But any of these women would be foolish to think that being acquainted with a man’s habits or having sex with him in a parked truck is the same thing as knowing him. They don’t know Hollis, and they never will. They wouldn’t even guess, for instance, that Hollis actually goes around and opens the door of the truck for March. He’s parked on the far side of Main Street, beside the Founder’s statue, which for tonight’s celebration someone has dressed with an olive wreath on his stone head and a long, flowing cape tied over his granite shoulders. March touches the Founder’s cold knee for luck, the way all the children in town do. She knows that she’ll think about this moment when Hollis opened the door to his truck for her, over and over again. She’ll remember the stars and the feel of granite. This, after all, is the instant when she did the exact right or wrong thing, depending on what happens next. Will she wonder if she was thinking straight? Will she guess the orange moon above affected her decision, or was it the cold weather, or the way he looked at her, or the wind that was shaking the trees?
You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go—into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you’re not really there, you’re someplace else where there is blue sky and a road you don’t recognize. If you squint your eyes, you think you see him, in the shadows, beyond the trees. You always imagine that you see him, but he’s never there. It’s only his spirit, that’s what’s there beneath the bed when you kiss your husband, there when you send your daughter off to school. It’s in your coffee cup, your bathwater, your tears. Unfinished business always comes back to haunt you, and a man who swears he’ll love you forever isn’t finished with you until he’s done.
As they drive through town, March watches Hollis carefully ; everything about him is both completely familiar and absolutely alien. When she knew him he didn’t have these lines in his face, and the nervous cough he seems to have now. She thinks of the moment when she first saw him, the way he squinted his eyes in the sun, how dark his hair was, how ready he was to run. It is that boy who is beside her in the pickup truck. That boy who kisses her when they stop at a red light. March is nearly forty; beneath the drugstore tint she has those same gray streaks plaited through her hair which appeared the winter he went away, but this boy doesn’t seem to mind. He wants her not only for who she is, but for who she was: The girl who never got over him. The one who knew him inside out.
The women at the Lyon can only imagine how deep Hollis’s kisses are, since he never kisses any of them, at least not on the mouth. His embrace is hot and greedy, exactly the way March remembers. When the light turns to green March pulls away. She has always considered herself a loyal sort of person, but loyal to whom? Richard knew what he was getting into when he married her. It was Hollis back then, and maybe it still is. Maybe she’s no longer a woman with everything to lose. She’s a girl again. She’s March Murray, whose father is everyone’s favorite lawyer, whose big brother is lazy and drinks too much. She’s the one with dark hair and too much confidence, who does whatever she’s not supposed to when no one’s looking, when no one’s around.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” Hollis says. “That much is true.”
He smiles, that same predatory grin which always frightened other people, but only served to convince March that she knew him best of all. The difference between a lion and a lamb, some might suggest, is in the naming, not in the beast itself. Both are warm-blooded—isn’t that a fact? Both close their eyes when they settle down to sleep for the night.
As they turn onto the rutted dirt road, Hollis has to switch on the wipers to keep wet leaves from sticking to the windshield. There are tornadoes of leaves, and fallen branches are scattered across the road. It’s getting colder by the minute; it’s the sort of night when pumpkins will freeze on the vine, and grapes will turn hard and become far too bitter to use for jelly or pies. It’s a night when any sparrow or dove foolish enough to nest in this town for the winter will realize a mistake has been made, and survival will depend not on skill but on plain blind luck.
All over town tonight, the wind will drive women from their beds. They’ll think of their first true love and search through their jewelry boxes for trinkets—gold lockets, ticket stubs, strands of hair. March would be one of those women, but instead she’s here, on the road where there were once so many foxes. If truth be told, she’s been here all this time, in this dark and windy place, like a ghost trapped inside the location of her memory.
Hollis pulls over beside the quince bushes, where he parked the other night when he watched March walk the dog. He turns the key in the ignition, and once he does that the wind sounds ferocious. They used to hide and do this whenever they had the chance: pretend there was no one else in the world. Hollis has his arms around her, beneath her coat. He begins to kiss her, the way he used to, but before March can respond, she hears a sound and pulls away. Someone is out on the porch.
“Shit,” Hollis says. “What is she doing there?”
From this distance, Gwen looks like a girl March has never seen before. She’s wearing her black jacket, but under the glow of the yellow porch light, she could be anyone. Gwen’s face is flushed, but the color in her cheeks isn’t from the cold. On this night, when the Founder ran over the hill, she seems to have fallen in love. She can’t stop thinking about Hank—everything he said, everything he did. He held her hand all the way across the hill; before he left, he kissed her goodnight, and she can’t get that kiss out of her mind. In truth, she hopes she never will.
“She’s going inside,” March whispers to Hollis as Gwen fumbles with the door. Once Gwen goes into the house, they wait for her to close the door, but instead she reappears with the dog. How surprisingly responsible. What bad timing.
“She’s taking the dog for a walk,” March says.
Hollis groans and leans his head against the seat.
March laughs, then leans close and kisses him. Who is the child here? Who is the reckless girl? She kisses him again and again. as if daring fate, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“That’s right,” Hollis whispers to her, as if she were still that good girl she used to be, only too ready to please. “Give me more,” he tells her.
Just then, Sister turns in the direction of the parked truck and barks, a long yip that is usually meant for rabbits. The dog is staring at the quince bushes, which March hopes can hide Hollis’s truck from Gwen’s view. Thankfully, Sister is on a leash, and Gwen gives the dog a tug in the other direction, back toward the house.
You have to go where you’re taken, don’t you? You have to follow where you’re led. Don’t think, don’t stop, don’t hesitate. Maybe this is destiny; it’s the hand of fate against your skin, the love of your life. If there’s a warning to be heard, March won’t listen. She’s like those foolish doves who have stayed on to nest in the chestnut tree this fall, and who will probably freeze to death before the New Year. She’s kin to the rabbit who dared to cross Sister’s path, then decided it might be best to lie silent, rather than break and run.
Hollis has his hand inside her jeans now; he’s pushed her down so that her back is flat against the seat. She knows the way he likes it, as if love was a secret; or at least, that’s the way he likes it with her. Other women, the ones from the Lyon, would say he prefers to get his business over with fast, and maybe it’s just as well. He’s so intense he can scare some women. Alison Hartwig fainted the first time Hollis fucked her, and now she calls him every day on the telephone, so she can hear his voice and imagine that he loves her before she hangs up.
All this time, March is the one Hollis has wanted. She’s the one who made him miserable, and he hasn’t forgotten that for a moment. Night after night, he’s come here and parked in this same exact space, to stare at this house. Over and over again, he’s anticipated the hour when she’d come back to him, and how good it w
ould be to have her be the one to beg, but maybe he’s waited too long. Maybe all that waiting has tainted things, and left his love with a sour taste. It’s always been this way for Hollis; the more he has of something, the more he wants. Maybe he can never be satisfied, but he knows how to satisfy March; he’s doing it right now, she’s there at the edge as he moves his fingers inside her slowly. He doesn’t stop when she tells him to, and then he stops just when she’s about to come. He kisses her then, he leaves her longing for more; desperate is exactly the way he wants her.
By now, Gwen has unhooked the dog’s leash and gotten herself a soda from the fridge. Maybe she’s wondering why her mother’s out so late, as she goes into the sewing room, where her bed is made up. Maybe she thinks she sees something, there behind the quince, when she looks through the window. On any other night, March would have worried about her daughter, alone in the house, but she can’t think about that now. She’s already agreeing to see Hollis tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that. Sometimes love is like a house without any doors. It’s a sky filled with so many stars it’s impossible to see a single one. Out in the front yard, the mourning doves are chattering with the cold. Their pale gray feathers are no comfort in the wind, yet they stay. It’s too late, after all; they made their choice at the end of summer. They’ll just have to accept the consequences.
11
Every Wednesday afternoon, at the farmers’ market held in the parking lot of the library, Louise Justice buys fresh herbs. She always fixes her roast chicken the way the Judge likes it, with sage and pepper and plenty of rosemary, for remembrance. In October, the weather can be a tricky thing, but today it’s warm and sunny, with a wide blue sky that brings tears to Louise’s eyes. She knows everyone at the market, and has for years. She waves at Harriet Laughton, who’s buying so much her grandchildren must be coming up from Boston for the weekend. Funny thing—in the sunlight Louise’s own hands look strange to her, with their brown spots and thin, papery skin. She can practically see right down to the bone.
There, on her right hand, she wears the opal her grand-mother left to her, a gift she has come to believe has brought her bad luck. She’s grown so convinced of this that she went down to that new lawyer in town, Janet Travis, and asked for an addendum to the will the Judge drew up for them. She wants the opal sold and the proceeds to go to the Fire-men’s Fund. She’ll be damned if she leaves the dreadful thing to Susie.
No one in town would consider Louise to be unlucky, and she certainly would never reveal anything that might lead to this conviction. It’s no one’s business, is it, really? No one’s but hers alone. She heads for the flats of marigolds Millie Hartwig is selling, making sure to avoid that old Jimmy Parrish, who seems to admire racehorses far more than he does human beings. Well, maybe he’s got something there. When Louise was growing up, on Mount Vernon Street in Boston, she thought life was a fine and glorious thing. She believed that all her dreams would come true, and why not? She was spoiled and pretty and knew how to charm a man. She met the Judge at a Christmas party when she was sixteen and he was twenty, and aside from the times she’s wanted to murder him, which are too numerous to count, she has always loved him. One man, for all these years. One man, who hasn’t loved her back.
Louise has often wondered if Susie hasn’t picked up on her unhappiness, for Louise’s beautiful daughter has never married, and it seems she never will. Not that Susie hasn’t had her share of boyfriends. You can’t live in this town and not be aware that Susie has dated nearly every available man. Currently, she’s seeing Ed Milton, the police chief, and of course Louise is not supposed to know about it, since Susie is a terribly private person, which is downright impossible in a town as small as this. Gossip is a strange thing; it’s both silly and painful, and although people are careful not to talk in front of Louise, she has certainly felt its sting.
“Do not buy the cranberry-walnut tart.”
Harriet Laughton has come up beside her.
“Too much sugar?” Louise guesses.
“Lard,” Harriet informs Louise.
“I’ve cut out all sweets, anyway.” Louise waves to Ken Helm, who does odd jobs for her and is over at the far end of the market, selling bundles of firewood. Louise and Harriet start to walk on together, but Louise spies some yarn and stops to riffle through the display basket. Soft lamb’s wool, splendid stuff. She needs another skein to finish the blanket for Susie’s Christmas present. Not that Susie needs her blanket to stay warm—from what Louise hears, Ed Milton is practically living at her place, buying Susie’s groceries and walking her dogs. Well, good for Susie. Great for her.
“You’d never know what she was up to,” Harriet says now. “From the innocent look of her.”
Louise glances up and sees that Harriet is referring to March Murray, who’s over at the bakery kiosk, reaching for one of the cranberry-walnut tarts. March laughs as she pays the vendor. With her dark hair loose, wearing old jeans, she looks like a girl.
“I hear they can’t get enough of each other,” Harriet whispers. “Just like the bad old days.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard wrong,” Louise says. She can discern a prim tone creeping into her voice. “March Murray is too smart a girl to fool around with the likes of him.”
Louise sees a softening in Harriet’s face, something like pity, which Louise never could stand. As if Louise didn’t comprehend that love has nothing to do with intelligence or common sense. As if she was some fuddy-duddy who didn’t know what was happening for all those years.
“I’m off,” she tells Harriet, and she lets the yarn fall back into the basket. She’ll get it next week, if it’s still what she wants. “See you Thursday,” she calls over her shoulder, for that is their bridge night and has been for thirty-two years. It was almost that long ago that she found out, and for all that time she has kept her mouth shut. She’s done better than most well-trained prisoners of war, and in a way, she’s proud of herself.
Still, October is always difficult for Louise. It was this time of year when she discovered the ring, a square emerald set in eighteen-karat gold, in the pocket of the Judge’s overcoat. She remembers smiling when she opened the little plastic case from the jewelers in Boston, so sure was she that the ring was meant to be her birthday present in November. But for her birthday that year, the Judge gave her a bathrobe, peach silk, from Lord & Taylor. Nice, but no emerald. She waited then, for Christmas. She was sure the small package he placed beneath the tree contained the ring, but it was a thin, gold bracelet. Lovely, of course, but she has never worn it. That bracelet is in the back of her jewelry box, where it will remain.
Although she should get home and start dinner, Louise goes over to the bakery table. She’s always had a soft spot for March Murray, that motherless child, that very foolish girl. Of course Louise has heard about March and Hollis renewing their relationship—it’s all over town that they left the Lyon together on Founder’s Day—but she certainly wouldn’t want Harriet Laughton to be apprised that their reunion is anything more than gossip. For her part, Louise knows more about Hollis than she cares to. She was one of those people who thought Henry Murray was crazy to bring him home in the first place, since she’d been informed, via the Judge, that by the age of thirteen Hollis had been at Juvenile Hall over twenty times. His own family couldn’t handle him, so what did Henry expect? Perhaps Louise’s attitude concerning Hollis was a narrow one, but she still thinks she was right. No. She is certain that she was right. They should have left Hollis up in Boston, where he belonged.
“I guess you’re not going to worry about calories today,” Louise says as she comes up to March.
March has bought two of the tarts Harriet Laughton insists are baked with lard, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. When she sees it’s Louise beside her, March puts down her purchases so she can embrace her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” March laughs. “I had an urge for all this.” She looks beautiful in the thin sunlight; her
skin is so fresh and she has that sweet, dizzy expression that women with secrets often possess.
Louise waits for March to pay for the baked goods, and that’s when she sees the ring.
“Do you like it?” March has noticed Louise staring and now she holds up her hand. “It was Judith Dale’s.”
“Yes. I recognized it.”
They are heading toward the parking lot now, and Louise simply ignores the pain in her side.
“What an incredible day,” March says, staring up at the blue sky.
“Susie says you’re staying longer than you’d originally planned,” Louise says, tactfully, she hopes.
“There’s so much to go through in that house. It’s like sifting through the past.”
March has always liked Louise, but now she wishes they hadn’t run into each other. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone. She doesn’t want to think. She’s going to have to tell Richard, and yet she can’t. In the evenings, the phone rings and rings, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she calls his office at odd hours, when she knows he won’t be there and she can leave cheerful messages. Well-meaning little reports which contain absolutely no personal information.
“That’s what Susie says, there’s a lot to be done.” Louise will leave it at that. She doesn’t need to have it all spelled out for her; she can tell what’s going on from the look on March’s face. She used to notice the same thing with the Judge sometimes, that identical dazed expression, half puzzled, half delirious, like a man who’d been struck by lightning and was somehow glad of it.