Chapter XIV. 1953
CHAPTER XIV
“Mary? What are you doing?”
It was Vera’s voice that broke through Mary’s reverie, the confusion and fear in it pulling her back into her body. She’d cut her hand as she climbed, her blood a sticky smear against the bark.
“I … I didn’t … I don’t…” She stared down at Vera and the screaming baby in her arms. There’d been something important. Something she came here to do, but she couldn’t remember. And why was Vera holding a baby? She’d never had a child. She’d never wanted them.
The muscles in her limbs burned from the strain of pulling herself up the tree, but she felt the urge to go higher, to find a branch without leaves and bearing a pointed end.
“Mary, I think you should come down now,” Vera said. She kept her tone light, but Mary could hear the edge in it. “Ada is upset. She needs you.”
“Ada,” she whispered. Above her the tree rustled, but she looked only at the baby. At her baby. Her baby who was crying and wanted her mother.
“I’m coming,” she said. As she descended, it was almost as if the tree sighed, as if it pulled against her, reluctant to let her go, but she went carefully, holding her breath until her feet were fully planted on the ground.
She took Ada in her arms and breathed in the scent at the very top of her head. Ada flailed her tiny arms, still furious, and Mary shushed her.
“It’s okay, love bunny. Mama’s here.”
“What were you doing?” Vera asked.
Mary startled. In that moment, even with Vera standing right there, she’d forgotten about her. She looked back at the tree, the leaves blurring. So much green. It was confusing. Her memories drifted like trails of smoke.
“I thought I saw something,” she said, but that wasn’t right. “No. Not something. Someone.”
Vera looked past her and then turned slowly and took in the landscape around them. “I was out for a walk, and I haven’t seen anyone. Other than you. There’s no one else here.”
Ada’s skin was hot. Sticky. She clung to her mother, her cheeks flushed.
You could absorb her. Take her back into your body and finish what you started. Then she would be with you forever.
The thought was Mary’s, but the voice belonged to someone else. She didn’t want to have it. Awful thing. Vera looked at her expectantly. Had she asked her a question? Was there something she was supposed to say?
“What did you see?” Vera asked.
She remembered then. What she’d seen.
“Two women. In the tree. The Dark Sisters.”
Vera glanced at the tree and back to Mary. Whatever was there had clearly gone.
“That’s just a story.”
Mary hummed. “I saw them. They were looking at me.”
Vera took her arm and shifted away from the tree. “I think you’re tired and need some rest. Let me help you back home.”
“No.” Mary tugged her arm from Vera as her muddled thoughts cleared a bit more.
“You told him. You told Robert. About Sharon. About me. And now he barely lets me out of the house. Watches me all the time. Keeps me locked up because he loves me and thinks if he just holds me a little tighter, I might love him back. The way he wants me to. That maybe if he fucks me enough, I’ll learn to like it.
” She gulped at the air, but there were too many things she wanted to say.
She could not draw enough breath to get them all out.
“But all I think about is her. She’s still alive, and she haunts me, and how do I love him instead, Vera? How do I love him instead?”
“Oh, honey.” Vera pulled Mary in and hugged her, the baby wriggling between them in protest. “I’m so sorry. I should have never … I was still so angry, and I saw him, and it all came out before I could even think.”
Mary let Vera hold her. She was so tired, and there was a quieting part of her that still whispered she’d been so close. Just a few more inches and she could have rested. She could have closed her eyes and never bothered opening them again.
But Vera was here, and she was solid and real and good.
They’d hurt each other. Secrets meant to sleep quietly, undisturbed in the dark, brought to light.
There’d been no malice in it for either of them.
Mary’s heart softened, but it didn’t change anything.
She was still sick. Sharon was still gone.
She could still not live the truth in her heart.
“It’s okay,” Mary said. Forgiving Vera would not erase her loss, but it was a lie worth telling. That everything would set itself right.
Her throat ached. It was as if someone was scratching at her from the inside. As if her throat had sprouted a full set of sharpened teeth and begun to consume itself. Something at the base of her spine spasmed, and she gagged against Vera’s shoulder.
Vera stumbled backward as Mary coughed, her eyes widening as she watched Mary retch, her face turned away from the baby so it would not splatter against her perfect skin. The heated slick of the blood coating her teeth tasted foul, and she spat, but the taste lingered. She would never be rid of it.
“You’re sick,” Vera said.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Long enough to know I’m not going to get better.”
“Don’t say that. There are doctors, and there have been other women who get better.”
Mary shifted the baby, who watched the women with big, wet eyes and sucked noisily on two fingers. She’d not truly known until this moment, but she knew it with more certainty than she knew she loved Sharon. She was not going to get better.
The idea came to her all at once. If these were her last days, there was nothing left to fear. She could spend them as she wished. Could leave Hawthorne Springs, find Sharon, and live out her final hours in happiness.
But doing so would mean abandoning Ada. She could try to take her along, but she knew Robert would come looking for his daughter.
He wouldn’t rest until he found them, would involve the police if he had to, and he would bring, if not the both of them, then only Ada home, and Mary would die without ever seeing her daughter again.
No. She couldn’t run. Besides, she had no money. No car. None of it had ever belonged to her. She was a bride of scarcity in all ways.
She would be happy with a single day. Even a few hours if that was all she could get. She knew it was wrong to ask Vera this favor—she didn’t deserve it—but she had to.
“Would you help me, Vera?”
“If I can.”
Again, her throat seemed to bloom into some malevolent, barbed organism, but she pushed past the need to cough, her eyes watering.
“Would you bring Sharon here? To your house?” She heaved a breath. “You could do it while Gerry is at work. Just a few hours, so I can see her one more time. Please.”
Vera paled. “Mary. I—I can’t. What if we got caught?
Gerry is already suspicious. He hasn’t said it outright, but I know he’s heard the rumors about me.
About why I haven’t had any children yet.
I think he wants to believe it’s just gossip, but he watches me more closely now.
Goes through my things. Listens in on the upstairs line whenever I get a phone call.
I can hear him breathing.” She reached out a hand and tucked Mary’s hair behind her shoulders.
“I love you, no matter what. But I can’t help. Not with this.”
Mary clutched her daughter to her chest. Her solid shape was the only thing keeping Mary from collapsing.
She forced herself to nod. She understood.
She did. Vera had as much to lose. As much to fear.
Trapped by their station and lack of money independent of their husbands and limited education, they were not fit for the world outside Hawthorne Springs.
She looped her arm through Vera’s. “Let’s go home.”
They went slowly, Ada babbling in Mary’s arms even as the women kept silent.
It was only when they were standing at Mary’s front door that Vera spoke again. “You’ll call if you need anything?”
“Of course,” Mary said. She shifted the baby to the other hip, hugged Vera, and then stepped into the house. “I love you, too,” she said, and closed the door.
It was the last time Vera saw her alive.