I shouldn’t have left my baby there, I should’ve taken it with me, Arty and I should’ve buried it.
Her heart was in her throat. Some girls, who claimed to know about these things, told her it would be about the size of a pearl. She’d believed them then, and thought it would be an easy thing, but not now. She was in so much pain, her baby had to have been bigger than a stupid little pearl!
Maybe it had come out alive, and she could’ve baptized it—splashed a little water on its forehead and made the sign of the cross. It would’ve been better than nothing. Maybe it had cried. Maybe the man had pounded her poor baby to death with that claw thing.
Hester started to weep. It came on her hard. I’m only seventeen and going to hell…for Arty.
Snot ran with her tears into her mouth, and the sourness of it all, of everything that happened, of everything she’d done, made her want to kill herself. She thought about getting off the bus and jumping off the bridge into the river.
She was crying so much, she bit down on her fist to shut herself up. She didn’t want the other people on the bus to hear her sobbing. She didn’t want anyone to ask what was wrong.
It was almost eleven o’clock when Hester walked into her dorm. The drugs were completely worn off. Her pelvis and groin throbbed. She had to see Arty. If he held her in his arms and told her he loved her, then she would know she’d done the right thing. She would heal, and they would go on loving each other. But it was late, too late to go to the Trailer and look for him. She couldn’t afford to miss curfew and have a letter sent to her parents. After all, they were paying for everything. If they found out about tonight, they’d never, ever forgive her. They’d make her come home, and then she would never see Arty again.
When she got to her floor, Hester went straight to the pay phone. Hearing his voice would be enough until tomorrow.
Gene, a guy who lived with Arty, picked up on the second ring.
“Hester?” His voice sounded like it always did, like he’d just inhaled nitrous oxide. “What the hell are you calling here for?”
“Look, Gene, I don’t feel all that great. Please, just let me talk to Arty.”
“Hester, shit, I don’t know what to tell you. Look, I didn’t think you’d be feeling too great tonight.” He made a noise that sounded like a chuckle.
Did he know what she’d done? How in the hell…?
“Just get him, Gene. Come on.” She was almost out of strength and completely out of patience. Then for a split second, it hit her that maybe something bad had happened to Arty, and Gene was just trying to break it to her gently.
“Gene, tell me the truth,” Hester pleaded. “Is Arty alright?”
“Well, he’s not hurt or arrested or anything, if that’s what you mean. I just don’t know what to tell you.”
“How about the truth?” Asshole, Hester almost said it. She knew Gene was just trying to keep her on the phone. He was always trying to outdo Arty, like he was jealous of him or something.
“You asked for it, Hester, and remember, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. Personally, I think you’re a groovy chick and that Arty is a real asshole for…”
“Please, Gene, I’m really sick here. Please, don’t tease me.”
“Well, he’s not here for a couple of reasons. He got loaded, he went to see Trish, the girl from his home town he’s been in love with for four fucking years, the girl he’s engaged….”
Hester didn’t think she heard him correctly.
“Hey, look, Hester,” he continued, “want me to come over and sneak you out? We can go somewhere and get stoned. You know, help me celebrate, help you get over that asshole.”
“You’re an effing liar, Gene!”
“No, but for your sake I wish I was. It’s the fucking truth, and it’s about time you knew it.”
Hester slammed the receiver on its hook and held onto wall phone as though she were tethered to it. If she let go, unseen forces might pull her away bit by bit, cell by cell, till even her bones might disappear. All that would remain would be her broken spirit. She leaned her head against the cold wall. The peace sign on her T-shirt stretched across her breasts. She saw it, but it didn’t register. She looked down beyond it. How far away her feet looked—those stupid clogs, like two small wooden boats sinking in a puddle of scarlet blood the saturated napkin could no longer contain.
Twelve
Hester wasted half of the next morning sitting in Al’s La-Z-boy feeling nauseous and ruminating about the past. She’d barely slept. During the night she was awakened by the goofy hip-hop ringtone Al had downloaded on her cell. After she saw that it was him, she turned it off.
Now, she stood up. Stretched, and looked out through the sliding door. Old Chet was shuffling his way over to shuffleboard courts with Ernie Stamford. Thank God. She could go out now and not have to worry about being forced to listen to more of Chet’s commentary.
The patio and small yard were a mess. Hester got to work picking up garbage, hosing the asphalt down, scrubbing what was left of the outdoor furniture, raking over the fresh mound of dirt beneath the Bo tree.
Gratefully, she lost track of time and only stopped when she heard the mockingbird. It was sitting atop the Buchanans’ flagpole. She closed her eyes and tried to follow the pattern of the whistles, the tweets, the long shrill slides from one octave to another. The wild abandon of the bird’s warbling made her ache inside. If only she could be free as a bird. The creature flew into the Bo tree. She thought of Atticus Finch.
“It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird,” she whispered. “All they do is sing and make the world a better place.”
That’s what I wanted to do, make the world a better place.
How short she’d fallen of her high aspirations. Her time of giving, of mattering, over. Her life narrowed down to Al, dominated by Al. She never should’ve retired so young. How much more alive she’d felt in her classroom, the endless stream of teenagers with their angst, their neediness, their natural inclination for melodrama. She loved helping them to sort it all out, to stay on track, to make something out of what they thought was their nothingness. Look at Nina. Look at what Hester had done for her.
Nina Tattoni had walked into Hester’s English class for the first time three years ago, a few months after 9/11. She looked like a mix between Tinker Bell and someone from the chorus of Grease. She was cute and petite, but she had on too much make-up and wore outdated clothes. Hester liked her immediately, though. She had good posture, a long neck, and curly light brown hair pulled up into a really high ponytail. Hester shook her hand. How small and fragile it felt in hers. There was something about Nina that was familiar to Hester, very familiar. Maybe, Hester thought, I’ve taught relatives of hers.
Nina was a sophomore and woefully behind in her studies, according to the guidance brief, which had no other helpful information in it. An aunt was identified as her legal guardian. She’d moved from Queens into her aunt’s house in Moretown. Her last report card was abysmal. Well, this wasn’t the first time Hester had to deal with an almost blank slate.
Hester tried to get more information out of Nina, but the girl was good at not answering questions, good at examining her raggedy fingernails or staring into space. Despite the fact that her new student wasn’t more forthcoming, Hester volunteered to tutor Nina during Hester’s lunch periods. The rest of the class had just finished To Kill a Mockingbird, and Hester wanted Nina to catch up, but Nina was looking for the easy way out.
“Just tell me what I need to know. You think I’m stupid, I ain’t. I can remember something if you tell it to me.” Nina looked down at the thick book, then back up at Hester and tilted her head to one side just like a little bird. “Pleeeaaaseee, Mrs. Murphy, jus’ tell me. I ain’t got time to read it now. Please, please, please?”
Hester stared into Nina’s big, brown eyes, and almost laughed. Did this little freshman think for one minute that she, the teacher, would actually summarize the novel for her, the student, so s
he wouldn’t have to read it?
“Please, please, please, nothing. Miss Nina Tattoni, you read this book starting right now, because I will never, ever tell you what it’s about. And while we’re on the subject of what you are, or are not, going to do when you are with me, you are not ever going to say “ain’t” again. Got it?” Hester said this half-jokingly. She smiled at Nina. Nina pursed her lips and wiggled her head on her long neck.
After a rather long and ominous silence, Nina said, “I can’t read silently to myself, I’ll lose my place.”
“Then you can read it aloud, to me,” Hester couldn’t believe she was offering to listen to the whole novel as read by this stubborn, and most likely lazy, creature. She had tons of other things more important to do on her lunch break. But the offer had come out of Hester’s mouth for whatever reason, and Nina whispered, “Alright, Mrs. Murphy, if that’s what you want.”
The girl’s voice was hesitant at first, like a stream drying up on its way to the river; but as she read along, she found her confidence and somewhat of a pace and the words began to flow. She got into the character parts, especially Mayella’s. She added lots of expression.
Hester began to genuinely look forward to her time with Nina. True, Hester had read the novel dozens of times, but she’d never had the pleasure of listening to it; and Nina’s voice, full of delight, reading the words of Harper Lee, was haunting. When Nina came to the end, she ceremoniously closed the book.
“And that is the end of the greatest American novel ever written. Goddamn, Mrs. Murphy, this is the best book I’ve ever read,” was all Nina could say. Hester’s eyes glistened with tears.
Later, Hester would discover Nina neglected to tell her it was also the first book she’d ever read.
The bright Florida sunlight beat down on Hester as she stared dumbly at the wounded Bo tree, and fought off yet another wave of hangover nausea. How the memory of Nina’s triumph, only three short years ago, seemed a lifetime away!
When their tutoring sessions had ended, Hester found she missed being alone with Nina and had to force herself to go back into the English department office and eat her lunch with her colleagues. She had to stop thinking about Nina, but try as she did to distract herself, she knew something—what, she couldn’t say exactly—had begun between them.
Thirteen
In her apartment in Trenton, Hester had sat at her kitchen table until dark. Was there a way out of her dilemma? If she was pregnant again, she was screwed. She had no answers, no game plan, no one to talk to about the mess she might have gotten herself into for the second time in her life. Her mother wasn’t there to say, like she used to, “Hester, honey, you’ll get through this.” But that was before the abortion, before that night the infirmary nurse called her parents to inform them their daughter was bleeding badly and was being rushed to a hospital. The nurse gave them no further details, so they sped down the turnpike and were at Hester’s bedside in an hour.
When she finally recovered enough to talk, she confessed to her father she’d had an abortion. The word dumbfounded him. He stood before her, mute with anger, his penetrating eyes boring through her. Finally, he said coldly, “What you did is unforgivable. You murdered your own baby; you killed our grandchild. I cannot forgive you.”
Hester couldn’t look at him, so she looked to her mother, who kept her eyes on Hester’s father. He turned away from Hester and faced his wife and whispered harshly, “I told you naming her Hester was a bad idea. She’s turned out to be a worse sinner than the Hester in that stupid novel you always loved so much. I can’t for the life of me see why you insisted on naming our daughter after a character like that.”
“Honey, I didn’t,” Hester’s mother pleaded. “Hester means star, it’s a good…” But her father wasn’t listening to her mother; he was walking out of the room. Her mother touched Hester’s shoulder, but quickly withdrew her hand when her daughter burst into tears and cried, “Mom, what am I going to do?”
“I don’t know, Hester.” Her mother lowered her head, turned, and left. Not one word of solace for her desperate, sorry child.
Her father’s rejection, her mother’s silence, it was more than Hester could bear. The bond between them broken, Hester’s shame took on a frightful shape. She wanted to run away and hide from them and never see them again. Never. But she’d lost so much blood she was near death. Her parents took her home and cared for her. Her mother cried in front of Hester at the drop of a hat without explanation, and her father avoided being in the same room with her. Then, when her father knew she wouldn’t die, he asked her to leave. If she went back to college, it would be without any help from them. They weren’t going to pay for their daughter to go somewhere and fornicate and then murder the innocent child she’d conceived. They were good Catholics, they had raised her better than that and didn’t like what their eldest daughter had done, not one bit.
Eventually, her parents moved to California to be away from her and near her sister, the good daughter, the one who hadn’t aborted their first grandchild.
There was no one from work she could call either, because back in the 70’s if anyone at Sourland High found out she was pregnant out of wedlock, she’d lose her job. So she sat there on the verge of crying, staring at the light coming from the street lamp. It almost seemed saner to her to go into the bathroom and get a razor and slit her wrists than to sit there alone in the dark and sob. How she’d struggled all these years to accept her solitude, to hold back her desolation! And here she was on the verge of giving into it, of hurting herself. She whispered a Hail Mary and somehow found the nerve to call Al.
“Hey, Al, it’s me.”
“Hester, what do you want? It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s around midnight.”
“Well, it’s late.” She could tell by the sound of his voice he wasn’t thrilled she’d called.
“I had to talk to you.”
“I just saw you eight hours ago at school. Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Why?” Now he sounded completely annoyed.
“Because it’s important.”
“What could be so important that you didn’t tell me about it today and now you can’t wait till tomorrow to tell me? Huh, Hester, what could be that important?”
Al’s angry tone of voice bristled in Hester’s ear. She had been down this road before with Arty wanting her and then not wanting her. But she was older and she thought wiser now. And she was sure Al was the right man for her, and for this child. She had to make this work, but the anger rising up in her scared the hell out of her. She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.
“What could be so important, Al, is that I missed my period.”
“You what?” His voice cracked.
“I missed my period is what.” She fought the impulse to be sarcastic, but she hated the way he sounded so…shocked. What did he have to be shocked about? Wasn’t he the one who put his penis into her vagina before he said one word about birth control? Oh, this was all going down the tubes. He was her vice principal, her boss, and knew as well as she did, it was unacceptable for teachers to have babies out of wedlock. It was board policy. There was no way out, Hester had to get him to marry her and deal with the fact that she really didn’t know him all that well. What she did know was that he was very into her physically, but not into talking to her and confiding in her. This hurt her, but she couldn’t let him know that. Everything had to go right this time; she would never have another abortion. Never.
“Al, I’m scared,” she said, and that was the truth.
He didn’t say anything.
“Did you hear me?” She knew it was a stupid question.
Again, silence. Now what? Hester was close to breaking down, and she didn’t want to in front of Al. She hung up.
For two weeks they didn’t speak, not even at work. Hester sat through a half a dozen stupid meetings with Al in charge, talking about plan books, final evaluations,
graduation duties, parent conferences, the poor condition of the faculty lounge, the new procedures for fire drills next fall. It was torture. Then school was over and Hester was more of mess than she’d ever been. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. She unplugged her phone and locked it in the trunk of her car to stop herself from calling Al. One minute she thought, he can go to hell. I can take care of myself, the baby too. I’ll go off somewhere where nobody knows me, start over, just the baby and me.
The next minute, though, Hester was mired in grief. How lonely she’d be for Al. How their baby would grow up like a weed without a good father. Her heart rapped wildly on the inside wall of her chest, don’t give up, don’t give up.
When she didn’t think she could make it through another night or day, Hester woke up with cramps and her sheets were wet with blood.
She was elated. She cleaned everything up, went to her car, and got the phone out of the trunk. She was about to call Al and tell him, everything’s okay, honey, I got my period, when her thinking began to go along a different line.
How long would he have gone without finding out how I was doing? Without trying to help me? If I really was pregnant, and he’d totally neglected me, I could’ve gotten him fired.
She hung the phone back on the kitchen wall and didn’t call Al. Each day that passed and the phone didn’t ring made Hester more resolute in her silence and madder at herself for falling for another loser, another man who knew how to chew women up and spit them out.
Then on the last day of June, Hester heard a knock on her door. She opened it. Al, who was entirely too dressed up for the hot summer morning, didn’t smile.
“I’ve been trying to call you.”
Hester thought, what an effing lie, but for some insane reason said, “Oh really, well, my phone must be broken.”
On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) Page 7