He pushed his arm all the way around her shoulders. Her shoulders were narrow; in the cup of his hand he could feel the small square of bone at the top. It was only after he had put his arm around her that he realised he had done it. But even then, on realising, he had no desire to pull it away.
‘I didn’t cry,’ she said, composing herself, reaching into her sleeve for a handkerchief. ‘Not then. I signed, and then I gestured to Sister Lawrence to let me take my baby one last time. I wanted to press my nose into the soft folds of his… of your neck. I wanted to breathe my last breath of you. Your own baby’s neck, the softness, the sweet smell… I can’t even put that into words, Christopher. I only hope you get to experience it one day and you’ll know what I mean. I thought if I could inhale you, I could breathe you into my marrow or bottle you and stopper you inside me or something, but they wouldn’t let me take you. I can remember my mother turning me by the shoulders and walking me to the door. It was all so bloody gentle, so bloody quiet. But inside I was a volcano. And I’ve played that moment over too many times to count and each time I wonder how I didn’t scream, why I didn’t throw my mother’s hands from my shoulders, snatch my baby and run out of there and never come back. I could have taken my chances. You and me against the world. But I didn’t. And that’s what I’m sorry about. No amount of confessions can remove the weight of that.’
She pressed her hands flat over her face and wept. He pulled her small body towards him. She let her head rest against his chest and sobbed into her hands, and he kissed her hair and told her it was all right. It was all right. It was all right.
‘I’m here now,’ he said. ‘No one can take you away from me.’
Chapter Twelve
Ben reaches the apartment a little before six. When he steps inside, Martha gives a sweet cry of delight. He has kept his promise. That it’s enough to make her squeal in surprise opens a chasm of guilt in his chest.
He holds up the bottle of Mo?t & Chandon he has picked up on the way home. ‘You, my beautiful one, are looking at Benjamin Bradbury, future senior designer and winner of the Oakland branding contract.’
She whoops, claps her hands and laughs.
He takes her in his arms. ‘Wait a second.’ He puts the sweating bottle on the table and takes hold of her once again. He buries his mouth and nose in her soft neck. She smells of the coconut soap she favours, and the downy softness and sweet smell of her skin make him want to tear off her clothes and forget about everything but her. He runs his hand down her neck, onto her breast.
‘Come on,’ she says, taking hold of his hands. ‘Not so fast. Let’s do a toast.’
‘A kiss.’ He pulls her back into him and kisses her deeply. She responds, sliding her hands to his buttocks before pulling away again.
She pushes her thumb against his lips. ‘Don’t look at me like that. Pour your woman a drink, at least. I’m not some cheap floozy, you know.’
She fetches two glasses. He opens the champagne with a pop. He pours it, raises his glass but changes his mind. He puts his glass aside and drops to one knee.
‘What are you doing?’ She’s still holding her glass, waiting to drink.
‘I don’t have a ring or anything, Martha,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing this right now, but I just realised I can’t wait another second to ask you if you’ll marry me. So, Martha, will you? Will you marry me? Please?’
The room has stilled, the air turned thick. For a moment, fear clenches his jaw. She kneels down on the kitchen floor, pulls his glass from the tabletop and hands it to him. She meets his gaze with her steadfast green eyes.
‘Idiot,’ she says. ‘Of course I will.’
* * *
Later, when they have made love and drunk the rest of the champagne and shared a light joint in bed, he lies with Martha dozing in the crook of his arm. Only now, in the warm peace, does his phone call with his mother come back to him. He should call his parents now, he thinks. Call and tell them the news. It is in moments such as this that he is filled with regret.
Physical distance had been his only intention going to college so far away from them. He didn’t hate his parents or anything. But once the first semester in California was through, the thought of returning to Washington brought with it only dread. So he didn’t go, pleading a flu virus that had swept through the university. A particularly virulent strain, for such a complete fabrication.
‘But you didn’t come home for Thanksgiving,’ Dorothy had said. ‘Will you even be here for Christmas?’
He’d listened for the chink of ice in the glass but had given no answer.
By the end of his final year, Dorothy called but once a month, and only to ask if he was eating enough, whether he needed any money. He had not spoken to George, his father, since they’d fought over Nixon. Carter was in the White House now, of course, but the damage had been done.
‘Well I guess I should let you get on now,’ Dorothy always said when she herself could no longer bear the strain. ‘Your father says hello.’
‘OK, Dorothy. Thanks. And thanks for the money. Tell George I said hi, OK?’
Ben had stopped saying he’d go visit real soon. Martha had pulled him up so many times for lying. It was only through her that he’d realised he did lie – out of habit. She taught him that there was rarely any real need to lie, that actually the truth was almost always easier. By then she was his world, his refuge, his home.
He’d met her in his final year. She was in the university bar with a bunch of girlfriends and had stood up to use the bathroom. The alcohol hit her – at least that was what they decided when they discussed it afterwards – and she fainted against his back. When she came round, he was sitting on the floor of the bar, her head in his lap.
‘Hi,’ she said and smiled that sweet and sleepy smile. ‘I was playing quarters.’
‘You should really give that up,’ he said. ‘You suck.’
‘You’re right. I need to find another game.’
They said nothing else for maybe five or ten minutes.
‘Listen,’ he said eventually. ‘I feel bad, but my thighs have gone numb and I really need to move my legs…’
‘Oh, sure.’
He helped her raise her head, pressed the glass of water to her mouth. She drank, eyeing him like a child taking the host from the priest.
‘Thanks,’ she said, getting herself upright now. ‘I’m reading anthropology. I’m not usually this wasted, but I was doing it for research.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Uh-huh. Effects of tequila shots on the contemporary human.’ She held out her hand. ‘My name’s Martha Edwards.’