The Night Listener : A Novel

the beach, he said, but if you went out far enough, there was a place where the water was less than a foot deep, where you could stroll along as easy as could be, like Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. And I didn’t even have to be able to swim, since he was tall enough to walk us there, if I would just ride on his shoulders like the tough little roughneck he knew me to be.
    I didn’t like the sound of that at all. But the old man promised we’d come back whenever I wanted, so I rode him like a trusted steed into the foam, anxiously awaiting the sandbar. I could see the waves forming in the distance, brittle as broken glass and grimly dark green on their undersides. Most of them petered out after a while, but one, I could tell, was building with evil intention. As I sank closer to water level I yelled at my father to stop, to turn around and go back, or let me down, but he just tightened his grip on my legs and headed toward that emerald menace like a madman.
    “Hang on, son,” he bellowed above the roar of the surf. “We’re gonna jump that sorry son-of-a-bitch.” When I screamed again in protest, realizing his betrayal, he told me not to be such a crybaby, not to be such a goddamn girl, and this hellish green wall exploded over us, ripping me from his shoulders and spinning me backward and downward, like a palmetto bug caught in a storm drain. When I washed up in the shallows, coughing and sobbing, my father clapped me manfully on the back. “Goddamn,” he said, “that was a son-of-a-bitch, wasn’t it?” But I knew who the son-of-a-bitch was, and I wouldn’t speak to him until suppertime. The next morning, as Lucy and I were busily segregating coquinas, I told her what I’d learned from this: that when I got old and had kids of my own I would never lie to them, never promise them a sandbar I couldn’t deliver.
    When I reached Ashe Findlay, he came on the line like a coroner confirming the death of a loved one: “I assume you’ve heard.”
    “Yeah. Last night.”
    “Did she call you?”
    “No. I called them. I talked to them both.”
    “It’s a shame, really. I wish there were another way.”
    “Well…there is, I think.”
    “It’s a little too late for that, I’m afraid.”
    “No. Please. Don’t say that. I can’t do this to him.” A silence, then a sigh. “You’re not the one who’s doing it, Gabriel.”
    “But you would never have killed it, if I hadn’t—”
    “No. That’s not true at all. I had my own misgivings even before we talked. I told you that. You asked me to leave you out of it and I did. This was strictly our decision. You have no reason to be troubled.”
    “I have every reason! This boy matters to me, Ashe! Haven’t I been clear about that? I’m not some big heartless publishing house.
    I haven’t got ice water in my veins. If there’s even the slightest chance that Pete is what he says he is…” I suddenly heard myself and stopped, realizing I was about to damage my case beyond repair.
    “Look,” I said in a more reasonable tone, “I’ve got an idea…a good one, I think…and I’d like to run it by you.”
    “I’m afraid we’re beyond that.”
    “Would you just listen to it, goddammit!”
    “All right.”
    “I’m sorry, Ashe. I don’t mean to be difficult, but…I’m just so worried that…”
    “That’s okay. Go ahead.”
    “Well…what if I were the one to interview Pete?” The editor’s silence was so dramatic that I knew I had a chance.
    If you sell this very carefully, I told myself, you might still be Pete’s hero. Just hang on, son. We’re gonna jump that sorry son-of-a-bitch .
    “I want to do a special edition of my show,” I said. “With Pete and me just talking and…you know, having fun together. He could read from his book, and I could explain how he used to listen to me in the hospital. It would be great stuff, and wonderful publicity for his book. He’s comfortable with me, and we wouldn’t even have to get into the gory details. We could talk about the writing process and that sort of thing. And that would sort of make me his sponsor.
    You know, help legitimize him.”
    “You would do that?” he said.
    “In a heartbeat.”
    “But you seemed so certain that—”
    “Look, I know how I sounded before, but…I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m past that now. I believe in this child. I’ve never believed in anything so much.”
    “Yeah, but will Donna go for it?”
    “Why