MARY AND O'NEIL (20 page)

But then it was over; she was still young, and her strength returned quickly. She walked each morning, ate the proper foods, gave up the stolen cigarettes at parties. Her hair came in; one day she left the house without a hat and didn’t realize until she was already downtown and saw her reflection in a store window. At Sam’s hockey games, or in line at the grocery store, or in the back of the church after services, a sea of amazed and happy eyes met hers.
Look at you!
they all said.
You’re looking so well!
Healthy, normal people: how did they do it? She marveled at their innocence, their easy greed for life. She had friends who rock-climbed, drove without seat belts, who hadn’t had so much as a checkup in years. What could they be thinking? She had stepped back into the world, but not completely; she was an imposter, half ghost, a spy from the shadows. She carried her new health through the crowds like a crystal chalice, and every three months she returned to the far side of the river, that awful ward of the dying: more blood drawn, chest X rays, tumor markers. In August, a year after the surgery, she had a full-body CAT scan—dreadful, a ride in a coffin, her ears pounding with a sound like sheets of metal pushed through a sawblade. It was when the doctor reported the results, smiling for the first time at the good news, that she knew that everyone had expected her to die. Beside her, Jack had broken down and wept.

A waiter came by; she asked for iced tea, then changed her order to wine, though she knew she would only taste it. The boys were building mud castles on the wet plain left behind by the receding evening tide. The waiter returned, bearing her single glass on a tray. After such a year, here she was, holding a glass of wine on a beach a thousand miles away from the April mud of Vermont. She sipped the wine, its cold sweetness like golden light on her tongue. Sunshine, her body strong, Sam and Noah happy again, or at least not afraid: what else was there to wish for? When she was very sick, she had tried to imagine a day like this one, to hold it in her mind. So perhaps that was the reason: all of it felt like a gift.

“Come here, boys.”

They came to where she was sitting. Their bare chests were streaked with wet sand. She hugged them together.

Noah touched her face. “Mama, why are you crying?”

She hadn’t noticed. She wiped a tear away with her thumb. “I’m just happy to see you. Sometimes grown-ups cry because they’re happy.”

Sam frowned skeptically; she thought he was going to ask about his father. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

She hugged them again. “Not at all,” she said.

When they returned to the condo, Jack was snoring away. His arm lay over his eyes. Thirteen years of marriage: her mind circled this thought, feeling only a mild surprise at the swift passage of time. In the adjoining room she bathed the boys, dressed them in clean shorts and T-shirts, and took them to the restaurant to wait for their father. It was the early seating for dinner; most of the other guests had children with them, even babies. At the table next to theirs a young mother spooned food into a little girl’s mouth from a tiny jar. A quick, heady thrill passed through her, remembering the years when the boys were small: Sam’s tiny mouth as he reached for his bottle, the smell and heat of Noah’s skin, like warm bread and cinnamon. So delicious, even to be near them; there were days, she had joked, when she could have eaten them whole. One wasn’t supposed to feel this way anymore—having children was a sideline, a concession to biology one made in the midst of other things—and yet it was the only true desire she’d ever possessed.

“When’s Daddy coming?” Sam asked.

She opened their menus. “He’ll be along. Why don’t we order?”

She ordered hamburgers for the boys, filet for Jack, swordfish for herself. She had given Jack a nudge before they’d left for the restaurant, and she worried that he’d fallen back asleep. But just as their food arrived, he appeared in the doorway of the restaurant.

“Sorry.” He seated himself next to the boys. Beside Noah and Sam she saw how pale his arms and face were. “How was the beach, boys? Did you miss me?” He tousled Noah’s hair. “How’s our zoologist? See any fish?”

The little boy shrugged and chewed. “Minnows.”

Jack looked around. “Where’s Mia?”

“I gave her the rest of the afternoon off,” Kay said. “I think she met someone.”

Jack salted his steak and said nothing.

“A boy her age,” Kay explained. “He works with the boats.”

“His name is Thomas,” Noah said.

Jack frowned. “She should be careful,” he said.

The waiter came to the table, and Jack ordered a beer, and Cokes for the boys; they were each allowed one soft drink with dinner. “I’m just saying we might be liable. If anything happens. You get off the grounds, it’s a different world down here.”

“He seemed very nice,” Kay said. “You wanted her to have some fun, remember?”

They finished their dinner. Outside on the patio a steel band was setting up to play. As they were leaving, Mia arrived, half running, wearing a sundress, her hair gleaming and wet from the shower. The boys took her each by a hand.

“We went to a castle,” she told them breathlessly. “On motorbikes! Just like in Denmark. It was very fun.”

“We finished dinner,” Kay said. “But go get something and charge it to the room.”

“It’s fine,” Mia said, smiling. “I’ve eaten already.”

“Can we go to the castle?” Sam wanted to know.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Kay said.

“Why is it always maybe?” Sam stuck out his lower lip the way he had done since he was a baby. “Just say yes.”

Mia tugged at his hand. “Listen to your mother, Sam,” she said firmly. “If she says maybe, then it is maybe for you.”

At a metal table they listened to the band while the sun went down over the darkening bay. Kay could tell that Jack was antsy to get back to the casino. She left them on the patio and went into the information desk in the lobby, a large open room with plants and flowers everywhere. Was there a castle nearby? she asked. Something
like
a castle? The attendant took a brochure from a dispenser behind his chair and unfolded it on the counter. Glossy photos of a ruined stone structure with ramparts high above the sea; piles of cannonballs and people waving; a map with the castle’s location on a solitary promontory marked by a red star: It was actually an eighteenth-century Spanish fort, the attendant explained. They could rent mopeds, he said, though the roads were narrow and steep. A van could take them, too, for thirty dollars.

She made a reservation for the van for 9:00
A
.
M
., before the sun would get too hot, tucked the brochure in the pocket of her dress, and returned to the patio. The brochure said that the fort’s high vantage point made it a good spot for whale watching; it was this that had made her decision. She wanted to give Noah a whale.

The band had stopped playing by the time she returned; the table was empty. Down by the water’s edge she saw the boys and Mia. The last of the light was about to go. She took off her shoes and joined them. The sand around and under her feet still hummed with the heat of the day.

“You missed it,” Sam said cheerfully, and arched his back so he was walking on his hands and feet together. “Mia taught me to limbo.”

“How low can you go? How low can you go?” Noah recited. His face and voice were bland; the music was in his head, she knew, a perfect recording without a trace of feeling, except perhaps a mild curiosity. She smiled at him as he clapped his hands joylessly.

“We came down to look for dolphins,” Mia explained.

She looked at Mia. “Did Jack go back to the casino?”

“The professor said to tell you to meet him there,” she replied.

“I see.” What else was there to say? But she found herself glad; she had time yet. Let him gamble. “Perhaps later,” Kay said.

They strolled the length of the beach, Noah dawdling to pick up shells left bare by the tide. Behind them the ambient sounds of the resort grew faint. They made their way to the end, where the sand stopped and a chain-link fence topped with razor ribbon sealed the edge of the property. She had seen it before, in daylight, and thought nothing of it; now, in the darkness, it gleamed forbiddingly. Beyond it stood a run-down house, the stucco peeling away. A skinny dog was chained in the front yard, chewing at something in the dirt. On the porch steps a light suddenly blazed: a match, and then, from the shadows, the scent of marijuana. She heard a man’s deep laugh, and then a pair of voices talking, words she could not understand. Without warning fear sliced through her. How sturdy was the fence? Had they been seen?

She stepped back, calling to her children in a harsh whisper. “Come away from there, boys.”

Sam held fast to the fence, plainly interested. Here was something new. “I want to see—”

“Now.”

They retraced their steps back toward the resort, a blazing oasis of light and music, and by the time they had returned to the condo, her nervousness was gone. The air had taken on a floral sweetness; above them the palm fronds rustled, a sound like girls in taffeta skirts descending a flight of stairs. The steel band had resumed playing on the patio. For the adults the night was just beginning, but for the children it was over; the boys were completely drained by the day, even Sam, who snuck a thumb into his mouth as he stood before the toilet to pee. She tucked them in and told them no nonsense, and joined Mia on the porch.

She was wearing a sweater around her shoulders, and held her purse. “I was wondering,” Mia began, “if you don’t want to play cards tonight—”

“Go, go,” Kay said. “Take the rest of the evening off.”

She hesitated, but her face was delighted. “Thomas says there is a party, for the staff. I can be back in time to watch the boys if you change your mind.”

Kay waved her away. “You’ve done enough,” she said.

She sat in a rocker on the porch and waited for Jack. She supposed that his not returning was a good sign; it meant he was still winning. A gauze of stars hung low above the bay, and a gentle wind blew. At eleven she went inside and dressed for bed, but sleep would not come; sometime later she felt the pressure of the air in the room change and heard the door open. She rose and went to the hall. Mia was putting her purse on the table.

“Oh!” she said, startled. She put a hand over her heart. “You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it might be Jack.”

“It is very late. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” She paused a moment and regarded Mia, the girl before her. She didn’t quite know what she was looking for. Mia was barefoot, and her feet were sandy; more sand was on her throat, in her hair, the pure white sand one found just above the high-tide line, as fine as powder.

“Kay?”

“It’s nothing. It’s all right.” She tried to smile. “Did you have a good time?”

“It was just a party.” She shrugged. “American boys can be so . . . what is the word? They want things.”

“Needy.”

“Yes, they need us. Even the little ones!” Mia laughed. “You can see it in Sam. He’s going to be quite the lady’s man, I think.”

“Like his father.”

Mia said nothing; her face showed nothing.

“When we get back, I’m going to release you,” Kay said. “You can stay a month, and we’ll pay for the ticket home.”

Again, Mia’s face showed no emotion. She looked at the ceiling, then back at Kay. “I don’t know what to say. Perhaps that is for the best.”

“It’s going to be hard for the boys. You’ll have to help me make it easier for them. They’re my first concern. I’m not going to tell them until we get back to Vermont.”

Mia nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t see the situation as in any way your fault, Mia. You’ve been a great help to me, and to this family. I want you to know that.”

Mia nodded and crossed her arms. Her eyes swelled with tears, though her face was firm. She swallowed once, then exhaled sharply through her nose. “But still, I am fired.”

“Yes. I’m sorry to say it, but yes.”

After Mia had gone to her room, Kay dressed in a skirt and blouse and sandals, brushed her hair, and looked in on the boys once more. They were asleep in a jumble, the sheets of the double bed they shared twisted around them in the heat. She watched them breathe and sleep, as she had done for hundreds of hours since each had been born, then wrote them a note to tell them where she was, and left it on the table where they could see it.

She was two months pregnant. She had figured it out that morning, or begun to, when she had awakened on the beach and heard the band playing on the ship. She had skipped her period again, but she hadn’t taken this absence seriously, not until she’d heard the music. She knew there was no such band; the sound was coming from inside her. Crazy, but that was how she’d known with Sam and Noah. She tried to imagine this new baby, hoping for a girl, but all she could see was a tiny face pressed to her remaining breast, a child who would never know there had ever been two.

Carrying her shoes, she walked across the sand to the casino. She found Jack at the table, and knew at once that he had lost it, lost it all. The eighteen thousand was gone, and more; he was down three grand. It was poker that had done it. Bored with blackjack, he had decided to sit in a few hands, and lost it all fast. For two hours he had tried to recoup his losses at the blackjack table, and watched more dribble away. He’d hardly slept the night since they’d arrived, three days ago. His eyes were wild and desperate.