Authors: Andrew Coburn
"Tell me about it."
Trish put the punch glass aside and rose from
the chaise. A bikini clung bravely to her full showy
body. Hands on her hips, she looked down at Gloria. "Tell me the truth. Do I look ridiculous?"
"You're big in the bust, you can't help that. No,
you don't look ridiculous. You look beautiful."
Wearing straw hats and open silk shirts, they
strolled the beach. Waves were coming in green
now. A fishing boat plowed a path toward deep waters. They passed a child whispering into a shell, a
man slipping on a frog mask, young women scampering into the surf.
"You ever scared, Gloria?"
"Of what? Dying?"
"Living, aging, all that stuff."
Gloria tossed her a big smile. "Every minute of
the day."
Escaping the relentless sun, they browsed a
seafront shop that sold scrimshaw, shells, driftwood, and watercolors of tropical storms. Tired,
thirsty, they returned to the hotel and had drinks at the veranda bar, where a man who looked extremely clean, perhaps because he was bald and
wore white, bought them a round.
He had a British accent, a slight stammer, and a
chin line no longer firm. When he placed a hand
on Trish's knee, she said, "Give me a break!"
He soon left.
"You looking to get laid, Gloria?"
"I could've stayed home for that."
"Good. Because I'm not either."
Gloria's drink was exotic, and she licked sugar
from her lips. "Unless of course someone scrumptious comes along."
"That's different."
They napped for an hour in their room, then
showered and dressed. Her chestnut hair tied with
a ribbon, Gloria looked defiantly slender and
poignantly attractive in a brief evening dress. In
the same cut of garment, Trish appeared dewy,
bouncy, spontaneous. She dabbed a touch of Gloria's perfume on her wrist. They dined in the
smaller of the hotel's two restaurants, at a table
marked by elegant linen and muted by candle
glow. The offerings of a harpist made Trish think
of tinkling water drops and Grecian rockscape.
"You've been to Greece, haven't you, Gloria?"
"Twice. Once on my honeymoon, I forget which
husband."
"Three failed marriages, Gloria. Does that ever
depress you?"
'I take it philosophically. Every song plays itself
out.'
Trish finished feasting on turtle steaks, which
she had a taste for. Gloria consumed a fried fillet
of grouper. Declining dessert and coffee, they ordered after-dinner drinks, which arrived promptly.
Trish's was redolent of rose petals and cloves.
"Don't let me get tight."
"Why not?" Gloria said. "You can do what you
want here."
"I'll get maudlin. The holidays did a number on
me. The kids spent them with their father, of
course. He's the one broke up the marriage, but
they still blame me for it."
"Fathers do no wrong. Mothers are bitches."
"Where's it written?"
"God's male. He wrote it."
They sipped their liqueurs slowly and then
called for the check. Trish signed it and wrote in a
generous gratuity. Gloria left a little something for
the harpist. They wandered through the lobby and
out into the soft night. The sky over the sea was
immense and aggressively bright with stars. Gloria
said, "Do you remember my second husband?"
Trish tended to remember voices. She remembered his. Deep and authoritative.
"He wore power suspenders, cardinal red," Gloria said. "Making money and making underlings
jump was what he was all about. He thought he
could make me jump."
Trish remembered dining with them at LockeOber's. When a gold crown fell into his lobster pie,
she thought it was a cuff link. "How did you do in
the settlement?"
"He had the better lawyer."
Dropping her head back, Trish gazed up at the
glittering immensity of the sky. Her voice had a
tremor. "The eye deceives," she said. "The spaces
between the stars look manageable."
"But we know otherwise," Gloria said.
When they returned to their room, Trish placed
a call to Harry Sawhill. His son answered. Gloria
slipped into the bathroom and used the john. At
the sink, the tap running, she sniffed and then
used a small oval of pastel green soap, which in
her wet hands produced a plethora of rich and
dainty suds. She brushed her teeth and with another brush, with softer bristles, massaged her
gums. When she emerged from the bathroom,
Trish was sitting on the edge of one of the beds.
"What's wrong?"
"Harry says he misses me."
"That's wonderful."
"His kid says he hates me."
"You're going to hear from my mother," Claudia
MacLeod warned Chief Morgan, and he soon did.
On a January morning so cold it seemed inconceivable that it would ever be warm again, he
drove to Mrs. Perrault's Spring Street house,
where an abundance of utility lines raced from the
street to an eave of the roof. Swiftly ushered in,
he was seated in an armchair than seemed to remember him, though he had never sat in it before.
The thermostat pushed to the limit, the room
throbbed with and heat. Mrs. Perrault and her two older sisters, all swathed in heavy sweaters,
shared the sofa.
"Is she doing the right thing, James?"
Mrs. Perrault had known him since he was a
child. He had delivered her newspaper. He had
slipped a valentine for Claudia through the mail
slot. For a dollar he had mowed their lawn. He
said, "I'm not sure."
"Of course she isn't!" the elder sister snapped.
"Her home is here," said the other sister.
Both had ghost-white hair that revealed the fine
pink of their scalps. The veiny tops of their hands
looked inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The elder sister had the larger presence, the greater voice.
"What does she want to live alone for?"
"Please, Ida," Mrs. Perrault said. "Let James
speak."
"I think Claudia's doing what she wants to do,"
Morgan said gently. "She wants to be on her own."
Mrs. Perrault gazed at him with mournful eyes.
The dyes in her tightly permed hair were of conflicting hues. "But nobody wants to live alone."
Morgan wanted to say that Claudia was tired of
being answerable to their moods. He wanted to
say that a woman in her forties deserves independence. He said nothing.
"Isn't she happy here, James?"
"That's not the point."
A harsh voice said, "There is no point."
"Ida, please."
Ida's large painted mouth clenched into a red
fist. The eyes of the other sister were rapid blinks. Mrs. Perrault, who had been the baby of the family, bore no resemblance to either of them, which
years ago had given credence to gossip that their
mother's passions had stretched beyond the marriage bed.
"We didn't ask if you wanted coffee, James."
"Well, ask him," said Ida.
"I have to get back," Morgan said, rising.
Accompanying him to the door, Mrs. Perrault
seemed to move on tiptoe, on air. The hues in her
hair sparkled, as if her head held explosives. At the
door, as he zipped his parka and hiked the collar,
she touched his arm.
"You have to do something, James."
"What should I do?"
"Marry her."
Morgan looked at her critically. "That's a switch,
isn't it?"
"Better she have someone than no one."
Amy White accepted Claudia MacLeod's second
offer for Mrs. Bullard's house, which included the
furniture and all of the books. Eyes filling, Amy
said, "I'm glad it's you, Claudia, and not some outof-towner buying the place. Auntie Eve would be
pleased."
A week later, the third day of a January thaw,
Chief Morgan investigated a break-in at the unoccupied house. The intruder forced an entry
through the bulkhead and tracked mud up the cellar steps and through the house. As far as Amy
could determine, nothing had been taken or dis turbed, though it seemed to Morgan that someone
had lain on Mrs. Bullard's bed, the same someone
who probably had left the toilet seat up.
Dining with Claudia at Rembrandt's that evening in Andover, Morgan said, "It's not too late to
back out. I mean, if you have any doubts."
"Now you sound like my mother."
"She thinks we should get married."
Claudia sipped her wine, her second refill. "Yes,
she told me."
"Maybe you should think about it."
"I have, a great deal," she said softly. "I could
never marry a policeman. It'd be like marrying a
soldier again. I couldn't bear that."
He was surprised. It was the first time in years
that she had mentioned her husband. A Bennington boy. Among the first to enlist from their graduating class, his name now engraved on the war
memorial outside the library and on the formidable one in Washington. Morgan said, "I was a soldier too."
"But you came back."
In Vietnam he had served with hillbillies from
Kentucky and Tennessee, their bravery astonishing, foolhardy. So many had died. So many had
volunteered for second tours.
"All these years gone by, James, I still miss him."
They were, he suspected, subject to the same
sense of loss and emptiness, to the same attacks of
loneliness, to the same surges of panic. "A day
doesn't go by that I don't think of my wife."
"Are they somewhere else, or are we just kidding ourselves?"
"There's the mystery."
"Yes, there's the rub."
The waitress took away dishes and returned
with coffee. Candlelight caught Claudia's glasses
and wouldn't let go. Morgan gazed through the
glare, his emotions warm. He was well aware that
other men considered her plain, distant, bloodless,
but they had never seen her in the round, never felt
her tongue in their ear, never shared her moments
of passion. Drinking his coffee, he enjoyed the silence between them.
"Let me," she said when the check came.
"Absolutely not," he said, producing a credit
card. "This is a celebration. You're changing your
life."
"For the better, James?"
"We'll see."
Outside the cloakroom he held her coat, and she
crippled her arms into the sleeves. Brushing aside
her hair, he kissed the back of her neck.
"I love you, Claudia."
"I love you too, James."
Trish Becker returned from the Caribbean in the final week of February. Harry Sawhill was waiting
for her at Logan Airport and, bolting toward her,
threw his arms around her. "Wow," she said, "I'll
have to do this more often."
"Don't ever go away that long again." He looked hangdog. "You don't know how much I missed
YOU.
"You can tell me later."
Moving through the milling crowd to pick up
her luggage, he said, "I don't know what I'd do if
anything happened to you."
"What could happen?"
The drive to the cold stillness, shocked trees,
and winter-bleached grass of Bensington took
forty minutes. They drove to the Heights, her big
brick house waiting for her, though she was not
truly glad to be back. Had it been April or May, she
might have been. Harry, who had kept an eye on
the house for her, carried the luggage in.
"Home sweet home," she said tightly.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said. "Absolutely nothing."
In the oversized kitchen, the heels of her pumps
clicking over octagonal tiles, she prepared to make
coffee. Harry drew their favorite mugs from the
cabinet. She had cleared out the refrigerator, but
he had since stocked it with milk, cheese, eggs,
and butter. A loaf of dark rye bread was on the
counter.
"Thanks, Harry."
He took his coffee black. In a strained voice, he
said, "You have a good time?"
"So much sky down there, Harry, I couldn't help
thinking God was keeping an eye on me."
"Meet anyone?"
"No one worth mentioning." She joined him at the table. Her face was deeply tanned, which made
her hair blonder. "Gloria thought we might get in
each other's way after a while, but we didn't.*
He was quiet. She could tell by his eyes that he
had something vital to reveal. On the brink of a
smile he said, "I've been sober."
'You're kidding. The whole time?"
He nodded. "I did a lot of thinking while you
were gone. I want us to be permanent, Trish."
"Are you proposing?"
"That's what I'm doing."
She took a slow sip of coffee. "What if I say yes?
Bobby won't like it."
"I've already talked to him about it. You're
right, he's not happy, but he'll come around."
She sighed heavily, as if coping with one too
many players in her life. "I've just gotten back,
Harry. You're hitting me with too much."
"Is that a no?"
"Give me breathing time."
His hand creeping across the table, he rolled
his eyes at the ceiling. "It's been more than a
month. What d'you say?"
Together they climbed the wide stairway to the
master bedroom, which was shadowy in the dying
day. Trish switched on a lamp and stood in its
brightness. For a moment she viewed herself in a
triptych of mirrors, but then her eye shifted to
footprints sullying the carpet.
"Were you up here, Harry?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Were you lying on my bed?"
He laughed. "Of course not."
"Someone was," she said.
Two days later, watching the start of a hard snowfall from a wide window, she phoned Gloria Eisner
in Connecticut and said, "What if I told you I'm
thinking of getting married?"
There was a slight pause. "To your friend?"
"Yes."
"Then I'd say give it a lot more thought."
She moved closer to the window. The snow was
making packages of the evergreens. "I need a life,"
she said.
"What's wrong with the one you've got?"
"There's nothing in it."
"Do you love him?" Gloria asked after a pause.
"At our age, what does that have to do with it?"
"As long as you're not going from nothing to
nothing."