She holds open her palms in front of her, as if to say: there is nothing more to be done.
“Seb, they’re gone. It’s for the best. You’re not thinking straight. Those names, none of it meant anything.” She looks at his righteous, unbending eyes, certain that she is the only one still fighting for this family.
He swings at her face without thinking, as though she were not a separate being, as though the slapped cheek, the hand grasping out for stability were his cheek, his hand; as though she never stopped being the same as him.
Viola regains her composition. She breathes in and out. Her nose is full of iron. An engine is starting and tires are blistering against the gravel and something inside her is broken.
Good riddance, she thinks.
In the driveway is that woman’s Subaru, black and unsuspecting. Any damage is good damage.Pedal to the floor.Metal smashing, the impact, his body crashing into the wheel, hitting the horn, the twisted-up smell of burnt rubber, irreparable damage.
Reverse, reverse.
The road is black as he drives directionless, turning right then left, then right, not caring where he ends up. Sugar Baby sputters, the front bumper dragging on the road. It doesn’t matter. As the house, the car, all of it disappears behind him, the adrenaline begins to shake out of his body. He throws it in neutral just for the hell of it and rolls down a hill toward Little Neck, where a scant strip of sand faces Plum Island. He drives right onto the beach, why not. Maybe he’ll never be able to get back. He stops meters from the water’s edge.
In his glove compartment hides a matchbox and a mangled pocket Bible he uses to roll. In the back seat is a baggy with a nugget from Toby. The front fender is smoking. It’s cold outside, and he feels slightly feverish, but crawls up onto the roof of the car anyway, stepping heavily on the bent hood. He lights up and puffs out into the dark sea.
It’s peaceful out here. He lets the loneliness transport him, the weed soften his rage. Above, the stars shine darkly, alive or dead or illusion. When the anger drains, he is unprepared for the overwhelming grief, which cannot form tears in his eyes, but hollows out the sockets of his shoulders, the tissue of his ribs, every atom of his being.
Sebastian transcends Plum Island Sound. He is on the jug-handle moon, in the milky star fluid wiped across the sky. He is so far away that when his father’s car rolls in behind him, he doesn’t hear its punch on the gravel. It is only when he feels the familiar rough hand on his shoulder that he remembers the horrible pain of the world going on and on and on.
1989
The pain in Susan’s breast is becoming familiar, a throbbing like a tide, now swelling, now receding, demanding her notice. She arranges herself into the airport toilet, navigating the geometry of her suitcase.
For a moment, a profound clarity arrives. She feels this often now, when she is caught between two places. And in the clarity comes a thought:
Please not yet.
But now, as she frees a stream of urine onto the Colorstick, the fluorescent lights shine painful on all the plot holes in her life. The wanting and not wanting.
It brightens an unmistakable blue.
Outside the stall, the squeak and clack of women’s shoes. She breathes hard and tries to steady herself, staring at the grout between the tiles.
The taxi heads north out of Boston to Aldwych, an address that still feels unfamiliar when she speaks it, a town where large houses tuck behind woodlands and wildlife reserves. Al spotted the “For Sale” sign on a visit to his own mother nearby. He had fallen in love with it, he said on the phone, fervent about the project, the benefits of real countryside. It all felt so abstract to Susan, like the desire of an older person.But Al is older, she reminds herself,six years older. His friends are already leaving the city. Maybe soon, she will want it too: big empty rooms and the distant roar of the sea. When she was small, her mother would buy her oversized coats to grow into, so they would last longer. Besides, she was in Boston so seldom these days. It seemed a little cost to make him happy.
But now it feels comical, her life so foreign. New England autumn dances brilliant onto green grass. In the front yard her husband is raking. California seems impossible: so many dazed and reckless nights, so many choices masquerading as obvious answers, as impulses without alternative. All of it leading her to this moment, this happening, this thing in her.And now what?
Everyone’s heard the story: a girl on a soap gets pregnant and they dump her like an old mattress. A replacement comes in to film the next week. You can sue, of course, but everyone knows the rules: the studio can come up with a thousand reasons to fall out of love with you. There’s nothing you can do.
Idiot, Margie says, somewhere in the back of her mind.You did this.
The taxi pulls into the driveway and her husband is opening her door, his lips finding the soft skin of her temple. Now he is moving to the trunk, paying the driver, lifting her suitcase like it’s nothing, saying:
“God, I missed you. I’m thinking takeaway, just easy—”
Fleetingly, she wonders what it would cost her to get rid of it. Would she fragment into a million pieces? Would God or the universe prevent her from ever having a child again?
“Look, I bought some candy for the trick-or-treaters. Are Kit Kats too plain? I thought you might be in danger of eating them all if I got Milky Ways—”
Oh no. She wants this. She wants the tiny shoes and tire swings; she wants little fingers in her hair and a little voice asking her questions and singing sweet songs. She wants to make this man a father, a man who believed in her before there was anything to believe in. She wants to hear him singing nursery rhymes and giving the world structure, only she wants it for some future Susan, some Susan who has figured that world out herself.Why must it be now?
She lingers behind as they enter their new-old house, already teeming with the props of Al-and-Susan, photographs and candlesticks and kitchen utensils. They have just repainted the shutters. They have justhung a flag from the gable over the doorway. In her hand she is clutching the Colorstick.
“Al.”
The fear must be written on her face, flowing through her, because he looks at her as though she has something terrible to say to him. She opens her palm. He plucks the test from her, studies it. Her heart beats in every part of her body, her fingertips, her ears.
