Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,38
Webster asked.
“You like to clean them?”
“Not really.”
“Neither do I, and Karen won’t touch them. Don’t imagine Sheila would either.”
Webster couldn’t picture Sheila cleaning a fish of any kind.
The ambulance bounced along the ruts. “Fuckers,” said Burrows.
It took them twenty-one minutes to emerge onto a road that wasn’t made of dirt. Thirty-six minutes from Rescue, twenty minutes at the scene, another thirty-six back. Nearly an hour and a half wasted. Burrows was in a mood.
“You look like shit, Webster, you know that?” Burrows said. “Baby not sleeping?”
“Baby’s sleeping fine.”
“Marriage good?”
“Fine,” he said.
“It’s my job to ask questions. You not performing at top notch, I gotta be paying attention. What’s up?”
“I’m not performing at top notch?” Webster asked, concerned.
“No, you’re fine. You look like you’re on dialysis, though. So what’s up at home?”
“Not sure,” Webster said.
“Bingo. I knew it was the marriage.”
“You’re full of shit,” Webster said. “I could have financial troubles, for all you know.”
“But you don’t. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Webster sighed.
“Man, that woman had you pussy-whipped. You were so fucking nuts about her.”
“I still am.”
“She love you back?” Burrows took out a toothpick and began to clean his teeth.
“Yes,” Webster said.
But did she?
“So what’s the problem?” Burrows asked.
“I don’t know,” Webster said. “Look at this. A traffic jam in Hartstone?”
“You could use the siren.”
“We’re almost there.”
A sudden siren might give the guy ahead of him a heart attack.
“Sheila’s restless. Chafing at the bit.”
“To do what?” Burrows asked.
“She won’t say. She can’t say.”
“You sure it’s not that postpartum shit?”
Webster could see the beginning of town, but he couldn’t get to it. A large semi blocked his view. “Is there a parade today?”
“Dunno.”
“It’s not that. She’s not depressed,” Webster said.
Burrows turned and squinted at Webster as he drove. “So what is it?”
Webster had never discussed Sheila with anyone. It felt like a breach, going outside the marriage. But he knew Burrows wouldn’t stop until he had what he wanted. And there might be some relief in talking about it.
“She’s drinking,” Webster said.
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Burrows briefly closed his eyes. “You drinking?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s all right.”
“It’s not all right.”
“I’ll bet it was romantic in the beginning, right?” Burrows said. “The first bottle of wine… the second…”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Then you find you’re drinking at every meal because it’s just so fucking romantic, right? Candles, the pretty glasses, you get laid. It’s cool, right?”
Webster was silent.
“Then one night you discover that one of you has a problem, and it’s not you.”
The jam broke up for no good reason that Webster could see. No parade. No accident. “How do you know all this?” he asked.
“Been there, done that. You need a marriage counselor?”
Webster shook his head, as much from surprise as from denial. “I think you can pretty much forget that. Not happening.”
“Good, ’cause I don’t know any!” Burrows cackled. “Just curious, though. Would Sheila go?”
“Would you?”
“Not on your fucking life.”
Webster felt as though he lived inside an irregular heartbeat. For weeks, Sheila seemed normal, loving, and even, on occasion, sassy in the way Webster had once liked. Each time the three of them went sledding or shopping or to Webster’s parents’ for a Sunday lunch, and he watched the way Sheila read to Rowan, or took her for walks in the woods, or smiled when Rowan smiled, Webster had hope. For a moment, his heart seemed lighter, and he’d think, cautiously, We’ll be fine now.
Even so, he continued to be vigilant. Inevitably, after a month or six weeks, he would see a sign that rattled him. The one sign made him look for others. Sometimes he felt that he was poisoning the marriage simply by looking for the tells, that somehow the search made them appear: a looser face, a slight slur of words, an unwillingness to kiss him. Sheila sometimes went out, but not with him. Webster searched for liquor bottles and found them. A cloud of distrust filled the apartment.
One night, Webster found a bottle of Bacardi behind Rowan’s stuffed animals on a shelf. That Sheila had used Rowan’s toys for a hiding place especially infuriated him.
“That’s it,” he said to Sheila as he went into the living room, brandishing his find.
Sheila turned her head away. Rowan looked up at her dad.
Webster thought his daughter had caught on to the tension between him and Sheila, and, now that she was starting to talk, might understand more than he wanted her to. He put the bottle behind him.
“We’re going to get you to AA,” Webster said to Sheila.
“The person has to want to go.”
“Believe me, you’re