In Every Way (7 page)

Maria knows they speak about her when she's out of sight. Jack and her mother grow closer by the day. They've been smoking more weed, a ritual surprisingly less shocking to Maria than she might have ever guessed. In a house like hers, the big news is not that her mother is smoking weed with her boyfriend. It's that her mother is dying. It's that Maria has just given birth.

Before she starts the engine, Maria acknowledges what this desire for Pinky really is. It is an irresistible and obvious craving—like a tsunami of psychic force, one that has been washing over her for days now—for contact with her own child. She wants to see her, to hold her, and to smell the down across her scalp. These urges first arose with what seemed like innocuous questions—how was she eating, how was her sleep, who has she started to look like. They then became coupled with a growing sense of loss. Because although Maria had felt confident in her plans to avoid the responsibility of mothering, in its place she has found very little. The pride Maria felt in those moments
just after birth has been replaced with something like shame. There is no other way she can think of to ease this burden: she needs to know that her daughter is well.

THAT AFTERNOON MARIA
drinks white wine on the porch with Jack. He wears a long gray T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. It flaps around his lanky frame like a frayed flag.

“Then let's find her,” he says. They've been discussing Maria's desire to see her daughter, to gather some sort of information about her, to confirm that she is healthy and in a good home. To learn anything. To put something into the void.

“That's not what I'm saying,” Maria says, even though that is exactly what she's been saying, in so many words. She is frustrated with her own increasing interest in the child, but is not necessarily surprised with it. It is Jack's concern for their daughter that has come as a shock. Maria is afraid to encourage it. She can imagine Jack showing up on her doorstep one day, just like he did with Pinky, this time holding their child. And what she finds most terrifying about this possibility is not what Jack would then do, but what she would. “I just want to see her,” she says.

“Google her,” Jack says.

“She's three weeks old. She's not online.”

“Of course she is,” Jack says, running his fingers up Maria's shin. “Don't tell me that's not why you named her something crazy.”

“What's not why?”

“With a name like that, she's gonna be easy to find.”

Maria has never considered that she probably could someday find her daughter, if only because of her name. She is so constantly surprised
at the connections Jack makes. He seems simultaneously older and younger than she, both more intelligent and less. He lifts the hair at the back of her neck and kisses her there.

“But you can do that later,” he says. “Now let's remind each other how we made that baby.”

“I have
stiches,”
Maria says, pushing him away.

“They told me they put in an extra daddy stitch,” Jack says, and slaps his hands together.

Layers of gauze still line Maria's underwear. She cannot at this point imagine ever again allowing anyone access to her body. Maria understands that Jack does not have this problem. She knows he longs for her, but she cannot bring herself to address him in any way that might bring him such pleasure. She pushes him away again as he draws closer and his face drops like he's been told that he can't have a toy.

“What,” he says. “A man has passionate desire for his lady. You want me to deny it? That I have passionate desire? I cannot tell a lie.”

“In time,” Maria says.

After Jack departs, Maria opens her computer. On the screen is a website about a Mexican clinic performing blood transfusions from guinea pigs. She might be a little drunk. She types “Bonacieux” into the search engine. Actresses in movie adaptations of
The Three Musketeers
appear. Maria can almost feel her mother's exasperation at these digital priorities. She adds “North Carolina” to the mix and then “Philip and Nina,” and in less than two minutes, she's looking at a photoblog called
Isn't Bonny Bonny?

It's not clear at first. Is this really her daughter? Maria cannot remember exactly what her daughter looks like. She opens her phone to the photos Jack took of the child in those first few hours, as Maria held her close
to her chest, a small stocking cap stuck on her head, eyes squeezed shut, her face puffy and yellow. What does Bonacieux look like now? Maria does not know. In these photos, here for anyone to see, someone's child wears bright red socks knit to resemble high-top sneakers. Someone's child sleeps in a white basinet that looks like it was made even before the ancient house in which she now lives. Someone's child bathes in the depths of a chipped enamel sink deep enough for four babies, presided over by an antique silver spigot and a dirty russet brush. And then Maria knows that this is not just any child, but her own. Because she sees the child's parents, and they are Philip and Nina. Together they have taken Bonacieux to a dock, to the beach, and to a restaurant near Beaufort that Maria recognizes: the Sanitary Fish Market. Maria has slept in a T-shirt from that restaurant for years, its cotton now tissue-thin and translucent. It worked, she thinks. She has constructed a family that will traffic in the same seafood buffets of her own childhood, that will drive the same streets, know the same weather. And this, these photos here before her, they have suddenly allowed Maria to enter their house, to see the cracks that line their sink, enjoy the art on the walls of the nursery, and to look into the silvery-gray eyes of her child. She knows already it will not be enough. She wants to see it firsthand.

IN THE LIVING
room, Maria's mother listens to Patti Smith, a copy of
The New York Times
held close to her face and a red rubber water bottle perched atop her head. “The head is like a limb in Africa,” she says, lowering the paper to her lap. “They carry laundry, groceries. Children. But I can barely keep this on, and I'm just sitting here.”

“You cold?” Maria says.

Her mother nods and the water bottle flops into her lap.

“Let's go to Beaufort,” Maria says.

“Yes,” her mother says. “Right now.”

Maria knows her mother cannot read anything further into Maria's suggestion. She does not know that Bonacieux is there. But it doesn't matter, Maria thinks, because her mother wants to go there anyway. She's been talking about it for months, for the same reason Maria chose Philip and Nina to begin with—because she loves the place. The only thing keeping them in Chapel Hill has been treatment, and the most recent run of chemo has now ceased. They should go, Maria tells herself, not for her, not for the child, but for her mother. She tries to convince herself that this is the real reason she wants to leave. She can almost believe it.

“I'm serious,” Maria says.

“Me too,” her mother says. She sighs and balances the water bottle back on her head. “There are so many stupid people there, but God I love that place.”

“Me too,” Maria says.

“Let's do it. I'm getting better.”

Maria's mother is not getting better. At least she shouldn't be. But Maria cannot completely disagree with her assessment. Her mother's hair has begun to reappear in a fine blond stubble. She has begun to eat. She has begun to walk. Hank no longer spends each day on deathwatch.

Maria sits beside her and takes part of the paper for herself. She will say no more about Beaufort tonight. Instead, she will sit with her mother and help her finish the crossword. Because this is how they make plans. An option is introduced, like a seed in soil, then left to germinate in silence. Over the next few days, Maria watches this one take root.

CHAPTER 5

I
SN'T BONNY BONNY?
She is. Each day, Nina posts a new photo, and each day, Maria inspects it closely. Milkweed has been tucked between Bonacieux's toes. She hangs limply off Philip's chest in a brown BabyBjörn. Atop a pile of Nina's laundry the child naps and Maria longs for each piece of clothing beneath her, elegant and colorful and tailored. On the day that Nina posts a photo of a monarch butterfly perched atop Bonacieux's head, Jack arrives at Maria's house earlier than usual. He delivers breakfast every morning these days. It is his most reliable feature. Today he has with him two sesame bagels from Weaver Street Market—one for Maria and one for her mother. He runs his fingers through his bangs then snaps them in a sharp pop.

“We have to talk,” he says.

“That's my least favorite way to start a conversation,” Maria says, squeezing the bagel. Warm butter runs into her cuticles.

Jack snaps his fingers again.

“That's freaking me out,” Maria says.

“I hate this!” Jack says.

“Hate what?” Maria says. Jack trades in hyperbole and drama. Even the most mundane of conversations will be peppered with yelps and declarations. She assumes he has been angered by the bagel.

He snaps. “When are you going to Beaufort?”

“I don't know,” Maria says, surprised that he has indeed addressed a real topic. She looks him in the eye. “A few weeks? It's up to Mom.”

“And for how long?”

“As long as she wants. She's . . .” Maria does not want to finish the sentence. She feels certain this will be their final trip together, the one that will end in death, but she is reluctant to name it as such. “You know where we'll be. It isn't far away.”

Jack raises his hands in exasperation, then snaps with both of them.

“What,” Maria says. “Say it.” She can tell that something bigger than scheduling is at work on his mind.

Jack begins to shake his head slowly from side to side, then with increasing pace and vigor. As his face blurs, his lips begin to flop in a wet gurgle at each pivot. Then he snaps his fingers and stops.

“A man has needs!” he says.

“Go on,” Maria says. She has heard this before, his lecture about biology. How he cannot simply provide, provide, provide. How he too has needs that he must satisfy. How he requires physical attention, what he calls basic animal trade. He wants sex, is what he wants, and Maria is still not ready to give it. “But you know I'm not ready for that yet,” she says. “I'm sorry, I am. But you're going to have to be patient.”

“It's not that,” Jack says. “Not really.”

“Oh shit,” Maria says. She can tell now that Jack has something of consequence on his mind. “What?”

“I fucked up,” Jack says.

Maria is afraid of the explanation. Jack's patience is not something that stands up well under duress. For weeks she has feared his breaking
point and is certain now that he has reached it. She does not know if she can bear to hear how.

She closes her eyes and says, “What did you do?”

“Yeah, some stuff.” He nods. “Yep.”

“Is there someone else?” Maria says, voicing her greatest fear.

Jack continues to nod.

“Yes?” Maria says. “Are you actually saying yes?”

“I hate biology!” Jack says. “But it's there, all over me. In here.” He points at his chest.

“So yes? The answer is yes? Are you kidding me?”

“I've been hanging out with Jennifer,” he says.

Maria sighs. It is as she feared. She feels, in a span of seconds, older by years. She is aging more rapidly than normal these days. The hours have been passing in new ways, warping their route. Stopping. Skipping.

“Who the fuck is Jennifer?” she says.

“Rock-and-Roll Johnny from the 506's sister,” Jack says.

“You mean Icy People?” Maria says. “Icy People?” It is her friend, the rapper.

Jack nods.

“Is this because I can't have sex?” Maria says. She starts to cry and hates that she is starting to cry. She feels sick to her stomach. She imagines Icy People talking about Jack with the other girls, smoking filterless Camels in Jane's Dodge Diplomat, telling them how big Jack's dick is, how bad he is in bed, how Maria has no idea.

“You understand that the flesh on my privates is torn and sewn together,” Maria says. She tries to employ the same didactic tone of her
second-grade teacher, Mrs. Turner, as if explaining volume. “Because I squeezed a human out of it. A human that you conceived.”

Jack bites the air. “Everything's about B right now,” he says. “The baby the baby the baby the baby the baby.”

“Right now, that thing? The baby? And the fact that we gave it away? Yes. It is on my mind.”

“I can't handle this stress,” Jack says. “I wish I could. I hate it. I suck.”

Maria has heard these excuses before. Jack does not deny his shortcomings. In fact, he embellishes them. He discusses them with gusto, as if their entry into conversation might just decrease their capacity for destruction.

“Just because you can admit you're horrible doesn't mean you aren't horrible,” Maria says.

“I'm horrible,” Jack says. “I am. I'm a horrible man who loves you.”