“Alice would never tell a soul. You’re like a daughter to her. So am I.”
“But people are going to see,” said Mary. She pointed to her belly. “I’m going to get bigger.”
Diane clasped her hand over her mouth and took a breath as if there were something sustaining in her palm. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Diane took a sleeping pill that night. She hid them in her underwear drawer and only took them on very rare occasions. Mary knew she would need one. She cracked open the door to her mother’s room and found her asleep on her bed, her robe still on, her arms curled around herself, her brow furrowed even in sleep. She would have the sort of dreamless, dead slumber that hardly seemed like rest.
So Mary left that night, walked down to the marina. She took the long way so that she could go along the beach. She feared nothing about the night. Girls she knew at school wouldn’t walk on the beach after dark. When she used to hang out with the older kids and they’d gather down at the Perkins Break to drink beer and smoke joints, the girls would always arrive together in groups of three or more, convinced that murderers and rapists lurked around every corner, jumping at the snap of a twig and screaming as they gripped each other. But then Mary would appear, the youngest of all, slinking out of the dark, her bare feet padding fearlessly over the sand.
Joining her on the beach that night were the small darting bodies of ghost crabs, which moved around her like water around a stone. She climbed up over a jetty, lodging her fingers into the crevice of a smooth algae-covered rock and pulling herself up. When she was younger, a wave had smashed her into one of these stones, giving her a gash on her head that needed stitches. They had to shave part of her head to put them in. Diane had cried, but Mary hadn’t. She just watched the doctor’s face as he leaned in close to her. The in and out of his breath was steadying, and she felt its warmth on her temple.
She slid down the other side of the rocks, slipping so that the seat of her shorts became wet. When she bent, when she climbed, when she moved, she was aware of the hardness in her belly that was growing and growing, that was burrowing into her.
The marina was empty, as it always was this time of night, and bobbing boats, so obedient and ready, instantly calmed Mary. She remembered where the boy’s had been. He was coming back. He swore he was.
One of the boats in the marina was called Esmeralda. It was owned by a local building contractor who had a mistress with the same name. His wife had no idea, but everyone else did. She’d only give a puzzled smile when she’d call for her husband at his office and be told that he was “cheating on her with Esmeralda.” Still, it was a beautiful boat. Mary boarded it.
She lay on the bow and looked up at the stars, her hands beneath the back of her head, her sweatshirt lifted to expose her belly, and she let her hand rest there, not out of affection but out of curiosity, to understand just how big this thing had gotten since her last assessment. She could get an abortion, she knew, but not without Diane’s consent. Angelina Murgo got pregnant and wanted an abortion. Her parents had to sign paperwork and go with her. Everyone said that her father never looked her in the eye again.
And the fact remained that the prospect of having the baby didn’t frighten Mary. Girls her age were supposed to be scared about having children, but it was the opinion of others that induced the fear. What would people think? That threat held no sway with Mary. She almost smiled when she thought of them wondering, staring at her belly and turning to each other with whispers. She would have the baby. She would give it away. It would be simple. But she didn’t want it to stay. She never intended for it to stay.
As her eyes began to drift shut on a boat that was not her own and that she had no business being on, she tried to will her body back up, knowing that she couldn’t fall asleep there. But as the boat rocked gently in the water, she submitted to unconsciousness. She submitted to need. And Mary was awakened hours later in the still-dark morning by the voices of the early charters as they readied themselves to set out to sea.
Twenty-nine
1989
Hannah tested very well in reading but was below grade level in math. “I don’t understand,” said Mary, shaking her head into the pay phone in the employee locker room at Sea Cliff. “Hannah’s great at math.”
“The skills she has are strong,” conceded the guidance counselor, “but there are subjects and concepts that she’s missing entirely and that her classmates know.”
“Like what?”
“At Hannah’s age, students have already been introduced to geometry.”
“I’ll work with her,” said Mary. “Hannah’s smart. She’ll get it.”
“We don’t doubt her intelligence.”
In the end, it was agreed that Hannah would start the seventh grade with the rest of the kids her age, but she’d begin with sixth-grade math and receive extra support until she was caught up. “This kind of thing can happen,” said the guidance counselor, “when you’re working outside the standard curriculum.”
ON THE MORNING OF HANNAH’S first day of school, Mary left Sea Cliff before dawn. She drove slowly, cherishing her time in between places, in the seat shaped to her body, in the vehicle that roared and raced at her bidding like a mythological creature as bound to her as she was to it. She parked and took the stairs to the apartment one at a time, the hood to her sweatshirt pulled up over her head, the too-long sleeves covering her wrists.
When she sunk the key into the door and opened it, she saw Hannah standing in front of the stove, the cooktop illuminated by the range hood’s yellow light, and a small pot was placed over the bright red coils of the burner. Her hair was all loose loops of tangles, and she was wearing her underwear and a faded navy blue turtleneck.
“Hi,” said Hannah, not looking up.
Mary let her bag drop inside the door; it made its telltale thump. “You’re up early.”
Hannah watched the pot, watched the tiny bubbles form and then meander toward the surface. “I’m making tea.”
Mary crossed her arms in front of her chest and shuffled toward her sister. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” said Hannah, not trying to sound convincing.
“What are you gonna wear today?”
“I was thinking my jeans,” she said. “And maybe that shirt with the flowers.”
Mary gave her an appraising glance. “Want me to do your hair?”
She turned to Mary. “Okay,” she said, her eyes wide and hopeful.
In the bathroom, Hannah sat on the avocado green toilet, watching in the mirror as Mary teased her bangs. Mary could sense some confession on the other side of Hannah’s lips, words that were building their courage in the darkness. When she finally spoke, it came plainly. “Shawn never wrote me back,” said Hannah.