They were silent. The gulls, having moved on, called gently. Lucy watched as Mrs. Cohn discovered the caterpillar crawling up her arm and did not scream but—surprising Lucy, and comforting her, and breaking her heart all over again—took the thing and cradled it in her hand.
“Lucy. Come down.”
But she couldn’t think how to go down, not with Emma knowing what she now knew. Not the motions of it, feet, arms, hands, and not what she might do once she was there. She couldn’t imagine meeting their eyes, or letting them touch her.
They waited.
Thirty-four
Bea told Albert the truth that night, after everyone had left and Ira had gone to sleep. The lieutenant’s courteous stride, undersized for such a tall man, as he followed the admiral into her parents’ parlor. How delicately his large hands held his lowball as Lillian cornered and harassed him. How genuine his smile had been, as if he knew nothing about his own astounding teeth. How Bea had not minded at all when Lillian pushed him toward her. A walk, a walk! A shock, especially ten years ago, that Lillian had encouraged such a thing. But the streets would not have been empty. The common was lit. If they had gone outside, they would not have been alone.
They had not gone outside. On the stairs, instead of down, they had gone up to Beatrice’s bedroom, her little writing table, her dolls, her brass bed. It was shocking, she was shocked, the whole way, the entire time. There was some talk, as if he were a friend of her father’s, but she was fully grown, and she was not occupying the part of herself that spoke and nodded and smiled and fiddled with the loose knob on the bedpost as if she would momentarily lead him out of the room and back downstairs. She closed the door. A shock. But Estelle was busy downstairs. The gramophone played loudly. To blame Lillian was not entirely wrong—she had been neglectful, crass, she had thrown her daughter at the man like a souvenir—but neither was it accurate. Lillian had meant for them to walk, as Bea and Albert were walking now, on the road out to the point. Lillian had in her mind a stroll, however ill conceived. But it was Bea who closed the door, Bea who stood, waiting, having no idea what to do, aware only of the heat that ran through her. She had felt this heat before, in the company of Julian—she knew it would scatter eventually, ache a little, wane. But she did not think far enough ahead to think of that.
Deep down, maybe, she wanted to punish Lillian, show her. And Julian? She did not want to punish Julian, she wanted to marry him. And yet. She could see her life so clearly, now that he’d come out and asked, now that she’d nodded Yes: Radcliffe (or really, why bother with Radcliffe?), marriage, babies, the piano’s natural retreat into hobby, a toy into its corner. Lunches with Lillian. She would be the exact woman she was raised to become.
Some part of her might have flinched at this. Some part of her might have wanted to blow it all down. But even that wasn’t fair—she wanted to do what she was doing. She stood, and waited. He hesitated, and she waited, and then she lay under him on her own bed, not against a wall, not even crying out when it hurt, which it did, though not badly. He was very gentle. Mostly what she felt was fascination; mostly what she wanted was to know. He was apologetic, flustered. He left the room immediately and waited for her in the hall.
It was a terrible lie she had told. It was cheap, and she had told it enough that she had come to a way of believing it: she had built in her memory his forcing, her resistance.
“When I think of Lucy,” she said (she had told Albert what Mr. Murphy did to the girl, just on the periphery of violence, just bizarre enough not to warrant straightforward punishment), “it’s like I’ve been mocking her.”
They had passed the yacht club and were nearing the end of the point. The lighthouse rose up before them, forever like a man to Albert, spreading its affections, one, two, three, four, until it shone for him, briefly, and withdrew again.
“It was what was expected of you,” he said. “To cry rape. Lillian practically fed it to you.”
“I never had any trouble refusing her food.”
“She cooked?”
“No, though that’s not my point and you know it. Estelle cooked.”
“Good. Then I’m only in for one surprise tonight.” He laughed, throwing an elbow at Bea, but she walked heavily, her eyes straight ahead.
“I’ve told worse lies, you know,” he offered.
Without pausing, Bea stepped out onto the first slab of the breakwater. She thought he meant their marriage, he realized—she thought he was exaggerating his sins for her benefit, making a joke.
“Really,” he said. “In college . . .”
“I’m planning to give her money,” Bea said. “To help her get to Canada.” She was taking the stones in large strides, though the moon was skinny, the night dark—apart from the intermittent sweeps of light, Albert could barely make out the gaps between the rocks, some as long as a man’s foot.
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“I told you, didn’t I, about her brother?”
“Still, you can’t do that.”
“I can.”
“What about Emma?”
“She’ll understand.”