If you had intended to inflict damage to my son, I can assure you that you succeeded. Martina and I have always tried to protect our children, maybe to a fault. But we both were certainly ignorant to what we had allowed into our lives with you. All I will say is that Stefan is now living abroad. Thankfully, I can’t imagine a way you can possibly reach him. I am also eternally grateful that it was Teddy who answered the phone on that day you called to make plans for a meeting on that island in the Tammahuskee. You mistook him for Stefan. Had you not, things might have ended very differently.
I will not go into the revelations of your character made, not coincidentally, I now know, on the day of your departure from Northton. The reason I am writing is regarding your claim that Stefan is Hannah’s father.
We have done enough investigation to know that you are, in fact, Hannah’s mother. And while the timing of Stefan’s stay in Sandy Bank might be nothing but coincidence, you certainly have used it to your advantage. In other words, your claim is not inconceivable. And your continued contact in the form of photographs of Hannah is, to say the least, very upsetting to Martina.
I will not pretend to fully understand your motivations or intent, Ms. Chase. I can only imagine, based on the information conveyed by your cousin, that what you would really like is money. So I’m prepared to offer you ten thousand dollars per year until Hannah is eighteen years old, in exchange for your distance, silence, and assurance that all the money will be used to care for your daughter.
You need not reply. Your silence will be answer enough. But if you try to contact us again, the checks will stop.
Patrick Kelly
It was several minutes before Hannah finally came out of the bedroom. And perhaps it was the smell of smoke that drew her out. When she opened the door, Mary was leaning over the sink with a lighter in her hand as flames claimed the last fragment of the check, and Mary dropped it, feeling the heat on her fingers.
“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.
“I don’t know,” said Mary, her eyes unmoved. She flipped up the handle to the faucet and watched as the water washed the ashes down the drain. “I just felt like seeing fire.”
Thirty-one
1977
Diane didn’t know that Mary was in labor. She had headed into town to go to the grocery store, the bank, and to find a pay phone so she could make a private call to Alice Pool.
Diane took her time coming back, driving over the bridge that separated the island from the mainland, and she watched the water that had turned gray to match the sky. There was a storm out at sea, its long arms were twirling somewhere over the Gulf. It would miss them, the weathermen said, but the waves would rush in, swollen and dark, with their tales of the great churning beyond.
It was only in the grocery store, when Diane saw the gaudy red boxes of chocolate and bouquets of roses, that she realized it was Valentine’s Day. And now, as she looked out at the water, her hands on the steering wheel, she gave a tired chuckle.
“I’d bet you’d be rolling over in your grave, Dad.” She was speaking out loud, though she hardly realized it. “If you knew I was here in Bardavista.” Her father had considered it a cursed place ever since Vincent Drake had named it. She smiled. “It’s nice, though. I think you’d like it. It’s got a beautiful beach.” Her head started a slow nod. “The sand’s like sugar.” Diane had begun talking to her father since she and Mary had come here, feeling more connected to him than she had since he died. She understood him more now that she was facing what he had, a daughter pregnant far too soon.
She pulled into the driveway of the cottage she and Mary were renting and popped the trunk of the station wagon. She didn’t buy much food, just enough to get them by. Crackers and bananas and shrimp, which were cheaper than chicken here. She would boil a mess of them, and she and Mary would eat them cold while sitting in front of the television, watching the picture spasm in and out between bursts of static.
“Hi, Mare!” Diane called, when she walked inside. The metal screen door banged shut with a clatter. She set the groceries on the counter. “I’m home! I got some of that cheese you like!” She began unpacking the bags. “Mare!” she called again.
Diane found Mary in the bedroom lying on the mattress facing the wall. At first she thought she was sleeping, but then she pulled back on Mary’s shoulder and saw that her eyes were open and focused, that her forehead was damp with sweat. “Oh, Jesus!” said Diane, her hands shaking. “Mary!”
Mary’s eyes darted briefly to her mother, then she once again faced the wall.
“Come on,” said Diane. “We’re going to the hospital.”
The nurses didn’t look Diane or Mary in the eye as they rushed around the room.
“Would she like an epidural?” one of them asked Diane, her words soft, her drawl heavy with apology. She was sorry for Diane and Mary. All the nurses were. Mary was so very young.
“No” came Mary’s voice, sure and emotionless as she lay on her side in the white-sheeted bed. And all Diane could feel was her own heart like galloping hooves inside her chest.
Mary didn’t make a noise through childbirth. She didn’t scream or shout or beg for help with the pain. Diane only heard her breath rushing in and out and coming so, so fast. She’d tighten her fists and dig her nails into her palms so fiercely that she drew blood, but she was silent, her jaw hard, her eyes focused on something no one could know.
Diane wondered about the boy. Mary would tell her nothing but that he was a prince. That he had ridden into Sandy Bank on a white stallion. That he was going to come back for her. Diane wondered if her daughter had lost her mind. Or if she had created another beautiful, terrible lie. She wondered if Mary believed it. If she always would.
She was already seven centimeters when they arrived at the hospital, and so the baby was born within the hour. It was a gray February afternoon, and Diane let out a gasping weep when she heard the first cry. “It’s a girl,” said the doctor, without emotion or joy.
Diane squeezed her daughter’s hand, feeling her face turn wet with tears. “Mary, honey, did you hear that?” she choked. It hadn’t been so many years since she had lain where Mary was. It hadn’t been so many years since she felt the shame of slipping her feet into the cold metal stirrups as a girl.
The doctor handed the baby to a waiting nurse, then reached for a pair of surgical scissors and clipped the umbilical cord. Diane lifted her chin to see her granddaughter. “A baby girl!”
Mary’s body had gone limp as she submitted to exhaustion. She watched the baby with a guarded expression, her black hair soaked with sweat, a strand of it like a gash across her cheek.