by Holly LeCraw
He said, “You deserve better.”
“Don’t say that. Because it is not true.”
His face was still averted. “You do.”
“I said, don’t say that.” He looked up in surprise, but she wrapped her arms around herself and walked away from him. She felt completely alone. Always before, even when she was lost in her thoughts, she had imagined that he was somehow with her, thinking just as she did, even if he didn’t say so. She wondered now how much of this connection she had manufactured. She was not sure which was worse—if she had made it up, or if it was real, and she was still losing it.
“Marcella,” Cecil said softly.
She felt his voice was cradling her. “I love you,” she said, her back still to him.
“I’m sorry.”
She was about to scream, Are you sure? Are you sure? About to cry, But I am the one you love! She must not turn around. “Cecil,” she whispered. “You have to go.”
“I love you too,” he said.
She couldn’t stand it, she had to turn, she looked and his face was awful. Still she wanted it, him, so much. She stepped back. She wanted to crouch, to shrink. She stayed straight and upright but she had to pretend she was iron; the effort was exhausting. “You have to go,” she said again. She just wanted it to be fast, like ripping off a bandage. Only a moment of agony. “Please go,” she whispered. “Darling, I am going to begin begging.” She did not say that she meant begging him to stay. She closed her eyes.
“Marcella,” Cecil said again, and she heard his footsteps coming toward her, and then he was caressing her face, and in spite of herself she was leaning into his touch. After a moment he stepped away and she felt him moving, retreating, and then she heard the door, and only then did she open her eyes and was immediately filled with wild regret. She wanted to see him! She had given it up, that last look! She ran to the window and could see only a shadowy figure lit up for a moment in the car, and then the light went off and the car drove away.
She stepped back from the window like she had been slapped. She was stupid, a fool. Who cared if she had kept her dignity? She wished she had fallen at his feet. She thought of a hundred arguments she could have made. She nearly writhed in regret, waiting for the door to open, for him to be standing there again. But it did not open. She sat on the sofa, then eventually lay down on it. She would stay here tonight alone. She would wait for the briars to grow over the windows, and to go to sleep, and never wake up.
SOMEHOW SHE MADE IT THROUGH the rest of the weekend. After she had rejoined her friends, she claimed sickness and stayed in her room, and if her friends, who were, indeed, not terribly close friends, knew what was going on she didn’t care. On Sunday night, when she finally got home, it was already dark. From the driveway she saw a lone light on, in the living room—she could tell it was the one next to Anthony’s chair. Should she tell him how she had spent the last forty-eight hours? Suddenly she wanted to. But she wanted only comfort, and how could she be so deluded as to look for it here? She pressed her lips together.
The living room door was closed. That was not usual. She quietly opened it, closed it behind her, and Anthony looked up. She was astonished to see that his eyes were red, and she couldn’t help it, she forgot her resolve and went to him, knelt beside his chair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s—over. I wanted to tell you—” But his shattered expression didn’t change. It had been there before she spoke. It did not have to do with her—not entirely. “Anthony,” she said, “what is it?”
“You don’t know,” he said. She shook her head. “I got a phone call,” he said. “Yesterday afternoon. From Fred Sprague.”
He did not identify them as he normally would have, removed as they now were from summer and the Cape. The McClatcheys from Atlanta, he might have said. Or, from Mashantum. Neither did he look at her for signs of recognition, or acknowledge that there would be any reason that their acquaintances, the McClatcheys of Atlanta and Mashantum, might already be on her mind. She saw only one quick look, helpless, not accusing, as he told her that there was terrible news about Betsy. Dear God. About what had happened to Betsy.
She couldn’t speak. Her brain moved in slow motion: what did it mean? As Anthony gave the few details he knew, she understood that even though she bore, technically, no guilt, she would be bound up in this forever. But then Anthony was pulling her up, they were standing and he was holding her, no, clinging to her, and his mouth was on hers. It seemed he didn’t want her to speak, and she thought of herself in the mountains, alone in the strange overscale house dreaming of curling choking vines, and she thought, Yes. Smother me. But still, when she was able, she said again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
It was only then that Anthony got a shade of his familiar imperious look. “No!” he cried. He gripped her shoulders and swallowed, lowered his voice. “I don’t want to hear it!” he said.
A horrible idea came to her and she tried to pull away, crying, “You don’t think that I had anything to do with this? That I—”
“Of course not!” He looked wilder than ever. “Please.” He framed her face with his hands. “Of course not. Of course not. Not you.”
He was holding her too hard. But why was he holding her at all? Wasn’t he angry? She could feel every finger pressing into her skull and, crazily, she thought of when they had first met, the beginning of their marriage, when he had sometimes seemed overcome by her, and had held her as though he couldn’t believe she was there. This was not the same at all and yet something reminded her. “Beautiful Chella,” he was saying. “Marcellina. Don’t.”
When he took his hands away, there would be white fingerprints on her cheeks. “Anthony,” she said, and her tears were rolling down.
“Why are you crying?” he demanded, and then he was kissing her again. He was like her old lover of long ago, eager and hungry—no, he was not, he was more desperate, he was fierce. But how could he want her? His mouth was so rough, he hadn’t shaved, his face was scraping her raw. Now his arm was around her waist, supporting her but also commanding, and then he had her on the floor and he was pulling at her clothes. His mouth was on her throat, her breasts, her belly, he drove his tongue deep inside her, and she could not help herself, she cried out, she arched off the floor. “Anthony,” she said, and she was begging now, and she wasn’t sure what she was begging for. For him to love her, along with wanting her? She had given up on that.
As though he could read her mind, he pulled away. He stood up and she wondered if he was going to leave, and didn’t know if she wanted him to or not. She was half-exposed and ashamed there on the floor and she began to curl into herself, and he said, his voice soft again, “Please don’t be afraid. Please.” He was unbuttoning his shirt, unbuckling his belt. His trousers fell with a soft thud.
Part of her was disgusted because she had wanted to be with Cecil, and even though she hadn’t been, wasn’t he too close in her mind? My Cecil, my Cecil, no longer hers. Betsy was his instead, Betsy, it could not be true, she could not believe it, and she knew there was horror on her face and she wanted to explain it but—maybe Anthony understood? He was kneeling now before her; the hair on his chest was gray and she knew it was soft and she wanted to touch it. She had not touched him softly in so long, hadn’t wanted to. And then he was on her, inside her, and he started slowly and then he said, “You were all I ever wanted, Chella. All.” She didn’t answer and then he was moving harder, too hard, he was saying her name and it was as though he wanted to bury himself in the churned-up earth of her. She was afraid now, of him, of everything she had done. “Didn’t you care?” he was saying.
“Yes.” Oh, how she had cared, and cared, and failed, and ruined it all. She had been sent here for this man right here in her arms, and she had lost him. She had had a task and it was simple, it was only to make a happy life, but she had not known how. And she wanted to tell Anthony but all that came out was sobbing and it didn’t matter, because he knew all of her shame, all of it—
“Ah! God!” he cried, as though he could hear her thoughts. His arms were too tight around her, and she thought he wanted to stuff her inside himself, consume her completely, and she thought, Let him, let him. Maybe that was what she had been fighting for so long. Let him. She thought of Cecil and her mother and her nonna and Anthony’s glaring parents and all the people she had ever tried to do things for, and then came a thought that utterly surprised her: No, none of you matter; I will hate you all. They fell away. There was only Anthony right here. It was her last chance. She would give up all her doubt for him. His face was twisted and he roared into her ear, only breath, no sound, and his breath kept coming and she fought him, they fought together, up and up, she convulsed around him, she offered her cries to him in the cupped palms of her hands.
When finally he was still and heavy on her she couldn’t think, not at first. And then her arms went around him again, but gently this time. He seemed to wake up, and then tense. It was as though he were listening to her hands. He moaned, and buried his head in her neck. One of his hands went up and touched her cheek, and his head was shaking silently no.
Then the hand went away and he stood up. She caught only a glimpse of his face, ravaged and empty, before he turned and walked to the door, and opened it, and went through, and closed it quietly behind him.
A MONTH LATER, Anthony told her he wanted a divorce.
Toni had just gone upstairs to bed. Marcella and Anthony were in the den, Marcella on the sofa and Anthony in his wing chair by the fire. They were having a drink together, silently. This was their new habit. Marcella would have a glass of wine, which she usually didn’t finish. Anthony would have several whiskies, or rum and tonics, or whatever happened to be in the liquor cabinet. By the time Marcella would get up to go to bed, she could tell, by the glassy way he looked at her, that he was drunk. They had not made love since the night he had told her of Betsy’s murder. Quite often, he never made it up to the bedroom at all; she didn’t know if he slept on the sofa or if he spent his nights, upright and fitful, in the chair. By the time she and Toni got up in the morning, he would be gone.
He spoke to her only perfunctorily and she was too upset by his chilly pain not to answer in the same way. She was waiting for him to say more, or for her own bravery and resolve to come back.
It was two weeks before Christmas. That very day, Marcella had gotten down the boxes of decorations from the attic, and they stood in an unopened stack in the front hall. From where she lay reading, she could just see the corner of the largest box. She had no interest in decorating anything, celebrating anything, but her heart was breaking for Toni, who looked bewildered at the strange, wordless disintegration of her parents. Just the day before, she had asked, in a tentative way that was completely uncharacteristic of her, when they were going to get a tree. Marcella was lying there telling herself that she had to rebuild somehow, could not stay stunned, that the ruins around her were substantial enough to make something strong and new. And then Anthony began to speak.
He said the one sentence. She didn’t answer. She didn’t know where to begin; she was surprised that she was surprised. She felt as if she could muse on that forever. The silence stretched. Finally he said, “You can have the house. You can have whatever you want.”
She said, “I don’t want the house.”
It seemed she should say next, I just want you. Had she seen that on TV? In a book? Which book? Her mind wandered, dazed. I just want you.
She began, “I had an affair—”
“Please be quiet,” he said, with effort.
“Is that why?” He didn’t answer. “Because it was wrong. It’s over. I ended it—”
“Please, Chella—”
“—that weekend! That Friday! That night! You knew, didn’t you?”
“Jesus! Jesus—”
I just want you. “Please help me!” she cried.
“I can’t. I can’t help anyone,” he said, and he buried his face in his hands. She had never seen him do that before, ever.
She got up from the sofa and knelt beside him, and thought that was what she had done before, that other night, when he had needed her—for the first time in a long time, it seemed. Did they need each other? Hadn’t they made a pact, long ago, to turn to each other? For some reason she thought of her nonna, all in black, the rings, her only jewelry, glittering on her long fingers. Someday a man will need you, she had said. Marcella had believed her nonna to hold uncanny powers; now she knew that had only been the old knowledge of another generation, but still she wondered, did she mean Anthony? Cecil? Maybe Cecil needed her now. But she couldn’t call him. Was even afraid to write more than a sympathy note, stiff and formal, an utter charade—
She was staring into the fire, kneeling at Anthony’s feet, thinking of another man. “Oh, Anthony,” she whispered.
“Please. Please go away.”
“What about Toni?” she whispered.
“I am doing this for Toni!” he cried, and a little of the harshness came back.
“I would never hurt Toni,” she said.
At that, Anthony finally looked at her. “You already have, haven’t you? You and—” The hard brightness of his gaze blurred. “Everyone else.”
That was all he would say.
VI
At the motel, Marcella slept in, or tried to. From six in the morning onward, she tossed and turned, in the grip of dreams that she seemed to be consciously constructing but that still had a disturbing illogic. In all of them, her repeated failure at some minor task became terrifying—either she couldn’t dial a phone number, or lace her shoes, or catch up to Toni, who was walking only a few feet ahead.
Finally Marcella woke for good, at nine, anxiety like a dingy film on her skin. The air conditioner was humming, and the room was stale and cold. She got out of bed and switched the air off, and then pulled aside the heavy light-blocking curtain on the window above. Outside, the weather was overcast. Her window looked onto a corner of the parking lot and a patch of scrubby woods. There were scraps of trash under the trees. She wanted to get in her car, drive as fast as she could back to Connecticut, and hide; but instead, she turned on the TV, and the cheerful, bland chatter of a morning talk show warmed the room. She plugged in the room’s little coffee pot, and as she fetched water from the bathroom sink she decided that, so far, her visit with Toni had been a success.
The night before they had gone to see a movie, a rather raunchy one, and Marcella had laughed so much she had surprised both of them. Perhaps it had been a sort of hysterical relief. During dinner beforehand, she had made herself ask about the McClatcheys, but Toni had a new stance of airy dismissal on the topic and didn’t want to discuss it. Marcella had known of course that she was putting on an act, with effort, but still she had let it drop. She did not let herself wonder what she would say if—when—the subject of the McClatcheys, of Jed, came up again.
At nine-thirty she called the house and woke Toni, who sounded groggy but cheerful. “Dad is playing tennis,” she said. “I guess. He’s not here.”
“That’s too bad,” Marcella said automatically. “Maybe he will be back soon, and we could have coffee together.”
“You want to see him?”
Marcella glanced at the Styrofoam cup and packet of powdered creamer beside her own coffeepot. She felt quite distinctly that she was in a play, that nothing was real, and then for some reason imagined the three of them—she and Anthony and Toni—sitting together in Anthony’s kitchen, big smiles on their faces, real mugs in their hands. Anthony would be host, pouring jovially from the old drip pot that Marcella remembered, that she was sure he still used. And then the door would open and Jed would walk in—
“Mom? Are you there?”
She sat down. It was like she was still dreaming, everything sensible and then suddenly turning to horrid fantasy. What was wrong with her? “Of course I’m here,” she said. She felt Toni’s suspicious silence. “Darling, of course I don’t mind seeing your
father,” she said. She put her free hand up against the side of her head, to steady herself. She felt the strangest dread, as if she were about to lose Toni. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that—unless Toni found out about Jed. No.
She said, “We are all civilized people, after all.”
And Toni said, “Right.”
IT WAS A SUNNY MORNING in the Wellesley house. Anthony was sitting at the kitchen table. He was already a visitor. He had moved out weeks before, had, with his customary efficiency, already bought a condo. He was saying now that he had talked to someone at his alma mater—a boarding school that had been all boys in his time, now coed. In the space of a few seconds her mind had wandered, then she had gathered it back and thought Why is he saying this? and then, as her heart understood before her brain, the prickling annoyance turned to fear. “It’s all arranged,” he was saying. “She can go this fall.”
Marcella felt as though the floor were dropping away. She held on to the edge of the counter. She said, “Why?”
“She needs consistency. Not one night here, a weekend there. That’s no way to live.”
“Away from home is no way to live! It is the way you die, slowly, day by day!”
“Marcella.” Anthony’s face had closed tight as a safe, the steel door swung shut, the lock turned.
Marcella knew she was thinking of herself, of the nights that Toni had already been away at Anthony’s and she had lain on her bed and sobbed, unable to sleep, unable to get up, the emptiness of the house around her thick and suffocating, Toni’s things lying abandoned like artifacts from a massacre. Anthony would say she was exaggerating, he was thinking it now, but it was how she felt—beaten, raw. She whimpered, “Please don’t take her.”
“I’m not taking her. She’s going.” He took a deep breath and she knew the knife-edge of his voice would soften—this was what she hated, when he cooled himself to ice and could not be argued with. “Children leave, Marcella,” he said, so reasonable, as though he were talking to a client.