by Anita Shreve
Under the quilt and between the sheets, we moved toward each other. I was still in my slip, and he was in his boxers. I burrowed into his shoulder, glad that he could not see my face. Our legs found their fold, as if we had been long married. We moved slowly at first. He slid the strap of my slip over my shoulder and played with my nipple. The thing that rose up in me was quick and sharp. He touched me between my legs. He moved over me, still touching me, and I reached for him. He may have gasped. Or it might have been on another afternoon that he gasped. Sometimes he would startle me when he entered me, and I would be the one to gasp. He was easy. I was easy.
Afterward, when he lay in a state between waking and sleeping, his arms around my half-clothed body, I would draw the covers up over his shoulders. Sometimes it would be cold in the room. It was September, October, November, before Thanksgiving, and then it was December and then it was January. Through the dormer window, I could see the forest of tree branches, later of limbs with snow on them. In the corner was a sewing machine that had belonged to my mother. I was conscious of time. I was a wife and a mother, acutely aware of when you and Silas would arrive home. Each afternoon that I took him into the guest room, I made sure he was gone before either of you drove into the driveway. I needed time to make the bed, to bathe. I was careful not to get my hair wet lest you wonder why I had felt it necessary to shower in the late afternoon.
There was no end to my treachery. No end. I was aware of want and deception, want always winning out. Though I sometimes thought about his wife, I never asked him a single question. I didn’t want him to say her name. Eventually, we would have had to talk about you and his wife, but we ran out of time. Or time ran out on us. Time tripped us up and punished us.
I hear your truck in the driveway. You will come in and see the opened letter on the kitchen table and quickly put it away. I hear your footsteps on the back stoop. I open my mouth and bite down hard on the pillow. I stuff my mouth with the pillow so that you won’t hear my scream.
Mike
Later, he thought that he had probably dozed off. He had made well over a dozen visits to Anna’s house since the first time they had made love. Sometimes he thought they were the most important days of his life. Yes, he had dozed off, because he remembered being startled awake, as if jolted, by an odd sound.
“Mike,” Anna said beside him.
The sound itself had been only a clink, as of keys falling into an ashtray in a distant room, but it had stiffened Anna in his arms. He heard then the suction and resistance of a refrigerator door.
Mike thought that anyone who had ever had a teenager might be familiar with the scene. The boy, having barely noted the presence of the headmaster’s car in the driveway, barrels through the kitchen door, drops his keys into the same glass dish he always leaves them in. He opens the fridge, looking for a carton of milk or juice to drink. He is always thirsty right after practice. And although practice was today cut short due to a meeting the coach had to attend, the thirst is still there. Maybe the boy intends to have a shower and then head out to find his girlfriend. Maybe he will have dinner in the dining hall with his friends. With hardly a thought as to where his mother and the headmaster might be — in the living room possibly, going over papers — the boy rounds the corner with an athletic swing and takes the steep stairs two at a time.
Mike listened with dread as Silas peed in the bathroom. He heard the boy run the water in the sink, perhaps to wash the sweat off his face. Mike pictured him in silky basketball shorts and a cotton T-shirt and wondered if he’d hop into the shower. If so, Mike could make his move then. Or possibly this was but a pit stop on Silas’s part, and he would be headed out soon.
He didn’t know what had given them away. Perhaps it was that the door to the guest room was closed.
“Mom?” Silas called in a tentative voice.
Anna had already pulled her slip over her head. She had tugged on her sweater and wrestled herself into her skirt. Mike saw that she’d forgotten her shoes.
She opened the door to the guest room, stepped out, and shut the door fast, but not before Mike caught the anxious sliver of a face.
Silas’s voice was loud. Anna’s sought to defuse. Silas asked questions. Anna answered them as best she could. Silas started yelling. Anna tried to stand her ground.
“You’re fucking that asshole?” Mike heard Silas cry. “You’re fucking that asshole?”
A door slammed. Almost immediately, it opened again, its knob cracking against a wall.
“Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!” Silas shouted repeatedly, the sound spiraling down the stairs and out the door until Mike could hear it only through the thin glass of the guest-room window. He listened to the low growl of Silas’s engine, the spit of gravel as he sped away.
Mike dressed quickly and stepped onto the landing. The door to the Quinneys’ bedroom was closed. Maybe Mike only imagined the sound of Anna crying, because now he pictured her sitting at the edge of the marital bed with her palms pressed hard against a crocheted coverlet. She is as still as she can make herself. She is hardly breathing.
Owen
Owen sat there, thinking. That girl of his, that Noelle, she called. Owen could hear the worry in her voice. He sat there and he thought, Maybe they had a row. Silas not eating at home. Going straight up to his room. Maybe they had a tiff.
After the second call, Owen went up the stairs and knocked on Silas’s door. You had to respect their privacy.
Silas didn’t answer.
Owen opened the door a crack. Even though it was dark, he could see that his son’s eyes were open. Owen said his name. Silas.
He didn’t answer. Owen stepped inside.
That girl of yours, he said. She called.
Silas didn’t say anything.
You sick? Owen asked.
Silas said no, but Owen could hear in the word, that one word, that he’d been crying.
Owen let the door open a little to let in some light.
The snot was all over Silas’s upper lip, and his eyelids were swollen. Owen said, I don’t understand. Did you have a fight with that girl?
Owen didn’t know why he hadn’t said her name. He knew her name. Noelle. He could have said it aloud.
Silas shook his head. He shook it violently, but he was spent, too. He was tired from the crying.
What is it, son? Owen asked. No, he didn’t say the word son. He wished he had, though.
What is it? Owen asked.
Silas clenched his face, and his mouth wrinkled up into a hole. His eyes went into slits.
Owen watched this happen until Silas’s face relaxed. Silas looked over at Owen. Go away, Dad, he said. Just go away.
Owen knew enough not to interfere with whatever a boy had to get out of his system. If that girl Noelle had broken up with him, he was hurting, and there wasn’t anything Owen could do about it. He wasn’t any good with advice the way Anna was. Not that any words could have fixed Silas’s hurt.
Owen stood too long at the door. He couldn’t help, but he wanted to help.
Go away, Silas said again.
The words were still in Owen’s ears. Even now.
He shut the door and stood outside it, listening. For what, he didn’t know. For something.
Behind Owen, Anna opened the door of their bedroom. He’d thought she was taking a bath, but she was still dressed in the clothes she’d had on at dinner.
Owen, she said.
You know what’s wrong? Owen asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.
Anna put her hands over her eyes. She started to cry. Owen felt like the only man in the world who didn’t understand his family.
We have to talk, Anna said.
Silas
It is getting cold, it is getting so cold. Pretty soon it will be completely dark, but I can make my way down to the barn and sleep there if I have to — if I’m not ready to go into the house. When I wake up in the morning, I will write to you some more, because that is all I can do now — write to
you to tell you how much I loved you and still do. It’s all I want to say, and if I had not done that terrible thing, you would have heard me say it a thousand times, and probably even more than that because I would have tried very hard to get you to marry me after you got out of college or wherever you went. And I think now that you will play beautiful music and I will never hear it, and that is almost the saddest thing of all, though not really. Maybe one day, I will read about a concert you are giving, and I will sneak in and sit at the back and watch you play, and you won’t have to see me or look at my face, I will be so far away. I will just be able to hear the music.
I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your calls. Really, really sorry. I know you must have been frantic. But I was just so upset with my mother and that horrible man. I know she told my father, because I could hear the kitchen door slam and the car spin out, and then I could hear her crying in her bedroom, and I thought that the family was all over then, that she had ruined us, that the horrible man had ruined us because he had come into our family like a snake and poisoned everything we had. Now we can never be a family, never, because of what he did and what I did.
If my father ever sees the tape, I can never go home again anyway. There’s no way I could ever look him in the eye, or he look me in the eye. I would have to leave the house.
It is getting cold and it is getting dark, and I was stupid because I forgot my gloves, I don’t know how I did that, yes I do, I was upset, but I can keep my hands warm in my parka, it’s just that I can’t write with this pencil for very long without my fingers getting too stiff to write, so I have to keep warming up my hands in my pockets in order to write another sentence. I just ate a PowerBar, so I am not hungry, but I am a little thirsty, and that is another stupid thing I did, I forgot to bring a bottle of water, though if I get thirsty I can just eat some snow.
I wonder what you are doing right now, right this minute, and I hope you are not lying in your bed and crying because I have hurt you so much, and now I have just gotten afraid that you will think that you have to leave school, that the pain and the humiliation will be too much for you, and I just want to tell you — oh God, if I could just tell you this because I just thought of it — please, please don’t leave school because of this. Because you have to go to Juilliard or wherever you get in so that you can continue with your music. And this had nothing to do with you, you were not involved, it was something stupid and shameful that I did when I was not thinking, and though I deserve all the punishment I will get, you shouldn’t get any punishment at all, even though my hurting you is probably worse than any punishment they will hand out to me. And I will go down the mountain and get the punishment, because I am not afraid of it, I just wanted to talk to you before I did it, before I had to leave or whatever I have to do, and so I wanted to write this because it feels like I am talking to you. And, oh God, I so wish you were here with me, and I would tell you I was sorry a hundred thousand times, and I would not ask you to look at me or let me touch you or even let me say I love you, I would just tell you how sorry I am that this had to happen to you. And then, I think, maybe you would forgive me, you would look at me, and even though you would be sad, you would believe me when I say how much I love you, and maybe someday you would even lean over and kiss me, just to let me know you forgive me, and stranger things have happened, maybe one day we would even be walking on a street together or walking into a store or sitting across a table from each other and talking, and the thing that tore us apart would be so far in the past that we could hardly remember it, and then one day you would take me into your house and into your bedroom and you would lie down on the bed and I would lie down with you and you would let me make love to you, and I would savor every moment, and it would be nothing like what was on the tape, it would be slow and sacred and everything there was, and I would be so happy.
Noelle
I do not call Silas again. I think that if he wants to talk, he will call me. But I know that something is wrong. His flinging the ball into the stands means either he was so angry he simply couldn’t help himself or that he wanted to hurt someone. Silas is too good with the ball not to put it where he wants to. It is not possible that he meant to hurt that woman, so I am confused.
People ask me, in the afternoon: What happened with Silas? I shrug. I cannot answer them.
I go to the practice room and try to play the violin. Inside, I am nervous, and the nerves come out in the playing. Fits and stops. Frustration. Impatience. Even the notes themselves sound off, as if there are spaces inside the music.
From time to time, I worry. Is it all over? That it is a Saturday and he hasn’t called or texted frightens me. But I can’t call his home again. I just can’t.
No one goes to dinner on a Saturday night, though I am hungry and want to.
We are seniors and no longer go to the dances. I sit in my room and try to read, but the reading is like the music, irritated and full of blank spaces. I read the same page over and over and then I look out the window. The snow is thick and hard-crusted, sparkling where the lights shine on it. My roommate has a boyfriend and has gone to Burlington for the night. I am alone in my room, but I keep the door open because it feels too alone with it shut. From time to time, I check and recheck my cell phone. I plug it into the charger, just to be on the safe side. I check my computer every five minutes. I could call his home, I think. What if he is only sick, with a fever, say, and I’ll have worried all this time for nothing? Maybe that’s why he behaved so strangely on the court. Yes, that’s it. He is sick, which explains why he went to bed early. I find this explanation so convincing that I start to relax. If Silas is sick, there is no need to worry. Calling will only disturb him.
But then I think: If I were sick, I would call him. Just to let him know. Wouldn’t I?
A shape with long dark hair moves quickly past my open door. Within seconds, it returns, back-stepping.
“Noelle?” Sherry asks.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Reading,” I say, holding up the book.
“I thought you’d be with Silas.”
“He’s sick,” I say.
“Really.” Sherry bites the inside of her lip.
“Why?” I ask.
“It’s just that, I thought I just saw him.” I can see that she is regretting having stopped by my room.
“Where?” I ask, sitting up a little straighter.
“I think I saw him at the dance, but it might not have been him,” she says, trying to backpedal now.
“Silas, at the dance?” I ask. “The dance at the student center?”
“Yeah. I think. But it might not have been him.”
I know that she is lying.
“There are a lot of seniors there tonight,” she says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Nothing to do. The roads are terrible.”
“Weird,” I say.
“I gotta go,” she says.
I sit like a stone on my bed, the book never moving from my hand. Silas is not sick. He has gone to a dance without me. A dance he normally wouldn’t give a second thought to.
Maybe Silas has a new girlfriend.
No, that can’t possibly be true.
I stand up and take a quick look at myself in the mirror on the inside of my closet door. There is no time for a shower. I have on an Avery sweatshirt and a pair of jeans I’ve been wearing for two days. I run a brush through my hair, which immediately stands up as if electrified. Probably it is. The air is dry, and the temperature outside is no higher than twenty degrees. I throw my parka over my sweatshirt and leave my room.
The paths are lit with lantern light, and if I weren’t so anxious, I would say it is beautiful outside, the cones of light on the crust, the black sky awash with stars. In the distance, I can see the student center, which can be tricked out to resemble a club, with multiple levels and booths and a dance floor. For a dance, the lighting is dimmed to manufacture an atmosphere, and I am a
lways amazed at the way lighting can transform a place so completely. In the daytime, with the light through the large windows, with the tables covered with books and baseball hats and sugar from powdered doughnuts, the blue and red of the walls and the diamond pattern of the stained carpeting is not just ordinary but ugly, as if a student had been let loose to decorate it. But at night, with the overheads dimmed and tea lights on the tables, it is just possible to believe in romance.
I can hear the music as I approach. The steady beat of the bass. There will be freshman girls at the dance who will think they are at a rave or a Manhattan club and who will be dancing with their hands in the air, some with drinks — Diet Cokes in plastic glasses — to imitate the girls they have seen in the movies.
I wish there was a way to look in but not be seen myself. I want only to know if Silas is there. I make my way past a crowd of underclassmen on the stairs who are running out to smoke or find a real drink or simply pretend to. They move in pods of threes and fours. No freshman girl is ever alone. I feel oddly like a parent checking out a school event — underdressed, older, and worried.
J. Dot and Rob, I spot at once. They are at least a head taller than the other boys, even Silas, who I don’t see right away. I am a little surprised to see J. Dot and Rob in the student center. Is it a joke? Were they so bored, it actually seemed like a good idea? Does J. Dot or Rob have a new girlfriend, a sophomore or a junior, and the others have come along for the ride? I push into the crowd. My feet encounter a sticky substance on the carpet I don’t want to think about. I look down and then I look up, and that is when I see Silas — dancing, which is odd enough since Silas never dances; and wild, which is nothing but strange. I cock my head this way and that, and then I have a clearer view. He is dancing with a small girl, a pretty, lithe girl who is blond and amazingly agile despite her spike heels. I wonder briefly, in a practical kind of way, how she made it to the student center in shoes I am not sure I could stand up in. Silas is moving against the beat, and the wildness is in his arms and in his low spins. He is a terrible dancer, and if I weren’t so startled, I would be mortified for him. He seems half crazed, but I notice that no one is laughing.
