“I want you out of this car,” he told her.
Lee looked over at him, surprised that he hadn’t put the car back into gear and begun the drive home; she had no idea that his past had been chasing him all night long, that it had been following him for years.
“All these years of being married, and now if you’re so goddamned unhappy you’d better leave.” He shoved her harder; she had to grab onto the Camaro’s upholstery or be thrown from the car. “Get out,” Silver told her.
“I won’t,” Lee said, frightened at what she’d begun.
Silver wrenched up the emergency brake; he got out, walked around the car, then pulled Lee out onto the sidewalk.
“You heard me,” he said. “Start walking.”
“Don’t do this,” Lee whispered.
In the back seat, Teresa had made certain to turn away from them. Still she could hear them, even when she covered her ears with her hands she could hear them tearing each other apart. She wanted to disappear, but silently, quickly and without a word, so that she would not have to see just how cruel Silver could be.
Now Silver reached into the car, took Lee’s purse, and threw it on the ground. It landed by her feet, a lipstick in a gold case fell out and rolled into the street.
“Stop it,” Lee pleaded. “I love you,” she said.
“Well, don’t,” Silver told her. He stared at her coldly. “It won’t do you any good, so just don’t.”
He turned away from her, slammed the passenger door shut, then walked around and got back into the car. He put the Camaro into gear and stepped down on the gas so hard that Teresa fell back in her seat. As they drove away, Teresa turned and wiped off a circle of glass in the rear window; Lee was running after them, she followed for nearly a block, she followed until she turned her ankle and the heel came off one of her shoes.
Silver drove fast, he didn’t give a damn about speed limits, he ran one red light, and finally stopped at a second. When he stopped, Teresa climbed over into the front seat. She took one of the Marlboros from a pack on the dashboard, lit it, and handed it to Silver. He took the cigarette gratefully, and smiled to think that his sister would know what he needed even before he did. And he drove carefully after that; for the first time that night he felt a little like his old self, the sort of man who didn’t shake with fear the minute an old enemy showed up, the sort who didn’t blow up the minute his wife said one wrong word.
“She asked for it,” he explained to Teresa. “She’s been driving me crazy.”
Teresa sat with her back against the passenger door so that she could watch him.
“I’m not worried about Lee,” Silver said. “She’ll find her way home sooner or later. Or she’ll go up to her mother’s and call me in the morning, crying and begging me to drive up and get her. That’s what she’ll do—she’ll make me drive all the way to fucking Santa Rosa.”
The words Lee and Silver had said to each other echoed in Teresa’s cars. “Did you marry her just because she wanted you to?” she asked.
“What was I supposed to do?” Silver said. “Was I supposed to disappear when she got pregnant, just take off and go to Los Angeles?” He wanted to be nothing like King Connors, and he wondered now, as they drove home, if his father had ever married again, if he had left a string of wives, each time using a new excuse: a walk to the corner for a pack of cigarettes, a job in another city, a night-fishing trip from which he would never come back. “I could have done it,” Silver told Teresa. “Could have done it easy. Except for one thing—it wasn’t right. That was the reason.” He shrugged. “I did what was right.”
All the rest of the drive home Teresa was silent, but when they reached the apartment and Silver was parking the car, she turned to him again.
“It wasn’t because you loved her?” she asked.
Silver turned the key in the ignition, he switched off the headlights; he knew what she was asking, and he leaned over so that he was barely an inch away.
“What do you think?” Silver said. “Do you think she’s the love of my life?”
Teresa got out of the car and ran all the way to the front door. She had wanted to ask him for years, wanted him to say it out loud, and so finally she knew for sure: he didn’t love Lee. That was all there was to it. When Silver came up on the porch to unlock the front door, Teresa put her arm around his waist; in the shadows of the porch he looked exactly the same as he always had, not one thing about him ever seemed to change, and the doubts Teresa had felt about her brother when she saw Angel Gregory in the restaurant all disappeared.
“You’re not afraid of Gregory,” Teresa said.
“Me?” Silver said mockingly. “Afraid?”
“He wouldn’t hurt you,” Teresa said.
“That old man? He wouldn’t dare.”
Silver saw himself reflected in Teresa’s eyes and he felt as though he could never be afraid; when she looked at him that way he could almost forget she was his sister. Teresa went to push open the front door, but he stopped her, then lowered his voice.
“You’re the only one who really knows me,” he said. “The only one who understands me.”
Inside the apartment there was a fifteen-year-old babysitter who had spent all night making long-distance phone calls, dialing random numbers in the hope of reaching her favorite star. And in Lee and Silver’s bedroom, Jackie slept in a crib that was much too small and dreamed of rooms where no one spoke.
“Come over here,” Silver said and he pulled Teresa close before she had time to answer. “We never get any time alone,” he whispered. “And I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a lot.”
Silver lifted her hair away from her throat; he bent down and kissed her, a kiss that left behind a mark in the shape of a rose, the imprint of his tongue.
Teresa closed her eyes; she wanted him never to stop. “I wish she would never come home,” she said, and she spoke in a whisper, as if there was a watchful adult inside the apartment, rather than a girl who had just learned how to put on mascara.
“You don’t love her,” Teresa said. “You told me you don’t.”
For a second Silver felt as sober as he’d ever been. “Forget it. Forget all about it.” He opened the door for her. “Get inside.”
“You don’t,” Teresa whispered before she went in. “And I know you don’t.”
They walked into the kitchen, Teresa following behind. Silver went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer, and Teresa sat down next to Marie, the babysitter. She felt out of breath and angry; she wished that she and Silver were strangers; she was certain if they were, if they had just met, if they hadn’t the same last name, he would never have stopped with one kiss.
“Are you making those phone calls again?” Silver asked the babysitter.
“What phone calls?” Marie said.
“Come on,” Silver said to Marie. He left the half-empty bottle of beer on the table. “I’ll walk you home. We can discuss the calls you made to Los Angeles the last time you were here.”
“I can walk myself home,” Marie said, but Silver insisted.
“Nothing doing,” he said. He wanted to get out of the apartment; Teresa’s faith in him had given him a boy’s courage, he wished that Gregory would come out and face him in the street tonight, he was certain he could win any fight, except, perhaps, the fight to stay away from Teresa. She was sitting at the table, she was watching him with those eyes, eyes that were the color of slow midnights.
“Let’s go,” Silver told Marie. “I told your parents you’d be home early.”
“You’re lucky,” Teresa told the babysitter as the girl put on her jacket and reached for the stack of movie magazines she had been reading all night. “A lot of girls would give just about anything to have Silver walk them home.”
“Oh, yeah?” Marie said. To her, Silver seemed much too old for romance.
“What girls are those?” Silver teased. “Give me their phone numbers. Give me their addresses.” And when Marie had walked do
wn the hallway to wait for him at the front door, he lowered his voice. “What girls are those?” he whispered.
Silver noticed now that the kitchen was a mess; Lee hadn’t done that day’s dishes, a coffee cup with a ring of her lipstick on it was on the counter, a gray sweater was draped over the back of one of the chain.
“Maybe she took me seriously,” Silver said. “Maybe she’s not coming home tonight.”
He took the cup with the lipstick and rinsed it out, then placed it carefully on the drainboard.
“So what if she doesn’t?” Teresa asked, and she was surprised to find her voice taking on the tone she had used with dozens of men, each and every one of her Santa Rosa lovers, men she had known would take her to bed the minute she saw them. “What if she doesn’t come home?”
“It’s dangerous without her here,” Silver said simply. “And I don’t like it.” Silver found himself thinking of roses. He imagined a bed covered with silken petals. “Maybe you’d better go to a motel tonight,” he told his sister. “Or go to Bergen’s. Maybe you’d better not be here when I get back.”
But when Silver left to walk Marie home, Teresa didn’t call a cab, she didn’t make reservations at a motel or telephone Bergen, though she knew the detective could drive over and pick her up in less than fifteen minutes. Instead, she opened the door of Lee and Silver’s bedroom and made certain that Jackie was asleep, she put Atlas out on the back porch, then went into the living room and pulled down all the shades. And after she had made up the bed in her room with cold, clean sheets, she noticed that her knuckles were white, the veins in her wrists were as green as aquarium water. She took off all her clothes, she shut off the light, and she knew she could have Silver that night if she wanted; as long as Lee didn’t come home, he was hers. Teresa put her head down on the pillow and imagined that she was in her own bed in Santa Rosa; irises the color of the sky grew outside, and in the room right next door the sheets on Silver’s empty bed were still wrinkled from when he had wakened at noon. Dina was sitting at the foot of her bed, she wore a mohair shawl with fringes, she whispered a story about the night riders who always traveled west.
“You’ll hear their horses long before you see them,” Dina told her. “The earth will shake and then you’ll see that one horse is tied to the front porch. When this horse shakes his head his mane will be the color of snow, and you’ll know it can only be an Aria who has a horse like that, only an Aria who would dare to ride up to your front door in the middle of the night.”
And by the time Silver came back home it was nearly the middle of the night; he had considered not going back at all, he could have spent the night in the back seat of the Camaro, could have easily found a woman to take him home and hold him tight till morning. He had stopped at El Calderon and had two beers, he had watched a woman dressed in black velvet slacks dance alone to a song playing on the jukebox, but in the end he walked home, he couldn’t help himself. The neighborhood felt deserted, his boots echoed on the cement, and he knew, as soon as he walked in the front door, that Lee hadn’t come back. He didn’t stop to think, he couldn’t have stopped to think, he went straight to the bedroom at the back of the house. Teresa had moved close to the wall to leave room in the bed for him. He took off his shirt, but he was still half dressed when he got in beside her, he didn’t dare give himself the time to reconsider. As soon as he was next to her the sheets seemed burning hot. He put his arms around her, and she wrapped her legs around his; when they kissed their loneliness surfaced like a knot, and Teresa felt every part of her shudder, every part of her sigh.
“This is crazy,” Silver murmured. “Crazy.”
And later, when he had already moved and was on top of her, Silver couldn’t help but go on; he tried to stop himself, he whispered about his doubts.
“If anybody knew about this…” he said. “If Lee came home.”
Teresa’s eyes were closed; she touched his lips with her tongue, she whispered his name, over and over again, and the sound gave him courage, and he got out of bed and took off his boots, and folded his black linen slacks over a chair. He hurried, he knew she was waiting for him, knew she was still calling his name, and he told himself no one would ever know, he convinced himself that it was impossible for anyone to ever find out, and he went back to the bed and lay down on the sheets that had been cold only a few hours before and he held her like a man who was drowning, a man who didn’t dare test his passion by waiting any longer.
Silver had been right to guess that Lee would think about going back to Santa Rosa, and she did go as far as the bus station on Market Street. She sat in the bus station for hours, she was overwhelmed by the sense that if she didn’t go back home that night it would be too late, she might never be able to return. She thought about Dina’s funeral, about the night Silver had hit her and then regretted it. She thought about his clothes hanging next to her dresses and skirts in the closet in the bedroom, she imagined him sitting in the dark on those nights when his insomnia wouldn’t leave him alone and he thought she was sleeping, when really she was lying in bed with her eyes open, just waiting for him to come back to bed. She got out of the bus station, and she got out fast. Lee took a cab home; she unlocked the front door and walked inside. Because Jackie was asleep, she took off her shoes and went through the house quietly, but even though Lee had seen the Camaro outside, Silver wasn’t in bed, he wasn’t in the living room watching a late-night movie on TV, or in the kitchen, angry at her for having stayed out so late. Lee went into the bathroom and stood by the sink, but she didn’t wash; she stared at herself in the mirror, she was surprised to find that she looked as tired as she did, and as scared. She walked down the hall to Teresa’s bedroom, a room that really should have been Jackie’s—he was too old to share Lee and Silver’s bedroom, too old to sleep in a crib. Lee stood outside the bedroom door for a long time, even when she finally opened it she didn’t want to, but her hand acted on its own and she couldn’t seem to stop it, she couldn’t do anything but watch as her fingers turned the doorknob, and after she had done that it was certainly too late to close the door, and go back to her own bedroom and wait for Silver to come back to bed.
Teresa had kept her eyes closed all the time they had been together; but even with her eyes closed she could see Silver, as if each one of his features had been stamped onto the insides of her eyelids. With her eyes closed she could see his dark hair, his high cheekbones, the eyes that were the same exact color as her own. Once he was inside her, once they began to move together she closed her eyes tighter, and in doing so saw him even more clearly, saw him as if there were a thousand electric lights surrounding him. He licked her skin, tasting her, making her feel as though no space separated them, as if it were impossible for their bodies to ever be separated. When the door opened, Teresa heard the wood scrape, she turned quickly and opened her eyes to see Lee standing there, watching them as if she had stumbled across the wont thing she had ever seen, as if she had discovered something worse than murder.
A stream of light had come into the room from the hallway; the light hit Silver’s back and shoulders and he could feel it penetrate his skin. He turned to the door, he blinked in the glare of the hallway light but his eyes wouldn’t focus. It was then Teresa really looked at him, she looked at him for the first time since he had come into the bed, and maybe it was the combination of darkness and light in the room, maybe it was that her eyes wouldn’t focus, but for a minute she didn’t know who he was. For a second her throat was dry, her heart absolutely still. Silver was a stranger; he wasn’t the boy she thought had been making love to her, his face was wrong, all wrong. His eyes weren’t as dark as they should have been, his features were much too sharp. Teresa backed away from him, she edged up against the cold plaster wall and tried to breathe, but each breath was like a knife, each breath brought a fist that reached upward to her throat and wouldn’t let in any air.
As soon as Silver’s eyes adjusted to the light, and he saw Lee standing in the doorway, h
e jumped out of bed. He ran to the door and kicked it shut so viciously that the wood around the hinges split, and the door missed slamming into Lee’s face by less than an inch. Silver stood motionless, staring at the closed door until he realized that he was shivering, the small bedroom suddenly seemed as cold as ice. He turned to Teresa; she was sitting up, her back against the wall. She couldn’t catch her breath, she was wheezing now, a soft choking noise. Silver went over to the bed and held her.
“Breathe,” he told her. “Just breathe.”
Finally, Teresa knew who he was, finally she began to cough and then, at last, to breathe again.
“All right?” Silver whispered, and when Teresa nodded Silver picked up his clothes and began to get dressed.
They could both hear Lee now; she had gone into the kitchen, she was opening every cabinet, taking out each glass, every ceramic cup, anything that was breakable she threw against the wall. Jackie had been awakened, and his cries echoed everywhere. The whole house was shaking, the air in the bedroom was heavy, it was the air of earthquake weather, even though the sky outside the window was calm, in only a few hours the sun would be leaving thin streams of orange light all over the backyard.
“There’s nothing for anyone to be upset about,” Silver said softly. He buttoned each of his shirt buttons carefully; he had to, his fingers were shaking. “Nothing happened here.”
Silver tucked his shirttail into his slacks, he reached for the comb on Teresa’s bureau and ran it through his hair.
Teresa was still having difficulty breathing, she paused between words. “Silver, she saw us.”
“Saw what?” Silver said. He sat down on the bed and pulled on his boots; he reached toward his crotch, annoyed that his erection hadn’t disappeared as quickly as his memory had. “She didn’t see anything,” he told Teresa. “She’ll believe whatever I tell her, and I’m telling her nothing happened.”
Teresa wrapped the top sheet around her. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “It’s a lie.”