Leaving Lucy Pear(83)

She hoisted herself into the lowest notch of the middle tree and began to climb. Up, the sky blue, open wide. But the tree was short, the trip over too quickly, and from the highest branch she couldn’t see anything she hadn’t been able to see before. Mrs. Cohn looked up at her and Lucy saw that it wasn’t easy for her to watch Lucy up there, balanced, no hands, and so she stayed, the sun hot in her hair, and called down: “You want me to come live here, with you? That’s what you’re saying?”

“No! No.”

Mrs. Cohn’s vehemence was startling. “You wouldn’t want me. . . .”

“Of course I would! I would. But Emma . . . What I’m saying—”

“She would never.”

“Never.”

“Plus you don’t want me.”

“Lucy.”

Loo-See.

“What I’m saying . . .”

“Why don’t you just say it!”

Lucy waited. She wanted to be scolded, punished, but she didn’t know this—she knew only that the sun was hot and her throat full with the shame. Then she saw that Mrs. Cohn was standing. She wasn’t looking at Lucy anymore but at something ahead of her, something Lucy couldn’t see. She noted the top of her mother’s head, the pale part amidst the dark, kelpy hair, how much paler it was than the rest of her. Lucy had the urge to curl up in that narrow place, protected and unseen.

“Lucy. Come down.”

This was said firmly, by Emma. It had been her job from the beginning, to enter quietly, and now she had done it again, she had found she couldn’t not do it, she had placed the teacup and saucer in Mrs. Haven’s lap and excused herself, followed them, heard everything.

Lucy stayed in the tree.

“This is what you were trying to tell me? He’s done something to her?”

Mrs. Cohn’s voice was a threadbare string. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Of course I could. I’m her mother.”

Lucy crouched in the branches. She stared at her shoes, which Emma had polished for this occasion.

“You’re not to blame,” said Mrs. Cohn.

“We’re all to blame.”

They were silent. The gulls, having moved on, called gently. Lucy watched as Mrs. Cohn discovered the caterpillar crawling up her arm and did not scream but—surprising Lucy, and comforting her, and breaking her heart all over again—took the thing and cradled it in her hand.

“Lucy. Come down.”

But she couldn’t think how to go down, not with Emma knowing what she now knew. Not the motions of it, feet, arms, hands, and not what she might do once she was there. She couldn’t imagine meeting their eyes, or letting them touch her.

They waited.





Thirty-four




Bea told Albert the truth that night, after everyone had left and Ira had gone to sleep. The lieutenant’s courteous stride, undersized for such a tall man, as he followed the admiral into her parents’ parlor. How delicately his large hands held his lowball as Lillian cornered and harassed him. How genuine his smile had been, as if he knew nothing about his own astounding teeth. How Bea had not minded at all when Lillian pushed him toward her. A walk, a walk! A shock, especially ten years ago, that Lillian had encouraged such a thing. But the streets would not have been empty. The common was lit. If they had gone outside, they would not have been alone.

They had not gone outside. On the stairs, instead of down, they had gone up to Beatrice’s bedroom, her little writing table, her dolls, her brass bed. It was shocking, she was shocked, the whole way, the entire time. There was some talk, as if he were a friend of her father’s, but she was fully grown, and she was not occupying the part of herself that spoke and nodded and smiled and fiddled with the loose knob on the bedpost as if she would momentarily lead him out of the room and back downstairs. She closed the door. A shock. But Estelle was busy downstairs. The gramophone played loudly. To blame Lillian was not entirely wrong—she had been neglectful, crass, she had thrown her daughter at the man like a souvenir—but neither was it accurate. Lillian had meant for them to walk, as Bea and Albert were walking now, on the road out to the point. Lillian had in her mind a stroll, however ill conceived. But it was Bea who closed the door, Bea who stood, waiting, having no idea what to do, aware only of the heat that ran through her. She had felt this heat before, in the company of Julian—she knew it would scatter eventually, ache a little, wane. But she did not think far enough ahead to think of that.

Deep down, maybe, she wanted to punish Lillian, show her. And Julian? She did not want to punish Julian, she wanted to marry him. And yet. She could see her life so clearly, now that he’d come out and asked, now that she’d nodded Yes: Radcliffe (or really, why bother with Radcliffe?), marriage, babies, the piano’s natural retreat into hobby, a toy into its corner. Lunches with Lillian. She would be the exact woman she was raised to become.

Some part of her might have flinched at this. Some part of her might have wanted to blow it all down. But even that wasn’t fair—she wanted to do what she was doing. She stood, and waited. He hesitated, and she waited, and then she lay under him on her own bed, not against a wall, not even crying out when it hurt, which it did, though not badly. He was very gentle. Mostly what she felt was fascination; mostly what she wanted was to know. He was apologetic, flustered. He left the room immediately and waited for her in the hall.