Part 23 (1/2)

What is he thinking happened? That she, feeling abandoned by him when he didn't show up at the dock, has disappeared as a way of punis.h.i.+ng him?

He never says a word about the telegram I sent in her name (Darling-I couldn't bring this upon you too. Stop. It's better this way. Stop. I can start over and you can go on. Stop. I love you. Stop. Alice. Stop.).

I like to think that somehow he knew everything I had done, knew and understood. That this is ultimately, secretly what he wanted, too. He is free now, free of everything she brought and everything she drew out in him.

I hate to think that we can never speak of it, that both of us hold and will continue to hold and hold secrets so dark that to ask questions of the other might risk contaminating everything.

But standing there beside him as he waits for me to finish filling his coffee cup, standing there in the sun-drenched kitchen so white it glows, I feel that in an instant everything can be erased, that we are, in a quick breath, born anew and time has disintegrated and then rebuilt itself and a new world has formed that is the same as the old, the world before the accident, that awful collision and everything it brought.

I have one last, strained phone conversation with Mike Standish. He is gentlemanly about the jaw and the split teeth. And he says he won't ask me any questions about it.

”I guess I don't want to know, King. I imagine you're probably glad that Alice split.”

”It's been very hard for my brother.”

”I'm sure it has. But, you know, I bet you're taking awfully good care of him.”

”I'm trying to,” I say, ignoring something strange in his tone.

”So is this it? You're through with me?”

”Aren't you through with me?” I say.

He pauses briefly, as if deciding.

Then, ”I don't know, King. Last night I read a book. What do you make of that?”

I feel something knock loose inside me, I feel his face in front of me, eyes on me and silky hands warmer than they should be, than they have any right to be.

”Your world ... it's so dirty,” I whisper, as if to him in the dark, as if to myself. ”How do you live in it?”

I hear him laugh softly to himself, and in that laugh are things that are tender and things that are harder, meaner, truer. It is both at once. Always both at once.

”Lora,” he says. ”One last thing.”

”What?”

”Didn't you ever think that maybe I was just trying to protect you?”

”From what?” I shot back.

”Never mind. Never mind.” His voice trails off, and then I hear the receiver click. I hear it click over and over again. I think I held the phone in my hand, pressed to my ear, forever.

The letter is forwarded to me from my old address. It is postmarked the very day the s.h.i.+p was to leave dock. She must have mailed it on her way to meet my brother. I read it three times very fast and then I tear it up and then Listen, Lora, when I told you what happened with Lois, it wasn't to boast and it wasn't to come clean, to confess. I told you because I wanted you to see. It was time for you to see.

You never trusted me, not once. How could you, given what your brother is? Who could be good enough, special enough, worthy enough, righteous enough for a man like your brother? G.o.d, he could make me shudder long after no man could make me shudder.

I guess I can tell you now: I started working you right away. I knew what I was up against. I was careful how dark my lipstick was, how low I'd wear my neckline, how I hung the drapes, made his dinner, danced with him at parties, and looked at him across rooms, across oceans, across crowded c.o.c.ktail parties. I was beyond reproach.

But then I saw that you liked my dark edges. Here was the surprise long after anyone could surprise me. You liked it.

You liked the voile nightgown you saw in my closet, touched it with your milky fingers and asked me where I'd gotten it. When I bought you one of your own, your face steamed baby pink, but you wore it. I knew you'd wear it.

From there it was simple. I can't deny the kick I got out of putting you and Mike Standish together. The giddiness at the thought of you being wedged between the same corded elbows I was. She'll never know he's such a bad lay, Lois growled at me. After me, he was better, I said, not wanting to feel it, not wanting to enjoy it so. What would Bil l... I turned hot with shame. I was obscene.

Of course, I had to be careful, had to watch. Was I letting you see too much? How far was too far? How much too much? Would I know?

Please understand. Trying to sleep all these nights, I'd lie in bed and think: There are things you can never tell these people. Things they can't hear. Things like what you will do if you have to, if your back is against the wall. Men you'll open your legs to. The open cash-box. Please. And if everything around you is runny and loose and awful, why shouldn't you take that hard shot of tight pleasure, that dusty tablet, that loaded bottle? A little inoculation, ward off the stained mattress, the time clock, the mother feeding you rancid mush?

How could I tell you and your brother any of that? Always huddled together, all flax and Main Street parades, pressed against each other on the patio steps, always so absorbed, so caught up in your own blood-closeness that you can't believe anything-anyone-else exists. Oh, there's a lot to be told about that. And then there was me, this damaged thing.

The things you can't tell-well, most of all, it's this: The hardest thing in this world is finding out what you're capable of.

My hands in your yellow hair, helping you get ready for a party, every party, I felt this was a sister, my sister, and I loved you, even your terrible judgment (on me, no less!) and, still more, your own terrible weakness. When I touched you, dug my fingers into your hair, it was as though you were a part of him, even smelled like him, all great plains, fresh gra.s.s and prairie. Because he was mine, so were you.