Mary looked at her mother. “I just went for a walk.” She then looked at Barry, offering a polite smile. “Hi, Barry.”
Mary would go back to her room that night, take off her clothes, and look at her body in the bathroom mirror while the bathwater ran. She’d soak in the hot water, then slip between her sheets, naked and damp and yearning for sleep. Her dreams would come quickly that night, bounding into her mind agile and swift. In them, she became a creature, black and muscled and darting between trees. She came to a calm pool and saw the reflection of her yellow eyes. She woke with a gasp, hearing her heartbeat in her ears as if it were a roar. Then she walked over to the window and stared into the parking lot. In the dawn light, she saw Barry’s car, as still and silent as it had been when she had tiptoed past it, her hand in Stefan’s, only the night before.
Fourteen
1983
Mary waited at the door to the apartment on Boosk Avenue, watching for Stefan. He was coming down from Boston, as he did most weekends. She’d gotten off of work at the hotel, put Hannah to bed. And now there was only waiting.
She felt herself lift when she saw his car, felt her body rise as if floating. She stood on her tiptoes but was otherwise still as she watched him get out of the car and pull his bag from the trunk, as she watched him walk quickly to her door, a smile crystallizing on his face as soon as he saw her. She opened the door and he stepped inside, dropping his bag on the kitchen floor and pulling her into him. It was full of his schoolbooks, the bag. And under the yellow fluorescent light, his unshaven cheek catching on her hair, his hand firm on her back, he held her, as if she were something vital and life-giving. As if she were air.
She stood there facing him, letting him run his hands over and over her body, her eyes closed, her hands gripping the counter. She had changed much in the years since they were first together. She was younger than he knew then and was so still. But she had come into herself.
He and Mary had sex on the living-room floor while Hannah slept in the bedroom. Then they lay together, their limbs intertwined on the worn brown carpet, listening to the clatter of pots and pans and the lilting conversation that carried through the thin walls from the apartment next door. When Stefan was around, the apartment felt like a charming pied-à-terre rather than a shitty one-bedroom that smelled constantly of cigarette smoke and mold.
“Can I ask you something?” Mary said, her face against his chest.
“Hmmm?” said Stefan. As his fingertips circled Mary’s shoulder, she could have asked him anything.
“Did you come back? To Sandy Bank? When we first met?”
Stefan drew in a long unhurried breath and pulled her closer. “I did,” he said sleepily. “You weren’t there. There was a sign on the motel saying, CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.”
And Mary knew that everything she had done to bring them back together had been worth it.
Mary soon became not only a fixture in Stefan’s life but also in the Kellys’, Martina embracing nearly anything adored by her son. Beth had been disposed of quickly without discussion. Only once, when Martina had thought Mary was out of earshot, did Mary hear Martina say, “Steffie, you should really call to check in on Beth. You two have known each other since you were little. There’s no reason that you can’t still be friendly.” It seemed that whatever fledgling romance there had been in Beth and Stefan’s relationship had been extinguished the moment Mary arrived.
But despite her concern for Beth, Mary knew that Martina loved that Stefan had taken up with her—the lovely girl with the interesting past. And sometimes Martina would ask about the man Mary said was her father.
“Do you think your father will come for a visit?” Martina asked one day, as she and Mary stood at the sink cleaning up after brunch. She was running a plate under the water streaming from the faucet.
Mary adopted a wounded expression. “I don’t think so,” she said, as she set a glass in the rack of the dishwasher. “We don’t really communicate much.” And not for the first time, Mary wished she hadn’t made mention of Robert Mondasian.
Martina turned to Mary and, with a damp hand, reached for one of hers. “I’m so sorry, sweetie . . . ,” she said, always looking to help, always looking to heal. And in those moments, the affection that Mary felt toward Martina was genuine.
It was Patrick Kelly who expressed wariness toward Mary. She noticed it in the slowness of his smile as he greeted her, in the glances he’d give her when no one was watching. Mary suspected Patrick would have preferred a more conventional match for Stefan. A girl with a similar upbringing. A girl who would join the Junior League and decorate with chintz. Though Stefan was younger than his brother by five years, it was clear that he was the favorite son. Stefan was a better debater than his brother—quicker and more agile. And when Stefan and Teddy would circle the ring over politics and policy, it was Stefan who landed more hits.
“The country’s already starting to see the benefits of fiscal discipline,” Teddy would say, Claire, his wife, resting her hand encouragingly on his knee.
Stefan would lean back in his seat. “Discipline? As a percentage of GDP, the national debt is higher now than it ever was under Carter!”
Patrick would force a smile and wipe his mouth with a white cloth napkin, seemingly amused by his sons’ rivalry. “Will the gentlemen cede the floor?” he would say—a distinguished call for conclusion. Then he’d drop his napkin back on the table, giving Stefan a final glance, acknowledging the victor. It was Stefan, of course, who should have been granted the keys to the kingdom. Patrick had known this since they were small. He had also known that it was the traits he found most admirable in Stefan that would keep him from joining him in business. And Patrick Kelly, above all else, was lauded for his instincts.
“Did you ever figure out how you girls got that flat tire?” Patrick had once asked, not long after Mary and Hannah had first arrived at the Kellys’ door.
He held Mary’s gaze before tilting a bottle of cabernet and filling his glass. Mary shook her head. “You know what?” she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “I didn’t.”
The memory of that conversation would return to Mary unbidden from time to time. It did so now, as Stefan sat on the floor in front of her, his back resting against the tweed sofa that the last tenants had left, his head reclined against the cushion. He had arrived last night and stayed until his eyes started to drift shut. Then he gathered himself up and went to his parents’ to sleep. He hadn’t ever stayed the night with Mary and Hannah. Mary let her finger slowly twirl through his lion-colored hair as he held his book elevated and open. Hannah was playing Barbies on the floor next to Stefan, whispering a scene quietly enough that no one could make out the words except for her.