Gabe.”

“Well, how are you? You look brown as a berry — you look healthy and grown-up and—”

“I’m fine.”

“Where’s your little brother?”

Cynthia shrugged.

June was standing. “I’m Mrs. Reganhart.”

Gabe extended his hand. “I’m Gabe Wallach. How do you do? I’m a friend of Martha Reganhart’s. From Chicago.”

Now Cynthia looked up to where the cars were parked. She recognized Gabe’s car as soon as she saw it — and inside she could make out the figure of her mother; she was crouching in the back, spying on her. This was not the first time that the child had had occasion to suspect her mother of spying. When she had first arrived at her new school in New York, she had been certain that her teacher, Mrs. Koplin, was actually her mother in disguise. Then one rainy afternoon Mrs. Koplin’s husband had come to pick her up; he had been carrying an umbrella, and Mrs. Koplin had called him Herb, and she had said that before they went home they must stop first at the A&P on Twelfth Street. And when she said that, Cynthia had known that Mrs. Koplin wasn’t her mother after all. Yet she had been so certain … Now, however, she could actually see who the woman was, crouched in the back of the car. Cynthia started to whistle and to look up at the sky and to kick her toes into the sand. She was being watched and she did not intend to do a single thing wrong. If she could manage, she wanted it to seem as though she were having a very good time.