“But the language you used toward Mrs. Violette cannot be tolerated.”
Mary lifted her chin and looked at Mr. Alvetto with big wet eyes, then made the slightest adjustment of her hips. “I’m sorry,” she said, letting her gaze drop as she took another breast-expanding breath. She felt his hand drop down just a fraction of an inch lower on her back. “I feel terrible.”
She shifted her weight just a bit more, pushing her hips ever so slightly forward. So subtle were her motions that no one except Mary herself would be able to recognize their artful deliberateness. Mr. Alvetto backed up suddenly, red faced and flustered.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself, Mary,” he sputtered, while trying to hide the bottom half of his body behind his desk. “I think you need to take a little more time to cope with what’s happened. Why don’t you take the rest of the day, and we’ll start fresh tomorrow?”
And Mary almost laughed. Sometimes she just couldn’t believe how easy it was. But instead she made her face look tortured and let her gaze drop down to her feet, thinking only of her pleasure at the thought of Mrs. Violette learning that she had been given the afternoon off. “Okay, Mr. Alvetto.”
“I’ll handle everything with Mrs. Violette.”
Mary nodded, still trying to look ashamed and remorseful. “Thank you.”
So Mary went home, picked Hannah up from Mrs. Pool’s, and took her to McDonald’s for lunch.
“When’s my birthday?” asked Hannah, as she took a bite of her cheeseburger.
“On February fourteenth,” answered Mary. “Valentine’s Day.”
“I’m going to be five.”
Mary made herself smile. “You are.”
They got back to the Water’s Edge just as the mail truck was pulling away, leaving a fresh crop of sympathy cards. There was a thick one on the top from her mother’s cousin, Gail. Their Christmas card always included a photograph, and Mary recalled the way her mother had always studied it when it came. In the last, she was posed with her husband and son on a cream-colored couch, a large abstract painting hanging in the background. Mary had heard her mother make enough comments to know that Gail and her husband had money—he was an entrepreneur and had recently been elected to the state senate. They think they’re God’s gift.
After Mary put Hannah to bed that night, she filled another bucket with water and carried it—sloshing and steaming—into another guest room. And that night as she cleaned, she pictured Gail’s husband, with his tanned skin and dirty blond hair. She pictured Mr. Alvetto blushing and hiding behind his desk. She pictured the lawyer with his shabby suit and fat fingers.
Her hands were red and raw, her skin thin from the water and the cleansers, but Mary scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. She knew that she wouldn’t raise Hannah in Sandy Bank. Sandy Bank was where people died. Her grandmother had died during childbirth, bleeding to death on the delivery table. Her grandfather had lingered for only three months after his diagnosis. And her mother had driven her car into a telephone pole, her organs pulverized. Even the town itself died every winter.
No, she and Hannah wouldn’t stay in Sandy Bank. They would leave. They would disappear, two princesses escaping in the night, running through the Black Woods with wolves at their heels. It was the two of them now, the last of their house. They would be deceitful when they had to, they would use the powers they were granted, and they would make their way back to the one person Mary always knew she would once again find. And that evening, as the knees of Mary’s jeans grew stiff and wet, as her hands went back and forth, she devised her plan.
Five
1981
Mary noticed the way Hannah sat up in the backseat, angling herself to get a better view of the palm-shaded gatehouse at the entrance to Cocoplum Estates. An elderly black man stood from his stool and waved the Mercedes through, tipping his hat to Gail, but Gail was too busy sizing up the two girls in her backseat to notice.
“We’re so glad you’re able to spend Christmas with us,” said Gail, her red lips forming a false smile, her voice carrying an anxious lilt. “It was just such a surprise.”
Mary softened her face. “We just wanted to be around family,” she said, wrapping one of her arms around Hannah. “And the card you sent was so nice.”
Mary watched as Gail’s smile faltered as she recalled the rote sentiment and empty offer she had included in the sympathy card she’d mailed after Diane’s death. If you need anything at all, we’re here for you. You are not alone. Gail had surely thought it classy, elegant—that morsel of sympathy tossed from her jewel-bedecked hand. Mary had to look out of the window to keep from laughing. She remembered the silence on the other end of the phone when she first called her mother’s cousin. Hannah and I are hoping to come for Christmas. We bought our tickets!
Cocoplum Estates was a cluster of massive homes with white stucco exteriors and orange clay roofs set against a cloudless blue sky. Their backyards all had kidney-shaped aquamarine pools and enormous central air-conditioning units that whirred in unison to create a constant pervasive white noise. There were tennis courts and sidewalks and a marina, but Mary didn’t see a soul outside aside from the hunched gardeners with sweat-slick faces who tended to the sprinkler-fed lawns.
“Here we are,” said Gail, as the Mercedes turned onto the smooth black driveway of one of the nearly identical homes in the community. Sailing into the garage, Gail brought the car to a stop, then turned to look back at her cousin’s daughters once again. Hannah was leaning in close to Mary, shrinking against the enormity that surrounded her.
“Alright, girls,” said Gail, opening the door. Thick humid air rushed into the cool, clean car as she swung her tanned, tennis-toned legs onto the concrete. She then took a deep strength-gathering breath before rising. “Let’s get your bags.”
Mary took Hannah’s hand. “Come on, Bunny,” she whispered.
The girls followed Gail to the back of the car, where she popped the trunk and stared down at the three large suitcases the girls had brought with them. It did not look like the luggage of two girls who had come for a weeklong visit. It looked like the luggage of guests who planned on staying for a while. “Oh, my goodness,” Gail had said, when she saw Mary haul the suitcases off the baggage carousel at the airport, a manic laugh sputtering out. She looked at Mary, clearly hoping for reassurance that the planned duration of their visit had not changed or that the enormity of their bags could be otherwise explained. But Mary had just smiled sweetly. “I hope these will fit your car.”