Bodies of Water (21 page)

These were
new
bruises.

“Why?” was all I could ask, though the question was as absurd as that which evoked it.

She shook her head.

She came to me then, not as a lover. Not in the way she had come to me and come to me these last two years. Not with the familiar combination of hunger and fear, but rather like a lost child.

“I can’t have this baby,” she said, shaking her head.

In my arms, she became smaller and smaller. Alice periscoping down until she was so small I worried she might just disappear.

Below us, the gunshot rumble of Mouse’s chest startled me. She had a cold, and I had rubbed menthol eucalyptus on her skin before she went to sleep. I could still smell it on my hands; it made my eyes burn.

Eva and I lay down together on the bed: the only bed we had ever been able to share in all this time. This blessed place with its worn sheets and shining moon, but tonight Ted lay with us. His fingerprints were everywhere. Her back was to me, and I pressed my body against hers until there was no space between us. I willed him away, but she winced each time I touched one of the places he had claimed.

I slowly, gently moved my hand to her stomach and cupped the soft, hot flesh I found there.

“This one will be ours,” I said.

“What?”

“This baby. It doesn’t belong to him. We made this. It belongs to us.”

She looked at me then for the first time since she arrived, really looked at me, and I saw something soften in her face. The tension that had been worrying lines into the space between her eyes. I could do this; I could make things better for her.

Mouse coughed again, and it sounded like thunder.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, and extricated myself from the delicate web of arms and legs we had spun.

I slipped on my robe and went downstairs to Mouse. She was feverish, tossing and turning. “It’s okay, baby,” I said. “I’ll get some medicine.”

“What’s the matter, Mama?” Chessy asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Shhh,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

After I had given Mouse some cough syrup and stroked her hair until her eyes closed, I returned to find Eva still awake. I slipped out of my robe, pressing my body against hers.

“Is she okay?” she whispered.

I nodded, and my lips found hers in the darkness. I had memorized them as I had memorized every part of her, so that when she was away from me I could summon her again. It was as though I knew even then that one day I would need this ability—to beckon her body from nothing but the impressions she left behind.

I felt as feverish, as delirious, as Mouse as I touched her. As I stroked her body with my fingertips, I was sick with both desire and fear, the bruises that patterned her skin like ink blotches reminding me with every touch of how dangerous all of this was. And her body responded with the same trembling combination of desire and terror.

Afterward, we lay naked and breathless and sweating on top of the sheets, both staring at the rafters above us. Listening as rain pattered against the roof like little feet.

We didn’t hear her until the door opened.

“Mama?” Chessy stood in the doorway, just a shadow.

We both froze, as though she wouldn’t be able to see us if we were still enough. But Eva quickly pulled a sheet across us both.

“Why don’t you have any clothes on?” Chessy asked.

“It was so hot,” I said. “We were just trying to cool off. You know how you and Mouse sometimes sleep in your panties when it’s hot?”

“But it’s raining,” Chessy said, putting her hand on her hip. “It’s not that hot.”

“It’s hotter upstairs. You know that,” I said, starting to feel less panicked and more irritated, though my heart still felt like a hot brick in my chest.

“Chessy,” Eva intoned; her voice was calm. “How would you like to take a hike up to the fire lookout tomorrow?”

Chessy loved hiking up Franklin Mountain to visit the fire warden, who lived in a cabin at the top of the mountain. He was so grateful for visitors, he kept an impressive reserve of candy for the children and allowed them to borrow his binoculars and climb to the top of the fire tower to enjoy the view.

“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t move.

“Why are you up?” I asked finally, hoping that whatever confusion or doubts she’d had about finding us naked would disappear if we just acted as though everything were normal.

“Mouse is really sick,” she said. “She wants you.”

Something about this made my heart clang with guilt.“I’ll be down in a minute,” I said. And then she was gone again.

Eva and I didn’t speak, as though not acknowledging what had just happened would somehow make it go away. I got up quietly; went downstairs and found the vaporizer, which I filled with water and more Vicks; and made sure the girls were asleep again before I went back upstairs where, remarkably, Eva had also fallen asleep.

But I couldn’t join them in their slumber. All night long, I shared Mouse’s fevered dreams: of Ted laying his hands on Eva again, of this baby growing (in spite of it all) inside her. And of Chessy, standing, scowling, in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Of what she’d seen and the fact that no matter how we explained it, no matter how oblivious she was, she wouldn’t ever forget.

 

We dreamed ourselves free.

Though now it was with a chair pressed up against the door, locked inside that room, a prison of our own making. Between those soft sheets, in the quiet cover of trees, in whispers and glances, we schemed and conspired. We allowed ourselves to think possible the impossible; like convicts, we carefully and meticulously plotted our escape.

Somehow, the urgency of this was heightened by Chessy finding us. As though it had happened to remind us that it was only a matter of time before we were found out. If not by one of the children, then by one of our husbands.

I knew I needed to talk to Gussy. Gussy would be instrumental in our plan, the only one capable of harboring us, we fugitives from our lives. But talking to Gussy would also mean confessing, sharing a secret I had kept hidden my entire life.

I love Eva
. Three words, simple yet complicated enough to turn my life inside out.

I would tell Gussy and ask her to let us come back in the spring after the baby came. Then I would find work, maybe at the library in Quimby, or maybe in a doctor’s office in town. We would pay rent. We would grow a garden. We would save our money to buy a car, a house. The children would go to school in Quimby. Eva would make her art. And we would raise this baby together, this child made not from Ted’s rage but from our love. We would be a new kind of family.

I love Eva,
I thought; each word by itself was a beautiful thing, but strung together they became dangerous. And every time I tried to imagine saying it aloud, I knew that nothing was as simple as it seemed. That we were children playing with matches, and it would only be a matter of time before everything caught on fire.

We had four days, four days before Frankie was due to come and get us, returning Eva to Ted, and me back to that other life. We needed to feign normalcy for a while longer. Eva and I would resume our lives in Hollyville, and then, once all of the pieces were in place, I would talk to Gussy, and we would make our escape.

After the children went to sleep that night, we walked hand in hand down to the water’s edge. There was a new moon, a thumbnail moon, and it was dark enough to conceal us.

“Come in with me,” I said. Eva had yet to go into the water, and I had seen the longing in her eyes each time the children and I went swimming.

I watched her silhouette as she undressed by the crabapple tree. And I wished that I could have a photograph of this: the branches like lace, her body bending over to remove her sandals. Her hair falling over one shoulder. That is something I would treasure, something I could keep. But those photographs didn’t (
couldn’t
) exist anywhere except in my imagination.

I went into the water and waited for her. She walked hesitantly into the lake, and then came to me. And we swam. Weightless, formless, fluid. As I touched all those damaged places, it felt like a new kind of baptism, the lake washing away all that pain.

Back at the camp, exhausted and naked, we pushed the chair under the doorknob again and slipped into bed. The rain came and beat down on the roof overhead, matching our breaths with its rhythmic pattern, and we fell into our respective dreams.

As the room began to fill with early morning light, I heard a loud bang, and in my delirium, I thought it was only thunder. I sat up, my heart thudding in my chest, and I looked to Eva, whose eyes had sprung open as well. It was a car door.

I stood up, frantically looking for my robe, as I heard the back door of the camp swing open followed by quick, heavy footsteps. I pulled back the curtains and saw the bright red Cadillac parked outside on the grass.

“Eva!” Ted bellowed.

Eva grabbed her nightgown from the floor and put it on quickly.

“Stay here,” I whispered.

“No,” she said. “He’ll kill you.”

But I didn’t care. In that moment, I would have done anything in the world to keep Ted away from her. I got out of bed and affixed my robe as I heard his heavy footsteps up the stairs. I went to the door and stared at the flimsy wooden chair. It had kept the children out, but as Ted’s fists pounded against the door, I knew it wouldn’t take much for its legs and rails and spindles to crumble. I’d been foolish to think it could keep us safe.

“Ted?” I said, trying not to tremble as I opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Where’s Eva?” he said. “She’s not here, is she?”

“Of course she’s here. We share this room. She’s still sleeping. Everyone is still sleeping.”

I could smell last night’s drink on his breath. Clearly he’d been out the night before and had, for whatever reason, gotten the bright idea to come check up on Eva. He must have driven straight from the bar, arriving with the dawn.

Eva came out of the room, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Teddy? Is something wrong?”

Ted looked at Eva, astonished, as though he were seeing a ghost. He must have worked himself up into a tizzy, believing that I was somehow aiding and abetting his pregnant wife’s illicit love affair—that her visit to us in Vermont was somehow an elaborate conspiracy designed so that she could carry on with some other man. What a fool.

“Come downstairs. Let me make you some coffee,” she said, ushering Ted down the stairs. He looked defeated now, as though he were somehow disappointed that his jealous delusions hadn’t come to fruition.

I returned to the bedroom and quickly scanned the room for evidence of our lovemaking, seeing her betrayal of him in the twisted sheets, in our clothes’ arms and legs tangled together in an orgy of denim and cotton. I pulled on some clothes and peered at myself in the mirror hanging over the battered old dresser. I looked for signs in my face that would give us away.

Downstairs I listened to their hushed voices and smelled the scent of strong coffee. His worries may have been appeased, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to return to Hollyville without her. This I knew. And this realization, that he’d stolen our last three days here, made my blood hot, my ears red; I was more determined than ever.

Later that morning, Ted took Eva and the kids home, as I knew he would. And as the car drove down the road, Johnny’s face pressed to the rear window glass, I paced. Chessy and Mouse didn’t seem to know what to do. It was as though someone had come along and ripped a beloved stuffed animal out of their arms. We were at a loss without the Wilsons. We were lost without them.

A
s the plane from Pittsburgh to Burlington taxis slowly to the gate, I feel the patter of my heart like a child skipping rope in my chest. My hands are trembling now. I can’t identify the feeling though. I can’t classify it: Excitement? Fear? It’s funny how emotions have become so muddy as I’ve grown older. The physical signs and symptoms are not always clear to read. I feel like an adolescent girl again, my body’s response to the world both confused and somehow portentous.

The Burlington airport is just as small as I remember it. There is only one terminal, just a handful of gates. I think I remember where the baggage claim carousels are, and I imagine Gussy will be waiting there. But instead, as I emerge from the jet bridge I can see her standing behind the wall of glass that separates the arrivals from those waiting to greet them. She waves wildly, as though she needs to get my attention.

She doesn’t look any different than she did when I last saw her two years ago. She hasn’t aged in any way I can see. (She still stands her full five foot nine inches; there are no new accoutrements of old age accompanying her: no walker, no cane, no wheelchair.) Her hair is still perfectly coifed, her clothes pressed. The rouge on her cheeks and the color on her lips is exactly what I expected. My
sister
. God, how I’ve missed her.

“Gingersnap!” she says, delighted, her happiness unrestrained. She holds her arms out, beckoning me to come to her with her fingers that wriggle excitedly.

I feel my legs moving faster to meet her, and then I am holding her, smelling her terrific, powdery scent.
This
emotion is one that is easy to identify; I feel so happy I could burst. How could I have hesitated? How could I possibly have considered not coming? I feel like an old fool.

“You’re home!” Gussy says. “I’m so excited! Let’s go get your bags. How was your flight? Don’t you just hate those little planes?”

I can barely get a word in edgewise. It’s as though we haven’t been speaking on the phone every single night since I last saw her. I think about my friend, Hugh, on the flight from Pittsburgh, what he would say when he finally got a chance to speak to his girl in person. Would it be like this? Or would they be at a loss for words?

We gather my suitcase from the baggage claim. It is one of the first ones that comes tumbling onto the carousel.

“Good Lord, how old is this thing?” Gussy asks, heaving it off the carousel for me. A gentleman standing next to her assists, and then offers her the rolling baggage cart next to him. I feel silly accepting his cart for one suitcase, but Gussy simply nods a
thank you
and loads that beastly suitcase on. We push the cart out to the garage, take the elevator up to the top, and find her car.

The sun is setting outside, and the sky is that indigo color that I have never seen anywhere but here in Vermont. Sunsets at the beach are dramatic, glitzy affairs, like the sun has something to prove, a showgirl accustomed to taking her bows before an adoring crowd every night. Twilight is more subtle here, more reserved. It couldn’t compete with the autumn foliage if it tried. Though as we drive back to Quimby, it’s too dark to see what I know is an amazing display of color.

“How’s the foliage this year?” I ask.

“Breathtaking,” she says. “Last year, it rained every day for a month. Just miserable. All the leaf peepers were disappointed. But this year, it’s been amazing. Especially up to the lake.”

I nod, thinking about Gormlaith, wishing that we were going straight there instead of to Quimby. I consider asking Gussy to just keep driving, to skip her house and just take me to camp.

“The chicken and dumplings should be ready just in time for us. I also rented that new Jane Eyre movie with what’s-her-name and Frank’s girlfriend, Judi Dench.” She says this with a roll of her eyes.

Frank had a bit of a schoolboy crush on Judi Dench, so much so that when he was dying, he kept confusing all of the actresses on the hospital TV for her.
Is that Judi Dench?
he would ask hopefully. If he hadn’t been so ill, I think Gussy would have smacked him.

“You haven’t seen it already, have you?” I shake my head. “I thought we could stay up late, like we used to. Catch up.”

“I just talked to you yesterday,” I say, and then worry that it’s come across as sharp.

“Well, it’s amazing what can happen in a day,” she says, sighing.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that I’ve got some surprises up my sleeve.”

“I don’t know if you should be springing any big surprises on this old lady. You want to kill me?”

“Oh, hush,” she says, and we pull into her driveway, which is littered with fallen leaves.

Walking into Gussy’s house is, in a way, like walking back into our childhoods. Because I left Vermont at eighteen and married Frankie a year later, Gussy was the one who inherited all of our parents’ castaway things. And after they had both passed away, she absorbed the rest. The treasures: the cuckoo clock on the wall, the round oak table at which we both had sat for thousands of our mother’s meals. The china with its tiny roses, the Blue Willow tea set, the braided rug my mother made from my father’s old shirts.

I sit down on her worn sofa, picking up a copy of
Consumer Reports
from the end table. The address still bears Frank’s name. Something about this makes my heart ache. Frank’s been gone for ten years, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that she finally took Frank’s message off her answering machine, stashing away the little cassette tape that had captured his soft voice.

“So what’s the big secret?” I ask.

Gussy has always been terrible at keeping secrets. She is what my mother called an open book; what you see is what you get with Gussy. Christmas presents, surprise parties, pregnancies—not a single bit of exciting news was safe with Gussy. Secrets boiled up inside her like water in a teakettle, busting out of her like steam in an excited whistle. The only secret she has ever been able to keep was mine. It took every ounce of courage I had to tell her about Eva. Every bit of strength and trust.

She shakes her head now, tries to change the subject. “It’s nothing,” she says, which clearly means something.

“Gus,” I admonish.

“Let’s just say Johnny has something for you,” she says, exasperated, hoping to appease me with this meager offering.

“Like what?” I ask. I can’t imagine what he might have held on to, what possession of Eva’s he might think I’d like to have. I try to imagine Eva’s things: her scuffed blue heels, her dresses. The pins she wore in her hair. What would I do with a lipstick tube, a prosthetic breast, the jaunty little Girl Scout troop leader hat?

She shrugs and turns away from me, her eyes fluttering. When she looks back at me again, she seems flustered. She’s keeping something from me. “He’s asked me to wait. He wants to show you himself.”

I was still having such a hard time wrapping my mind around Johnny as anything other than an eight-year-old little boy slinging rubber tipped arrows from the treetops.

“Is it my letters?” I ask. I wrote hundreds of letters to Eva. I can’t imagine that they still exist. Most evidence of what was between us has been lost or destroyed.

Gussy shrugs again suspiciously, and I try to imagine what thing Johnny would have that he’d beckon me all the way across the country to give me. Couldn’t he have popped it in the mail? Doesn’t he understand that the things that belonged to her don’t matter? That the things I would want to keep wouldn’t fit inside an envelope: the smell of her perfume, the feeling of her soft cheek pressed against my hand. Her laughter, like a child’s. Her breath, her whispers in my ear.

“We’ll just have to see, I guess,” Gussy says, patting my leg, and then stands up. “Let’s have some supper.”

I nod. I am hungry now. But just as we are about to dig into our meal, the phone rings.

“Let the machine get it,” I say, but Gussy is already rushing across the room.

“Hello?” she says. “Oh, hi, Johnny. We were just talking about you.”