Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“The kids,” he said. “Upstairs.”

“Have you got this?”

“I’ve got it. Get the kids.”

Matthew was gone. He could feel his heart beating against his naked chest. He was beginning to control the flames, but a new fear leaped into his mind. The water. Suppose the water gave out? This was the pump room. The gasoline pump had to be started whenever the water pressure got too low. It was the pump that provided water, and he was using water by the gallon, and the pump was on fire, what would he do when the water gave out, don’t give out, he thought, stay with me, we’re getting it, we’re controlling it. He turned the hose up against the ceiling, the flames retreated, no, they had taken too secure a hold, the water was beginning to come from the nozzle in a weaker stream now, hold on, he thought, the paint, it’s going to explode in my face, get out of here, he thought, leave it, get out, get out, but he stayed.

He stayed leaning into the flames, sweating, covered with soot, stinking of singed hair, his face streaked, his arms black, the smoldering overalls on the path behind him, the staring labels on the cans and bottles, paint, paint thinner, shellac, kerosene, the water giving out, only a trickle now, he threw away the hose. The flames rallied instantly. He pulled a burning shovel from the wooden wall of the narrow room, dropped the hot handle, swore, scraped earth with his bare hands, tossed it onto the shovel handle, and then picked up the shovel again, still hot, but manageable. He was shoveling fresh earth into the room when Matthew came down again. The children were screaming. Amanda was carrying two kitchen-size fire extinguishers, small cans. She handed them to David wordlessly, he pulled the levers mechanically, the cans were exhausted immediately, Matthew was suddenly at his side with a second shovel.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

They worked together, taking turns in the narrow doorway, tossing shovel after shovelful of earth into the diminishing flames. Amanda soothed the children, holding them to the wet front of her bathing suit. Julia was there now, wide-eyed, there were other people now, someone brought a real fire extinguisher, the danger was almost past. A man in hip-length boots walked into the narrow room and stamped out the glowing embers, smothered charred wood with earth, and then sprayed the fire extinguisher over everything once again.

The fire was out.

The men stood together in their swimming trunks. It was over. They stood breathing hard, weary. David was beginning to feel the aftermath of shock now. He listened to the voices around him and felt somewhat dazed, felt as if he would fall to the ground. He did not speak. They asked questions, but he only nodded or shook his head in return.

The child Kate suddenly broke from her mother’s arms. She went to David and threw her arms around his neck and then kissed him on his sooty cheek.

Everyone smiled.

“I’m still a little shaken,” he said to his mother. “Is there any brandy in the house?”

“Yes, I’ll get you some.”

“Please. My hands are shaking, would you believe it?”

Julia brought him the brandy in a large snifter. He took a big gulp and then sipped at it slowly, sitting smoke-stained in the big armchair near the window overlooking the lake.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked.

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“I do,” he answered. “But so many things happen by chance.”

“Yes, a great many,” Julia said. She sat in the chair opposite him, looking through the window. Her face, in profile, was calm and reposed.

“If there’s a God, why does He...?” David stopped and shrugged. “They could have been killed,” he said. “I was only there by luck. It makes me wish...”

He stopped suddenly. He looked at Julia quickly and then took another swallow of brandy, and then turned his attention to the lake outside, silent.

“ What does it make you wish, David?”

“Nothing.”

“Your father,” she said softly.

“No.”

“Yes,” she insisted.

“Yes, it makes me wish I’d been in that boat with him!”

“Why?”

“To help, to... to tell him his foot was caught in the line, to... to jump in after him... to help... to save him.”

“He didn’t want anyone in the boat with him.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked if I could go along.”

“No, you didn’t,” David said.

“I remember,” Julia said.

“No, Mom. I was taking your picture. And you asked him to get in the picture, and he said no, he wanted to take the boat out.”

“Yes, but I said I wanted to go with him.”

“No, you didn’t. He just walked down to the lake and got into the boat, and I watched him through the binoculars, I...” He cut himself short and pulled at the brandy snifter. The glass was empty. He rose, walked into the other room, and poured another from the decanter. His mother was still sitting in the chair, unmoving, when he returned to the living room.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“If one of us had been with him...”

“If we’d gone along...”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Julia said.

The room was silent. He could hear the wind in the high trees outside.

“It would only have happened another time,” Julia said, almost in a whisper.

“That’s silly. He caught his foot in the—”

“He killed himself,” Julia said.

David stood in his grimy bathing trunks with the brandy glass in his hands, staring at his mother’s profile, staring at the unflinching set of her face, the strong August sun limning her nose and her jaw, the wrinkles smoothed by the flat even reflected light of the lake, she could have been the same woman whose picture he had taken that day years ago, she could have been that woman, time was being very kind to Julia Regan.

“What?” he said.

“He killed himself.”

“What?” he said again, but she did not repeat the words, and he stood staring at her dumbly, and then said, “You don’t know that. How could you know that?”

“He told me he was going to kill himself.”

He put down the brandy glass and walked to where she was sitting. His mother did not turn from the window.

“He told you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When I...” Julia paused. “A few days before.”

“He said those words? He said he was going to kill himself?”

“Yes.”

“Look at me.”

Julia turned slowly.

“When did he tell you this?”

“I told you. A few days before... before he drowned.”

“And you did nothing to stop him?”

“I tried to stop him.”

“Tried? He killed himself, how the hell did you try?”

“I talked to him. I tried to show him I loved him.”

“Didn’t he already know that?” David shouted.

The question startled Julia. She looked up into her son’s face and said, “He knew it.”

“Then how was that going to help?”

“Nothing was going to help. He’d made up his mind. He wanted to kill himself.”

“Why?” David said.

The question hung on the air.

“Why?” he repeated.

“I don’t know why,” Julia said.

“He talked to you. You said he talked to you.”

“Yes, but he didn’t...”

“Why did he want to kill himself?”

“I don’t know.”

David seized his mother’s shoulders. “Don’t lie to me,” he said.

“You know all there is to know.”

“There’s more. Tell me what it is!”

“Why?”

“I spent four goddamn years in prison because—”

“What? What?”

“Tell me why he died!”

“He died because he wanted to die.”