The Sweetness of Salt(58)

I lay the paintbrush down on the drop cloth next to my shoe. Tiny pinpoints of heat bloomed along my neck. My hands, which continued to quiver, had turned icy cold. Muscles I did not know I had—in my shoulders, my stomach, my throat—constricted themselves into tiny, tight knots.

“Hurt her?” I repeated.

“It was before Maggie came,” Sophie said. “I saw the whole thing, because I used to hide behind the couch when they fought. Part of me really believed that I could jump out and make them stop whenever I wanted to. And another part of me was just scared. They were so f*cking loud and they said such horrible things to each other—words I’d never heard of, but could just tell, by the way their faces looked, that they were mean, you know? Hateful.”

I’d witnessed a few of Mom and Dad’s arguments growing up, but they were so infrequent that I could barely remember them. Once or twice they had bickered at the dinner table, but neither of them had raised their voice, and no one had uttered a curse word. In fact, the only times I’d ever heard them really disagree with one another was when I was in bed and they were in their bedroom—and even then, they made it a point to keep their voices hushed. Strained, but hushed.

“Anyway,” Sophie continued, “they were in the living room and Mom was following Dad around, bugging him about the blue cans. She kept poking him in the back for some reason, because he wouldn’t turn around, he wouldn’t acknowledge her. And all of a sudden he just turned and shoved her. With both hands. Right in the middle of her chest. Mom flew back—I remember she was actually airborne for a second or two—and then she hit the corner of the coffee table in the middle of the room.” Sophie reached up with her fingers and pressed them against her left ear. “She hit the side of her head, right here…”

I stood up quickly, and then steadied myself as the room began to sway around me. “Jules?” Sophie asked. Her voice was far away.

“I need some air.” I forced my legs to walk out of the room and concentrated on steadying my hand so I could turn the doorknob. The rain was coming down in sheets, but I stepped out anyway, shutting my eyes against the torrent, taking short, shaky breaths. A loud buzzing noise sounded somewhere inside my head. The cold drops pelting my eyelids and my cheeks stung like pieces of ice, but I lifted my face up and did not turn away.

Once, in tenth grade, I had come back from studying at the library and heard Mom and Dad talking upstairs. They weren’t yelling, but their voices were loud enough that I stopped in my tracks, listening.

“If I could take it back, I would, Arlene. You know I would.”

“I don’t want you to take it back.” Mom was crying. “I want you to make it right!”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Dad’s voice was pleading. “What do you want me to do?”

Mom cried harder. “I don’t know.”


I could hear Sophie behind me, somewhere in the roar of the rain. “Jules?” Her arm encircled my shoulders. “Jules? Come back inside. It’s okay. We’ll take a break. Get you dried—”

“That’s why she wears the hearing aid, isn’t it?”

Sophie’s arm went limp. “Yes,” she whispered.

I began to walk. My legs moved heavily inside my soaking pants, and water streamed down the length of my hair.

“Jules!” Sophie called behind me. “Where are you going?”

I moved forward, walking faster and faster, propelled by a sudden and unknown urgency.

“Jules! Come back!”

But I did not go back.

I did not look back.

I just kept going, moving toward something in the distance that I could not see.





chapter


43


Main Street was a wet blur of colors. I could barely make out the orange lettering of the Stewart’s sign across the street. The tiny green lawns that fronted the other buildings had all but drowned in brown puddles, and the Dunkin’ Donuts sign bled electric waves of orange and pink. A lone car drifted by, parting the water in the middle of the street like the Red Sea. I didn’t bother to step aside; by now, it was impossible to get any wetter.

The rain itself did not particularly bother me, and I had never been inside a church, so there was no reason for me to stop suddenly when I reached the front of St. Raphael’s, with its wide white doors. Maybe it was because it was at the end of the street. Or maybe I was intrigued by the fact that one of the doors was open a little, held in place by a small red brick. Whatever the reason, I climbed the steps, pulled open the door, and stepped inside.

Shivering overtook me almost immediately, a violent trembling that made my teeth chatter like castanets. My overalls were so heavy that moving forward out of the tiny vestibule I had just entered took effort. I swung open another door and stared. Rows of empty pews lined the huge room, and the vacant altar at the front was a lonely compilation of wood and marble statues. The stained glass windows were as dark and melancholy as winter. In one corner, a marble woman, all in white, stared out at me with empty eyes. Long robes clustered around the bottom of her bare feet, and a mantle covered her head. One of her arms was holding something, while the other remained empty and outstretched.

This place looked even emptier than I felt. I turned to leave and glimpsed a shadow in the far left corner. Blinking remnants of moisture from my eyelashes, I squinted through the shadows. An old man was sitting in the very front row, staring straight ahead. The collar of his tan windbreaker was rumpled and wet, and white tufts of hair curled along the back of his neck.