In Every Way (16 page)

Christopherson squeezes their sweaty palms together. She can tell that he doesn't want anyone to see her tears, but already people are turning.

“What do you mean?” Christopherson says. “You're not crazy. Hey, it's going to be alright.”

But this is just the platitude of a teenager who has seen situations be nothing but all right. This is not going to be all right, Maria thinks. She sees no ending that does not close upon tragedy. The death of her mother, the shaming of herself, the destruction of all families involved.

These streets, the houses. The light between them. The toys of the children, expensive, rarely played with. This is the landscape of Maria's dreams. She has not been raised in the mountains, on an island, or in the winding alleys of some Italian village. She has spent her years here, in the suburbs of North Carolina. She tries to allow this nightscape to touch her. The water of Taylor's Creek is as exotic an element as she feels she has any right to be near. It laps at the banks of the continent only a few feet away from her. She takes a deep breath and attempts to keep her mind from spinning out possibilities. She tells herself to be thankful for Christopherson's sweaty palm. Its grasp is simple but sincere.

“Just forget that I said anything, OK?” Maria says.

“OK,” Christopherson says, and although she does not believe for a second that he actually will forget, she does, in fact, trust him with her secret.

A boy wearing a puffy down jacket and khaki shorts pours gasoline from a plastic canister onto the old Christmas tree. He unties the boat with one jerk of the knot, lights a twist of newspaper with a lighter, and, as the boat drifts into Taylor's Creek, tosses the flaming paper into it. A small mushroom of flame bursts into the darkness. The heat rushes across Maria's face and she reaches up to her eyebrows, afraid that they have been singed. Her face, however, is not only unscathed, her cheeks are even still wet. Not even the tears have burnt off.

CHAPTER 14

S
PRING ARRIVES EARLY
in Beaufort. Afternoons, Maria eats egg-salad sandwiches for lunch at the Royal James Café, a pool hall one block from the water. Most days, her mother accompanies her, buying a
USA Today
from the vending machine outside and complaining that there are no good newspapers in town. Her mother demands the news of the world, charmed by the feeling that this small town is not a part of its events, yet simultaneously frustrated by that fact. Over meals, she reads the paper in silence while Maria tends to Bonacieux. Families with young children eat shrimp burgers only feet away from sunburnt old men chalking cues under a blown-up photo of a great white shark captured close to shore. The jukebox is all country and Jimmy Buffet. The place is so exotic to Maria that its absolute otherness puts her at ease. Any neuroses of her own do not here apply. These days have been calm, passing in a bliss she resists considering the end of. The waitresses think Bonacieux is hers. Maria wants to tell them they are correct. But of course she does not. She smiles and says no, do you know the Prices? If they do, they know only Philip.

Today Nina comes to lunch with Maria and her mother. Though Nina is carrying Bonacieux, the child wants to be held by Maria. She pushes and whines, but Maria does not butt in. The wedge between mother and child has been of her own construction, she knows. And
although she is proud of being wanted, Maria pities Nina because of it. She understands that it is her own fault that Nina is not as good a mother as she might otherwise be. Maria has taken every opportunity. Bathing, bedtime, feeding, and playtime have all become hers. She hides these events from Nina, greedy for their reward. She is not proud of her competitiveness, but she cannot deny it. Having never before enjoyed competition, Maria is not accustomed to this need for dominance. It is not a game she enjoys only because she is good at it, but rather because it is being played with her own daughter and she is winning.

Nina has owned a house in Beaufort for more than a decade but still seems out of place at the Royal James. She is too fragile and fine to enter without notice.

“M'elp you?” says the waitress.

Maria can roll her eyes at Southern role-playing but is still expert at the parts. “Tea, please,” she says. “Sweet.” She looks to Nina, who nods her consent. “And unsweet for her,” she says, motioning to her mother.

“You still practice?” Maria's mother says to Nina. They've been discussing the role of career in parenting.

“I stopped when I was pregnant,” Nina says, fixing Bonacieux's collar. “We lost one at eight months. About two years ago now.”

The reminder of Nina's miscarriage comes as a shock to both Maria and her mother. It gives Nina sudden import. Maria's mother places her hand atop Nina's. “I cannot imagine,” she says.

“So,” Nina says. She is uncomfortable. She has not spent much time with Maria's mother. Philip has. He seems to adore Maria's mother. Where he is open and playful with her, though, Nina is restrained. It is as if she knows she is speaking with family.

“Nina collects antiques,” Maria says, desperate for a new subject.

“Addictive, huh?” her mother says.

“My God,” Nina says. “The mailman probably thinks I'm a freak. eBay. Almost every day.”

“Fine art?”

“Miniatures.”

“I used to go to the antique malls,” her mother says. She leaves off the part about her new desire to deacquisition these purchases. She has been shedding the accumulations of her life, gifting anything anyone likes. Maria admires this development, with its notes of esthetic purity.

“So what I wanted to talk about,” Nina says, turning to Maria, “is that I'm going to Durham next Tuesday.”

“What for?” Maria says.

“I'm interviewing with a law firm.”

“For what?”

“A job. They're interviewing me.”

Maria feels blindsided by the news that Nina is already planning an exit from Beaufort. She understands it is inevitable—sabbaticals by definition last for only so long—but still it feels too soon. She tells herself that Duke, in Durham, is so very close to Chapel Hill. Not even fifteen miles. She too can return home and still be with them. She admits to herself that this is, in fact, what she wants. The desire is not only for access to her daughter and the chance to parlay that into contact between Bonacieux and her mother, it is also a craving for the home of Philip and Nina and all that it entails. Maria has become intoxicated by it.

“Philip will be home,” Nina says, “but I'm just nervous about leaving her for the first time. You know how he is. He's so great with her, but he just doesn't know what he's doing. So I was thinking. Would
it be possible for you to stay late? Maybe even put her to sleep before you leave?”

“Sure,” Maria says. She feels nourished by the need in Nina's eyes.

“Really?”

Maria only smiles, as if, she seems to say, of course, because who else would ever be able to do anything well with Bonacieux? Nina smiles back, a true smile of relief. Again Maria pities her. Nina does not know how Maria has crippled her.

“How does she sleep?” Maria's mother says.

“Ugh,” Nina says. “It's not so smooth.”

“That'll pan out in the next eighteen years,” Maria's mother says.

“It's still like every three hours.”

“I'll stay the night, if you want,” Maria says.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Again Nina's eyes fill with relief. “You can have the guest room beside Bonny's,” she says.

“Perfect,” Maria says, and as she speaks, she is embarrassed for Nina, for not knowing what is going to happen in her house once she leaves it. It is like watching the launch of a firework into the night sky. How does she not know this will explode?

NINA LEAVES TUESDAY
afternoon in the blue Mercedes. The night is warmer than any in recent memory, the first cicadas of the season beginning to sing out to the darkness. The windows are open, though in Philip and Nina's house, there seems always to be at least one window ajar despite any cold. Maria puts Bonacieux to sleep again by breastfeeding her, something that has now become routine.

When she emerges from the nursery, the living room is lit exclusively by the fireplace. The fact that a fire even burns during this warm night while windows are open, a soft breeze snaking inside, describes the house accurately—a location where things converge. Inside, outside. The past here seems present. No one in the house is afraid of seasonal change. If Philip wants a fire, he lights one.

He pours Maria a glass of pinot. They speak of Bonacieux. They are more at ease together without Nina. He refills her glass. They laugh. He tells stories of bad students and his strange family. His brother is married to an ex-girlfriend of Philip's, a half-sister is chasing oil money in Dubai. He gossips about neighbors. He asks Maria about her art, and she opens her sketchbook slowly and hands it to him, bashful yet certain of her skill. He turns page after page of drawings Maria has made of Bonacieux, visibly shocked by each image.

“This is real,” Philip says, quieted by her skill. “Do people know you can do this? This is like, like you suddenly telling me you can sing opera. Can you sing opera?”

Maria laughs, pleased that he has found in her any expertise. She has kept so much of herself closed off from him, her secrets surrounding Bonacieux having compelled her to hide almost anything else of import. The effect of his recognition is so strong it's embarrassing—she feels suddenly stronger, more beautiful, more alive. She is pitiful, is what she is, she thinks, a small vegetable in such need of water.

Much later, after hours, she checks on the child. Bonacieux sleeps like she was dropped on the mattress from a small height—her limbs stretch away from her, each in its own direction. What has flung them there, Maria wonders—a dream? Or a need to fill more space? She feels as if she is doing both herself this evening, both dreaming and
finding more purchase in this house. When she exits the nursery, having placed an extra blanket over the child's legs, Philip stands at the end of the hallway smoking by an open window. He was not there before, and Maria wonders if he has followed her or just been drawn to the view. It is a window at which he often stands, now framing a moonlit Atlantic, but Maria has seen him there only during daylight. She still feels emboldened by his attention to her art and the sense that it has increased her worth. In the darkness she surges with power.

The silence is enforced by the proximity of a sleeping baby. They have had so much wine. Maria is embarrassed to speak, afraid her words will slur. She does not want any slip to mar the image she has of herself at this moment. She approaches, and without looking at her, Philip takes the cigarette from his mouth and passes it to her. She smokes it knowing only the dampness of the filter; it is the mark of his mouth now in hers. She rests her head against his shoulder. She understands at contact that it cannot be undone.

Philip waits long minutes until he turns. When he does, he smiles and wraps an arm around her. He kisses her easily, as if it is not the first time. She aspires to his nonchalance. He leads her to his room. Maria is scared of the physical act of love, of doing this for the first time since giving birth to the child now sleeping on the other side of the wall. She is nervous about the pain. She undresses with her back to Philip and when she turns she giggles. She covers herself with her arms. Philip lays her on the bed. When he finally enters her he sighs like he's had a deep realization. At this, Maria senses the loss of all her perceived strength, that magical increase in power, her sudden surge in confidence. In its place come the truths of marriage, the imagined conversation with Nina in which she learns of this encounter. It does
not decrease Maria's thrill, but replaces it with one more dangerous. The realm of secrets has only grown larger now, and she is happy to have another person with whom to share at least part of its mysterious new landscape.

MORNING. BONACIEUX IS
still asleep. Maria sits on the edge of the bed. Philip stirs beside her. Maria is naked. They have slept this way. The morning sun has only just begun to lighten the sky. On the edge of the continent, first light here appears sooner than it does even blocks inland. Still they are silent, afraid any sound will wake Bonacieux and bring an end to this spell. Philip arranges Maria atop pillows and she follows his wordless commands. Her skin is cold, but only on the outside.

CHAPTER 15

O
UTSIDE KAREN'S KITCHEN
window stands an azalea bush pinking with bloom. Already heavy with blossoms, each branch droops even further under the weight of a visiting party of bees who, as they lift away from each foraged flower and look for the next one to pollinate, send the blossoms bouncing up toward the sun. Animated with the pressure of life, even the shrubbery in this town is shaky after contact.

Six days have passed since Philip and Maria spent the night together. Nina has returned, and they have not been alone since. Never before has Maria been with anyone other than Jack, and she is still surprised at how different the experience was from her previous episodes with him. She did not expect that someone could know so well what to do with her body, but Philip seemed to understand her needs even better than she did. Since the onset of her mother's illness, Maria has regarded the flesh a region of profound mystery, one interested in self-destruction and betrayal. It has since become even more surprising. With it Maria has borne a child. She has slept with an older man. Before making love to him, Maria was only enchanted. Since, she has been consumed by desire.