“How old, do you think?”
“Like, fifty.”
“Wow. That is old.”
“Sister Cornelia picks her nose.”
“Yuck.”
“And she shoots it on the floor when she thinks nobody’s looking.”
“Double yuck.”
“And she tells me to wash my hands because I’m a dirty little girl. But she doesn’t wash her hands, and she’s got boogers on hers.”
“You’re ruining my appetite, kid.”
“So I told her why didn’t she wash off the boogers, and she got mad at me. She said I talk too much. Sister Ursula said so too, because I asked her why that lady didn’t have any fingers, and she told me to be quiet. And my mommy makes me apologize all the time. She says I’m ’barrassing to her. That’s because I’m out and about where I shouldn’t be.”
“Okay, okay,” said Rizzoli, looking as if she was getting a headache. “That’s a lot of really interesting stuff. But you know what I want to hear about?”
“What?”
“What you saw in Camille’s room. Through that peephole. You were looking, weren’t you?”
Noni’s gaze dropped to her lap. “Maybe.”
“Weren’t you?”
This time Noni gave a submissive nod. “I wanted to see . . .”
“See what?”
“What they wear underneath their clothes.”
Maura had to catch herself from bursting out in laughter. She remembered her years at Holy Innocents, when she, too, had wondered what the sisters wore beneath their habits. Nuns had seemed like such mysterious creatures, their bodies disguised and shapeless, black robes fending off the gazes of the curious. What did a bride of Christ wear against her bare skin? She had imagined ugly white pantaloons that pulled all the way up over the navel, and cotton bras designed to disguise and diminish, and thick stockings like sausage casings over legs with bulging blue veins. She had imagined bodies imprisoned by layers and layers of bland cotton. Then one day, she had seen pinch-lipped Sister Lawrencia lift her skirt as she climbed the stairs, and had caught a startling glimpse of scarlet beneath the nun’s raised hem. It was not just a red slip, but a red satin slip. She had never again looked at Sister Lawrencia, or at any nun, in quite the same way.
“You know,” said Rizzoli, leaning toward the girl, “I always wondered what they wear under their habits, too. Did you see?”
Gravely, Noni shook her head. “She never took off her clothes.”
“Not even to go to bed?”
“I have to go home before they go to bed. I never saw.”
“Well, what did you see? What did Camille do up there, all alone in her room?”
Noni rolled her eyes, as though the answer was almost too boring to mention. “She cleaned. All the time. She was the cleanest lady.”
Maura remembered the scrubbed floor, the varnish rubbed down to bare wood.
“What else did she do?” asked Rizzoli.
“She read her book.”
“What else?”
Noni paused. “She cried a lot.”
“Do you know why she was crying?”
The girl chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about it. Suddenly she brightened as the answer came to her. “Because she was sorry about Jesus.”
“Why do you think that?”
The girl gave an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you know? He died on the cross.”
“Maybe she was crying about something else.”
“But she kept looking at him. He’s hanging on her wall.”
Maura thought of the crucifix, mounted across from him Camille’s bed. And she imagined the young novice, prostrated before that cross, praying for . . . what? Forgiveness for her sins? Deliverance from the consequences? But every month, the child would be growing inside her, and she would begin to feel it moving. Kicking. No amount of prayer or frantic scrubbing could wash away that guilt.
“Am I done?” asked Noni.
Rizzoli sank back in her chair with a sigh. “Yeah, kid. We’re all done. You can go join your mom.”
The girl hopped off the chair, landing with a noisy clomp that made her curls bounce. “She was sad about the ducks, too.”
“Man, that sounds good for dinner,” said Rizzoli. “Roast duck.”
“She used to feed them, but then they all flew away for the winter. My mommy says some of them won’t come back, because they get eaten up down south.”
“Yeah, well, that’s life.” Rizzoli waved her off. “Go on, your Mom’s waiting.”
The girl was almost at the kitchen door when Maura called out: “Noni? Where were these ducks that was Camille feeding?”
“The ones in the pond.”
“Which pond?”
“You know, in the back. Even when they flew away, she kept going out to look for them, but my mommy said she was wasting her time because they’re probably in Florida. That’s where Disney World is,” she added, and skipped out of the room.
There was a long silence.
Slowly Rizzoli turned and looked at Maura. “Did you just hear what I heard?”
“Yes.”
“Are you thinking . . .”
Maura nodded. “You have to search the duck pond.”
It was nearly ten when Maura pulled into her driveway. The lights were on in her living room, giving the illusion that someone was at home, waiting for her, but she knew the house was empty. It was always an empty house that greeted her, the lights turned on not by human hands but by a trio of $5.99 automatic timers bought in the local Wal-Mart. During the short days of winter, she set them for five o’clock, ensuring that she would not come home to a dark house. She had chosen this suburb of Brookline, just west of Boston, because of the sense of security she felt in its quiet, tree-lined streets. Most of her neighbors were urban professionals who, like her, worked in the city and fled every evening to this suburban haven. Her neighbor on one side, Mr. Telushkin, was a robotics engineer from Israel. Her neighbors on the other side, Lily and Susan, were civil rights attorneys. In the summertime, everyone kept their gardens neat and their cars waxed—an updated version of the American dream, where lesbians and immigrant professionals happily waved to each other across clipped hedges. It was as safe a neighborhood as one could find this close to the city, but Maura knew how illusory notions of safety were. Roads into the suburbs can be traveled by both victims and predators. Her autopsy table was a democratic destination; it did not discriminate against suburban housewives.
Though the lamps in her living room offered a welcoming glow, the house felt chilly. Or perhaps she had simply brought winter inside with her, like one of those cartoon characters over whom storm clouds always hang. She turned up the thermostat and lit the flame in the gas fireplace—a convenience that once struck her as appallingly fake, but which she had since come to appreciate. Fire was fire, whether it was lit with the flick of a switch, or by fussing over wood and kindling. Tonight, she craved its warmth, its cheery light, and was glad to be so quickly gratified.
She poured a glass of sherry and settled into a chair beside the hearth. Through the window, she could see Christmas lights adorning the house across the street, like twinkling icicles drooping from the eaves—a nagging reminder of how out-of-touch she was with the holiday spirit. She had not yet bought a tree, or shopped for gifts, or even picked up a box of holiday cards. This was the second year in a row that she’d played Mrs. Grinch. Last winter, she had just moved to Boston, and in the midst of unpacking and settling into her job, she had scarcely noticed Christmas whizzing by. And what’s your excuse this year? she thought. She had only a week left to buy that tree and hang the lights and make eggnog. At the very least, she should play a few carols on her piano, as she used to do when she was a child. The book of holiday songs should still be in the piano bench, where it had been stored since . . .
Since my last Christmas with Victor.
She looked at the phone on the end table. Already, she could feel the effects of the sherry, and she
knew that any decision she made now would be tainted by alcohol. By recklessness.
Yet she picked up the phone. As the hotel operator rang his room, she stared at the fireplace, thinking: This is a mistake. This is only going to break my heart.
He answered: “Maura?” Without her saying a word, he had known she was the one calling.
“I know it’s late,” she said.
“It’s only ten thirty.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have called.”
“So why did you?” he asked softly.
She paused and closed her eyes. Even then, she could still see the glow of the flames. Even if you don’t look at them, even if you pretend they aren’t there, the flames are still burning. Whether or not you see them, they burn.
“I thought it was time to stop avoiding you,” she said. “Or I’ll never get on with my life.”
“Well, that’s a flattering reason for you to call.”
She sighed. “It’s not coming out right.”
“I don’t think there’s any way to say it kindly, what you want to tell me. The least you can do is say it to me in person. Not over the phone.”
“Would that be kinder?”
“It’d be a hell of a lot braver.” A dare. An attack on her courage.
She sat up straighter, her gaze back on the fire. “Why would it make a difference to you?”
“Because let’s face it, we both need to move on. We’re stuck in place, since neither of us really understands what went wrong. I loved you, and I think you loved me, yet look where we ended up. We can’t even be friends. Tell me why that is. Why can’t two people, who just happened to be married to each other, have a civilized conversation? The way we would with anyone else?”
“Because you’re not anyone else.” Because I loved you.
“We can do that, can’t we? Just talk, face to face. Bury the ghosts. I won’t be in town long. It’s now or never. Either we go on hiding from each other, or we bring this out in the open and talk about what happened. Put the blame on me, if you want to. I admit, I deserve a lot of it. But let’s stop pretending the other one doesn’t exist.”
She looked down at her empty sherry glass. “When do you want to meet?”
“I could come over now.”
Through the window, she saw the decorative lights across the street suddenly go dark, the twinkling icicles vanishing into a snowy night. A week before Christmas, and in all her life, she had never felt so lonely.
“I live in Brookline,” she said.
SEVEN
SHE SAW HIS HEADLIGHTS through the falling snowflakes. He drove slowly, in search of her house, and came to a stop at the end of her driveway. Are you having doubts too, Victor? she thought. Are you wondering if this is a mistake, that you should turn around and go back to the city?
The car pulled over to the curb and parked.
She stepped away from the window and stood in the living room, aware that her heart was pounding, her hands sweating. The sound of the doorbell made her draw in a startled breath. She was unprepared to face him, but he was here now, and she couldn’t very well leave him standing outside in the cold.
The bell rang again.
She opened the door and snowflakes whirled in. They sparkled on his jacket, glittered in his hair, his beard. It was a classic Hallmark moment, the old lover standing on her doorstep, his hungry gaze searching her face, and she couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Come in.” No kiss, no hug, not even a brushing of hands.
He stepped inside and shrugged off his jacket. As she hung it up, the familiar smell of leather, of Victor, brought an ache to her throat. She shut the closet and turned to look at him. “Would you like a drink?”
“How about some coffee?”
“The real stuff?”
“It’s only been three years, Maura. You have to ask?”
No, she didn’t have to ask. High-octane and black was the way he always drank it. She felt an unsettling sense of familiarity as she led him into the kitchen, as she took the bag of Mt. Sutro Roasters coffee beans from the freezer. It had been their favorite brand in San Francisco, and she still had a fresh bag of it shipped to her from the shop every two weeks. Marriages may end, but some things one simply couldn’t give up. She ground the beans and started the coffeemaker, aware that he was slowly surveying her kitchen, taking in the stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator, the Viking stove, and the black granite countertops. She had remodeled the kitchen soon after she’d bought the house, and she felt a sense of pride that he was standing in her territory, that she had earned everything he was now looking at, with her own hard work. In that regard, their divorce had been relatively simple; they had asked for nothing from each other. After only two years of marriage, they’d simply reclaimed their separate assets, and gone their own ways. This home was hers alone, and each evening, when she walked in the door, she knew that everything would be where she had left it. That every stick of furniture had been her purchase, her choice.
“Looks like you finally got the kitchen of your dreams,” he said.
“I’m happy with it.”
“So tell me, do meals really taste better when they’re cooked on a fancy six-burner stove?”
She didn’t appreciate his undertone of sarcasm, and she shot back: “As a matter of fact, they do. And they taste better on Richard Ginori china, too.”
“What happened to good old Crate and Barrel?”
“I’ve decided to indulge myself, Victor. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about having money and spending money. Life’s too short to keep living like a hippie.”
“Oh come on, Maura. Is that what it felt like, living with me?”
“You made me feel as if splurging on a few luxuries was a betrayal of the cause.”
“What cause?”
“For you, everything was a cause. There are people starving in Angola, so it’s a sin to buy nice linens. Or eat a steak. Or own a Mercedes.”
“I thought you believed it, too.”
“You know what, Victor? Idealism becomes exhausting. I’m not ashamed of having money, and I won’t feel guilty about spending it.”
She poured his coffee, wondering if he was conscious of the ironic little detail that he, an addict of Mt. Sutro coffee beans, was drinking a brew made from beans shipped across the country (wasted jet fuel!) Or that the cup in which she served it was emblazoned with the logo of a pharmaceutical company (corporate bribery!) But he was silent as he took the cup. Strangely subdued, for a man who’d always been so driven by his idealism.
It was that very passion that had first drawn her to him. They had met at a San Francisco conference on third world medicine. She had presented a paper on overseas autopsy rates; he had delivered the keynote address about the many human tragedies encountered by One Earth’s medical teams abroad. Standing before the smartly dressed audience, Victor had looked more like a tired and unshaven backpacker than a physician. He had, in fact, just stepped off the plane from Guatemala City, and had not even had the chance to iron his shirt. He’d walked into the room carrying only a box of slides. He’d brought no written speech, no notes, just that precious collection of images, which played across the screen in tragic progression. The young Ethiopian mother, dying of tetanus. The Peruvian baby with the cleft palate, abandoned at the roadside. The Kazakh girl, dead of pneumonia, wrapped in her burial shroud. Every one of them was a preventable death, he’d emphasized. These were the innocent victims of war and poverty and ignorance that his organization, One Earth, could have saved. But there would never be enough money, or enough volunteers, to meet the needs of every humanitarian crisis.
Even halfway back in that dark room, Maura had been moved by his words, by how passionately he spoke of tent clinics and feeding stations, of the forgotten poor who died unnoticed every day.
When the lights came up, she no longer saw just a rumpled doctor standing behind the podium. She saw a man whose sense of purpose made him larger than life. She, who insisted on order an
d reason in her own life, found herself attracted to this man of almost frightening intensity, whose job took him to the most chaotic places on earth.
And what had he seen in her? Certainly not a sister crusader. Instead, she’d brought stability and calm to his life. She was the one who balanced their checkbook and organized the household, the one who waited at home while he traveled from crisis to crisis, continent to continent. His life was lived out of a suitcase, and was rich with adrenaline.
Has that life been so much happier without me? she wondered. He did not look particularly happy, sitting here at her kitchen table, sipping coffee. In many ways, he was still the same Victor. His hair was a little shaggy, his shirt in need of a good pressing, and the edges of the collar were frayed—all evidence of his disdain for the superficial. But in other ways he was different. An older, wearier Victor who seemed quiet, even sad, his fire dampened by maturity.
She sat down with her own cup of coffee and they looked at each other across the table.
“We should have had this talk three years ago,” he said.
“Three years ago, you wouldn’t have listened to me.”
“Did you try? Did you ever once come out and tell me that you were sick of being the activist’s wife?”
She looked down at her coffee. No, she had not told him. She had held it in, the way she held in emotions that disturbed her. Anger, resentment, despair—they all made her feel out of control, and that she could not abide. When she’d finally signed the divorce papers, she’d felt eerily detached.
“I never knew how hard it was for you,” he said.
“Would it have changed anything if I’d told you?”
“You could have tried.”
“And what would you have done? Resigned from One Earth? There was no way to compromise. You get too much of a thrill from playing Saint Victor. All the awards, all the praise. No one gets on the cover of People just for being a good husband.”
“You think that’s why I do it? For the attention, the publicity? Jesus, Maura. You know how important this is! Give me some credit, at least.”
She sighed. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me. But we both know you’d miss it.”
The Sinner Page 9