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I’ve seen all this a hundred times before, but this morning she seems different. Older. And it makes me sad. There is something eternal about my mother. She’s a pain in the ass, but she has great dignity.
He took the reins of her horse and told her to get down. He put his hand on his machete, stroked his crotch. She sat there, cowlike, mute. Enough of this, she thought. She kicked her horse hard in the gut and ran straight over the man. She says she still remembers hearing the crack of his leg bone, the squelch of the horse’s hooves in his stomach. That night at dinner, over a bowl of turkey soup, she told her mother what she had done. “I hope you killed him,” Granny Nanette said, dipping a tortilla into her soup. “But Wallace, dear,” she added, “that sort of behavior is unbecoming in a girl.”
A softness wrapped in softness wrapped in my arms, inside of me and outside at the same time.
“Unhappy people are always more interesting.”
I love Gina. But I carry you in my bloodstream.
We went to Black Pond for a quick swim, and then I sat on the porch and read my back-issue guilt pile of New Yorkers while I waited for you. What took you so long? I was going crazy.” Jonas looks up now and smiles. “God, I am so fucking in love with you.”
He takes my hair in his fists, kisses me. Rough, hard, unhinged. I don’t want to give in, but I kiss him back with a love that feels like drowning.
The breathless desire to breathe. Moonlight and sweet junk and sharks and death and pity and vomit and hope all combined.
“Fine. Whatever,” I said. “I’m a woman now, as my mother keeps telling me. It honestly makes me want to puke when she says it. ‘Eleanor, be proud. You’re a woman now.’” He looked at me with a serious, unwavering expression. Then he reached up, put his hand on my shoulder, and gave me a reassuring squeeze. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “That really does sound vile. Come on, I found something cool yesterday. By the way,” he said over his shoulder as we walked, “they teach sex ed in fifth grade, so I do understand that women bleed.” “Gross.” “The power to create life is a beautiful thing.” “Oh my
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“What do you think, Elle?” Anna says. “Do you like Conrad? He wants you to be his girlfriend.” “Stop it, Anna,” I say. “That’s repulsive.” And yet I feel a disconcerting ding of recognition, as if what she has said reminds me of something I already know but can’t remember.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She searches my face. “I didn’t want you to hate me.” I stare at the kitchen floor. “I could never hate you. It’s him I hate.” “I’m sorry, Mum.” “It wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who brought him into your life. If I had known he was hurting you . . . I’m glad he’s gone.” She takes my hand and grips it too tight. “Jesus. I should have seen it. How did I not see it?” The tips of my fingers turn pinkish, then white. There is something in her face that I haven’t seen in a long time. Steel. A spark of light. “If I ever see him again, I swear to God I’ll kill him.” “What?”
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Jonas is animal, Peter is mineral. And I need a rock.
“Peter isn’t the ring guy,” he says. “I’m the ring guy.”
“I wanted to call you back.” “Then why didn’t you?” “You asked me to choose,” I say. Jonas sighs. “I asked you to choose me.”
“Just so we are clear,” he says, “I will never love anyone the way I love you.”
I concentrate on each small task as if it is a lifeline, anchoring me to the present, to my life right now. I cannot get Rosemary’s words out of my head, her mundane, unvarnished voice as she handed me absolution, a pardon for my crime.
My head hurts from trying to think, going around and around in circles. Does letting go mean losing everything you have, or does it mean gaining everything you never had?
Ever since I was old enough to question my own instincts, my mother has given me the same piece of advice: “Flip a coin, Eleanor. If the answer you get disappoints you, do the opposite.”
