Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18
T im was going to take Emmy away. I knew he was. My husband’s refusal to even talk to me spoke volumes more than his previous threats. Was he avoiding me because he’d discovered I couldn’t stay away from Deer Crossing, even after what had happened with Muzzy? How would he even know? I gnawed at the inside of my cheek, my teeth scraping painfully against the tender skin. He always knew what I was up to. I wasn’t sure how.
Of course, Muzzy could have told him about my numerous lingering strolls in front of her house. If only she’d emerge from her front door. Engage, even if it was just to yell obscenities at me. Any interaction might help us get past the incident. I closed my eyes against the memory, counted slowly backward from ten, but it didn’t work. My mind lingered on that day.
I was to blame for what happened; I was. I never should have agreed to picnic at the pond beside Muzzy’s house that warm May afternoon. She couldn’t have known my fear of being so close to the water—of course she couldn’t. I hadn’t told her about the accident that killed my father. I hadn’t wanted to drag down our budding friendship with my myriad burdens. Muzzy’s only emotional crutches seemed to be a socially acceptable compulsion to scrub all surfaces with Clorox, and a nightly addiction to the thousands of creamy, cold calories Ben and Jerry provided in convenient pint-sized servings. I blinked, staring at a bare wall in my living room but seeing Muzzy.
When I arrived at her house that fateful Monday, I’d paused outside the gate, watching my friend line up picnic baskets on her outdoor table, the children hovering around her in an excited flurry of bright T-shirts and wildly swinging limbs.
“Are you moving outside permanently?” I joked, causing Muzzy to look up and break into one of her wide smiles.
“No, just fulfilling an annual family tradition.” She stuffed a sippy cup into one of the baskets and shoved the wicker top down over the cup’s protruding nub. “On the first really warm spring day, we duck next door and have our lunch pondside. I even let the boys dip their toes in the water.” When she said this, Alex and Christopher jumped up and down in excitement, calling out their approval. Muzzy laughed at their antics, adding, “This year you get to join us!”
“Oh.” My voice faltered. A yawning darkness opened inside me and spread outward, threatening to overtake all five senses at once. “Fun.”
“Are you okay?” Muzzy’s voice sounded far away. A wall of gauzy haze appeared between us; my brain wavered like heat waves emanating from scorched pavement.
“I’m fine. Just a little light-headed,” I managed. “I might be coming down with the flu, so maybe I should just head home?—”
“The flu in May?” She balanced her hands on her substantial hips. “You’re probably just hungry—at least I hope you are. I fried up a chicken and made my famous potato salad. Can you handle the small basket?”
Before I knew it, we were mere yards from the bubbling pond. Chicken leg in hand, I looked warily at the center fountain spouting torrents high into the air. Taunting me. I shivered as Muzzy rattled on about how Johnny loved to come home to an orderly house, how her cleaning compulsion eased the stresses on her overburdened husband. In the midst of her soliloquy, she noticed my trembling, tossed me a sweater she’d brought for herself, and continued speaking, only ceasing her running commentary to chew and swallow. Her words barely registered amid the pounding in my ears. I sat beside Emmy’s dozing form in the carriage, nodding glumly.
The gag of retching made me look up, and catch Muzzy bending little Amber over the grass, both their arms covered in vomit. When the child straightened and faced me, her entire front, from chest to toes, was covered in regurgitated food.
“Oh, goodness,” exclaimed Muzzy, standing and scooping up her child. “Looks like that’s the end of our picnic.” She began walking toward her house, shooting a glance over her shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as I get us changed. Just watch the boys and we’ll pack up once I return.”
Relieved, I took a deep breath. I could do this. I started gathering paper plates, telling the kids to pick up the plastic utensils.
“After we put our feet in the water,” said Christopher, scrambling off the picnic blanket. “Mommy said Alex and me could.”
“No!” The word came out sharper than I’d intended, but the boys were already crossing the half-dozen yards to the rippling water. I screamed again, my terror-filled tone halting them in their tracks right next to the pond’s edge. “Wait until your mother gets here!”
Alex looked toward his big brother for guidance and Christopher wavered on his little toothpick legs, unsure about my authority over him.
“Get away from that pond,” I yelled. My command seemed to hold them in check, but my words had no effect on Brandon, who, intent upon following his siblings, was too young to understand the order or the looming danger. Delighted with the newfound speed in his little legs, he quickly toddled over to his big brothers and before any of us could move, he plopped headfirst into the water.
Terrified, I tried to step forward, but my feet felt bolted to the ground. I scanned the portion of the pond Brandon had breached, squinting against the surface’s metallic glint, glaring as a shiny layer of aluminum under the sun’s blazing rays, obscuring shadows.
“Help!” I screamed, my throat stinging with the effort to amplify. “Muzzy, help!” My arms shot out as if I were close enough to reach the toddler.
Within seconds, my friend appeared from behind the stand of arborvitae shrubs edging her property, still covered in vomit and carrying Amber.
“Brandon’s in the pond!” I gasped as all my senses assaulted me: the sunstruck water hurting my eyes, the children’s screams reverberating in my ears, and the smell—a sudden, overwhelming whiff of rotted vegetation, like dead flowers too long in their vase. My head swam and my vision blurred.
Muzzy dumped Amber onto the grass and took off for the pond, a blur of motion. She jumped in without hesitation and, seconds later, scooped the toddler from the water. I stood watching her like a spectator at a macabre sporting event, still unable to move except for my convulsive shaking. She spread him flat on the grass and pressed her fingers against his protruding belly. Glancing up frantically, her eyes locked onto mine.
“Jesus, Caroline, call 911!” When I blinked at her, unmoving, she added, “What the hell is wrong with you? I need an ambulance!”
Her desperate tone spurred me out of my trance. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and did as she commanded.
Muzzy never spoke to me again. Not after Brandon spouted water and wailed to life, or as the ambulance came and stuffed the entire family inside and whirred away. Not in the days that followed either. No distraught or accusing phone calls, and no surprise visit on my doorstep.
But a few days after the incident, Muzzy visited Tim at his workplace. Recalling my bragging about his important job at Kinney and McKean Engineering, she’d found their office and my husband in it.
Tim never told me what Muzzy said, just that he worried the Owen family would sue us.
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed. “She would have no reason?—”
“She’d have every reason, Caroline,” he’d shouted. “You watched her child struggling to stay afloat and you did nothing to help. What kind of monster does that?”