Envious Moon (17 page)

W
e didn't even know what day of the week it was. The beach filled up around us like some kind of time-lapse photograph. At first we were alone but by midmorning blankets were right next to blankets, umbrellas as far as you could see.

“It must be Saturday,” I said to Hannah.

Not that we cared. The day was midsummer hot for September. Clear blue skies and no horizon. We slept in the hot sun with our warmed legs touching. We ran down to the water and charged into the ocean, splashing around, spraying each other like children. We kneeled in the shallow waves and let them roll over our shoulders. We kissed and tasted the salt water on each other's tongues. We walked into the parking lot and bought hot dogs and Cokes from a vendor for lunch. Then we slept some more.

We were like kids on vacation, young lovers home from college. I saw how others looked at us, our playfulness, and I knew they envied the intensity of our love. We wore it like clothes.

In the afternoon the beach emptied as it had filled, one family, one couple at a time. Soon we had most of our section to ourselves and by early evening, we were the only ones left
who were not jogging or walking dogs. I recognized some of the same dog walkers from the morning and it was as if the day had been book-ended by their stroll.

We watched the sun fall out of the sky with Hannah sitting between my legs, my arms wrapped around her waist. I kept kissing the nape of her neck, where her soft hairs were. She tried to stop me, teasingly smacking at my hands. But I wasn't going to give in. I had no way of knowing how many days, how many hours, how many minutes, we had together. In front of us the sun had left the day and the sky was the rosiest of pinks. The air cooled around us. I pulled her back on top of me, and she tried to wriggle free, but I wouldn't let her go.

W
e crossed into Rhode Island after midnight. Driving along the coast in the dark, every set of headlights behind me made me nervous. Cars with roof racks outlined against the night might have been the roof lights of a squad car. The tranquility of the day had given way to the uncertainty of the darkness. I spent as much time staring into the rearview mirror as I did with my eyes on the road.

We came through Westerly and with the streetlights shining onto the road I saw that we were not being followed. I relaxed a little bit and brought Hannah close to me in the cab. It had been hours since we last spoke, though there was no tension between us. It was as if all that had needed to be said had been said, and now we were doing precisely what made sense. We were going home. As much as that was possible. Besides, we were both sun-weary from the day at the beach, a feeling that was both pleasant and exhausting at the same time. I could still feel the sand between my toes.

We came onto Route 1 and there was less traffic here, and I drove slowly, carefully obeying the speed limit. Soon we passed the giant water towers and the road became one-way toward
the sea. We were the only vehicle. I rolled down my window and that familiar smell, of brine and of seafood, of marsh and of bay, came into the truck. It lifted my heart to smell it, and I reached over and squeezed Hannah's thigh.

“Almost there,” I said.

She didn't respond.

I came through the old neighborhood the back way, past all those fishermen shanties, all of them dark at this hour. I killed the lights on the truck and we moved silently by the small houses with their fishing equipment piled in the yards and driveways. Sad little houses on concrete blocks.

I turned down the street that ran parallel to the one I had lived in with Berta. Halfway down it, I brought the truck along the curb and killed the engine.

“This will only be a minute,” I said to Hannah.

I took her hand as we both climbed out my side of the truck. A few houses away a dog started to bark. I remembered the dog. A dark-colored pit that its owner kept on a short leash tied to a tree in his front yard. Beyond that, the neighborhood was quiet.

“This way,” I said.

Holding hands, we crept between two dark houses. We walked on sandy earth, more sand than dirt. We came to a steel fence and a gate and I opened it and we stood facing the back of the house I grew up in. I brought Hannah right to the back of the house and we stood against the clapboards and I looked around the corner to the front and the street. I did not see any cars and the house itself had no lights on. This was what I expected.

The lock on one of the living-room windows that faced
the back had been broken for as long as I remembered and I pushed on the window and it gave way.

I whispered to Hannah, “Climb through and wait for me.”

I looped my knuckles together to give her a boost and she stepped on them and then slid herself over the sill. I pulled myself up and slid over myself and we stood in my living room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but everything was exactly the same. There was the couch, and the rocking chair, the television, the painting of Madonna and child on the wall. Light from the streetlamps came through the front windows. It was enough to see by. I took Hannah's hand again and led her to the stairs.

We climbed them carefully and at the top we stood side by side, looking into the room where Berta slept. She had a night-light on in the outlet on the far wall and it spread a small amount of yellow light across the carpet and up the wall. My mother was on her back on the bed, and we could hear her soft snores.

We moved into the room and stood at the edge of her bed, looking down on her. She stirred slightly, as if sensing our presence, but then she continued to snore.

I leaned down and I kissed her on the forehead. I could make out her sweet wide face in the dark. I came up and looked at her again, and then I leaned down once again and kissed her wrinkled skin. Her eyes opened and I thought she might scream. I wouldn't have blamed her if she had. She had no reason to expect anyone in her house. I put my hand over her mouth just in case.

“Mama,” I whispered.

She stared at me blankly. I took my hand away from her
mouth. “Oh, Anthony,” she said, and her voice dripped with sadness.

“Mama,” I said. “I want you to meet Hannah.”

I stepped to the side and let Hannah step forward so that Berta could get as good a look at her as she could in little light. I saw Berta's eyes move up to Hannah's face. I wondered if she found it as lovely as I did. Hannah said, “Hello.”

Berta ignored her and tried to sit up. “Don't get up, Mama,” I said.

“What are you doing, Anthony?” she said. “You have to stop this madness.”

“I just wanted to say I love you,” I said.

Berta swiped at her dark bangs that fell across her forehead. “You need to stay here, Anthony,” she said. “For me. There are people who need to see you.”

“I can't do that,” I said. “You know I can't do that.”

“Please, Anthony, stop this. I beg you. Do it for the girl.”

“I can't, Mama.”

“Do it for your father's memory, then,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“Anthony,” she said. “My baby. What has happened to you?”

“We have to go, Mama,” I said. “I love you.”

I leaned down and I kissed her a third time, this time on the cheek, and I felt her arms on my arms but we could not stay. I took Hannah again by the hand and we left my mother in the bed. I heard her rising behind us but we moved quickly down the stairs. We went out the front door this time and the street was deserted. There were no cops. We ran around the backyard and across the sandy lawns and between the other houses to where the truck waited for us.

I
kept the headlights off until we reached the main road in front of the harbor. It had to be three in the morning and the streets were deserted. It wouldn't be long before the fishing village woke up. I parked the truck in front of the co-op. We climbed out of the truck. The air was redolent with fish and fuel and all the smells of the harbor. I could see Victor's place from here and I was tempted to go wake him but I did not dare risk it.

Hannah and I cut between the co-op and the cannery and out onto the wharves. The full moon was still out and in a sky of high clouds. Its milky light spread across the docks. In front of us the commercial boats sat in rows with their birds up high. I wondered if the
Lorrie Anne
was in.

“This way,” I said.

We walked briskly past the boats to the far side of the harbor where all the small skiffs bobbed on the water. We were partway there, when I heard the siren. It was still in the distance, near Route 1, but it was growing louder.

“We have to go,” I said, and Hannah looked behind us, toward the road, and for a moment she seemed frozen. I took her by the arm. “We can't,” I said.

We broke into a run. I didn't even know if my skiff would be there. For all I knew they had taken it, anticipating we would need it, or they considered it evidence. But as we came charging on the wooden slats, past bail barrels and stacks of pallets, there it was, the little boat of mine, the boat that had once belonged to my father.

I helped Hannah in and I started the engine and to my relief there was plenty of gas. The sirens were closer now, and there were two of them, I thought, different pitches straining together. I backed the skiff out of its mooring and then piloted it through the other boats in the inner harbor. I pulled down on the throttle and took us past where the Cross Island ferry was docked for the night. Out on the main road, in front of the fish stores, I saw them now, streaming past, two then three cars, lights ablaze. No doubt if they looked up they would have seen our running lights. It wouldn't be long now.

We followed the buoys toward the mouth. The channel was wide and there was no other traffic and I pushed the small boat to its limit. Its nose rose into the air and the water streamed on either side of us. The wind blew our hair back and when I looked at Hannah I knew she was scared but I swear that part of her was enjoying this, the feel of the cool spray on our faces, the speed of the boat.

We passed the breakwater and entered the sound and I could not help but feel it. I whooped as loud as I could and I took Hannah's hand in mine and with my other one on the wheel, we raised our fists to the moon.

I knew they would look for us near the island first, so I headed straight out instead, deep into Long Island Sound. The ocean was empty at this time, other than a giant container
ship, most likely bound for Boston, that we could see moving north, a gray mass at the edge of the horizon.

I cut the engine. In the moonlight we could see the full length of the mainland, dark and black except for the steady beam of the lighthouses, the one at Point Judith, the other over by Narragansett Bay. The small boat rose up and down in the mild chop. The sky was lightening. Dawn was not far away. I cleared space on the floor of the boat and I sat down, my back against the starboard side, and I motioned for Hannah to sit too. She sat next to me and she stretched her legs so that they ran along next to mine. Even not moving there was enough of a breeze that it whipped across the skiff. I lifted my arm and put it around her so she could rest her beautiful face on my shoulder.

“It's going to be okay,” I said.

She cried. She cried hard and I knew she would and I let her, brushing her hair away from her forehead. “It'll be okay,” I said again and again.

“I'm really scared.”

“I know it,” I said. I paused for a minute, and then I said, “I love you, Hannah.”

“How do you know?”

“It's the only thing I know,” I told her. “The rest of this, the rest of this is not real, you know what I mean? None of it matters. It's fake and it's stupid. Everyone else can have it. We don't need it. We have everything. We do. You have to trust me.”

“I want to,” she said between sobs. “I really do.”

“Tell me you love me,” I said.

She choked it out. “I love you.”

I pulled her close. I listened for the Coast Guard cutters
but I did not hear them yet. They were fast boats. Most likely they were near the island, combing its shores, looking for us. I looked over the gunwale toward where the island was, though we were too far out to see any of it. The gentle rocking of the boat felt nice, and I said to Hannah, “You can sleep some if you want.”

She didn't respond. We sat in silence and Hannah smushed her face into my shoulder and I played with her long hair. I ran my fingers through it. I looked up to the vastness of the blue-black sky. I couldn't see the moon anymore and there were no stars. There was nothing up there at all.