Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (14 page)

This was something else she disliked about Ernest, this tendency to call everyone by his or her last name, as if he were still in boarding school. “I wasn't going to until you reminded me,” Calvin said softly, and turned to Ezra. “Would you mind?”

“I'm all out,” he said, though Antonia knew differently.

“Oh, just give him a fucking cigarette,” she said. She hadn't meant to say it quite the way she had, but there it was, her pent-up distaste for Ezra finally in the open.

Henry pulled away, though he said nothing, while Ezra just shrugged, which only further fueled her fury. She excused herself and went into the house for her own pack, which she thought she'd left in the kitchen. Here, she found Ernest, stacking the plates in the sink. It was a kind, surprising gesture, even for Ernest, and she warmed to him a bit. “You don't have to do that,” she said.

“I don't have to do many things, Lively,” he said, grinning.

“I'm glad you guys are here,” she said. “Really. It's so great to see some familiar faces.”

“We've been planning to visit,” he said, and Antonia knew he meant that Calvin had been planning to visit. “Are you sure that this is the right weekend? I mean, you seem on tenterhooks.”

“I'm fine,” she said, but of course she wasn't. Before she could speak again, the kitchen window that faced the empty, black backyard suddenly shattered. Ernest yelled as Antonia tried to scream, her voice lost in her throat. She shut her eyes and felt a quick, rushing disturbance of air at her face, as if someone or something were exhaling a hot, angry breath. There was the quick rush of footsteps across the hardwood floor as everyone except Ezra converged in the kitchen. Ernest was kneeling on the floor, saying, “It's a typewriter.” Sure enough, as Antonia opened her eyes, she saw what everyone else was seeing—a battered typewriter lying on its side, surrounded by broken glass. As she kneeled next to Ernest on the floor, she realized it wasn't just any old typewriter but her typewriter, the Underwood No. 5. All the keys were missing, and a single sheet of white typing paper was still spooled in the roller. Half of the sheet was gone, ripped away, but the other half, on which words had been typed, remained perfectly intact.

While Calvin swept up around her and Henry went to find Ezra, Antonia picked up the typewriter and placed it on the table. She sat down across from it, sighing, running a finger over the beautiful, eviscerated machine, angry tears running down her face. She ripped the paper from the carriage and read the words typed on the torn page in three single lines:
I know exactly what you are and who you are. You won't get away with this. You'll never write another word again, so help me God.
It was, of course, unsigned. Antonia didn't need to see a signature to verify the vandal, because it could have only been one person, this person who hadn't rushed into the kitchen along with everyone else: Ezra. She heard Henry calling out for him, then nothing, just the sound of the broom and the glass and the wind through the shattered window. She couldn't believe any of this was happening, though of course it was, all of it: the feeling that her life was being torn apart by vandals, a sense that the past was about to threaten her future, the fear that everyone despised her for being who she was. She wasn't a paranoid person, yet tonight, as she thanked Calvin for the help cleaning up, and floated into the study for a fresh pack of cigarettes, Antonia felt the world suddenly against her. All of it.

To her horror, the study door was unlocked, which was also a mystery, especially since she had the only key. The room was as she'd left it, except for the missing typewriter. She hurried to her desk, forgetting the cigarettes, far more worried about the pages of her new novel, which she always kept secured in one of the drawers. She used a different key, a small brass key, and opened the drawer, relieved to find the seventy or so pages still where she'd left them. The study window was open and the screen removed, and as she replaced the screen and closed and locked the window, she thought, Here is Exhibit A. She pictured Exhibit B on the kitchen table and Exhibit C, the note. What had those words meant? Hadn't she already gotten away with everything? Hadn't she already started work on something new?

As she left the study to look for Henry, to talk to him about Ezra, everything about the night seemed to her all wrong. Doubt rippled through her. Not tonight, she thought. Not now. Now, she simply wanted to find Henry. Instead, she found Ezra lying on his back in the lawn, gazing up at the stars and smoking another cigarette. She stood over him and said, “Where's Henry?”

He blew a thick cloud of smoke toward her face, and said nonchalantly, “Am I my father's keeper?”

“That was a nasty thing you did,” she said. “I've been nothing but kind to you. I invited you out here to have a wonderful weekend with Henry, and this is how you repay me.”

He blinked at her, dumbfounded. His voice innocent, almost hurt, he said, “What . . . I don't . . . What are you talking about?”

“Don't play stupid with me,” she said sharply.

“Where's my father?” he asked, rising.

“I just asked you that,” she said. “Besides, Henry has nothing to do with this.”

Then Ezra was laughing, saying, “He has everything to do with everything.” He paused. “Do you know why I finally gave in and came out here this weekend?”

“Because it was time,” she said. “Because Henry loves you and you love him, no matter your differences.”

Again he laughed, but it was mechanical and hollow. “Hardly,” he said. “I wanted to see this farce for myself. I wanted to see just how far the old man had fallen and what exactly he'd fallen for.” He brushed a loose piece of grass from his arm. “I know who and what you are, Antonia. If my father can't see it, then he gets what he deserves.”

So I am right about him, she thought, picturing the note, trembling with fury. “You little bastard,” she said, her eyes white with rage.

“I wonder what it's like for you to kiss a man old enough to be your grandfather,” he said with disgust, and when he said it, she slapped him hard across the face, knocking the cigarette out of his mouth.

The sound of the slap, like the sound of his laughter, went ricocheting through the air. Antonia dropped her hand, and Ezra stood there, a terrible, tight grin pulled across his face. She turned and rushed into the house, where she went into the bedroom and slammed the door. She couldn't stand the sight of him another second. Switching off the light, she shivered and burrowed her way under the blankets, although the room was warm. Five minutes later, she was asleep.

A
NTONIA SLEPT FITFULLY
and awoke with a start, her heart slamming in her chest. There was someone else in the room with her, a man, and for a split second she imagined this man her father and she shut her eyes against him. When she heard Henry say her name, however, she opened her eyes and sat up, waiting for his next words, for him to scold her. She knew already that in her own defense she would rebuff him, saying, “You should have heard the things he said to me. You should have heard what he said about us.” Yet Henry said, “I'm sorry that took so long. I went to the cottage to get Ezra an extra blanket and pillow and ran into Catherine.”

“Henry,” Antonia said, her voice foreign even to her. “I'm sorry.”

“About what?” he asked, sliding into the bed beside her. He was hot and sweaty and the feel of him brought her a surge of relief. She dug her face into the crook of his neck, and kissed him gently, thinking, Good, Ezra hasn't said a word, then.

“I was exhausted. I haven't been such a great host. I hope Calvin and Ernest are all right,” she said.

“Sound asleep, as far as I can tell,” he said. Then, “I'd say it was a successful evening, typewriters through windows aside.” It angered her that he was making light of something as serious as what had happened, but then she knew Henry and that he'd do anything to leaven the moment, protecting her. “We can call the police in the morning,” he said, drawing her closer.

“Let's just drop it,” she said, because she knew how important this weekend was to him. “I'm sure it was just an awful prank, like—” She stopped herself. Now wasn't the time to bring up the words splashed across the cottage. “I hope it isn't too awkward with Calvin and Ernest here. They have to get back tomorrow anyway and then it'll just be you and Ezra.”

“Me, Ezra, and you,” he said, nuzzling her. “No, it isn't strange having them here. They're your friends, Antonia. They're important to you.”

She kissed him again, then got up and went into the bathroom. She took a bath, because it always helped to calm her, and fifteen minutes later when she came out Henry was asleep, a copy of her novel open and resting on his chest. She removed it and switched off the small reading lamp. On the acknowledgments page, he was the first person she listed; it was his novel as much as hers. He'd gone through it with her, editing it and loving it, as if it were his own. Though she hadn't agreed with all of his suggestions, hadn't been willing to make some of the changes he'd wanted, she couldn't have done any of it without him.

Not long after the house fell into total quiet, Antonia awoke again with a start, thrust out of sleep by a terrible dream. Though she couldn't remember the particulars, neither where the dream had taken her nor why it had brought her there, she did remember that she'd been on a frantic search for her cigarettes, which she'd left in the pocket of a coat. In the dream, there were hundreds of coats, all exactly the same cut and color, and they were lined up side by side and she was shoving her hands into their pockets only to discover, to her horror, that the pockets were depthless, that she could never reach the bottom. No, in the dream, she hadn't recognized the coats, but now, awake, she saw them all too clearly: they were copies of her mother's coat, which was hanging in her closet.

Her heart still thudding wildly, she climbed out of bed and went to the closet, the dull light, when she slid open the door, pooling at her feet. There it was, waiting for her as usual, waiting for winter, a heather green wool coat with a high fur collar and pale, rose-colored buttons. Though the temperature of the room was mild, Antonia nonetheless was chilled, and she pulled the coat off the wooden hanger and wrapped herself in it: her mother's coat, which she'd been wearing for years; her mother's coat, which she could not part with. About to climb back into bed, coat and all, Antonia thought she heard voices coming from the veranda. They were muffled, indistinct, and she padded into the other room to find out whom they belonged to. The sofa bed, which was Ezra's that weekend, was empty, the front door slightly ajar. Through it, she smelled the whiff of cigarette smoke. She wondered whom he could be talking to at this late hour. Was it Calvin? Were they sharing a cigarette? Was Ezra telling him what a horrible person she was?

Quietly, she stepped out of the door and there was Ezra, leaning over the veranda's railing and speaking to someone down on the lawn. There were clouds, which blotted out the stars and moon, and she could not make out the features of the other person. When she heard the other voice above Ezra's, though, a deep, scratchy growl, she froze in place, her pulse beating heavily. It was her father, there under the moonless sky, though it could have just as easily been her uncle, the two often mistaken for one another. She wasn't sure whom she dreaded seeing more, skinny, shirtless Ezra in his camouflage shorts or her father, tall and imposing, this brutish man with his brutish love. The story rushed back at her, as she stood there, immobile, nailed in place as if by the spikes of memory itself. God, how she'd loved him, and God, how she wished he'd leave her alone.

Go away, she thought. Just go away, but he wasn't going away, not until he'd said what he'd come to tell her, she knew.

She took a step forward and the wood beneath her groaned. Ezra spun around, the tip of his cigarette an angry glowing eye in the dark. Then her father was saying her name and she hated her name, the way he said it, hated him all the more, saying her name as if she were still his, as if this were still their story. She wasn't his, not anymore, and she said, “Get out of here,” but she spoke to Ezra, only to him, because she couldn't bear to look at her father. She hated him for what he'd done, for keeping the story from her, and she imagined, not for the first time, that her mother had known, that her father's secret had made her sick and put her in an early grave. Her father, who'd raised her and loved her, lived in quite a different story now. “You aren't welcome here,” she said, wondering again how he'd found her.

“Just listen to what he has to say,” Ezra said coldly. “You owe him that much.”

“I owe him?” she asked, her voice quiet and hard, surprised by Ezra's butting in. “I owe him?” She was laughing, standing there in her mother's coat, as her father took a step onto the veranda, moving steadily until he was beside her, and Ezra was shaking his hand, then moving away, drifting into the yard.

She wondered, suddenly confused, why Ezra shook her father's hand like that. What could it mean?

She pulled the coat tighter around her, the wool scratchy against her bare skin. “What?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

He was standing close now, and for a moment she wanted to reach out to him and tell him why she'd done what she'd done, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. She'd disavowed him, swearing on Sylvie's grave that she'd never speak to him again. He'd murdered her. Her father had done that. This man who'd sung her lullabies and taken her to see the elephants in the zoo and ice skating on the frozen lake. He'd built her a castle for her eighth birthday and had inhabited it with miniature furniture, which he'd made by hand.

Now she stepped away and turned her back on him, shivering uncontrollably, feeling nauseated and feverish all of a sudden.