This Is How I'd Love You (8 page)

Two hawks circle high above, and then, with sudden, startling velocity, they dive. She and Berto both pull on their reins, searching the ground for the birds’ prey. Each hawk gently touches a mound of rocks, one on either side of them, and pulls away with a lizard dangling from its talons.

“That’s amazing,” Hensley says, impressed by the efficiency of their hunt.

“Redtails are good hunters. In Mexico, I saw one grab a puppy.”

Hensley gasps. “How awful. I never want to see that.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he says, nudging the heels of his boots into the horse’s side. “You think you could manage the ride home by yourself? I’ve got an errand.”

How? she wonders. And where is home and how to get there? How to undo this terrible journey, to follow the faint line of their migration all the way back to New York. Is it possible? Or has her past vanished? Is there nothing behind her but a black hole?

Of course she knows that Berto means the “home” that her father claimed as theirs in the superintendent’s house they moved into when they arrived. Home; a new beginning; a revolutionary new life, he said. There are snakes and hawks and, for all she knows, Pancho Villa lurking somewhere nearby, but sitting astride Thunder in her white cotton shirt, she feels nearly revolutionary herself. Is this what it takes? she asks herself. Is it the kind of hopelessness she feels that incubates insurrection?

Berto brings his horse back toward her. “It’s okay? Here, you should take my pistol.”

Hensley shakes her head. “I’ve never even held a gun. I’ll be fine. It’s not far. Thank you.”

Berto shrugs and then repositions the gun in his holster. “Suit yourself,” he says, touching his hat before he gallops away. The dust in his wake seems to hang in the dry air, settling slowly back onto the road that looks more like a dried-up riverbed than a way home. Pressing her heels into Thunder’s ribs, she lets the horse navigate the terrain as she traverses the memory of her last week in New York.

 • • • 

A
s opening night approached, Hensley attended all the rehearsals, grabbing girls when they were offstage for a quick fitting or adjustment. When the other girls left, exhausted from standing under the hot lights for hours, with homework awaiting, Hensley lingered, taking time to pin each costume with her notes, folding the garments carefully to fit into her satchel.

Then, as had become their routine, Mr. Teagan fixed her a cup of sweet, milky coffee he’d brewed in the kettle in the teachers’ lounge. They would sit in the red velvet house seats discussing his frustrations with the blocking, or the idea for her English thesis paper, or his family’s summer house in Maine and how he’d love to show her the shoreline there, eat crabs from the stalls near the dock, and ride bikes to a perfect picnic spot beneath a summer moon. The way he spoke, it was as though their lives were already entwined. He would sometimes reach for her hand and bring it to his lips, holding it gently as his breath warmed her. Letting her fingers feel the power of his words, he’d recite a line from Tennyson. “‘All the inner, all the outer world of pain, / Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine . . .’”

He placed one hand upon her ankle, letting its heat settle into her. Then, as though tracing an unknown path, he pulled his fingers ever northward, lingering on the back of her knee, its pale, hidden crease. He laid his hand with a gentle force upon her groin, sliding the linen of her undergarment against her. Hensley felt struck, paralyzed, as she looked up at the rafters, the ropes connected to the curtain, and the backdrops hanging so far above. As though she had become a spectator of this play, an observer who simultaneously longed for the girl below to rebuke him and hoped she didn’t. She doubted everything but the truth of the performance; like the best theater, she forgot that it was all orchestrated, arranged. She believed his performance, his certainty that she could relieve his suffering with just one look, could assuage his temper if only he had her lips upon his, could look forward without despair if he knew she were his. And his voice, as he seemed to unfold her, admiring each piece of her as he did, was utterly irresistible.

As she walked home alone, the sun just setting over the Hudson, she reassured herself that nothing had been lost. He would not, he assured her, ruin her. He knew how to protect her, how to keep her pure. When he bid her good-bye, the headmistress watching over them as they exited the school building, he merely shook her gloved hand as though there was absolutely nothing between them. Was this, she wondered, the secret of adult life? Was coupling not a sacred mystery at all, but rather tucked into nearly every corner, as ordinary as a cigarette case or bus fare?

When she entered the apartment, her father was stretched out on the couch, his fingers drumming gently upon his chest.

“Good rehearsal?” he asked quietly.

She dropped her satchel and removed her hat and gloves. “Hectic,” she replied, blushing, afraid the desire had not yet faded from her eyes. “But Mr. Teagan is utterly brilliant. It will all come off.”

Her father sat up. “Do you have someone to talk to, Hensley?”

“What do you mean?”

“About your life. About what is happening in your life? I’m not much good at girl talk. Your mother would want you to have that.”

Hensley felt perspiration forming around her hairline. What could he possibly know? She removed her coat. “Nothing’s happening. Why would you say such a thing?”

“I am not accusing you of anything, my dear. But I know—I’ve been told—that girls can often let their hearts precede their heads.”

“Really? Is that what you’ve heard? Well, I’ve been told over and over that men often let their guns precede their heads. I don’t believe one gender has the monopoly on irrationality.”

“Touché, Hennie.” He massaged his temples, as though easing some deep, ancient pain. “I only know how often I yearn for your mother’s wisdom. I’m sure you do, too.”

Hensley nodded. Her father stood up and, before settling himself behind his desk, he placed a strong hand on her arm, giving her a quick squeeze.

She swallowed hard in order to clear the regret and the guilt that had gathered in the back of her throat.

“I will make a carrot soup. There is always wisdom in that,” she said brightly, wondering when she’d become such a good actress.

 • • • 

A
t the final dress rehearsal before opening night, Hensley had a thousand final alterations to make and Mr. Teagan stayed with her, pacing behind her as she worked.

“Nervous?” she asked, threading her needle.

He grabbed her shoulders, held her face close to his. “I’ve done it. I’ve enlisted. I will ship out this summer.”

“What? I thought . . .”

“I was compelled. I thought about you, how perfect you are, and I want to protect that. I want to give my life to the fight, Hennie.”

“Lowe, my God. Are you sure?”

“It’s done. Oh, Hensley, my love. It didn’t feel real until I cast my eyes upon you this afternoon. Now, I understand what I will lose. What grief I’ve brought upon myself!”

His eyes seemed about to flood with tears. Hensley wrapped her arms around him. “You will not lose anything. You will be fine.”

He pressed his lips against hers, the warmth of his tongue cajoling hers. He was excited, unbuttoning her blouse with a fierceness that startled her.

“Lowell,” she said, pulling away. “Mr. Teagan, I have loads of work to do. Tomorrow is the opening and there are a thousand seams to sew. Perhaps I should take all of this home with me.”

“And leave me? When I am most vulnerable?” He walked to the center of the stage, his footsteps echoing across the theater. Beneath the dimmed lights, he spoke. “This,” he said as he gestured to his heart, “does not make excuses, Hensley. I’ve made my home beneath your skin, in the place where your breath begins and your pulse throbs. You cannot deny me now. I may never return.”

He walked back across the stage, breathless, his shirt open. “Let me show you what it is to truly be inside another. To live in the deepest part of ourselves.”

Hensley was trembling at the audacity of his suggestion. But she was also terrified of his death. There were already tears forming as he led her to the stable that the prop department had constructed with cardboard and straw. A papier-mâché horse stood watch as she allowed Mr. Teagan what she believed was his heart’s greatest desire.

 • • • 

I
t is nearly noon and the house cats are basking in the summer sun that drenches the small courtyard behind the house when Hensley ties Thunder to a post nearby. They are somehow oblivious to the tin of smoked trout Hensley opens, anticipating her father’s return for lunch. She plates the fish, pulls a handful of crackers from the barrel, and apportions some of the deep red raspberries she collected yesterday from the riverbank into a small bowl.

Hensley pushes the screen door open. The cats, Isaac and Newton, blink in acknowledgment. Hensley drags her fingers across Newton’s gray head, his fur hot and dry. The cats were here when they arrived last month, though nameless. They mewed loudly the first few days, staking their claim to the patches of sunlight that warmed the wood floors and the muslin-covered settee that stood before the fireplace, placing dead mice upon the hearth and at their bedsides. They also tumbled and played against each other with such alacrity that her father thought they were a perfect embodiment of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Their antics are a welcome diversion for Hensley, but their indifference reminds her again and again that they belong to the house, not to her.

Her father likes to call this small patch of unmortared bricks their terrace. But it is really just a blank space between exterior walls. It is also where they’ve stacked several wooden crates in which their belongings were packed. Hensley leans against this stack and looks to the land beyond their house. The absence of buildings, bridges, motorcars, fireplugs is still disorienting. The blue sky haunts her with its immensity; its constant, aching presence. Hensley sometimes winces when she walks outside, afraid of the way the landscape shrinks her. She has never felt so small and inconsequential.

The mound of dirt behind their house slowly rises, becoming a steep hill just one hundred yards away. There are several structures, one just a pile of logs hammered together with a tarp thrown over the top, that look down upon the back of Hensley and her father’s house.

Berto’s house is at the top of the ridge, with a view over the town and beyond. He shares the place with his sister, but Hensley has only seen the girl once, in the twilight, smoking a cigarette, her long dark hair falling in front of her face. Hensley waved, but the girl threw the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, extinguishing its glow. Then she went inside and let the screen door fall closed behind her so that it echoed down the hill.

Their own house faces the main street, which is but a wide dirt boulevard lined with large cottonwood trees. A wooden sidewalk runs the length of each side, echoing the vibrations and noise of the town’s commerce all the way to their front porch. It is the only piece of life here that reminds her of a city and she loves to listen to the wooden slats clicking and groaning as people go about their day. At noon and at sundown, she can hear her father’s footsteps coming home, the notes of his distinctive stride carried to her through the thick adobe walls.

There are plenty of storefronts lining the wooden sidewalk—even a Chinese food restaurant and a dry goods store with several bolts of decent linen. But Hensley doesn’t want to go out again, she doesn’t want to acclimate. Nothing feels real here. Or, perhaps, “here” has very little to do with it. She touches the desk, the doorknob, saying the words to herself, or sometimes aloud, just to remember the existence of concrete, actual objects.

C
harles leans so far forward, his chin nearly rests on the wheel. The use of headlights is strictly prohibited so close to the front. Nobody’s eyesight is good enough for this, he thinks just before the road is illuminated and then decimated by a barrage of light. He stands on the brake and turns the wheel into the darkness. His chin hits the steering wheel and bounces off with a surprising smack as his molars slam together and ring in his head. The truck hangs on two wheels before jamming to a hard stop against some unknown obstacle. An inordinate amount of wet, slick blood drips into his lap.

He cuts the engine and grabs for his helmet, holding it over his head, waiting for another shell. The fear that makes his hands tremble turns his thoughts fatalistic. As he huddles there in utter darkness, already bleeding, he imagines the disappointment his father will feel at his death. How irked he will be that the fortune will have to transfer to his second cousin.

But the singe of smoke in the air is all that follows. And then, just beside the King George, there is an awful, deep howling. He must investigate; he must respond, damn it. As Charles reaches for the torch, he hopes this dim light will not get him killed. It appears that he is smack up against a tree, its deeply wrinkled bark almost an outgrowth of the truck’s green metal. The incongruity of the two objects is momentarily disorienting. It is a blooming tree, with white flowers that are falling around him like a winter blizzard. The shrieking continues and Charles steps out of the truck, surmising that he’s inadvertently come upon a field of wounded. Using the torch, though, he sees nothing but grass. No bloodied bodies, no pits emanating smoke and rot, no destruction at all.