Aimee had a pair of swim fins and a face mask and she and Macy were diving for shells about twenty feet from shore. For all his awkward weight, Macy was a good swimmer, but his lungs couldn’t stand all the work. In a few minutes he had to come out to rest, his face looking fatigued. Aimee scooted through the water gracefully, slanting deep with a kick of the wedge-shaped fins.
Evelyn Rinke sat at the edge of the water, where her feet were covered at each small rise of wave. Her hair was combed and she had put on some lipstick.
I kneeled beside her. “Feeling all right today?”
She nodded. “Um-hmm. Reasonably. The sun feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Have you been in the water yet?”
“No. It feels sort of cold. I don’t know if I’d like it. I haven’t been swimming in a long time. Most of the time I stay close to the house—”
I offered a hand to her. “Try it.”
She smiled faintly. “Well — ” Her hard fingers closed about my hand. “All right. I think I will.” We went into the water together. She gasped in dismay. “Oh, Pete!”
“Plunge in. You’ll get used to it.” She splashed me as she put her arms together and dived down. I followed her. She swam uncertainly at first, then more strongly. Aimee treaded water nearby, watching us.
“Not so bad, is it?” I said, gliding up to Evelyn. She smiled broadly, her face streaming. “It’s awfully cold,” she said, “but I like it.” She lunged toward me suddenly, reached out and pushed my head under. I went deeper in the pale green water, grasped her ankles, tugged her toward the bottom. Her hair waved loosely behind her, a bubble or two escaping from her lips. She made a grab for me but I twisted out of the way. She went above water for air.
“Not fair,” she complained, laughing. “I’m not used to the exercise.” She floated on her back for a few minutes, eyes closed, face relaxed.
Aimee’s head bobbed up close by. She lifted the face mask. “Want to look for seashells?” she said timidly. So we looked for seashells. After a while Evelyn joined us. We crawled along close to the bottom, fingers searching the sand until it became impossible to see and we had to surface and wait for the water to clear. Once Aimee saw a small fish and sprinted after it, turning quickly in the water as she tried to duplicate the delicate fin-flip of the silvered fish.
We had been in the water about an hour when Macy bellowed, “Aimee! Diane says you better come in now.” We all went in. Evelyn walked closed beside me as we waded ashore, bumping against me when her feet slipped on the uneven sand bottom. Then she stopped and held my wrist so I would have to stop too.
“Pete,” she said, “I really had fun. For the first time in a long time. I didn’t know anything could be fun any more.”
I smiled at her. “Give yourself a chance once in a while.”
She shuddered, putting her arms across her breasts. There was a stiff breeze and it was chilly after coming out of the water. “Here?” she said, looking toward the house, where her husband loafed on the chaise longue. A little of the old pain seemed to be returning to her. “Anyway, for a little while it was nice. Thanks, Pete. I guess I’ll try to get a nap now.” She walked on a few steps, feet splashing in the shallow water. Then she turned and looked at me again, not saying anything. I caught up with her and we walked to the house together, past the drinking set on the patio.
It was a quarter of five when I had showered and dressed. I was hungry and since I wouldn’t be around for dinner I went into the kitchen and one of the boys fixed a steak from the freezer for me. After I had eaten I went upstairs, hoping to find Macy in his room. He wasn’t there. I started down the hall, then stopped, hearing a peculiar sound from the Rinkes’s bedroom. I waited for it to be repeated, then walked closer to the opened door. It had sounded like a voiceless person trying to scream.
I heard Rinke talking softly as I approached. While he talked the sound went on, relentlessly. I looked through the space between the door and frame. The first thing I saw was Evelyn Rinke’s face. It was chalky. She sat as if her bones were glass. Her eyes were squinted almost shut. Her mouth was twisted open, frozen in the scream that was like a sawing of metal from her throat.
Charley Rinke was holding a cigarette lighter about four inches from her face. He moved it very slowly as he spoke to her in his low calm voice. Her eyes watched the flame, blank with fright.
“I know you’re afraid of it, Evelyn,” he said smoothly. “I’ll take it away in just a moment. I know how you feel about being burned. This time I won’t burn you. But I want you to understand this. Stay away from Pete Mallory. Hear me? I saw the two of you playing in the water today. You have a good time with him, don’t you? But stay away from him. I know what you’re building up to with Mallory. Just remember who you are. You’re Mrs. Rinke. You’re my wife. You belong in my bed, not anybody else’s you happen to take a shine to.”
In a moment of explosive anger I wanted to walk into that I room, feel his face smash and spread under my fists. Evelyn Rinke put her hands up, holding them out in front of her in a gesture of supplication.
“Take... take... take...” she pleaded.
Rinke thumbed the top down on the lighter and the little torch of flame was gone. He started out so quickly I had time only to retreat and duck into the adjoining room. I heard him walk rapidly away and go down the hall.
Evelyn Rinke was seated in the same position, hands over her face, when I went into her bedroom. She must have heard me come in.
“Go away,” she said. “Go away.”
“It’s me — Pete.”
Without any apparent movement she began to fall sideways out of the chair. I caught her and lifted her to the bed.
“Why did he do that?” I said.
Her teeth were tightly clenched. “He... can’t stand to see me have fun. Not with somebody else.”
“Why are you so afraid of fire?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Fire?”
“You were almost paralyzed looking at that lighter.”
“I don’t know why. The flame just makes me freeze up. I’ve always been that way.”
I looked at her for a few moments longer. The terror was still in her eyes. She touched one of my hands. “Stay with me, Pete.”
“It would be better if I didn’t,” I said. “If he came back I might kill him.”
I turned and walked from the room. I went downstairs, my chest tight and squeezed with anger. I walked out of the house, toward the trees that capped the north end of the island, not caring where I was going, just needing to walk until the dangerous edge of hatred for Charley Rinke had blunted.
The sun was fading behind long streaks of clouds in the west. In the grove of palms I found Diane sitting on a couple of thin pillows, her back against the thickened base of one of the trees. There was a book face down in her lap and she looked steadily across the milky bay.
I stopped near her, putting out a hand to the tree. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look up.
“Where’s Aimee?” I said, to jar her loose from her attitude of concentration.
“Lying down before dinner,” Diane said without moving. “What’s wrong, Pete?”
“Why would anything be wrong?”
“I could tell by the way you were walking. The quick way you breathe.” She looked up then. “Are you going into town?”
“Soon.”
Diane sighed. She got up from the pillows stiffly. “Too dark to read,” she said. “I guess I’ll go now.” She looked toward the bay again. “It’s really beautiful here. I like to come here and just sit. Get away from things that aren’t so beautiful.” She looked a bit wistful. “I guess it won’t be long before we leave this house for good.”
“What makes you think so?” I said.
“It’s — just a feeling I have.”
“What will you do then?”
“I’ll go where Aimee goes, I suppose,” she said carelessly. “It doesn’t really matter.”
“You like the kind of life you’ve got here?” I asked her. “You like the people you live with?”
She looked away, bent to pick up the pillows. “I think we are in rats’ alley,” she said almost inaudibly, “where the dead men lost their bones.”
