Keeping Lucy (ARC)

by T. Greenwood

  “You okay?” Ginny asked.

  Marsha took a deep, shuddering sort of breath and sighed.

  “There was another one, you know,” she said softly.

  “Another what?” Ginny asked, feeling her stomach twist. “Another man?”

  “No, no,” she said. “Another baby. I never told you.”

  Ginny looked away from the road for a moment, but Marsha was staring straight ahead. Not at her.

  “When we were in high school. Junior year.”

  “What?” Ginny managed, flipping through her memories of high school like Ab’s Rolodex. Struggling to find that lost card. That missing piece. She and Marsha had spent nearly every waking hour together as teenagers. How could there have been a pregnancy? A baby?

  “Remember Jimmy?”

  “Sure,” Ginny said. Jimmy Artelli was a year ahead of them in high school. But Marsha had never dated him. Never even went out.

  “I tend to get myself into situations,” Marsha said. “Situations I shouldn’t be in.”

  Marsha stretched out her hand and examined a fingernail, its blood red polish chipped.

  “I drove myself to Boston. Some nurse there, worked out of her apartment. I paid her two hundred dollars and she took care of it. I even drove myself home.”

  The realization hit Ginny of what Marsha was telling her.

  “I swore I would never ever allow myself to be in that position again. If my mother knew what I’d done. If you knew what I’d done. I couldn’t bear it. But now, here I am again.”

  “Are you going to get another . . .” Ginny started, but couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

  “I don’t know,” Marsha said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Ginny asked. Her heart was beginning to ache in a remote sort of way. Like a remembered pain instead of a new one. “I could have come with you.”

  Marsha laughed, and it sounded like the crack of a whip. Like something violent. “Really?” she said.

  Ginny nodded, even as she wondered if she was telling the truth. She thought about what it meant, what Marsha had done and might do again. She also recalled thinking in those awful days after Lucy was born that it would have been so much easier if she were dead instead of just gone. That sort of grief, at least, was absolute. It had edges. She’d even allowed herself to imagine what she would have done if she knew she would give birth to Lucy only to lose her again. Would she have gotten an abortion? Would she have preempted this loss if she could?

  “You don’t trust me” was what Ginny said instead. “You thought I’d judge you.”

  Marsha turned to her again and smiled sadly. “It’s not your fault. You’re a good person, Gin. You should judge people like me.”

  Ginny thought of the sting of the slap she’d given Peyton at the motel. She thought of all the times she’d dreamed herself out of that house in Dover, of leaving Ab behind. She thought of her capacity for rage, and worse, her inability to express it. She was not good. She was only playing the part she’d been given. Reciting the lines scripted for her.

  “Did that man, Jesse . . . did he hurt you?” Ginny asked.

  Marsha slipped her shoes off and put her bare feet on the dash. She leaned back and rolled her head toward Ginny and smiled a weary sort of smile.

  “Somebody told me once there are only two kinds of men in the world: assholes and dumb-asses. I have a soft spot for the assholes,” she said and smiled sadly.

  “You don’t believe that,” Ginny said, yet still tried to think about which category Ab might fit in.

  “I believe that all men, in the end, want the same thing. Some work for it, some bargain or beg, and some just steal.”

  “What about Gabe?” she asked. “He doesn’t sound like an asshole or a dumb-ass.”

  Marsha sucked in a breath and nodded. “He’s definitely a good one. The kind of guy who always does the right thing.”

  “Does he know about the baby?”

  “No.” Marsha’s eyes glistened in the light of the dashboard. “Because if I told him, he’d want to marry me.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Nobody should get married because they have to,” she said.

  Twenty-Four

  Summer 1964

  Ginny and Ab had wanted a small wedding, just a quiet affair, maybe even in the little chapel on Amherst’s campus. She didn’t want a white gown, a veil. She thought she might wear yellow, with flowers in her hair.

  When Ab first proposed, she hadn’t expected that Mr. and Mrs. Richardson would even attend the ceremony. But the baby changed everything. Ab had been right. Despite their open disdain, they were indeed relieved that Ab wasn’t going overseas. The pregnancy, the wedding, was perhaps (in the end) simply the price that had to be paid to keep their son home.

  But there would be a price for Ginny and Ab to pay as well in exchange for their reluctant support. First off, the wedding would not be a small affair but a large one. At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, where Mr. and Mrs. Richardson themselves had gotten married. The dress (despite Ginny’s “predicament”) would not be yellow but a virginal white. There would be bridesmaids: his cousins, and Marsha as her maid of honor. The bridesmaids’ dresses would be lime green and ugly to highlight the bride’s own most attractive attributes. (“You have such a pretty face,” Sylvia had said, the unspoken for a chubby girl implied by the quick head-to-toe scan she made with her eyes.) There would be a reception at the country club the Richardsons belonged to in Wellesley, and there would be a five-tiered cake and a live orchestra playing the music from Ab’s mother and father’s generation. It would be elegant, for sure. It would be the exact opposite of what either of them wanted.

  But if they complied (with the gardenias and peonies, with the prime rib and live band), then his parents would not only foot the bill for the wedding but send them on a lovely honeymoon. Perhaps even a little help with a down payment on a home?

  “You can’t exactly raise a child in a rooming house,” Sylvia had said to Ab.

  Ginny should have known there was a hitch, of course. But between the exhaustion brought on by the pregnancy and willful ignorance, she didn’t ask questions. And Ab slipped that little snag into conversation as though she might just miss it.

  “The house is just a starter, of course,” he said. “Two bedrooms. One for us and one for the baby. But it’s got a certain charm. A little stoop out front, and a backyard. I thought we could maybe have a garden.”

  Ginny was trying to read. Peyton Place was the book of choice, given her inability to focus on much of anything for longer than a few minutes. It was trashy and delicious.

  “What?” she asked, looking up from a page she had to have read at least a half dozen times.

  “It’s also close to school,” he said.

  “The baby hasn’t even been born yet,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re already worried about school?”

  “Not for the baby,” he said, smiling. “For me. The house is in Cambridge.”

  Suddenly everything was clear. Like the letters at the eye doctor’s office sharpening with each click of the lens.

  “Law school?” she said, feeling queasy. She’d been feeling queasy pretty much every hour of every day for a couple of months, but this was different. It felt as if her heart was sick.

  Ab sighed, his shoulders slumping.

  She set the book down. “We don’t need the house. The wedding. Any of it. Not at the cost of your future.”

  “My future?” he laughed. “There’s not much of a future in delivering zucchinis. Zucchinis are not going to put a roof over our head.”

  “No, your parents are. God. This is so ridiculous.”

  “So, I’m ridiculous?” he asked, his face reddening. “Is that what you think?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Some kind of lawyer you’re going to make with that sort of reasoning.”

  “Please understand, Gin,” he said. “I have no choice.”


  And so it was not with joy but with a sense of impending doom that she woke up on the morning of her wedding day, as she pulled on the pantyhose that nearly cut off her circulation. As she slipped her swollen feet into the pointy-toed shoes. As she affixed the pillbox hat and veil to her stiff hair.

  Still, she went through the motions. Walking down the aisle alone, feeling her father’s absence like a ghost at her side, the wedding march like some sort of death knell. The only comfort was that despite everything, at the end of the long walk was Ab. Ab, who couldn’t stand up to his parents but who made her laugh and loved her despite every flaw she had. Ab, with his dimples and charm and quick wit. What was life but a series of compromises, anyway? She’d be a fool to think otherwise.

  When she recited her vows, she meant them, and when Ab peered into her eyes and squeezed her hand, she was overwhelmed with happiness, even as that flashy ring cut into her neighboring finger.

  They even enjoyed themselves at the reception. She didn’t drink any champagne, but she felt as drunk as Marsha, whose dance card was full the whole night. And when Abbott Senior asked for Ginny’s hand and led her to the dance floor, she thought for a moment that perhaps everything would be okay. That she’d been paranoid. That he truly only wanted the best for his son, ultimately Ab’s happiness trumping all else. Abbott Senior held her as the band played, and she could see where Ab had gotten his moves on the dance floor. She even felt herself beginning to relax and smiled as he pulled her closer.

  “Ginny, dear,” he said, as he swept her across the floor.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I hope you are enjoying yourself,” he said.

  “I am,” she said, telling the truth. “It’s a lovely party. Thank you so much.”

  “No, really now,” he said and pulled back for a moment to look at her. “I should be thanking you.”

  “Whatever for?” she asked, laughing a little.

  “For showing my son how the other half lives. It only took a few of months of living in squalor before he changed his tune about law school.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, feeling her stomach bottom out.

  “My son has ambitions,” he said. “And you, dear, are simply a rather large bump in the road.”

  She’d been stunned into silence but said nothing to Ab.

  But when they plowed through the corridor of guests chucking handfuls of rice to the waiting limousine, Marsha clutching the odorous bouquet Ginny had hurled in her direction earlier, she realized that this had been a terrible mistake. The music trailing behind them no longer sounded like a celebration but a dirge.

  Later, breathless in the backseat of the limousine, when Ab kissed her and said, “I love you,” into her hair, she feigned happiness, ignoring the queasiness, the uneasiness. But Ab knew something was wrong.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded quietly; she knew if she spoke she would burst into tears.

  At the door to their honeymoon suite, he motioned as if to lift her up over the threshold, but her mouth twitched and she shook her head. “Lord, no, you’ll put your back out.”

  “Come here,” he said, reaching for her hand. He led her into the most beautiful hotel room she’d ever seen and then out through a set of French doors to the balcony. It was nearly midnight, and the city was aglow. Together they stood peering down from ten stories above.

  The moon punctuated the sky, a thin white comma.

  “You know Emily’s poem about her?” he asked, nodding at the moon. “The moon was but a chin of gold / A night or two ago, / And now she turns her perfect face / Upon the world below.”

  He absently touched her belly in the way that had become habitual in the last couple of months.

  “Well, what about your beloved Bobby Frost?” she asked, and he cocked his head. “The moon for all her light and grace / Has never learned to know her place.” She wasn’t angry, and it wasn’t an accusation. It was just a simple fact.

  She didn’t belong here: not in this expensive hotel looking down at the world below. Not in that country club with its crystal glasses and its twelve pieces of silver at each setting. She was accustomed to margarine in a tub, not fancy pads of butter atop beds of crushed ice in silver chalices.

  “The only reason I’m here is because of this baby.”

  Ab looked stunned. Hurt.

  “I would have married you without the baby,” he said. “I would have married you if there would never ever be babies. I would have married you if you hated babies.”

  “Who hates babies?” she asked, but felt something inside her softening.

  Ab was smiling now, too.

  “What should we name it?” Ginny asked, feeling tears welling up again.

  “I was thinking Peyton,” he said and grinned.

  “Peyton? Is that a family name?”

  “No,” he said and laughed. “Peyton from Peyton Place. The book you’ve been reading. It’s actually good for a boy or a girl,” he continued.

  She shook her head and closed her eyes.

  “Hey,” he said, holding his finger in the air. “Why don’t we sleep out here? It’s a beautiful night.”

  She shrugged. She was certain there wasn’t any place she’d feel comfortable right now; might as well have a nice soft breeze.

  He pulled the two chaises that were sitting there together, then disappeared into the room behind them and came back with an armload of blankets. Like a kid making a fort in the living room, he assembled a makeshift bed, and they both climbed in. He took her hand, the one with that enormous diamond, and kissed her fingers.

  “Ginny Richardson,” he said. “I love you.” And as he nodded off to sleep, Ginny studied the sky and watched the moon disappear behind a cloud.

  Twenty-Five

  September 1971

  After a while, Ginny could hear the soft sounds of Marsha snoring and the sleepy sighs of Peyton and Lucy in the backseat. She felt sleep trying to take hold of her as well, so she rolled the window down a bit to let the night air in and turned the radio on low. There was the crackle and hiss of static between stations, and then she locked into a gospel station. The music was deep and haunting, the harmonic voices like instruments all playing together: both music and prayer. Ginny looked at Marsha to make sure she was still asleep and glanced in the backseat at her sleeping children and turned the volume up a little higher. Oh, they tell me of a home far away . . . they tell me of an unclouded day. The lament, the sort of melodic keening, moved something inside her, as though there had been a rock, a large rock blocking out the light, and each chorus pushed it a little farther, made things a little brighter.

  Something up ahead caught her eye. For miles and miles, the landscape had been barren and black. No signs of life. But there was something glowing orange in the distance. She could also smell, through the cracked window, the scent of smoke. She had to roll the window up, it was so strong. And then she could see that it was a house on fire, a farmhouse standing completely alone, engulfed in flames.

  Her instinct was to wake Marsha up, to say, “Look at that! That house is on fire!” But something stopped her. There were no people, no cars. No fire trucks or ambulances, no neighbors clutching their robes, watching as the house burned.

  She thought about its inhabitants coming home later from wherever they had gone to find nothing but the charred remains of their lives. She slowed as she passed, feeling oddly reverent, the gospel song crescendoing and then fading as she rolled past the fiery wreckage.

  She hadn’t realized she was weeping until the fire was just a faint amber glow behind her. The road ahead of her stretched on endlessly, but after a while, the road behind her was hardly visible anymore.

  Twenty-Six

  September 1971

  At dawn, in Savannah, they brought the car to a repair shop just as smoke was beginning to bloom from under the hood. The mechanic told them that they’d gotten there just in time; they could have done a lot of damage to the engine if they�
��d driven even a mile farther.

  As Ginny got out of the driver’s seat, she realized that every muscle had been tensed as she clutched the wheel, her body aching in the aftermath. Still, she had driven. A vehicle. All by herself. The time Ab gave her a driving lesson had left her in tears. She’d felt foolish and incompetent as the car bucked and stalled down their street in Dover, the neighbors coming out to watch her failed attempts, standing in their respective driveways, pretending they were tending to their roses or checking their mail. When she finally did get some traction, she’d accidentally driven up over a curb and hit one of the neighbor’s lawn jockeys. She’d gotten out of the car, slammed the door, run past that fallen statue back to their house, and told him she never wanted to drive again.

  “I never thought you were capable of a hit and run!” Ab had teased. “That poor lawn jockey didn’t see it coming.”

  She’d hated that he was making fun.

  She wished he could see her now. She wished he’d seen her on that highway, the needle on the speedometer rising to forty, fifty, even sixty miles an hour.

  “There’s a Laundromat over that way,” Marsha said, gesturing across the street. “We can do a couple of loads and then get some breakfast while they fix the leak.”

  They grabbed all the dirty laundry from the trunk, including the dirty cloth diapers that Ginny had been washing by hand and drying by hanging them out of the car, window rolled up pinching the edges to keep them from flying away. They’d bought a pack of Pampers in Virginia, but they were all gone now, and they’d been so expensive. It didn’t make sense to Ginny to waste her money just for the convenience of the disposable diapers.

  The only clean clothes any of them had were the ones they were wearing. Even then Ginny could smell the faint scent of her perspiration on her blouse. They say the scent of stress sweat is distinct from the smell of exertion, and this was the smell of stress.

  “Hey, did you notice that car that pulled in behind us at the gas station?” Marsha asked as they entered the Laundromat.

  “What car?” Ginny asked.