Seventh Heaven (30 page)

In the bedroom, where he lay beside Nora, Ace knew that he would never love another woman the way he loved her. She was asleep, but he couldn't leave her alone. He ran his hands along her arms, her breasts, and then her belly. There were stretch marks across her belly and hips from carrying her children; bands of devotion Ace could not, and might never, understand. When he asked her to go with him, she told him to shut up and kiss her and stop wasting their time. And he supposed she was right; now that he had her grandfather's watch he was amazed to see how quickly time passed.

The night before, when he had cleaned out his room, he'd found only enough possessions worth taking to fill one small suitcase. The Saint and Jackie had stayed late at the station, sharing a pizza out of its box and cleaning the windows in the office with Windex. This way there would be no good-byes, and Ace understood that, he actually appreciated it. His mother was not so easy; she wept in the kitchen as she fixed him two roast beef sandwiches and a tin of cookies to take along. She threw her arms around him when he came in with his suitcase and pretended she wasn't crying. When Marie finally let him go, Ace packed up the Ford the Saint had given him and, with Rudy beside him, drove to a field beside Dead Man's Hill. He'd planned to leave right then, but when he saw the entry ramp to the Southern State, he left the car parked and walked back to Nora's. Her door was unlocked and she'd been waiting for him in the kitchen with the glass of water she hadn't given him the first time he'd come to her house.

Now it was morning, just dawn, but morning all the same. He'd done it, he'd stayed the whole night through and seen the way she looked before she opened her eyes, the way her black hair streaked along the white pillowcase. He watched her sleep, then got up and pulled on his clothes. He went to the window and lifted one slat of the Venetian blinds to look at his house; his mother was probably already fixing coffee, his father was in the shower, Jackie was reaching for his freshly pressed uniform, which hung in his closet. As far as they were concerned, Ace was already gone. But he wasn't. He got himself a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed. He would think about Nora every time he saw a woman wearing a charm bracelet, every time he had his lunch at noon or took off a woman's blouse, and when he drove across the desert on his way to California, he would pull over to the side of the road and stare into the purple dust and say her name out loud.

He went back to the bed and Nora woke and sat up. She put her arms around him and leaned her face against his back, then reached for the cigarette in his hand and took a drag, before stubbing it out in the ashtray on her night table.

“Nora,” Ace said.

“I'm going to plant sunflowers today,” Nora told him. “All around the patio. I'm going to do the laundry and then I have to go food shopping. We have no bread.”

She kept her arms around Ace and he leaned back toward her, until she pulled away.

“Whole-wheat bread,” Nora said.

All through June there had been a troop of large black ants in Nora's kitchen and she couldn't seem to get rid of them, not even when she washed the counters with a mixture of garlic and wild marjoram, the way her grandfather always did. The ants were fearless; they'd jump into the sugar bowl or even into your coffee cup, and Marie McCarthy had told Nora that everyone in the neighborhood had them in June and that the only way to be rid of them was to put out ant poison and be done with it. So Nora had put out poison in the little tins she saved from frozen chicken pot pies, making certain that the tins were far out of the baby's reach, and the ants started to die right away.

It was amazing how fast they could die and how many of them there were; she had to sponge them off the counters and sweep them into a dustpan so James wouldn't pop them in his mouth. The man at the hardware store had promised Nora that all her ants would be dead in twelve hours, but she had expected them to slink off somewhere and die quietly, not turn onto their backs and wave their legs and litter her floor and make her feel like a murderess. It was clear the ants knew something horrible was going on, because the ones who were still mobile were frantic, ignoring the sugar bowl and the sticky cookie James had left on his highchair. They made a line along the window ledge above the sink, racing back and forth. Nora got a newspaper and rolled it up, planning to kill them all quickly, and then she realized what they were doing. The healthy ones and the ones who were already in the grip of the poison were racing back and forth to their nest in the window ledge, trying desperately to save their eggs. All along the counter by the sink there were tiny yellow eggs, translucent as rice paper, delicate enough to disintegrate as soon as Nora touched them with her finger.

Nora stood at the counter and wept as the ants dragged more and more unsalvageable eggs out from their nest. She wept as she brushed the eggs into a paper plate and took them out to the backyard, where she mixed them into the earth in the place where she would plant her sunflowers. She sat out there for a long time, perched on the border of bricks Mr. Olivera had carefully placed around the patio, and when she was done crying she knew she'd be able to watch Ace put on his boots.

When he forced himself to leave the bedroom, he found the dog waiting for him by the front door, and Ace snapped on his leash. They went through the backyards and along the fences, and because they traveled as the crow flies they got to the parkway in no time. Ace let Rudy off his leash, and they took off for the Ford parked on the other side of Dead Man's Hill, running until they finally reached the place where there were no more chain-link fences, where the air was as sweet as it used to be when there was clover and tall, purple lupine and Dead Man's Hill was covered with small wild roses that bloomed for only one week out of the year.

O
N THE LAST
S
UNDAY IN
J
UNE
, N
ORA AND
J
AMES
went into the backyard with two spoons and a packet of sunflower seeds. It was a beautiful day, hot and clear, with high, white clouds that looked like popcorn. After a lunch of tunafish and chocolate milk, Nora settled James in his stroller, to let him nap while they walked. When she stopped in the driveway to light a cigarette she saw Donna Durgin pull up in an unfamiliar car. Donna honked the horn three times and looked at her old house, but nothing happened. Donna leaned on the horn again, and Nora headed for the car and went around to the driver's window. She tapped on it and Donna jumped. When Donna recognized Nora, she rolled down her window.

“You're wearing black,” Nora said. “You look fantastic.”

Donna smiled and adjusted her black headband. She had on a black cotton sweater and tight black slacks; her blond hair was cut short and curled around her face.

“I'm picking up my kids,” Donna said.

“Good for you,” Nora said.

“I get them every Sunday and he knows I come at one.”

“He probably wants to make you squirm because you look so great,” Nora said. Nora reached her hand into the car and pressed down on the horn and didn't let up. “That ought to get his attention,” she said.

Robert Durgin opened the front door and pushed the screen ajar. He was wearing an undershirt and jeans and he yelled for Donna to hold her goddamned horses.

“See what I mean?” Nora said.

Donna got out of the car to wait for her kids. She knelt down and tickled James under his chin. “I got lost coming here today,” she said. “I got all confused and forgot what street I was on.”

Donna straightened up and she and Nora leaned against the car and looked at the house.

“I always wanted to have an arbor right in front of the stoop,” Donna said. “I wanted red roses growing up it.”

“Roses are a pain in the ass,” Nora said, as she stubbed out her cigarette under her shoe. She was surprised when Donna Durgin laughed. “Well, they are,” Nora said. “You've got to spray them for aphids and fertilize them like crazy and cut them back before winter and then pray that your kids don't prick their fingers on the thorns. Sunflowers are better. Come over in August and you'll see. I'll have a whole forest of them, they'll all be six feet tall.”

Both women smiled to think of a ring of yellow flowers, all moving their heads toward the sun.

“I'm going to get my children, too, you know,” Donna said.

Donna's kids were at the screen door, but Robert was holding them back, giving them some last-minute advice.

“Suddenly he knows everything,” Donna said. “He writes me notes telling me what they should eat for dinner. As if I didn't feed them their dinner all those years!”

“Tear up the notes when the kids aren't looking,” Nora said.

“I will.” Donna grinned before she went up the driveway to meet her children.

Nora watched them for a while; then she turned and walked toward Harvey's Turnpike. By now she knew the name of every street, and the peculiar turns each one took, which one was a dead end, which looped up toward the turnpike. On each block there were men out mowing grass, and the smell was so sweet it made you want to curl up, right then and there, on somebody's front lawn. James fell asleep in his stroller, with his hands on his knees and his head drooping on his shoulder. Nora navigated carefully over the curbs, and when she got to Policeman's Field she slipped a sun hat over the baby's head. She greeted some of the mothers she knew and waved to Lynne Wineman, who was high up in the bleachers.

Nora wheeled the stroller to the bleachers. She was still wearing the old Bermuda shorts and sneakers she wore for gardening, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with an elastic band. She sat down on the lowest row; she might not have the best view, but this way she could let James go on napping. Across the field, in the dugout, the Wolverines sat on a wooden bench in their blue uniforms. Nora took a cigarette out of the pack in her pocket, lit it, and leaned back.

“Hey!” she called out, when she saw Joe Hennessy. He was leading Suzanne through the crowd and carrying a large container of popcorn. When he heard Nora shout he turned, puzzled. “Joe!” Nora called and she patted the spot next to her.

Hennessy stood for a moment, straining to see who had called him, blinking until he recognized her. He had to sweet-talk Suzanne into going over before they backtracked toward Nora.

“She wants to sit at the tippy top,” he explained to Nora.

“I don't blame you,” Nora said to Suzanne. “Where's Ellen?” she asked Hennessy.

“She had to work late yesterday. She's taking the afternoon off. Now I get kid duty on Saturdays and Sundays.”

“I'll bet you're great at it,” Nora said. She stubbed out her cigarette in the dust and grinned up at Hennessy.

“No,” he insisted. “I'm not.”

“Daddy,” Suzanne said, pulling on his hand. “You promised.”

“I did,” Hennessy admitted to Nora.

“Onward, Wolverines, right?” Nora said.

“Right,” Hennessy said, not moving. ‘You okay?” he asked.

“Sure,” Nora said. She grabbed at her Bermuda shorts and smiled. “I just look this way because I've been gardening.”

The light was thin and yellow, and because of it Nora's skin looked golden.

“That's not what I mean,” Hennessy said.

In his stroller, James turned his head and slipped his thumb into his mouth and sucked hard, the way he always did just before he woke.

“I know what you mean,” Nora said.

Nora and Hennessy looked at each other, then laughed. Hennessy lifted Suzanne and began to carry her up to the top of the bleachers. Nora watched them, then realized James had woken up and was staring at her.

“My sweetie pie,” she said, and she took him out of his stroller and held him on her lap.

The boys from the opposing team had started to come onto the field and when Nora shaded her eyes and stared hard she could make out where Billy sat on the bench in his new uniform. The baby on her lap was still heavy from sleep; he turned and sat up on his knees to put his arms around Nora's neck. Above the baseball diamond the sky was a clear, luminous blue, and in the east there was a line of red, a promise of continued good weather. Nora blew on James's sweaty neck and then kissed him. She leaned against the bleachers and pointed upward so that the baby could see the first ball rise into the outfield, far above them, where the moon hung suspended, white and full, appearing in the sky hours before dark.

About the Author

Alice Hoffman was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. She wrote her first novel,
Property Of
, while studying creative writing at Stanford University, and since then has published more than thirty books for readers of all ages, including the recent
New York Times
bestsellers
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
and
The Dove keepers
. Two of her novels,
Practical Magic
and
Aquamarine
, have been made into films, and
Here on Earth
was an Oprah's Book Club choice. All told, Hoffman's work has been published in more than twenty languages and one hundred foreign editions. She lives outside of Boston.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1990 by Alice Hoffman

Cover design by Tracey Dunham

ISBN: 978-1-4976-3805-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.