Ernie's Ark by Monica Wood Read Free Book Online

James’s body hit the water in a furious smack.
    She minced up the steps and pushed open the screen door, which was unlocked. “Hello?” she called out fearfully. The inside door was slightly ajar.
Take the dog
, Ernie had told her,
she’ll be good company
. She wished now she had, though the dog, her first Yorkie, was a meek little thing and no good in a crisis.
I don’t want company, Ernie. It’s a week, it’s forty miles, I’m not leaving you.
Marie was sentimental, richly so, which was why her wish to be alone after seeing James off to college had astonished them both.
But you’re still weak
, Ernie argued.
Look how pale you are.
She packed a box of watercolors and a how-to book into her trunk as Ernie stood by, bewildered.
I haven’t been alone in years
, she told him.
I want to find out what it feels like.
James had missed Vietnam by six merciful months, then he’d chosen Berkeley, as far from his parents as he could get, and now Marie wanted to be alone.
    Ernie gripped her around the waist and she took a big breath of him: man, dog, house, yard, mill. She had known him most of her life, and from time to time, when she could bear to think about it, she wondered whether their uncommon closeness was what had made their son a stranger.
    You be careful
, he called after her as she drove off. The words came back to her now as she peered through the partly open door at a wedge of kitchen she barely recognized. She saw jam jars open on the counter, balled-up dish towels, a box of oatmeal upended and spilling a bit of oatmeal dust, a snaggled hairbrush, a red lipstick ground to a nub. Through the adjacent window she caught part of a rumpled sleeping bag in front of the fireplace, plus an empty glass and a couple of books.
    Marie felt a little breathless, but not afraid, recognizing the disorder as strictly female. She barreled in, searching the smallrooms like an angry, old-fashioned mother with a hickory switch. She found the toilet filled with urine, the back hall cluttered with camping gear, and the two bedrooms largely untouched except for a grease-stained knapsack thrown across Marie and Ernie’s bed. By the time she got back out to the porch to scan the premises again, Marie had the knapsack in hand and sent it skidding over the gravel. The effort doubled her over, for Ernie was right: her body had not recovered from the thing it had suffered. As she held her stomach, the throbbing served only to stoke her fury.
    Then she heard it: the sound of a person struggling up the steep, rocky path from the lake. Swishing grass. A scatter of pebbles. The subtle pulse of forward motion.
    It was a girl. She came out of the trees into the sunlight, naked except for a towel bundled under one arm. Seeing the car, she stopped, then looked toward the cabin, where Marie uncoiled herself slowly, saying, “Who the hell are you?”
    The girl stood there, apparently immune to shame. A delicate ladder of ribs showed through her paper-white skin. Her damp hair was fair and thin, her pubic hair equally thin and light. “Shit,” she said. “Busted.” Then she cocked her head, her face filled with a defiance Marie had seen so often in her own son that it barely registered.
    “Cover yourself, for God’s sake,” Marie said.
    The girl did, in her own good time, arranging the towel over her shoulders and covering her small breasts. Her walk was infuriatingly casual as she moved through the dooryard, picked up the knapsack, and sauntered up the steps, past Marie, and into the cabin.
    Marie followed her in. She smelled like the lake.
    “Get out before I call the police,” Marie said.
    “Your phone doesn’t work,” the girl said peevishly. “And I can’t say much for your toilet, either.”
    Of course nothing worked. They’d turned everything off, buttoned the place up after their last visit, James and Ernie at each other’s throats as they hauled the dock up the slope, Ernie too slow on his end, James too fast on his, both of