Page 33 of Under the Stars

Meredith

New London, Connecticut

The man was a little above medium height, a little under middle age.

He had dark, well-groomed hair and a lean, well-groomed face that was painted with smudges—under his eyes, under his cheekbones.

He had the voice of a news announcer, distinguished and soothing at the same time, vowels sculpted from the air. It gave Meredith the chills.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Meredith said. “This is my daughter.”

“It’s a girl, then?”

Meredith stepped between the man and the bassinet. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“My son. Cooper. You were with him the night he disappeared?”

“I’m going to call the nurse.”

“Please don’t. I don’t mean any harm, I swear it. To you or the baby. I want to speak to you, that’s all. You owe me that much, I believe?”

Meredith’s abdomen hurt. She shifted on her feet, and that small motion caused a spike of pain that reminded her she had undergone major surgery two days ago, that she had spent the two days before that in active labor.

“You know what? I don’t think I owe you anything.

I don’t even know who you are. You need to get out of this room right now, or I swear to God—”

“All right,” he said. “All right. I understand. I might be anybody.”

“I’m going to call—going to—”

The blood was draining from her head. Oh shit, she thought. She found the chair just in time. The man leaped forward and caught her elbows to ease her down.

“You shouldn’t be up,” he said. “Do you need some water?”

“I’m fine. I had a cesarean, that’s all.”

He reached for the pitcher on the trolley and poured water into the plastic cup. “It’s nothing to take lightly. My wife had one. I hope there were no complications?”

“The baby got stuck. Apparently. But it wasn’t—everything’s good now. Everything’s all right.”

Why was she even speaking to him? She couldn’t think straight.

Coop’s dad. Coop’s dad was in the room with her.

Audrey! Meredith glanced at the bassinet.

No movement, no sound. Maybe she’d fallen asleep.

Unless she was dead—unless Meredith’s inept mothering had already done her in.

Coop’s dad pressed the water into Meredith’s right hand. She sipped.

“Better?” he said.

“You should go. I mean, I’m sorry about what happened. If you’re really Coop’s—if you’re really his father. But this has nothing to do with you.”

He gave her a small, sad smile. Whether he realized it or not, he stood right between Meredith and the call button. Just press this if you need anything, the nurse had told her.

“Is everything really all right, Meredith?” asked Mr. Walker.

“Of course it is.”

“Because you’re dressed to go out.”

“I hate hospital gowns.”

He winced and looked at the ceiling. He wore a button-down shirt beneath a knit vest and a blazer over all—a little formal, maybe, but the Walkers were a wealthy family, right?

Mr. Walker was a law partner or something.

Watch Hill. New Canaan. Meredith knew enough about the summer families on Winthrop to know that they dressed a little differently from everybody else.

They had a code of style all their own, all these unwritten rules that you had to be born among to fully understand.

How many buttons on the sleeve of your jacket.

Where your pant leg ended. What cloth you wore in which seasons. What colors.

“Meredith,” he said.

Meredith’s mouth was dry. She wanted to lift the cup to her lips, but her arms were so heavy.

“I understand you might not want to talk about what happened that night. And I’m sorry for…” He turned his face briefly to the window. “For any pain my son might have caused you. But I—well, I can’t help but notice, it’s been nine months—almost exactly nine months—since the night—”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “You’re wrong.”

“I wrote to you. I don’t know if you received our letters.”

“I—I’m sorry. I should have replied. It’s just—I mean, there was nothing to say. Other than what I told the police. My statement. There was nothing else to say.”

He walked to the window and set his hands on the ledge. The weather outside was grayish, undecided. If you stretched your neck, you could see a hint of Long Island Sound—equally gray, a restless chop to the surface.

“It’s strange. Where the boat capsized. It’s a place I know well. There was a shipwreck there—did you know that?”

“A shipwreck, huh? What a coincidence.”

“It’s a fascinating story. My father told it to me.

He knew the area. This steamship lost power in a storm and wrecked on a reef right off Winthrop Island.

Drifted all day—it was Thanksgiving Day, can you believe it—drifted all day, right out there on Long Island Sound, and finally came aground on a reef.

You can still see signs of the wreck on the bottom. I took Coop diving there once.”

“That’s a little macabre.”

“All shipwrecks are graveyards.” He turned back to Meredith. “There was a bell. The ship’s bell. When the ship broke up, the bell and its housing got lodged in a rock. It tolled for days afterward. Tolled for the dead, they said. Did Coop mention any of this?”

Meredith looked down at the backs of her hands.

She had laid her sweating palms on her thighs, which were covered by the itchy polyester maternity pants she had bought at the thrift store in Groton at Christmas.

Which she had sworn she would burn once the baby was born, because she would never need them again.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think he did. I mean, I can’t really remember what we talked about.”

“Are you sure, Meredith? Try to remember.”

Meredith raised her head to look piteously in Mr. Walker’s eyes.

“I mean, he might have? I remember he talked a lot about chestnuts. The American chestnut tree and the blight. How the trees all died. He was into that. I wish I could tell you more. He seemed like a nice guy. I really am sorry, what happened.”

“Was there anything else? Anything he said to you? Anything he did?”

Mr. Walker was staring at her with an expression of intense yearning. He looked like he hadn’t slept in years, though he had, of course, shaved.

Meredith shrugged. “Like I said. We didn’t talk much.”

“All right. I see.”

“So I really can’t be any more help, and I hate to be abrupt, but now is really not the best time to talk, you know? Giving birth and all? I’m supposed to be resting, not—”

“My wife,” he said. “Maria. She keeps telling me she wants to die. She wants to be with Cooper.”

“I’m sorry,” Meredith whispered. “But I can’t bring him back for you.”

“I realize that. I realize this is not something that can be fixed. A man sees his wife like this, he wants to fix it for her. But I can’t fix this.

I can’t bring back our son from the dead.

And we’re too old to make another baby ourselves.

” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the window ledge.

“I wasn’t the best husband in the world.

I admit it. I wasn’t the best dad, either.

” Mr. Walker laid one leg over the other and stared at the linoleum between his feet.

“I never knew my dad. He died in the war. Flew torpedo bombers off a carrier in the Pacific and just, one day, didn’t return from his mission.

My mom was pregnant with me at the time.

She never married again. He was the love of her life, she used to tell me, and I remember thinking—I mean, I was a kid and all, never knew the guy—well, what about me?

She just kind of faded away. Died in her sleep my second year of college.

And I swore that kind of thing would never happen to me.

I figured that the best way not to grieve like that was not to become too attached in the first place.

Not to care. Go about your business, live your life, don’t let anyone in too deep.

But I’m starting to think, you know, maybe that’s not really a life, Meredith. ”

He paused as if he expected Meredith to reply to that.

Somewhere in the middle of his nice little speech, she’d turned her face away to stare at this watercolor of a sailboat that hovered on the wall above Audrey’s bassinet.

She felt his eyes take apart the side of her face so he could read the thoughts inside her skull.

“When Maria got pregnant, we got married,” he continued.

“She deserved a hell of a lot better than me. She gives her whole heart to whatever she touches—books, art, friends, lovers. And I treated her like shit. Not to her face, I mean. But I ran around on her. Saw other women. She knew, but she pretended not to know. And we raised our son. But the thing about kids, Meredith, you can’t keep them at arm’s length.

You have to love them, even if you don’t love them the way you should.

Even if you’re not the parent you want to be.

And I loved Cooper. I loved my son, Meredith.

I swear I did. Whatever he—whatever he might have said. ”

She watched him sideways. “I’m sure you did.”

“He loved history. History, the outdoors. The sea. I used to take him hiking. Hiking and sailing, that’s when we understood each other.

Then we came home to our regular lives. School and work and friendships that pulled us apart.

And I wish—now that it’s too late—” He turned his face away.

His chest rose and fell. He went on, a little raspy, “You just try to love them as best you can. To love, Meredith, that’s what life is about. That’s all life is about.”

“So I’ve heard,” Meredith said.

He stared at her like a professor might stare at some thick student who didn’t understand the lesson. “My wife,” he said. “She’s struggling, Meredith. As you might guess. Struggling more now than when we first got the news.”

“You should give her one of your lectures. I’m sure that will make her feel better.”