by Sarah Healy
“Yeah,” said Mary, leaning in and draping her slender arms over the counter. “I talked to Mr. Alvetto about options. For college.” At eighteen years old, Mary should have graduated from high school this past June, but her and her mother’s winter in Florida had put her behind, and she would now be graduating with a younger class. Intelligent without effort but often disrespectful in the classroom, Mary maddened teachers who didn’t know exactly what to do with the bright, beautiful girl who was so free with her disdain. Rumors flew around about Mary and certain administrators, perhaps as a way to explain the girl who was generally considered to be a problem but tolerated nonetheless.
“Good girl,” said Diane.
That afternoon, Mary got a ride home from school with one of the handsome younger boys. Barely acknowledging him as she lifted her bag from the floor, she pushed open the door to his Dodge Omni and shut it with her hip, heading toward the yellow single-story structure that was the Water’s Edge. Walking over the crushed-oyster-shell parking lot, Mary pushed open the glass door to the wood-paneled office, where a soap opera flickered on an old television set and Mrs. Pool sat reading Woman’s World.
At the jingle of the door, Mrs. Pool glanced up from her magazine. “She’s sleeping, honey,” she said, knowing that all Mary wanted was Hannah. That was all she ever wanted.
“What time did she go down?” asked Mary, setting her backpack down.
Mrs. Pool glanced up to the clock. “About one.”
“I’m going to go wake her up,” said Mary. Then softening her face beseechingly, she asked, “Can you stay a little longer, Mrs. Pool? I want to take her to the beach.”
Mrs. Pool’s husband ran fishing charters out of Sandy Bank, often leaving before sunrise and not returning until well after sunset. She was rarely in a rush to get home. “Take your time,” she said, then she turned back to her article on satisfying and inexpensive meal solutions. Everything about Mrs. Pool was yielding.
Mary hurried back outside over the concrete walkway to the room next to the office, the room she shared with Hannah. She pulled a bright orange coiled cord off of her wrist, then sunk the key it held into the lock. As she pushed the door open gently, the dim room flooded with light. “Hey, Bunny,” she said.
Hannah took a sharp breath, sitting up in bed, her eyes still closed, her hair wild.
“It’s time to wake up,” said Mary, who slipped off her shoes and walked over the permanently sandy carpet to Hannah, sliding into bed beside her. Their room had two double beds, but many nights they slept together in Mary’s, sinking down under the comforter that always felt slightly damp.
“Are you home?” asked Hannah, repositioning herself to rest her head on Mary’s chest, her face still puffy with sleep.
“I am,” answered Mary, as she stroked her sister’s hair. “I was thinking that we could go down to the beach.”
With her eyes still closed, Hannah answered. “Mmmkay.”
Mary let Hannah wake up, then helped her go to the bathroom and put on her sandals. She hoisted Hannah onto her back and, with Hannah’s arms wrapped around her neck, began to walk over the sandswept road to the beach.
They left their shoes at the beginning of the narrow path that cut between the dunes and led to the ocean. Mary took Hannah’s hand, and they walked together down to the stretch of shore where the waves made their rapid advances then their defeated withdrawals. Mary dug her hands into the sand and came up with tiny translucent sand crabs tunneling furiously to return themselves to the safety of depth. She’d put them into Hannah’s palm, and Hannah would shriek as she felt their tiny legs against her skin. And all the while Mary kept a watchful eye on the man who was casting his fishing line into the surf, his legs covered with sand to the knees. He was one of the guests at the Water’s Edge, staying in room 108.
When he appeared finished and ready to return to the motel, rod and tackle box in hand, Mary turned to Hannah. “Okay, Bunny,” she said. “We should head back. Mrs. Pool’s waiting for us.”
With Hannah again on her back, Mary kept a respectful distance from their guest as she followed him back to the motel. And when they arrived at the Water’s Edge, Mary watched him set his rod and tackle box down outside his door, then head inside his room. Pushing open the glass door to the office, she set Hannah down and scooted her inside. “Mrs. Pool,” she said, her body still outside the office, her head leaning in, “can you watch Hannah for one more sec? I’ve just got to go to the bathroom.”
Mary walked around the back of the building to the rear of room 108, not hiding the sound of her footsteps, her hands sunk easily into her pockets. Passing the window, she listened to make sure the water was running. She knew it would be; the man would want to get the sand off of his legs. Mary then slipped back around to the front of the building, pulled another key chain off of her wrist, and carefully opened the door. Only her eyes moved as she scanned the room. The man’s shorts had been dropped on the floor in front of the television. From the bathroom came his mumblings and the spatter of the shower. Mary moved no faster than she needed to. She picked up the shorts and coaxed a wallet from their pocket. Quickly counting four twenty-dollar bills, she took two of them. Then she returned the wallet to its place and was out of room 108 just as quickly as she had come, the water in the bathroom turning off just as the door clicked shut.
Sliding the forty dollars into the pocket of her cutoffs, she walked back to the office and stepped inside as Mrs. Pool picked up the ringing phone.
“Water’s Edge Motel,” said Mrs. Pool, her voice gentle and agreeable as always.
There was a stretch of silence while Mrs. Pool listened. Hannah sat on the floor, playing with a naked Barbie doll.
“No, this is Alice Pool,” she said, the concern already spreading on her face. “I’m a friend of the family.”
Then Mrs. Pool’s trembling hand shot up to cover her mouth. “Oh, my Lord,” she said, her eyes finding Mary’s, the soft skin underneath her chin quivering. “Where is she?” And at that moment, as Mrs. Pool looked at her, Mary knew what had happened, if not how. Mary knew right down to her bones.
Four
1981
The television babbled away in the background, but Mary still heard the click when Mrs. Pool put the handset back into its cradle. Her hand hovered there while the other covered her mouth, her fingertips jailing her words. Mrs. Pool then took a breath, her shoulder slumping with her exhalation, as if something vital had been drawn from her lungs.
“Alice,” said Mary. It was the first time Mary had ever called her by her first name.
Mrs. Pool turned to Mary, her eyes like chasms. “Mary,” she said. “Your mother.”
Hannah was now looking up from her Barbie, her hands still holding it upright, keeping it standing.
Mary felt her body leaden. “What happened?”
Mrs. Pool’s face rounded. “There was an accident,” she said.
IT WAS MRS. POOL WHO DROVE to the hospital. She shook and prayed in the front seat, honking the horn at a car that was slow to react at a green light, then jumping at the sound of it. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Over and over, she made the sign of the cross. Mary sat in the back with Hannah, stroking her hair as Hannah laid her head in her lap. Mary just stared straight ahead and breathed in and out, forcing herself to remain still.
Hannah looked up at her. “What was the accident?”
Mary’s hand stilled on Hannah’s head. “It was a car accident,” she said, her words not sliding easily from her throat.
Hannah’s eyes went to the near distance, then she looked at Mary once again. “Did Mom get hurt?”
Mary stared at her sister’s face, at the eyes that looked up at her as if she were a deity, then she nodded. “Yeah, Bunny. She did.”
Diane was dead by the time they arrived, having sustained massive internal injuries when her car slammed into a telephone pole on Route 73. The doctor addressed Mrs. Pool when communicating Diane’s passing, speaking in hushed, quiet
words. Mary stood with her back to them, looking out of the window at the parking lot with Hannah gripping her leg. The sky was flat blue and faded, making everything outside look as though it were already of the past. And Mary remembered sitting with her mother and Mrs. Pool as they watched the royal wedding in the office of the Water’s Edge not so long ago. Diane had gasped when she first saw Diana, her dress filling that horse-flanked carriage. You kind of look like her, Mom, Mary had said.
Hannah cried and rubbed her face against Mary’s thigh, not fully understanding what had happened, what any of this meant. Not understanding the way Mary did. “It’s gonna be okay, Bunny,” Mary whispered. “You’ve got me. You’ve got Mary.”
The police investigation would determine that Diane Chase had fallen asleep at the wheel. Witnesses would describe the Ford Fiesta drifting off the road in a smooth arc until it hit the pole head-on. The casino had been slow so she had left work early that day. She had told a coworker that she was going to go home to take a nap.
When Mary, Hannah, and Mrs. Pool returned to the Water’s Edge that night, Mary lay down with Hannah in their room and told her a story in which the two princesses encountered a magical pool in the forest, the water from which could turn a person to stone with one sip. Princess Mary had just filled a vial with the water when there was a knock on the door.
“It’s Alice,” said Mrs. Pool. “And Stan.”
It was with great effort that Mary hoisted her sister onto her hip and opened the door for their neighbors. Mr. Pool held his baseball cap to his chest. Mrs. Pool carried a bucket of fried chicken.
“I’m so sorry, Mary,” said Mr. Pool. His eyes were water-blue and earnest, and his skin was brick brown. His bowlegs made him an inch or so shorter than he might otherwise have been.
Mary nodded.
“We thought maybe you girls should eat something,” said Mrs. Pool, nodding toward Hannah.
Mary looked at her sister. Am I hungry? Hannah seemed to ask. Do I need to eat?
“Yeah, Bunny,” Mary answered, her words coming out slowly, as if there were just a few drops of them left. “You should eat something.” And Mary followed the Pools to the office, where they sat on the couch with a bucket of fried chicken and a bag of biscuits on the coffee table. The Pools looked nervously at the girls. Mary picked up a drumstick so that Hannah would, but Hannah just watched until Mary took a bite. Mary swallowed without chewing, feeling the meat slide slowly down her throat. Hannah followed suit, her eyes not leaving Mary.
They sat there in silence until the drumsticks were done. Until Mary finally looked at the Pools. “I should get Hannah to bed,” she said.
Mr. Pool rose quickly, extending a hand to Mrs. Pool as she strained to rise. “Course,” he said, his hat again at his chest.
Mrs. Pool looked at Mary, her eyes warm and wet. “I’ll be back first thing.”
Mary watched the Pools walk across the parking lot to their home, Mr. Pool’s hand on Mrs. Pool’s back, their heads hung low. I just don’t know what they’re going to do, Stan, Alice would be saying. She would be crying freely now, her sobs soft and feeble things. I just don’t know what those poor girls are going to do.
From beside her, Mary heard Hannah’s small voice. “Are you sad?”
Mary’s hand found the curve at the back of Hannah’s head. “I am, Bunny.”
“Because of Mom?”
Mary nodded, her brain above her left eye pounding, feeling as if it were knocking on her skull.
“What happened?”
Mary closed her eyes, feeling the pain in her head and color and pulses and light. “She had to go away.”
“Is she going to come home?” asked Hannah.
But Mary said nothing. And Hannah let her face drop against Mary’s thigh, where she rubbed her tears away, back and forth.
When Hannah’s eyes started to slip shut, Mary finally carried her from the office. She lifted her up, her head rolling back against Mary’s forearms. Mary felt weak, as if her knees might buckle, as if her arms might give.
She set Hannah in bed and pulled up the covers, not bothering to change her clothes. Then she went to the bathroom, closed the door, and stuck her pointer finger down her throat, feeling her fingernail cut the soft tissue at the back. When she leaned over the toilet and wretched the Pool’s chicken into the bowl, she tasted blood.
IT WASN’T LONG AFTER HER MOTHER’S DEATH that Mary learned there was no money. That Diane Chase’s estate—if it could even be called that—was in the red.
“The motel owes a significant amount in back taxes,” an attorney in a brown suit told her, his elbows resting on his laminate wood desk.
“What does that mean?” Mary asked sharply. But Mary knew what it meant. It meant that the only inheritance Diane Chase had for Mary and Hannah was the Water’s Edge. And it would be like a stone tied to their necks, pulling them slowly down through the depths.
“It means that the debts owed by the Water’s Edge are likely to exceed the value of the business, including the property itself.”
He took his glasses off and looked at Mary. “It’s quite an unusual situation,” he said. “To have so much responsibility at your age. You’re only eighteen.” And Mary hated him. She hated that his plump fingers had run over their mother’s private documents and papers. She hated the way he looked at her now, with leering curiosity. Because it wasn’t just the Water’s Edge that belonged to her: it was Hannah. In the eyes of the law and everyone else, Mary was Hannah’s guardian.
“Well, this has been incredibly useful,” said Mary, standing abruptly. “Just incredibly fucking useful.”
That night, while Hannah lay sleeping, Mary stood in front of the utility sink and stared at the steady stream of water coming from the faucet, slowly grinding her jaw from side to side. The laundry room at the Water’s Edge was tiny and down to one working fluorescent bulb, but Mary had taken to going there since Diane died, sitting on the concrete floor and leaning against the washing machine as it worked, feeling somehow steadied by its rhythmic motions.
When the water was near scalding and its steam thickened the air, Mary pulled an old plastic bucket from one of the makeshift wooden shelves and stuck it into the sink, letting it fill. She grabbed a scrub brush and a container of Comet, and marched out into the cold night, the hot water sloshing onto the ground as she walked. Then she pushed open the door to a vacant guest room, went to the bathroom, and dropped to her knees. She plunged the scrub brush into the water and let her hands linger there, thinking of nothing quite as satisfying at that moment than the shocking temperature, than the heat against her skin.
She went to a new room each night and scrubbed it clean. She cleaned until her heart would pound and strands of her hair would stick to her neck and her forehead. She cleaned until the skin of her fingers would pucker, then crack. And when she ran out of rooms, she started over again. So it was on the floors and the tubs and the sinks that some of Mary’s ferocity and fear was unleashed.
It was after another such evening that she returned to her and Hannah’s room to find Hannah awake, lying limp on the bed with a terrible cough. “Bunny,” Mary said, rushing to her sister. And that night, Mary sat in the bathroom with Hannah on her lap, steam filling the air and calming Hannah’s breath. When she fell asleep again, Mary held her still, watching her chest rise and fall, tensing as her body quaked with its periodic coughs. Mary was late to homeroom the next morning; Hannah hadn’t wanted to go to Mrs. Pool’s.
“Nooooooo,” she whined, her arms wrapped around Mary’s neck as Mrs. Pool tried to pull her away. “I want to stay with yooouuuuu.”
“You can’t, Bunny,” whispered Mary into her hair. She kissed the top of her head. “I have to get to school.”
And when Mary had walked into Mrs. Violette’s classroom and the squat, dowdy teacher asked for a note, Mary went right past her and sat at her desk, acknowledging neither the teacher nor her request.
“I asked for a note, Miss Chase,” repe
ated Mrs. Violette. Mrs. Violette hated Mary. Hated her beauty and her insolence. Hated her mind. Mrs. Violette, unlike many of the teachers at Bergen Shores, was entirely unmoved by Mary’s recent loss.
Mary rested her feet against the chair in front of her. “I don’t have a note,” she spat.
“Then get back up,” began Mrs. Violette, relishing her words, overenunciating each of them. “Go to the main office and get one.”
Mary stared at her for a moment, then made a noise of disgust. “Stupid bitch,” she muttered, shaking her head.
Without another word, Mrs. Violette marched out of the room, and Mary took down her pony tail, shaking her long brown hair loose over her shoulders and looking out of the window as the class began to buzz and pulse with her defiance. Did you hear that shit?
Mrs. Violette returned with Mr. Alvetto who said—all stern and somber—“Miss Chase, please come with me.”
With her arms crossed, Mary walked behind Mr. Alvetto through the school’s silent hallways into the main office. He nodded once at Bonnie, who sat at the front desk, and Bonnie smiled. All the women who worked at the school thought Mr. Alvetto was handsome. Mary followed him into his office, and he turned and closed the door behind her, and it clicked shut.
When he looked back at Mary, her face was in her hands. “I know I shouldn’t have said it,” she said, her voice muffled and wet with emotion. “I’ve just had such a short fuse lately.”
“Mary, please, sit down,” he said, but instead of sitting, Mary rushed him, burying her head into his chest and letting out a quiet sob that could break your heart. “I know what you’re going through has been very difficult,” started Mr. Alvetto, gently laying a paternal hand on her back, as if thinking this were a moment he would soon be proud of: one when he would deftly handle the behavioral difficulties of a grief-stricken girl. “And all of us here at Bergen Shores are here for you.”
Mary took a deep breath, the sort a mournful girl might take to steady herself, but as her chest filled, it pressed against Mr. Alvetto’s. “I know,” she said.
