“There’s paperwork,” she said. The secretary extended a brown clipboard and gave it a bounce. “Needs to be filled out. May as well get it done now.” Mary stood, keeping her eyes on the woman as she took the forms. “Since you’re waiting.” The office phone began to ring, and the woman lifted the receiver. “William Brown Middle School. How can I help you?”
Mary sat back down and looked at the papers, at the black letters on the white pages. The school needed Hannah’s name, the date and place of her birth, the address of the last educational institution she had attended. They needed to know if she had any medical conditions or disabilities. They needed to know the name of her parents or legal guardians. Their places of employment. Mary Chase, she wrote. Sea Cliff. She brought the clipboard back to the old woman.
“Thank you, honey,” she said, taking it from her and setting it on her desk without giving it a glance.
Mary wasn’t quite sure how long she sat there. Long enough for the hallway outside to fill up and then empty, then fill up and empty again. Long enough for the woman at the desk to pull out a brown paper bag and eat a tuna-fish sandwich. Finally, Hannah was escorted out of the testing by the woman with the ceaseless smile.
“She did great,” the woman said, and Mary understood that she would say this no matter what. “We’ll be in touch with the results and placement.” Hands were shaken, and the efficient, pleasant woman went back from whence she came.
“How’d it go?” whispered Mary, placing her hand on Hannah’s back as she guided her toward the door.
“Good,” said Hannah, wincing away from Mary’s touch and scanning the hallways for peers.
From behind them, Mary heard the secretary’s voice. “Hey, ummm . . . girls?”
Mary’s and Hannah’s heads turned in unison.
The secretary was finally looking at the paperwork. “You forgot the dad’s name on here,” she said, as she flipped through the pages. Then she looked up at Mary and Hannah over her glasses. “You want to add him?”
Mary felt her head go light, perhaps with fatigue. “No,” she replied, ushering Hannah out ahead of her. “We don’t.”
Mary and Hannah rode home in silence, the sun softened by high clouds that glided slowly past it. “Let’s go the long way,” said Mary. “By the water.” And so the Chase girls passed along the coast, watching the surfers bob like seals as row after row of perfect arcs came rolling in from the horizon.
“It’s pretty,” said Mary, as she looked at the water, its light shooting in all directions. “Don’t you think?”
But Hannah was silent. She remained so as they pulled up to the apartment, as they lugged their bikes up the stairs, and as Mary slid the key in the door.
Mary dropped her purse inside the door. She watched Hannah as she walked to the kitchen area. “I’m gonna go back to sleep, okay?”
Hannah opened the refrigerator, investigating its contents. “Okay,” she said.
“Wake me up at like eight.”
Mary soon fell into an impenetrable sleep. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious when her eyes blinked open. The light in the room had changed, had gone black, the only illumination coming from the parking-lot lights of the grocery store. But Mary knew Hannah was there even before she saw her.
“It’s 8:15” came Hannah’s voice, inches away.
Mary opened her eyes and saw her sister’s face. She was lying on top of her own sleeping bag, her hands tucked against the side of her cheek, her body angled toward Mary.
Mary inhaled sharply, acclimating to consciousness. She drew her head back slightly and glanced around the room.
“Mare?” started Hannah, bringing Mary’s eyes back to her. “Who was my dad?”
Mary took another breath, the engine of her mind starting to churn. He was a prince, a warrior. He broke away from his family, which was powerful but cruel. He fell in love with Mom, but he was sworn to another. He had to leave to protect her. He promised to come back for her one day. These were the things Mary had said in the past, these were the tales that Mary had once told. And now she would tell another.
“He was a friend of Mom’s,” said Mary. Her voice sounded raw, ragged with sleep. “His name was Barry.”
Hannah’s face was serious, and she adjusted her hands. “What was he like?”
“He was nice. Handsome. He took Mom to nice places.”
“Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“Does he live where we used to? In Sandy Bank?”
“Last I knew.”
“Was he your dad, too?” Hannah’s questions were clinical, determined.
“No. He wasn’t.”
“Who was your dad?”
“I don’t know for sure,” replied Mary. “Nobody does.”
“Do you think you’ll ever find him?”
“Maybe, Bunny,” said Mary. It was soon going to be winter. Winter was such a lovely time of year to visit Sea Cliff. For many longtime guests, it was their favorite time.
“I hope you do,” said Hannah.
Mary rested her arm over Hannah. And Hannah did the same. The Chase girls lay there like that, their arms over each other, their bodies still and curved as if they had been cast in stone, as if they were the recently unearthed fossils of some forgotten cataclysmic disaster. Until Mary had to stand up. Until she had to go to work.
Twenty-eight
1976
Diane and Mary sat across from each other at the small table in the kitchen of the Water’s Edge underneath a Tiffany-style chandelier that cast a weak amber light around the wood-paneled room. Diane’s hair hung limp on her head, and the skin around her nose and eyes was red. Every so often, she would drop her head against the table and sob. Mary sat and watched her mother roll with pain until that wave of it subsided and she could once again lift her head.
They had been sitting there for more than an hour before Diane could speak. “I should have been more careful,” she said. Her shoulders began to shudder, and she brought her fist to her mouth. “I should never have left you alone so much.”
“You didn’t,” Mary said, her words empty and emotionless. “I left you.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to sneak out if I had been paying more attention.” Her fist slammed hard against the table. “Goddamn it! I should have known better! I of all people should have known better!”
Mary knew what she meant. She knew about her father. She heard it in whispers, in subtext. She knew it by what was not said, by what was avoided. And she knew it explicitly after her grandfather, with warm wet eyes, his mind unlocked by medication and disease, told Mary the story of the man who said his name was Vincent Drake. “I want to give it away,” said Mary.
“No!” said Diane. She sniffed hard and wiped underneath her eyes. “You are not going to ‘give it away.’” Then she looked at her daughter. “Imagine if I had given you away?” she asked, the thought seeming inconceivable to Diane in a way Mary couldn’t quite understand. Then she shook her head, as if shaking off the idea. “No. This baby is blood. You don’t give away blood.” Diane was silent for a moment, her face grim, her eyes faraway as she stared down what was to come. “We’ll raise the baby here. It’s going to be mine,” she said. “We’ll say it’s mine.” She let her palm slap the table and looked once again at Mary.
“But Mrs. Pool—”