Hester sat on the concrete wall by the shuffleboard courts and watched an army of workers toss everything that wasn’t nailed down into a giant pile. Another platoon began disconnecting the electrical boxes and turning off water valves to the ill-fated trailers. An excavator pulled off A1A, stopped in front of the first unit, and ripped into it with its giant claws.
By noon the park looked like somebody dropped a bomb on part of it. Everything, including Hester, was covered with dust. She walked past the detritus to the deli, and got a hoagie and a coffee. She was killing time.
On the way back, she turned onto Fish Tail Lane and headed toward her place. Their custom sign, “Our Castle by the Sea, Unit 23, Al and Hester Murphy,” was askew. She didn’t bother to straighten it before she went inside.
It was stuffy and humid. Hester flipped on the air-conditioner. Luckily they hadn’t shut everything off. She noticed how dirty, how forlorn the little place looked. Had it always been like this? Or was she just seeing it for what it really was? A dump. The room and everything in it was about to fall even further from glory. Hester wanted to have a yard sale or donate their belongings to Goodwill. Now all of it was destined for a landfill where, eventually, it would rot away.
“It’s junk we don’t need, Hester,” Al said in a stern voice. “Just leave it behind.”
You’re not the boss of me, Hester thought. Her students used to say that. “You’re not the boss of me, Mrs. Murphy.”
Hester picked up one of her favorite things, a saltshaker in the shape of an orange with a face on it and “Florida” written around the base. “I don’t need you, but I want you.” Hester said to the small orange face. Landfill, my foot. This whole place might be going down, but not Mr. Orange. She went to the closet and got some tissue paper and wrapped Mr. Orange up, then his pepper twin. She dumped Al’s old paperwork out of the box in the bedroom and spent the next half hour filling it with her things.
The crunching, booming demolition team was getting closer. Hester didn’t have much time left. She began trembling at the prospect of what she still had to do.
She looked out. Dust rose up and met the clouds. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
When the air cleared, when Pleasant Palms was gone, condos, like phoenixes, would rise from the park’s ashes on the wings of big money. The towering buildings would block the sun from the beach. Concrete and asphalt would replace the lush tamarind, necklace pod, and wax myrtle. The towhee would search futilely for the bloodberry. The birdsongs would be gone, replaced by the droning of the gas trimmers. At night instead of the rustle of sea oats and satinleaf, the clink of champagne flutes would fill the air. The bright lights of the new condos would outshine the constellations. The first moon would wane in comparison, and the pregnant leatherbacks, bewildered, would swim away from, instead of toward their ancient destination. The trails of perpetuation in the sand, the fertile mounds, and the hatchlings would be gone. And since the female instinct cannot be thwarted, since she must lay her eggs or die trying, the great turtles would become extinct. And the silver gray fox. And the copper snakes. All the frightened creatures would slink away, never to return.
As the noise grew into a deafening buzz, Hester thought of flies buzzing around dead meat, the rotting pig’s head, the lord of the flies, the beastie, the flies landing on it, eating it, laying their eggs on it. Oh, yes, she believed in the beast within.
Her eyes itched from the dust, and her head ached from trying to make a decision. She was scared, but this was not the time for her to weaken, it was the time for her to move forward, face the music, put the cards on the table. She felt the blood pulsing in her temples and the flutter of anxiety in her chest.
If only she had knocked Al off that pedestal she’d put him on sooner, she might not have let so much of what he did, as James Joyce put it in The Dead, “fall faintly through the universe.” The Irishman was writing literally about snow, but figuratively it was exactly how she reacted to all of Al’s shenanigans—she just let them drift down in the endless darkness inside her and let the heat of her anger melt them away.
Hester went into the living room and packed a beach towel on top of her things in the box and taped it shut.
Someone banged on the window. “You have to get out. Your place is next. You know you shouldn’t be here. If you get sick from all this dust, you’re at your own risk.” It was Clayton in his good clothes, his mouth covered in a white mask, screaming through the closed window.
“Okay, I’m going,” Hester shouted over the grinding noise, but Clayton was already walking away. She surveyed the small interior. Everything that happened here that was good was over. And everything that happened here that was bad would never be over. Reluctantly, she went down the hallway and into the guest room.
The whole trailer began to vibrate. Nearby a jackhammer rumbled. Hester pulled Nina’s suitcase and carry-on from under the bed. Funny how Al never knew they were there, never snooped around his own place. His utter and dependable laziness kept Hester’s secret safe and allowed their sham of a marriage to bungle along for a few more months.
Hester blew the dust off the suitcase and opened it. She wanted to take one of those pictures of Nina, the one of her smiling with the two pearls of her baby teeth showing. Hester couldn’t stay mad at Nina. She was the victim. Whatever happened between Al and Nina—Hester was no longer in denial that something did—was all on Al.
And Hester couldn’t take Nina’s foolish teenage bravado seriously either. Nina wrote those nasty things in her book probably because Hester had given her a D on her Gatsby essay. Nina defended Tom. Her argument was a rant about Daisy. If Nina was a man and had to live with a person like Daisy, she’d cheat on her too. There wasn’t much else, no textual references, no insight into any of the other characters.
Hester unzipped the pocket of the suitcase and took the photos out. The one she wanted was on top. She put it aside and beneath it was the photo she hadn’t seen. It was a picture of baby Nina and her mother. Hester stared at the photograph, at the mother holding her smiling daughter, at the smiling mother…Jennifer Masterson.
That cold day in the dugout, Al with Jennifer. Al lying—she knew the minute he opened his mouth, he was lying—about checking for smokers, class-cutters. Al blocking Hester’s view of Jennifer. Jennifer leaving school without graduating.
Hester’s mouth went dry. The truth dropped down on her like a hammer.
Al is Nina’s father?
The excavator was chewing away at Chet’s place. Something scraped the side of Hester’s unit. She heard men hollering to each other in Spanish.
Hester rummaged quickly through the carry on, found Nina’s hairbrush, and pulled a handful of hair from its bristles. She took the photographs and the hair into the kitchen and shoved the hair into a baggie. She went back into the bathroom and got Al’s used razor and put it in another baggie. She shoved everything in her pocketbook, picked up the box of her things, and headed out into the heat.
Before she could close the slider, the sky opened up, and it was pouring rain. It was the way it was in Florida, dry one minute, a deluge the next. Hester backed up into the trailer, put the box down, grabbed Al’s yellow slicker, and threw it on. As she was about to leave, though, she remembered something she’d been trying to remember, and ran into her bedroom. In her underwear drawer, balled up in the back, was the soiled pink thong. She stuck it in the pocket of the slicker and left.
Forty-Seven
“The master bath—why is it called the “master” bath?” Hester asked Al that question, and he said, “Because it is the bigger and better bathroom, just like men are the bigger and better sex.” He was joking, naturally, but Hester wasn’t laughing. She had, mistakenly, thought there was an historical or etymological explanation she was unaware of.
When she arrived home from Kintersville, Hester took the rustic wooden Madonna, which she’d recognized at once as Peruvian, not Mexican, and put it on the vanity between the sinks in the master b
ath. It did wonders to warm up the sterile space.
Al didn’t think so, and he made a point about the sacrilegious placement of the religious artifact. After all, he pointed out, they did take a dump in there, whereupon, Hester countered that they didn’t, because they had a separate water closet. Al claimed that was a stupid technicality, but he was too busy watching The Price Is Right with Nina.
Nina, sitting on the low-backed sofa with her feet curled up under her, was an arm’s reach length away from Al in the Eames chair. Both of them had their eyes glued to the television screen. The late-afternoon sun cast its last steely light through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Nope, no classes today, Mrs. M,” Nina answered between bites of her apple when Hester had asked why she wasn’t in school.
“How’s the whole college thing going?” Hester kicked off her flats and went over to the fireplace to turn it up.
“Can’t you wait for a commercial before you start your interrogation of the poor girl?” Al picked up the remote and increased the volume. Nina looked at Hester and shrugged as if to say, sorry. Hester shook her head and smiled. She was happy to see Nina. It made her think she hadn’t wasted all those years being a teacher. Look how her former student made such an effort to visit her. Nina didn’t have a car and had to take a southbound bus from Moretown to Trenton, to catch a northbound bus to Lambertville. The trip probably took over two hours. After Hester made a nice dinner for them, she’d drive Nina back to her aunt’s, and all it would take is about fifteen minutes.
From the kitchen Hester could see the back of Nina’s head and Al’s profile, and through the windows, the darkening sky, the blotches of heavy clouds. By the time the show was over, Hester had set the table, made a salad, broiled the flounder, nuked the potatoes, and opened a bottle of Rioja. She poured a glass for Al and herself, and milk for Nina.
Al clicked off the TV, extended a hand to Nina, and pulled her up off the sofa. “Come on, little girl, time for dinner.”
She giggled just like a little girl, but said, “Mr. M, come on now. You of all people know I’m no little girl anymore.”
“Me of all people? What do you mean by that? Little girl?” Al winked.
“What I mean is, I’m almost eighteen and grown-up, so don’t tease me about it anymore, all right?” Nina was taking her seat at the table. She flipped the long wispy curls of her hair off her shoulders. Al sat down next to her and across from Hester. He took the napkin off Nina’s plate and handed it to her. She shook it out and dutifully placed it on her lap.
The meal was delicious, and the wine warmed Hester from the inside out. Nina told them all about community college. She loved her professors, especially her biology teacher. She was thinking now she might want to go into medicine.
“Imagine me a doctor! Could you imagine that?”
“Of course we can, Nina,” encouraged Hester. “We’ve always believed in you, haven’t we, Al?”
“Yes we have,” Al agreed and poured another glass of wine. He sat back and looked at the young woman next to him. Hester watched her husband’s eyes soften when they rested on Nina. Al would’ve been a good father. Hester hadn’t been able to give Al his own daughter, but at least she nurtured their connection with Nina.
Yes, thought Hester, Nina was a gift to us. Maybe the only good thing that came out of 9/11.
Hester, Al, and Nina worked together to clear the table and do the dishes. Nina chattered about the job she got as a waitress at Wildflowers and how she couldn’t go to the shore with her new friends because she need to work as many hours as she could to pay for college
“Al, don’t you think we could help Nina out?” Hester said knowing fair well that with Nina right there it put Al on the spot. When Al shot her a look, Hester knew she misjudged the degree to which Al felt responsible for Nina.
“Well, Nina, we did just retire. Maybe Mr. Murphy hasn’t figured out our own bills yet?” Hester back-pedaled.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. M, I’m fine. I don’t expect you or Mr. M to give me anything. You’ve already done too much, helping me get into college, helping me with the student loan applications, helping me pay for my books. Why, I couldn’t ask anything more from either of you.” She stood in the center of the kitchen. The overhead light lit up her face. Her skin glowed, her cheeks were flushed, her lips pink. She folded her arms in front of her. Three feet away, Al stood in the same position.
“Look, little girl, it’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s just that if you don’t work for something, you’ll never appreciate it. I was never handed anything on a silver platter. I had to make my own way and solve my own problems. To get where I am today took sacrifices, big sacrifices.” Al words, ping, ping, pinged through the air at Nina. His eyes boring right through her.
Nina stared back and locked eyes with the man who was probably the closest thing she ever had to a father, her face rigid with defiance. She pursed her lips as if to stop herself from saying something. Hester saw the tears welling up in Nina’s eyes. She wanted to go to her, hug her, comb her fingers through her curls.
Before Hester could move, Nina said, “Didn’t I say I was fine, that I don’t want anything from you? Didn’t I just say that?” Her lips quivered, tears ran down her face. Hester went to her and wrapped her arms around the small shaking body.
“Hester, cut it out. She’s alright. I’ll handle this.” Al stepped forward and took one of Nina’s hands and led her away from Hester into the living area. “Calm down. We’ll work something out so you have enough to do some fun things once in a while with your friends.” He put his hand on her back and patted her. Nina had her head down and picked it up to turn and look up at Al. She blinked a couple of times, and her tears were gone.
“I’ll drive you home, and on the way, we’ll figure the whole thing out.” Al gave Nina a quick hug and went into the bedroom to get his coat and keys.
“Do you want me to go with you, honey?” Hester hollered after him.
He reappeared. “No, we’ll be okay. Won’t we, Nina?”
“I know you’ll be okay,” interrupted Hester, “but this might be the last time I’ll see Nina for a while since we’re leaving for Florida next week. Hester turned to Nina and took her hand, “I am going to miss you. You have to come down to visit. You just have to.”
“I will, Mrs. M, if I can save up enough money.” Nina squeezed Hester’s hand and dropped it.
“Maybe I should go with you, Al. You might want some company for the ride back.”
“Oh, he likes to listen to the radio, Mrs. M. You know that.” Nina grabbed her heavy sweater from the back of one of the dining room chairs, put it on, and pulled the hood up. The tawny curls spilled forward around her face and made her look even prettier. She hurried over to Hester, hugged her quickly, and kissed her cheek. She and Al were halfway out the door before she turned slightly and said, “Thanks for everything.”
“Be careful!” Hester warned, but the door had already slammed shut as though caught by the wind.
Forty-Eight
Everything was quiet except for the screeching parrots in the top of the Bo tree. The workers were in their trucks waiting out the rain. Let Clayton slap her with a fine. Hester didn’t care. She walked to the tree, pressed her hand against the scar, and looked down. Drops of water clung to the blossoms of the flowers she’d planted. She kissed her hand, knelt, and touched the wet earth where Nina was buried. If only she could turn back time.
Hester walked away past a row of refrigerators, rotting food spilling out of their open orifices, toward mounds of debris. Like refuges from better times, sofas, mattresses, chairs, draperies, jagged chunks of Formica countertops, light fixtures, lamps, and rugs were jumbled up together waiting to be loaded onto some truck and hauled away. As Hester circumnavigated the rubble, she was nearly run down by a Bobcat, whose driver seemed blinded by his goggles.
Once she got beyond the construction site, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and the
noise resumed with a vengeance. Hester knew it wouldn’t last long. The truth will change everything, she thought.
Yes, she hid Nina’s body. Yes, she lied to Al about what happened. Yes, she told him the girl had gone back to the community college. And, yes, Hester knew how hard Al tried to get in touch with Nina. Hester checked his cell phone, saw all the fruitless, unanswered calls to what must have been a cell phone he’d given Nina. Hester knew, despite his silence, he was desperate to find his secret lover. He was probably walking around the campus at this very moment searching for her. Hester could almost pity him if she weren’t so disgusted by him.
She didn’t really need a DNA test—even though she was hell-bent on getting one done—to be certain.
In the end Al was a stranger to her. She was married to him, cooked for him, cleaned up after him, worried about him, fought for him and with him, soothed him, flattered him, and had sex, lots of sex, with him, without really knowing him. So how had she loved him all these years? By turning a blind eye to what was right in front of her? By acting clueless when she already connected the dots?
She had invented the Alexander Bruno Murphy she loved. That man was a figment of her imagination and not the real person with whom she’d spent most of her life. Why she should’ve spent the past three decades writing an epic novel instead of putting up with the real Al. Oh, she’d done a spectacular job of fictionalizing their existence. From afar, as a couple, they glowed romantically like the moon; but as the astronauts found out when they touched down on it, that shining magical sphere was, in reality, cold, cratered, and barren.
All Hester desired now was to salvage some shred of dignity from the wasteland of her life. She had plenty of regrets concerning Al, but none as immutable as the sin she’d committed before Al came into her life. Her abortion distorted everything forever after. That single loss was a stake in the center of her being upon which any chance for happiness was quickly impaled.
On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) Page 24