“What is wrong with you?” she whispered, and he knew, if Eva wasn’t asleep, she’d be screaming. “You scared me, Jules. You scared me.”
“You should be scared of them”—he leaned over to catch his breath and then stood, pointing back toward the Castle—“of those boys.”
“They’re just kids, Jules. Poor kids. From the other side of the tracks. You remember what that means?” She was mocking him, her hands on her hips.
“Don’t you talk to me about what it means to be poor, Mrs. Marshall,” he spat. “Born with a silver fucking spoon up your ass.”
She coughed up a laugh, more like a huff. Don’t you dare laugh too, Julius, he heard his father say. But he knew it was ridiculous what he’d said and then Leslie was explaining.
“Those boys,” she said, “their dad has cancer. And you think they’re paying him disability? Hell no. They’re claiming preexisting condition.”
He sat on the bed and the coils squeaked.
“Shit,” he whispered.
“Yeah, total bullshit is what it is,” Leslie said. “So I’m paying them ten bucks an hour to clean out the Castle. You cool with that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Whatever.”
He was ashamed. What had gotten into him?
She stood in front of him, pressed her belly into the top of his bowed head. The belly that had carried their children—the ones who lived and the ones who died before they could be born.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What was that?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wait,” she said, “I can’t hear you.”
He grabbed her so they were rolling on the bed, the coils screeching.
He was still in his dirt-splattered work clothes, but who cared? He pulled her underwear down and the thin material ripped and this filled him with that hunger he lived for, like he hadn’t eaten in months, like he’d die if he didn’t fuck the woman he loved right there and then. The woman who could make him go from gut-shot rage to lust, just like that.
“Wait,” she said, and rolled onto her stomach, arching her back so her ass lifted, inviting him. “I’m ovulating.”
“So?” he said, his belt buckle jangling as he fumbled. “Let’s make a baby.”
Her face turned hard for a moment, and he thought he’d screwed it all up, but she said, “I want you to do me like this, baby,” and he felt his dick jump.
She’d taught him these things—ways to have sex without having sex. She even had names for them, like “a pearl necklace,” where she lay on her back, her breasts squeezed together, a perfect cushion for him to glide up and down until he came on her chest. He’d been embarrassed years ago when he’d realized it wasn’t something she had made up, but something another guy must have taught her.
Now he placed himself snug in the warm cleft and she reached back and pushed her cheeks together while he slid back and forth, back and forth, one hand planted against her lower back, the other gripping the headboard so it rocked, bumping the wall, and he came while she giggled, whispering, “Shush, you’ll wake the baby.”
There was the sound of twigs cracking outside their bedroom window.
“What the?” He jumped off the bed, leaving a trail of semen from Leslie’s back across the bedspread.
Something—no, a two-legged someone—ran into the forest toward the path that led to their neighbors’ house.
“What was it?” she asked sleepily.
“Just a raccoon,” he said.
A creepy little fucker of a raccoon, guessed Jules. Named Dom Short for Dominic.
19.
Leslie
She lost the second baby on a bright spring day while working in Our Garden. Concetta Monteleone had come by as she did every Tuesday afternoon, lugging her granny cart. On this day, she’d brought a fig tree, the roots wrapped in burlap. She’d grown it herself from a cutting her father had brought back from the motherland. May the Madonna care for his soul, she whispered, and kissed the crucifix hung around her neck.
The tree was not heavy. No more than the plants Leslie lugged and hoisted every day at the garden. Not wanting to bother Jules, and, also, wanting to show she could do the work. She was no prima donna.
She heave-hoed the little tree out of the cart, the sticky three-pronged leaves slapping her chin. She felt the twinge low in her belly. She let out an Oh! and Concetta’s withered face twisted in concern. Like she knew the baby was doomed. In the way that old Italian grandmas, real-life white witches, know.
The bleeding started that night. Trickled down her thigh in the shower so it diluted pink. She was numb. She knew it was coming. The cramps had come in waves (the way the midwife had described labor) all evening. She could only eat half the homemade ice cream Jules had made for her cravings. She’d devoured bowl after bowl of his mint chocolate chip all through the first trimester.
She waited to tell Jules. Because then she’d have to tell him about the first baby. From college. The baby she hadn’t wanted but whose loss had hurt so she had stayed in bed for three days. Until Sister Mary Bartholomew threatened to call her parents. Worse, she’d have to tell Jules that his baby, their baby, was dead. The baby they’d wanted so bad they’d spent three years trying, making lists of names, imagining his or her future (Astronaut? Artist? Accountant?) and how they’d decorate the “nursery”—the bedroom closet Jules would dismantle, tearing down the shelves to make a cozy space Leslie would paint marigold.
PART THREE
The Molting
Late June 1992
Larvae develop into adults by going through a series of progressive molts through which they increase in size. Instars are the stages between each molt. Male larvae go through five instars (females, through six) before entering the pupal stage.
When population numbers are dense, larvae feed continuously day and night until the foliage of the host tree is stripped. Then they crawl in search of new sources of food.
—“Gypsy Moth,” Forest Insect & Disease Leaflet 162, US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, 1989
20.
The Colonel
He jogged through the woods, Champ lunging ahead and leaping on and off the trail leading to the Castle.
“Quiet, dummy. You’ll give us away.”
He hadn’t wanted to bring the shepherd, but he’d been halfway through the woods when he’d heard Champ’s collar jingling and the dog had bounded out from the trees. There wasn’t time to turn back. He had to warn the island.
There’d also been no time to change, and he was wearing his Hawaiian robe over his pajamas, clutching the opening at his crotch closed with one hand.