Duet for Three Hands

by Tess Thompson

  “I want to go back to New York.”

  He turned on the piano bench, facing her. “Frances, you need to rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “I can rest in New York.”

  “It might help if you found something to distract yourself with. Maybe a book?”

  “How dare you! You smug bastard.” She hurled the vase at him.

  He put his hands up to protect his face but was too late. The ceramic vase hit him in the forehead and then clattered to the floor, breaking in half. He blinked, seeing spots before his eyes as he felt the painful spot with his fingers. Sticky. Blood. “Frances, what’s the matter with you? You’ve hurt me.”

  She knelt on the floor next to him and began to cry. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  The door to the music room opened. They both turned as Clare and Cassie ran toward them. Frances rose to her feet, retreating to the couch.

  “What on earth happened?” asked Clare.

  “The vase. Hit my head.” Nate dabbed at the wound with his handkerchief.

  “Hit your head? How?” asked Clare.

  Cassie picked up the two broken pieces. “This here was Mr. Bellmont’s mama’s vase.” Her eyes shot to Frances and back again to the broken vase in her hands.

  Frances crossed her arms over her chest. “I dropped it.”

  “Hold tight, Mr. Nate. I have something I can put on it.” Cassie left the room. Clare, using her own handkerchief, dotted at the perspiration on his forehead. “Does it hurt?”

  “A little.”

  Cassie came back with a small jar of white paste. “Made this from some roots and herbs. It’ll help it heal up faster.” He winced as she smoothed it into the gash.

  “Cassie’s always digging around in the herb garden in Atlanta and mixing up potions,” said Clare. “She’s quite clever.”

  “Like a witch from Macbeth,” said Frances.

  “Frances,” said Clare, “how ’bout you get Nate some sweet tea.”

  “Because I’m not a maid, that’s why.” She rose from the couch and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.

  He looked over at Clare. She was at the window now, fussing with the tassel that held back one side of the curtains. “Nate, what’s happened between you two?”

  Shaking his head, he took the cold compress Cassie handed him and put it against the wound. “Since the baby, she’s different. I’ve tried everything, but nothing makes her happy. She’s been drinking a lot. I don’t know what to do.”

  “She threw the vase at you, didn’t she?” asked Clare.

  He nodded. “But she just lost her temper. It’s nothing.”

  Clare held his gaze for a moment before glancing at Cassie. “That’s what I said about Frank when it happened the first time.”

  Late in the afternoon, resting in his room, he was between a place of wakefulness and sleep when he heard the creak of the door. He rolled over and opened his eyes. Frances stood next to the bed, wearing nothing but a silky dressing gown that clung to her skin. Any remnants of the pregnancy were gone, her limbs slender and frail and her stomach nothing but a cavity between jutting hipbones. “Frances, you’ve gotten so thin. Try to eat a little today, won’t you?”

  “I feel sick after a few bites.”

  His head throbbed. With his fingertips, he felt the gash on his forehead. Darned if it weren’t already healing from Cassie’s magic potion.

  “Nate, are you still angry?” She spoke in her high-pitched, baby kitten voice and knelt at the side of the bed. “I want to make it up to you. It’s been long enough since the hospital.”

  “You mean since the birth of our son?”

  She ignored him, but her gray eyes flickered. She untied the ribbon at the collar of her dressing gown.

  “I want to talk about the baby, Frances. I think you need to talk about him, too.”

  “Not now.” She untied her dressing gown. It fell to the floor, revealing collarbones so prominent it actually pained him to look at her. He knew she would take the slip off next and let him look at her, before joining him in the bed. Even during the pregnancy this was the way: always a display before the coupling. She loved to have him look at her. He’d become good at lovemaking, too, after a time, learning her body and what gave her pleasure, the same way he had learned the piano all those years ago. He could make her moan with pleasure and beg for more.

  He rolled to his side, facing the wall. “I’m resting.”

  She lifted the sheet off his bare torso and ran her fingertips across his upper back.

  “Frances, please, I’m tired. My head hurts.”

  “C’mon now, don’t be that way.” Her breath was hot at his ear. She bit the lobe of his ear, gently. “I want you.”

  He went perfectly still. “Leave me be. Please.”

  “I’m your wife,” she shrieked and dug her fingernails into his upper back, like eight tiny knives. He yelped and rose up out of the bed. She fell like a ragdoll onto the floor. Rising to her knees, she sat in the middle of the braided rug and looked at him with wide, sad eyes.

  “We need to talk about what happened—about what is happening, not just numb it with sex.” He scooted to the side of the bed, put his feet on the floor, and held out his hands to her. “Talk to me, please, Frances.”

  “I don’t have to defend myself to Saint Nathaniel. All I want is to forget.”

  “I’m not asking for a defense of your actions, but I damn well deserve more than to be ignored and shunned. I’m in pain too, Frances. This happened to both of us. And today? Throwing a vase at me?”

  She buried her face in her hands before looking up at him. “Sometimes I hate you.”

  He flinched. “I don’t even know who you are.” It almost sounded like a question, he thought. “I don’t even know who you are.” He waved his hand toward the door. “Just get out.”

  Frances’s face turned stony. She scrambled up from the floor. “Fine, I have to fix my hair for the party anyway.” She left, slamming the door hard enough that the walls of the room shook.

  Just get through the party, he thought. Just get through the party. Everything will be better tomorrow.

  Later that night it was at the ancient oak near the southwest side of the lake that Nathaniel first believed he heard Frances’s throaty cry. The sound might have come from any woman, or it could have been Frances; he couldn’t be certain. Questioning whether he’d actually heard the sound or not, he stood immobile for a moment, listening in the way a musician does, hard and carefully. But he heard only crickets, the tinny plops of fish jumping, lake water lapping against the shore. He continued on, his steps unsteady on the round pebbles and dry pine needles on the trail around the lake, his mind alternating between irritation and dread.

  No visible moon, and the stars were covered by storm clouds, the only specks of brightness a scattering of fireflies over the water. He held a lantern at arm’s length from his body, eyes straining to see any evidence that Frances had been there, calculating how long it had been since he’d seen her in the group that stood under the chandelier while he played at the piano.

  It was less than fifteen minutes, he was fairly certain. He’d just finished playing the Gershwin, pleased how it seemed to match the mood of the languorous spring evening. The furniture had been pushed aside in the Bellmonts’ ballroom and the piano wheeled in front of the large picture windows. The women were in ball gowns, dripping in jewels and perfume, sipping glasses of vintage champagne brought up from the cellar, huddled together in groups of two or three, listening to the music with only half their attention, reserving the rest for gossip and the keen, cruel vision women had for their counterparts’ blunders or physical flaws. The men stood mostly at the bar, watching other men’s wives, the music creating an atmosphere of drama and romance in a way the ordinary cadence of language and laughter could not.

  Clare floated through the scatterings of applauding friends until she reached Nathaniel where he sat with his toes curled under in his lea
ther shoes, perspiration covering his brow. She said, barely moving her lips, “I saw Frances stumble out the door, toward the lake.”

  “Drunk?”

  “I’m afraid so. Please go make sure she’s all right, won’t you, darlin’?”

  He went out to the veranda. Standing between two kerosene lanterns, he surveyed the garden but saw no one. Taking one of the lanterns, he walked toward the water and looked down the length of the fishing pier. She was not there or anywhere within sight. A zing went up his arm. The hair on the back of his neck stood upright.

  The air, surprisingly thick with humidity for April, smelled of sweet, cloying honeysuckle. He coughed and wiped his watering eyes, experiencing an odd sensation that the honeysuckle might choke him, as if it were something sinister, something forbidden, like a desire that must remain hidden. He walked as far as he could around the lake until he came to where the beach ended and it was impossible to go farther. He turned back to retrace his steps, toward the light of the lake house. Again, at the oak tree, he heard a woman’s voice. Resting his fingers on the rough bark as if it were a familiar friend, he shut his eyes. The sound came again, fainter this time but loud enough that he knew it was Frances. He couldn’t recognize the tone of her voice. Was it conversation? Was it a cry of fear? Or did it ring of pleasure or familiarity? He couldn’t be sure.

  He shone the lantern toward the wooded crest above. There was a foot-worn path. Heart pounding, he followed it, running, keeping his eyes focused on the rocky and uneven trail to avoid tripping. At the top of the low hill he turned toward the left, searching the dark. The farthest tip of lantern light illuminated a pair of women’s shoes. Frances. Frances’s shoes. Next to them lay a straw hat, frayed at the edges.

  Then he saw two figures, a man and woman intertwined on the ground. In a jumble of thoughts that arranged themselves into a lucid realization, he understood that it was Frances with a man on top of her. He wore a shirt, but his overalls, which even in the dim light Nathaniel could see were dirty, settled around his ankles so that his white backside showed in the lantern light.

  Nathaniel cried out, something, perhaps his wife’s name, but maybe just a shout of some kind. Later, he wouldn’t remember.

  Frances turned her head, her eyes surprised and then frightened. She screamed, “Nate, help me.”

  He heard the man say, “I told you to shut your mouth.”

  Nathaniel dropped his lantern near the edge of the clearing and lunged toward them, not knowing what he would do, only that he must do something, anything, to get the man off Frances. In that same instant, the man came to his feet, pulling up his overalls and then yanking a knife from his pocket. He waved the knife in Nathaniel’s direction, the steel of the blade reflected in the lantern light. Nathaniel hesitated and stepped backward. Suddenly, and with the unsteady movements of a drunk, the man charged at Nathaniel’s throat. Nathaniel put his arms up to shield himself, and as he did so, the knife sliced long and deep into his left forearm. He felt a searing pain. Using his good arm, he knocked the knife from the man’s hand. It clattered against a rock. Nathaniel called out, “Frances, run home. Get help.”

  The man came at him again, and this time his hands went around Nathaniel’s neck, the attacker’s breath smelling of stale whiskey and tobacco. His eyes glinted in the moonlight like a rabid dog’s as his hands tightened around Nathaniel’s throat, pressing into his windpipe. Nathaniel couldn’t breathe. He fought for air, but the man’s hands were crushing his neck bones, his windpipe. With all his strength, survival adrenaline coursing, Nathaniel punched quick and hard with the heel of his right hand into the man’s ribcage. The man grunted, gasped, and then fell backward, releasing his grip around Nathaniel’s neck. Nathaniel didn’t wait for him to recover; he ran forward, using every ounce of strength he possessed to kick the man in the ribs. The man bent over double, holding his middle. When the man looked up, he appeared dazed and retreated backward several steps to where the ground sloped downward. Like someone falling off a cliff, he reached into the air for something to hold onto and then staggered toward Nathaniel, grunting like an enraged animal. Nathaniel was readying himself to kick again when the man’s foot caught on a large tree root sticking up from the ground. He tripped and fell forward, his head landing on a jagged rock the size of a car’s tire. The sound of a sickening crack, and then the man let out a soft moan. Quiet. Nothing but the sound of crickets. Nathaniel moved quickly, grabbing the lantern where he’d dropped it earlier, and knelt next to him. The rock gleamed, covered with blood. The man did not move. Nathaniel felt at his neck with the tips of two fingers. Nothing. No pulse. No breath.

  Behind him he heard Frances moving through the dry grass. “Nate?” Her voice seemed unnaturally loud in the darkness.

  He pushed himself up, using his right arm. “I told you to get help.”

  She stood near the oak tree, her hair wild and her eyes wide in a thin face. “I couldn’t leave you here. Alone. With him.”

  He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. “He’s dead.”

  “He forced himself on me.” Her voice just above a whisper, she cried, her hands at her mouth.

  Nathaniel rose from the ground and grabbed her against him with his uninjured arm, but she moved away from him. Aware of his own ragged breaths, he handed Frances the lantern. Her face appeared almost feverish in the stippled light. “Nathaniel, your arm. It’s bleeding.”

  He looked down and wiped away blood to see the wound, but it quickly filled again. He felt no pain, just numbness that spread from his shoulder to his fingertips. “Frances, I can’t move my fingers.”

  “Let’s get Daddy.” Frances sounded far away now. “He’ll know what to do.”

  Chapter 12

  Whitmore

  * * *

  As the party hummed along below them, Whitmore and Jeselle perched on the window seat in his bedroom and watched the coming storm rumble toward the house. His room faced the back of the house, with a view of the veranda below (now bursting with party guests), the flower gardens, and expansive lawn. The clouds, smoky purple and fat, were above them now. Without warning, the rain unleashed from the moody clouds in a torrent. Below, on the terrace, the guests froze for a split second and then rushed toward the French doors, crying out in surprise, hands over their heads. Rain pelted the ground, like rapid gunshots against the roof and veranda. Wind blew the curtains aside, bringing the scent of rain on dirt after a long, dry spell.

  “Smell that, Jes?” Whitmore touched his fingers to the window screen.

  “Rain on red dirt. No other smell like it in the world. It’s the scent of new beginnings.” She paused, tapping her finger on the screen. “No, that’s not quite right. Maybe the smell of second chances? Is that better?”

  He smiled, teasing. “I smell only minerals. Metal maybe?”

  “Those, too.” She smiled back at him. “But I like my description better.”

  “Me, too. Always.”

  Lightning lit up the sky. Next came a crash of thunder that shook the house. Jeselle shivered next to him. To Whitmore it made everything seem electric and raw, but he knew it scared Jeselle. With the third bit of lightning, Whitmore instinctively moved closer to her. She held up her arms to him. “Look, goose bumps.” Without thinking, he rubbed them, fascinated to see the way her skin returned to smooth under his touch. He moved his gaze to her face, looking at her as if it were the first time. Big, round brown eyes fringed with thick lashes and wide, high cheekbones, then a narrowing at the chin. Heart-shaped, his mother had described it to them once. He’d thought, yes, a heart, of course. What else would she have? Now, she smiled, her dimples appearing on each side of her full mouth. How beautiful she was! A twinge of pain that was almost pleasure throbbed in his chest. Why couldn’t he breathe? Was it the air, so thick with humidity, or this lovely girl in front of him? The girl. Always the girl. His heart beat faster, louder. Could she hear it?

  “What is it, Whit?”

  He shifted, moving his
hands from their light grip on her forearms and running the tips of his fingers gently on both sides of her jaw line, letting the feel of her soft face move inside him. So many nights lately he wakened from dreams of holding her, touching every part of her. “Will you marry me someday, Jeselle Thorton?”

  She wrinkled her brows and laughed. Why did she think it was funny? Couldn’t she see how it was between them? Did she ever dream of him?

  “You know that can’t ever happen.”

  His jaw made a clicking sound when he opened his mouth to speak. “I want you to be my wife. You’ll write stories, and I’ll paint pictures.” He closed his eyes, capturing the images, letting them stack one on top of the other like photos in a book. “We’ll live in the tree house.” He’d just finished his masterpiece two weeks ago. The tree house was meant to be sanctuary of sorts for the two of them. Well, it would be if they could ever get a chance to use it without Cassie calling them back to the main house.

  She said, teasing, “Mama says your head’s always in the clouds, Whitmore Bellmont.” She clicked her tongue like he’d seen Cassie do hundreds of time before.

  His chest ached as he gazed unseeing through the screen, fighting tears. “You think Father’s right about me? Think there’s something wrong with me for liking the things I do?”

  Jeselle’s full mouth turned up in a smile. “Not wrong, Whit. You’re special. I know it, and your mother knows it.” She lay back on the pillows of the window seat, pulling her legs up under her.

  He reclined on the opposite side of the window seat so they faced each other. “Thanks, Jes.”

  Jeselle spoke again, her voice soft. “Mama says someday you’ll go off to college, and we won’t see you again.”

  “I wish you could come with me. Mother says you’re the quickest student she’s ever taught, and she taught a lot of them before Father married her.”

  She tilted her head to one side and looked out the window. Her hands clenched and unclenched. “Mama says not to expect too much from my life. She says I better get used to the idea of serving white folks, ’cause that’s all my life’s going to be. It’s true, Whit, whether we like it or not.”