Envious Moon (9 page)

B
erta visits me about once a month. She still lives in our small house and she still cooks at the college. At first she visited me more often but I know it's hard for her to come here and I understand that. She takes the bus from Galilee and has to switch buses three times before she gets here. In good weather we walk around the grounds and I hold her hand and we talk about nice things, simple things, like the weather, how the old town has changed since I was last there, the condos that have been going up near the harbor. Rich people moving into our working town. There's talk about large-scale development and someone has even made noise about buying every house in our neighborhood. Berta doesn't want that to happen, even though they would probably overpay for those small houses and she could live somewhere better. But I know she sees my father in that house, and me before all this happened, and she remembers happier times. Maybe she thinks those memories would go away if she left. I think we all reach a point in our lives where the memories are all we have to hang on to. We stop living, in a sense, except in our minds. I know what Dr. Mitchell would say about that, but I don't care. I like to picture Berta in front
of the television in our house, sitting in the overstuffed chair, her eyes closed. But instead of sleeping, she reaches back across time and she remembers. She remembers my father and she traces their life together. All those moments when he made her laugh, how she felt when he opened the door after returning from sea and took her in his arms. And then she remembers bringing me into the world and even the little sister that I did not know. Maybe she pictures my father and me kicking the soccer ball back and forth in the sandy street. Father and son and the lives we had not yet led, the possibilities of everything unfolding in front of us like a map. Maybe she sees this and it warms her. Maybe it makes her happy and gives her solace. And maybe that is enough.

I
t's hard to believe that I was on the island for less than three weeks. I think we both realized—once we were into it—that it was not going to last forever. The funny thing was that we never talked about this. We never spoke of time, of when I would have to leave, of when she would have to leave. I had told her I had missed my boat and she never asked me another thing about it. I know now that Hannah didn't bring it up for the same reasons I didn't. To do so would have been to give it words, and giving it words would have made it real. Something we couldn't turn back from. I know you can't control time like that, but both of us thought we could. Or at least the days and the nights seemed longer when we ignored the obvious.

The sex was the newest part for me. I had been a virgin before I met Hannah, which I think she knew but I don't mind saying anyway. The passion of it surprised me. I was unprepared for how quickly it stripped away whatever remaining walls may have stood between us. I confess that a few times I found the whole thing stressful, since Hannah seemed to want more than I could give her. There was a line, I think, between what was loving and what was not. I was so new at all of it, so that
when she would want me to pull on her hair until it hurt, I couldn't understand why she wanted me to hurt her.

“Just do it, Anthony,” she demanded.

And so I did, though I did it reluctantly, and afterward, when we lay together in the quiet with our skin warm against each other, I sometimes felt bad about it all, like I had let her down, even though I was doing exactly what she had asked me to do.

T
he morning Hannah told me her mother was coming, a fog rolled in from the east and it brought the first rain we had seen since we had been together. At first it wasn't much more than drizzle but by midday it was pouring. It was a day Hannah didn't have to work and we spent the whole morning, as had become our habit, in bed. It seemed like we could have divided our life together into two parts: when we were having sex and when we had just finished. I remember that we were lying there watching the rain fall in a gray sky out the windows. I went to say something about it when she interrupted me.

She said, “My mother's coming.”

“When?”

“Today.”

She rolled away from me so I could not see her face and I looked again to the window and the rain that fell now like bars of silver. “Okay,” I said.

“I should've told you sooner.”

“Don't sweat it,” I said.

“It'd be better if…”

“What?”

“I don't know how to say this,” Hannah said.

“Tell me.”

“If she didn't know about us.”

“How long is she here?”

She turned back toward me. I brushed the hair away from her forehead. “The weekend,” she said. “She hates it here, but she feels like she has to check on me.”

“I'll be okay,” I said.

“It's not what you think,” Hannah said. “It's just that if she thought I was involved with a boy, any boy, she wouldn't leave. Then we couldn't be together.”

“I get it,” I said.

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

I watched the rain fall and wondered what I would do with myself if I had to stay away from the house. It was a soaking rain but maybe it would let up. She leaned in and kissed me then and we kissed for a while. Then she said, “It's only two nights.”

I nodded. “Two nights will feel like a long time.”

Her green eyes narrowed and then she smiled. “I'll miss you,” she said.

“You sure?”

She nodded and her hair fell in front of her eyes and now she swept it away. But I was greedy for her, drunk for her, and every moment away from her felt empty. The truth was that sometimes it took another person to teach you how to be alive.

L
ater that afternoon the rain picked up and fell in sheets on the beach. It was so heavy that I could not see the water. I sat wedged under the rock face and I was miserable. My luck had run out. The promontory provided some shelter but it was not enough. When the wind blew the rain came right in and soaked my clothes. Hannah was with her mother by now. What were the two of them doing? They would have the great house to themselves. I would be stuck on the beach, the rain-soaked beach.

At least I was smart enough to snag two bottles of wine from the cellar before I left. I might be wet but I had the wine and that was a comfort.

I wished there was someplace I could go. I had money. I thought about getting a hotel room. Lying on a warm bed and watching television. But I didn't have a credit card and I knew you needed one for places like that. Besides, I didn't look like someone who belonged in a fancy inn. My presence might raise questions. A phone call to the sheriff.

So I sat and watched the rain. I was wet and cold. And I felt the sadness coming on. I felt it coming on like a cold.

W
hen the wind shifted at dusk and the rain began to come sideways under the rock, I broke camp. I piled my things into the oilskin and made for the cove. Passing the overturned rowboats, for a moment I thought about using them somehow to build a shelter. But someone might notice them missing.

At the cove I started to walk up the trail that led to the house. I knew I could not go to the house. But halfway up the hill, where the trees started, it leveled off and the pitch pines grew closely together. I made my way into the grove, holding my right arm in front of me to keep stray branches from catching me in the face. In between two tall trees I stopped. The rain fell steadily here but it was not as bad as the exposed beach. I put my oilskin bag down. I removed my heavy raincoat. From my bag, I took out the good test fishing line. It took me a while in the new dark but I strung the coat between the trees. Tied it firm with the fishing line. I sat down under it. The rain pinged on top of the heavy rubber. But even though the pine needles below me were wet, the rain no longer fell on me. I stood and laid a towel on the pine needles. Then I took out my bedroll and laid
it folded in half on top of the towel. I sat back down. This was much more like it. The rain couldn't reach me anymore.

I opened one of the bottles of wine. I drank straight from it. I lighted a cigarette. I was halfway up the cliff face. The path was to my left. To my right were more trees and the hilly land that led to the cliff walk. In front of me was the dark ocean obscured by the rain and the fog and the dark. Behind me was the house and inside it were Hannah and her mother.

I wondered what they had eaten for dinner. Surely more than the turkey sandwich from the general store that I had devoured as soon as I bought it. I wondered what Hannah talked about. If she was tempted to tell her mother about me, about how in two weeks we had grown closer than many people do in a lifetime. Mostly, I wondered if she looked to the window. If she looked to the window and the rain and worried about me. Worried about me sitting out here getting wet.

Maybe Hannah would come find me. When her mother fell asleep, I thought. Mothers went to sleep early. She probably couldn't wait. Of course, she'd look for me on the beach. But that'd be okay. I'd hear her on the path when she went by. No one else would be walking the path to the cove in a downpour. I'd surprise her. And then she'd join me under my tarp and we could share the wine and make love with the rain around us. She'd tell me how hard it was to be at the house knowing the whole time that I was down here.

The night moved on. The rain continued. The dark grew more dense. I had a lot of time to think. I couldn't see anything except for the flash of my lighter when I lit another cigarette. In the quick light I got a sense of rain and trees and water. Lots of water. Spilling off the raincoat above me to the ground. Then the dark shrunk around me. I thought of Victor and the story
I would have to tell him. I thought about his eyes, how big they would get when I told him all that happened. When I told him about having sex on the beach. What it was like to have such a beautiful girl move on top of you. No fucking way, Tony, he'd say. I'd tell him the whole thing. God's honest truth, Vic.

I'd have to get an apartment. One like Victor had. Then on weekends Hannah could come visit and we'd never leave bed. The only thing that would make us move would be hunger. We'd get up to eat and then return to bed. Or maybe we'd just eat in bed. Or not eat at all. For who needs food when you have a warm bed?

I missed Victor. Everything we did together. Our summer routine, those nights drinking beer on the jetty. Someone to talk to like a brother. Who understood me like a brother.

And I missed Berta. She'd be watching television by herself. And she'd fall asleep in front of it. Without me to wake her she'd come to in the middle of the night and groggily make her way upstairs.

I even missed the
Lorrie Anne
. It would be nasty out there tonight. Fishing in this kind of rain. The deck slick with it. But I also knew when you had the work you didn't notice the weather as much. You were too busy. Besides, they were good men. Big Al and Ronny. Carlos. Captain Alavares. Brothers of a different kind.

I stubbed out one cigarette and lighted another. I took a long pull off the bottle of wine. Come find me, Hannah. Come find me and take me away from this rain. Take me away from this silly homesickness. Take me somewhere warm where I can climb inside you.

I
had no sense of time. I never wore a watch. It had been hours since the sun went down. Because of all the rain it seemed longer. There had not been much light in the day to begin with. It had to be around ten now. Ten or eleven. And no sign of Hannah. No footfalls on the path to the cove. She had not come to get me.

At one point my legs cramped and I stood out from under my jury-rigged tarp. The rain had slowed a little but still fell steadily. Mist rose up all around me in the dark grove of trees. The rain soaked my hair. Where was she? Hannah had not said anything about coming to me, but I didn't think she had to. It was implied. I knew her mother was there and could not know about me and I respected that. Well, I understood it anyway. But she couldn't be with her mother all the time. Don't mothers go to sleep?

I began to walk. I moved carefully through the pine trees, fending off low-hanging branches as I went. Some were heavy with rainwater and when I pushed on them it spilled off in a rush and fell on me like a shower. I didn't care anymore. I reached the trail and turned toward the house.

The path was muddy from all the rain. My boots sloshed through it as I climbed. Out from under the tree cover it was a heavy rain and I had to wipe it away where it ran into my eyes. To my right the ocean was hidden by the fog.

The ground leveled below me and I knew I was close. I came through the final stand of trees and in front of me now was the house. It was ablaze with light and through the mist and the fog it glowed orange. It was like I was seeing it through gauze and the effect was almost confusing. She only used the one light at night, the one in her room. I had never seen the house like this before. With the heavy fog and the falling rain and the fuzzy light, it was like walking through a dream.

I moved across the wet grass toward the house. The orange lights seemed to pulse with every step I took. Maybe it was the wine, but if I didn't know better I might have thought the house itself was alive. It looked like it was breathing in the fog.

When I got about sixty yards from the house, I stopped. Through the rain I could see into the floor-to-ceiling windows of the big ballroom on the first floor. The chandelier was on and the whole room was awash with light but I didn't see anyone. I moved forward and I was even with the house now, standing on the side of it, and the windows were right in front of me, close enough that I could see the whole room but far enough away that anyone looking out would not be able to see me. And as I watched, a tall, thin woman with long blond hair came into view. She wore a black T-shirt and white pants. This must be her mother, I thought. She was really beautiful. I thought maybe she was talking on the phone because she was pacing back and forth on the parquet floor and she seemed to be speaking, though I didn't see anyone else. Then I realized she wasn't on the phone because her arms dropped to her
side. Then she raised one up high and brought it back down, as people do when they are making a point. I strained my eyes through the rain and the mist. And then behind her, half-in and half-out of the room, I saw Hannah.

She leaned against one of the large doors and was dressed as I had never seen her before. She had on a long dress, almost to her ankles, and her hair was up. She looked remarkable, to tell you the truth, but I didn't focus on that because I knew she was upset about something. I was too far away and Hannah was partially in the shadows so I could not tell if she was crying. But from her body language I saw that something was not right. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her head hung to one side and downcast toward the floor. Her mother moved back and forth in front of her. I wished I could hear what she was saying because it looked like she was really giving it to Hannah. I hated to see her upset. She seemed so sad. She wouldn't look up at her mother. At one point her mother just stopped and glared at her. And I saw Hannah shaking her head over and over and for the first time it occurred to me that somehow they might be talking about me. But how was that possible? She wouldn't have volunteered anything. She was clear about that. And as I was thinking about this, I looked to the other end of the ballroom and I realized that they were not alone.

He was against the far wall, the way he stood a mirror image of Hannah, though he looked more bored than distressed. His arms were crossed in front of his chest. He had on a white long-sleeve shirt and beige khakis and maybe this was why I had not seen him before. He blended in with the colors of the room.

But there was no mistaking that slicked-back hair and the leathery sun-beaten skin. Sheriff Riker.

You might have thought that my concerns right then were
about getting caught. That I would have immediately broke into a sprint back to the hillside in the rain to get my things and figure out where to hide. But seeing the sheriff made me realize that the only reason he was there, the only reason for the sadness Hannah wore in the very way she stood, was because of me. And if this were true, it meant that the sheriff knew I was the one on the stairs that night. He had told Hannah that I had killed her father.

I was not worried that this meant I could go to prison. Instead I was worried that all we had built in the time we had been together might fall apart. That Hannah might not want to see me anymore. That she might even hate me. And I could not live with that. I needed to reach her somehow, reach her without getting caught, and explain everything. How it was all a mistake, how important she was to me. I needed to lay it out for Hannah and pray that she understood.

I stood in the soaking rain and stared through the fog and into the tall windows. My eyes moved back and forth from Hannah to her mother to Sheriff Riker. At one point Hannah stepped out of the shadows and I saw how hard she was crying and her mother went to her and tried to hold her but she shrugged her off. Then Hannah extended one arm out and pointed toward the back of the house, toward the cove and the beach. When she did, Sheriff Riker brought his hand to his mouth and in the dark to my right, toward the front of the house, I suddenly heard the crackle of his voice, and, more alarming, a human voice in response, some twenty yards away from where I stood.

I took one step back, my boots sinking into the wet earth. I strained my eyes through the blackness and I heard the voice again and then another one. “This way,” one of them said.
I couldn't see anything at all. The rain fell all around me. I was happy for the dense fog. I glanced back at the window and Hannah's mother held her now. The sheriff was gone. A beam of light swept across the trees behind me. I saw them. They were in the driveway. Two flashlights and then three. Voices. I turned toward the cove and in the fog I broke into a light jog. I looked over my shoulder at the lights. They were moving this way but not quickly. They did not know yet where I was. I started to run. I ran behind the house and across the wet lawn. I kept close to the tree line and it was so foggy it probably did not matter. I could have run right down the middle of the grass and there was no way they could have seen me. I reached the path and sprinted down it. The path was so muddy my boots made big sloshing prints in the dirt. The earth was so soft from the rain that they were deep impressions. This was a problem. If they shined their lights on the ground, they would know exactly where I went.

I did not have much time. I crashed through the grove of trees to my makeshift camp. I left the raincoat up between the trees but I grabbed the oilskin bag and returned to the path. I climbed back up toward the house, moving as fast as I dared, my eyes peeled ahead for any lights. When I reached the grassy lawn I looked ahead through the fog. The house was still lit like a Christmas tree but I did not see the flashlights or the sheriff's men. I got on my knees with the oilskin bag in front of me. I moved backward on the path, dragging the bag across my footprints as I went. It wasn't perfect but it seemed to be working. If they came while I was doing this, I would need to stand and sprint for the beach, hope for the best. But I made decent time. The path would have the wipe marks on it but no one would make those out until the morning, if then. My prints, on the
other hand, would have been plain as day. I crawled backward and I slid the bag and I looked ahead and I listened. The bag made a scraping sound as I went. The rain continued to fall. I worked as fast as I could. Any moment I expected to see flashlights moving on the path above me. But I made it to where my makeshift camp was and I lifted the bag and went through the trees. I sat again under my raincoat and I listened.

I wanted a cigarette so badly. Now that I was no longer moving, my heart raged in my chest. There was the rain and the heavy fog and the sound of my breathing. I did not hear anything else. Maybe they weren't looking for me at all. Maybe they were after something else altogether. I mean, I didn't know for sure that the sheriff had discovered somehow that I was the one in the house that night. I'll give it ten more minutes, I thought, then I'll have a cigarette. That'll calm me down.

A moment later, I heard them. I sucked in my breath and held it. They were on the path. Two, maybe three, men. Loud voices. I looked to my right through the dark and the rain. I couldn't see anything. Then I saw the fuzzy yellow glow of a flashlight in the fog. It was gone and then there it was again. There would be no reason for them to come in here, unless they saw my footprints or the drag marks from the bag. I released my breath and held it again. I heard them clearly now. They were even with me on the path. I saw two beams of light. One of them said, “How much farther?”

“It's got to be right here,” the other said.

Then they were gone. I exhaled. I sat still until my legs began to cramp. I shifted and stretched them out in front of me. I stared into the blackness. I didn't dare move. I had nowhere to go.