At this, Mary felt a well of anger burst inside of her. She slipped carefully out of the closet and lifted the metal box out of the still-open drawer before gently shutting it. Mrs. Pool and Mrs. Porteiski were on the couch. Their backs would be to the wall. They wouldn’t see Mary as she slinked out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and out the way she had come.
Mary moved without footsteps, without sound or breath, the box pressed against her stomach, until she reached the back door. She hadn’t intended to take it all, but her rage begged for retaliation, however misdirected. Mary turned the knob with a slow, steady hand, then opened the screen door in front of her. Stepping across the threshold as if she were stepping off of a ship, she pulled the wood door closed and, with a straight arm, kept the screen door propped open, feeling the tension in its springs. She pressed it until the springs groaned in pain, then she let go. And the clatter broke the silence like a slap.
Mrs. Pool came quickly, her thick thighs rubbing at each other as she bustled down the hall, her eyes wide and anxious behind her glasses. With Marjory behind her, she’d step out onto the walk and look all around. But Mary would be nowhere in sight. What do you reckon that was? Mrs. Pool would ask her friend. Do you think someone was trying to get into the house? Mary would be nearly to the dunes by the time Mrs. Pool and Marjory would decide it was nothing and head back inside.
IT WAS LATER THAT EVENING that Diane came into the office of the Water’s Edge, where Mary was on the couch watching television. Diane was wiping her hands on her apron; she had been in the kitchen. “You know, I was thinking that maybe getting away from Sandy Bank is going to be nice.” She looked at her daughter, perhaps sensing that something had changed. Perhaps sensing that somewhere a bag lay packed, that plans lay made. “I always hated the fall here,” she said. “It’s so depressing. Everyone’s gone and it’s always so gray. Florida’s supposed to be beautiful then. Silver linings, right, Mare? That’s how we have to think about it.”
Mary gave her mother a glance. “Sure,” she said, her eyes back on the screen. “Silver linings.”
Diane moved tentatively toward her daughter and sat down beside her. “I know you’re mad at me,” she said, staring between her legs at the tweedy couch, at the spots where the threads had been rubbed bare. “But I don’t know what else to do, Mare.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
Diane reached for Mary’s hand, and Mary let her hold it for a moment, just a moment, knowing that by tomorrow she would be gone. She’d be on her way to the boy with the boat. Then she pulled her hand away. Mary needed to hate her mother tonight. She needed her anger to stoke her flight. Diane leaned in and kissed her daughter on her forehead, then stood. She walked over and shut off the television; the picture disappeared with a flicker. “You need to go to bed.”
Mary sat on her bed in the dark, the slick bedspread sticking to the backs of her thighs. Her room was off of the hallway that led to the office then, right across from her mother’s. It didn’t have a bathroom of its own so Mary used Diane’s. Her mother had watched her as she brushed her teeth, had watched her as she brought her face to the sink and filled her hands with cold water, drinking it down. Diane watched her as she went across the hallway to her own room. “You know, maybe we can move you into one of the guest rooms,” Diane said. “After the baby comes. So you can have a little more space. Your own bathroom.” Mary shut the door behind her. Diane waited until she heard the lock slide into place.
It was Sunday night, so Mary knew there would be weekenders heading back over the bridge until late. She’d walk to the highway and hitch a ride over to the bus station in Darby. She’d get on the late bus to the city. And then she’d be gone.
Mary waited until she heard Diane go out and lock the door to the office, flipping the sign to read CLOSED. She listened for the flush of her mother’s toilet, and then she waited. And it struck her how well she knew her mother’s routine, her waxing and her waning. She wondered if she might miss it someday.
Then at a quarter after ten, Mary stood, her backpack already slung onto one shoulder, the $892 from Mr. Pool’s box divided between the pockets of her shorts, the inside flap of her bag, and the cup of her bra. With small silent movements, she slid back the lock to her room and opened her door.
She was guiding it gently back into place when her mother’s voice came through the dark. “Hi, Mary.” A light switched on and Diane was sitting on the couch in her pink polyester nightgown, her arms bare, a blanket on her lap. She looked at her daughter. “Alice called. She said she’s missing some money.”
Mary remained as still as stone, her hand on the knob to her room, her muscles tensed. The only part of her body that was in motion was her heart, which was thumping quickly inside her chest.
“But Mr. Pool doesn’t get back until late.”
“He’s not the only one who knows where the box is, Mare.”
Diane and Mary stared at each other until Diane finally spoke. “Where were you going?” Diane looked weary, her limbs seemingly weighted with effort. “Hmm? Just where in the hell did you think you were going to go?”
Mary found some of her anger. “Away,” she said.
“Well, we’re going to do that anyway. Remember?” Diane rubbed her hand over her face. “Mary, what do you think? That I’m just going to let you go? You’re my child. Do you know what that means?” Diane leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Do you have any idea what that means?”
“I don’t want a sister,” said Mary.
Diane let out a chuckle that sounded like a sob. “Mary Catherine Chase,” she said, meeting her daughter’s eye, her head starting a slow shake. “I don’t want you to have one.”
Mary drew back at the truth of it. She looked at her mother; behind her was only a smooth pane of glass and then the limitless night beyond.
“I need you to stay with me,” said Diane. “Promise that you won’t leave me.”
If Mary’s life came down to only a handful of decisions, a smattering of choices directing the lines of her life, this was one of them. Finally, she looked at her mother. “On the way down to Florida,” she started. “Can we go to the swamp?”
Diane settled back against the couch and lifted her chin toward the sky, her body and mind spent, her hand resting on the belly that had once born Mary. “You don’t know what it is to be a mother, Mary” was all Diane could say.
Sixteen
1983