Leaving Lucy Pear(74)

“What time is it?” the girl asked.

Bea checked the piece around her neck, taking the opportunity to close her eyes for a little bit, fix the girl’s face in her mind. “A quarter to three.”

“She’ll be home soon.”

Fresh panic bloomed in Bea’s stomach. She said, “She doesn’t expect me. Maybe I should come back when—”

“You can’t go!” Tears pooled in the girl’s eyes. She stood flat-footed, arms at her sides, just as Bea stood—Bea knew because Lillian had always instructed her otherwise: close your legs, do something with your hands, you’ll frighten them away. Bea saw now how the stance could be imposing, how completely Lucy blocked her way. Bea’s cowardice hung between them in the dark shed like fly tape.

She sat.

Emma did not come at three. Bea watched as Lucy showed her how the scratcher worked, where the pears went, how to turn the crank, how the pulp, when you hooked up the chute Lucy had devised, slid down through the turnip bin to the press. She wanted desperately to entertain Bea, to keep her—her desperation made Bea ill. She tried not to think of Albert, waiting for her in the little village. Was there anywhere to go, she wondered, other than the coffee shop? And it was closed now, according to Lucy. So where was Emma? Lucy pulled Bea to the scratcher, urging her to try. Bea was astonished at the crank’s weight. She managed to produce a mere fistful of pulp before she had to stop—it fell into a bowl beneath the scratcher with a slimy thud. She had an urge to feel the girl’s arm, touch the muscle there, touch her at all. But Lucy was already off in the corner, gathering up more pears. “I was trying to make enough money to go to Canada,” she said. “But we had to stop, after the boat wrecked. These are all that’s left.”

Bea smiled, assuming a joke. “Canada?” she asked.

Lucy shrugged, her hands full of pears. “My brother Peter’s there.” Her voice was breezy but Bea glimpsed, in the lieutenant’s long chin, a quivering. “I had a job,” she said, “but not anymore. I pretended to be a boy, in the quarry. Then I got caught. Now I have to wait again, a whole year.” The pears sounded hollow as she dumped them into the press.

“You want to leave here?” Bea ventured.

“Please don’t tell.” Lucy flashed a painfully eager smile. “I was thinking . . . maybe . . . you could help?”

“Help?” Bea couldn’t hide her surprise.

“With the ticket, I mean.”

Bea swallowed hard. Again she tried to smile, but it was a lopsided effort—she could no longer process the conversation, she knew so little about Lucy’s life. Did she want Bea to help her with some kind of escape? Bea had left her daughter when she’d barely been able to see. Why should the girl trust her now? “But your mother . . .” Bea sputtered.

“Look!” Lucy lifted her skirt, turned sideways, set her foot on the box next to Bea’s. High up on the backside of her leg, Bea saw a wound the size of a quarter, bright red at its center, fading to pink at its edges. It could be a burn, she thought. She had seen plenty of burns. Nearby a few old bruises lay quietly under the skin, like dim moons around a sun. Bea felt her temperature rise—her ears and fingers swelled with blood. Rage shot through her. What had she allowed to happen? She asked as calmly as she could: “What is this?”

Lucy let her skirt fall.

“This is why you want to leave?”

Lucy turned away and resumed cranking. “What is my father like?” she asked.

“Your father?” It was a natural question, and connected, Bea presumed, to the wound, yet she was not prepared for it. “Lucy.”

“Is he Mr. Cohn?”

“No.”

“Is he dead?”

“No!”

Lucy looked doubtful. “He’s dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

“Then what?”

“He was a very honorable man. He would have wanted you to be—”

“You talk like he’s dead!” The girl bit her lip. She appeared in awe of her own impertinence. “You didn’t know him,” she said, realizing. “He didn’t know me.”

Bea reached a hand toward Lucy. Lucy didn’t take it.

“That was how it had to be done.”

“Why?”

Bea thought how to explain it. But the explanation was about certain types of people and schools and mothers and concerts. It was about a sort of life, a world, that didn’t sound so hard. She tried another tack. “Imagine one of your sisters . . .”

“My mother got pregnant with Juliet before she was married,” Lucy said. “I did the math.”

Bea took a deep breath. She could smell the girl. She smelled of sun and sweat, girl sweat—Bea remembered—tangy but appealing, like citrus. “Forget it,” Bea said. “What I mean to say is that it was a mistake. Not to have kept you. I mean to say I’m sorry. I know he is, too. Which sounds completely useless, I know. I’d understand if you hate me. But I am. I’m sorry. I’m here now. I—” She nodded vaguely at Lucy’s leg. “Maybe I can help.”

That was when Emma peered in. She was backlit, and breathing heavily from her walk up the hill, her shoulders rising and falling, and Bea’s first thought was of Nurse Lugton, here to stop the strangeness, wake her, tell her it was all a dream.