PART ONE, CHAPTER FOUR
Burying the Evidence
from
Until the Deep Water Stills
An Internet-enhanced Novel
By Michael Robert Dyet
JAYCE awoke with the fragile renewal of faith that comes with the first waking breath of morning. His arms were wound around Kat drawing her into the shadow of his body. She seemed small and vulnerable in this pose as if she depended upon him for shelter from the dream storms that come in the deep valleys of sleep. But then again, he recalled, her dreams were seldom threatening. He was the one whose dreams came like thunder in the night.
The telephone rang scattering his thoughts. Early morning calls were always bad news, he reasoned, as Kat pulled away from his embrace and reached for the phone.
“Who the bloody hell is calling at 6:30 in the morning?”
“How would I know? Let me answer and find out.”
“Hello… Oh hi, Alexandra. No, it’s not too early… You’ve confirmed a date?
Wonderful. Let me get a pen… September 9th. Okay. Now, what do you need from me?... A name and a theme. Okay, I’ll get working on it. Thanks so much for calling. Have a safe trip home.”
“What was that all about? A date for what?”
“It was Alexandra Hewson from the Macfarlane Gallery. She’s in England on a buying trip. It’s 11:30 in the morning there.”
“Wait, back up. The Macfarlane Gallery? Am I missing something here?”
“It’s an art gallery, Jayce. They’re going to do an exhibition of my photography.
My agent arranged it.”
“Your agent? You have an agent? Since when?”
“About six months now.”
“When exactly were you going to tell me about it? Or is it some big secret I’m not supposed to know?”
Jayce propped himself up on his elbow to look at her.
“I haven’t told anyone, Jayce. I didn’t want to make it public knowledge until I saw if anything was going to come of it. Haven’t you ever done that? Kept a lid on something until you were sure?”
There was a defensive tone in her voice like someone caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.
“I suppose I have. But this is awesome news, Kat. I’m so proud of you.”
“It’s just a one-day show. I’m not going to be famous overnight. It’s really just testing the waters to see if my work has any commercial appeal.”
“You mean they might actually sell some of your work?”
“You say that like it’s hard to believe.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. It just hadn’t occurred to me.”
So it was not just a show, Jayce realized. It was a stake in new ground. Was that why she had kept it a secret from him?
“So what kind of price tag are we talking about?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to even ask that question until the show was a sure thing. But while we’re on the subject of getting paid, you need to know that this is part of what we were talking about at the cottage. Being a stay-athome mom is wearing thin on me. This just makes me want even more to go back to work.”
“Uh huh. So that’s how it is.” Jayce’s enthusiasm for the subject took a hard right turn. “I told you where I stand on that, Kat. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.”
“And I am?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.”
“How am I supposed to feel? I turned my life upside down for you. Now you’re changing the rules.”
“Jayce, I know I sprung this on you out of left field. But be honest. You must know that I haven’t been myself for awhile now. I need a change. I admit it’s not fair to you. But would it really be that bad if – ”
“I can’t talk about this now. I have to get ready for work.”
“Wait. Listen to me. There must be a way for us to – ”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Jayce swung himself out of bed and walked out of the bedroom leaving her unfinished question hanging in the air between them. There was nothing she could say at this moment that he wanted to hear, he decided. It had all the earmarks of an ambush. The early morning call. Springing the agent and the show on him. All designed to back him into a corner he could not get out of. Why? Why was she doing this?
As he turned toward the staircase, Jayce struck his shin on the corner of the wall.
“Goddamn it!”
The spike of pain short-circuited his brain. Before he could stop himself he slammed his fist into the wall. The wallboard crumpled leaving an impression twice the size of his hand.
“Jayce? What was that?”
“Nothing. I just stumbled.”
Kat emerged from the bedroom. The damage to the wall caught her eye immediately.
“What did you do?”
“I cracked my shin on the corner. It knocked me off balance and I stumbled into the wall. It’s no big deal. I can fix it.”
“Jayce, your hand is bleeding. Let me see.”
She reached out for his hand but he pulled it away.
“It’s nothing. Just… Just give me some space, alright? You dropped a couple of bombs on me this morning. I need time to sort things out. We’ll talk about it tonight.”
“But your hand – ”
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
Jayce waved her off and fled down the stairs. There was nothing more he could say that would make any sense to her. Anything else she might say would just be fuel on the fire and he could not let that happen. One hole in the wall was enough for today.
“ALRIGHT, folks. We have a serious problem to deal with.”
Lane was sitting at the head of the table with his usual air of superiority.
It was such a typical Lane thing to do, Jayce thought. Corral everyone just before quitting time and drop some last minute project on them. Yanking him out of another meeting to boot.
“This is the situation. Finance rolled up the figures this afternoon from your revised forecasts and it isn’t good. At the pace we’re on we’ll miss our targets by close to 10% this year. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that means. Unless we take some drastic measures we’ll have to start downsizing. So go back to your offices and go at it again. Cut costs to the bone. I need your reforecasts by first thing tomorrow morning.”
“There’s nothing more to cut, Lane,” Jayce interjected. “We’ll be running on fumes as it is.”
“Then get creative. Less cost or more revenue. It’s not rocket science, folks.”
“Why don’t you just –”
“What Jayce? Why don’t I just what?”
The room went deathly silent as Jayce stood up and locked eyes with Lane across the table. Lane met his stare for a moment. Then his jaw tightened as he discreetly dropped his eyes. Jayce had to swallow hard to hold his tongue.
“Nothing.”
“Alright then, if Jayce is finished, the meeting is over. Make sure those revised forecasts are on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.”
It was rising again as Jayce left the meeting. The adrenalin rush that kicked in as his brain chafed to go into overdrive. A sensation of power and the reckless desire to use it. He made a beeline for his office, retrieved the bottle of Ativan from the locked drawer in his desk and stuck two under his tongue. He stood with his forehead pressed against the wall as he waited for the sedative to take effect. It was a strange posture but for reasons he could not fathom it always helped.
After five minutes the Ativan had kicked in and the RPMs of his anger throttled down. But the tension remained. Jayce dropped into his chair and massaged his forehead with his fingers. But that only coaxed the tension downwards through his neck and shoulders. He knew it would take at least four hours to redo the reforecast yet again. Another late night. Just what he did not need, he mumbled. He drilled through his phone messages until he came to Kat’s.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m sorry about this morning. I really didn’t mean for you to find out about my show that way. It’s just that… Anyway, you’ll probably be working late again. You don’t need to call. I’ll be covering that Press Conference tonight so I’ll leave the kids at my parents. Pick them up on your way home. And… Well, I hope your hand is okay. I guess we’ll talk tomorrow.”
There was a wistful undertone in her voice that Jayce knew had not been there a year ago. Or even six months ago for that matter. If only she were here right now, he wished. He would pull her into his arms and say “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”. But it always seemed to be this way now. Moments of longing that skittered by like leaves tumbling on the breeze down an empty street. Their timing was always out of sync.
He had only a minute to ponder this quirk of fortune before he was interrupted.
“Hey, Jayce. Another killer budget meeting, eh?” It was Nick Maggert, his Assistant Manager. “Just wanted to remind you that I won’t be in tomorrow and Friday.”
“Oh yeah, it’s the big day. Moving into your new house. Good luck.”
“Thanks. See you next week.”
He had forgotten that Nick had booked those two vacation days. Now he would have to pinch hit for Nick on top of everything else.
“God, I hate this job. I hate this bloody job.” He had no idea who he was speaking to but he had to address someone. “Just keep Lane off my ass. Give me that much.”
IT was after 10:00 by the time Jayce had picked up the kids and arrived home. He got the kids into bed and crashed in the living room exhausted but too wound up to sleep. He was onto his third rum and coke before he found Katherine’s note on the table.
Don’t know what time I’ll be home. Might be
very late. Don’t wait up for me. Katherine.
And then, below the signature, an afterthought scribbled on her way out the door.
It hurts me to see you punching walls.
We have to talk.
Love isn’t supposed to hurt, is it? A sudden fear ran through Jayce egged on by fatigue and the alcohol. He needed to know what current her thoughts were running in. There was only one sure place to go where he could eavesdrop on her unspoken desires. He had never gone down that road before but desperate times called for desperate measures.
In the den he found three file folders of photographs. But he could not risk going through them. Kat might notice if the order was changed. She was particular that way. He rummaged through the drawers of her desk and found a stack of unfiled photographs. Mostly family stuff, he realized, as he thumbed through them. The kind you would look back at wistfully when your kids were grown up wishing you had spent more time with them.
None of these photographs told him what he needed to know. In for a penny, in for a pound, he decided, as he fired up her Mac. No sense stopping now that he had already crossed the line.
Jayce picked a folder at random and surfed through images while he stretched his neck to work out a kink in it. An unexpected image stopped him materializing on the screen like a mirage. He leaned in to scrutinize it. It was a self-portrait with half of her face in shadow, eyes cast downward and defences stripped away. Sadness was written into each line and contour.
The image etched itself into his consciousness and recalled the quiver in her voice on the telephone. The thought that she might be better off without him surfaced suddenly. He fought with this rogue emotion and tried to push it away. But it would not be purged from his mind and that stirred the anger in him again. Acting on an impulse he highlighted the file, hit the delete key and the image vanished. The blank screen stared mindlessly back at him. What had he really accomplished, he asked himself, beyond simply burying the evidence?
Jayce turned off her Mac and shut off the lights in the den wishing now that he had not violated her privacy. It seemed a crass and selfish act that could only make the situation worse. Sometimes it was better not to know the naked truth.
Fatigue and the weight of disillusionment ran dry the reservoir of his resolve. He needed an infusion of hope – something to anchor his determination to. Instinct drove him into the nursery. From the archives of his memory came the day MJ was born. The sharp, almost painful joy that clutched at his heart the first time he had held him. The same joy he felt when Sam was born. He had been surprised it could affect him again with such an overwhelming feeling of peace and completion.
There are some tests that can be done. They’re not always conclusive in infants but they may be able to flush out a problem if it’s there. And again, I don’t know that there is a problem necessarily.
Can you do the tests?
No, I’m going to refer you to an Otolaryngologist. Don’t let the name intimidate you. In plain English, it’s an ear, nose and throat specialist. Now try not to worry too much. I’m just erring on the safe side.
Exhaustion finally caught up with Jayce. He walked half blindly down the hallway and stopped where his fist had caved in the wall. There was no delete key to banish this image from his sight, he told himself. No hiding from the fact that it hurt Kat to have to look at it. But what good would talking do when he could not tell her why?
He climbed into bed falling asleep with the image of Katherine’s selfportrait flickering in his mind.
SECRETS
Until the Deep Water Stills: An Internet-enhanced Novel is an innovative fusion of a traditional print novel with an optional, online companion featuring text, imagery and professional quality audio recordings. Available from Amazon. Author website: www.mdyetmetaphor.com. Novel online companion: www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
