The Geometry of Sisters (25 page)

A knock interrupted her, and she glanced up to see Stephen.

“Take a walk with me?” he asked.

She hesitated, then agreed. They pulled on coats, headed outside into the chilly air. A west wind had blown all the clouds away; the sky was blue, tinged with the gold light of autumn. Pumpkins were everywhere on campus, balanced on boulders, lining the marble steps, wedged into the crook of branches on maple trees. Some were already carved into grimacing jack-o'-lanterns.

“J.D.'s great-grandfather started that tradition a hundred years ago,” Stephen said. “The school buys pumpkins from local farmers,
and the kids carve them. The idea is to make them look even scarier than the gargoyles.” He gestured up to the roofline of Blackstone Hall. Maura glanced up, looking for J.D. in the window, but he wasn't there today.

“What's the purpose?” she asked.

“For a shipbuilder, he was a pretty sensitive guy. He thought it would give the kids power over their fear.”

“Fear of what?”

“The ghosts,” he said. “Mary and Beatrice.”

“Beatrice…”

“Mary's sister,” Stephen said. “She was four years older. They say she never got over Mary's death….”

Maura walked along, thinking of one sister losing another, tugged by thoughts of her daughters missing each other, of Carrie sending postcards from places she'd never been. And of Katharine, missing her own sister all this time. How could sisters do without each other? She mulled over Tim's news, thinking again and again of the possibility of Carrie in Columbus.

“I wonder if we've made a mistake coming here,” Maura said, stopping at the top of the ledge. “I uprooted Travis and Beck. She's having such a hard time. Last night Lucy and Pell's grandmother embarrassed her….”

“Ted was furious at her,” he said. “Everyone knows tuition for teachers' children is included in the compensation package.”

“As Mrs. Nicholson said, ‘Someone has to pay for it.’”

“She's a dragon,” he said. “Don't take her seriously.”

“Beck ran home in the middle of the bonfire,” Maura said. “Today she woke up with a stomachache. I had a hard time getting her to eat some breakfast, get dressed…. I had to walk her to school, to her first class. I want to take my kids out of here, back home.”

“Maura, we'd miss you,” he said. “You and your kids have already become an important part of Newport Academy.”

“My other daughter,” Maura said, the words spilling out. “I just
heard something about her that makes me wonder if she could still be back home, somewhere in Columbus. I want to go there, be near her.”

“What if,” Stephen said quietly, “she was here instead?”

“Here, you mean Newport?”

“Why not?” he asked. “If you don't know her exact location, couldn't it as easily be Rhode Island as Ohio?”

Maura's mind raced with images of that young mother at the football game. She had
known
it was Carrie: her posture, the way she'd leaned toward Maura, then run away. Maura's body ached, remembering.

“Her father is here, after all,” Stephen continued.

“But she doesn't know about J.D.,” Maura said. “And even if she did, I'm not sure she'd want anything to do with him—or with me, once she figured out the truth.”

“She's your daughter, Beck's sister,” Stephen said. “That means she's smart. You don't know what she's learned, where it's leading her. I haven't known you long, but I've been friends with J.D. our whole lives. He's a good man. I'll bet anything that his daughter, whether she grew up with him or not, has his best qualities. I know she's smart and good, and I bet you anything she knows more than you think she does.”

“Why is she staying away? She was always so close to us.”

“People have their own mysteries to solve. Think of yourself at Carrie's age. Maybe her case is more extreme, but did you tell your family, the people you loved, everything you were doing? Were you always careful, did you always do the right, predictable thing?”

Maura turned silent. No, she hadn't—far from it. She'd kept one secret after another. She thought of one night with J.D., the night Carrie was conceived, she was sure of it. Carrie's life began out of love and recklessness, wild magic and luminous beauty, her mother stepping far off her normal path of life.

That night, J.D. had pulled up to Katharine's studio on his
motorcycle. The air was still and muggy; barely any breeze came up from the harbor. Maura wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt, but she was sweltering.

He didn't even have to ask her. She walked across the cobblestone alley and climbed on the back of his bike. J.D. grabbed her hands, pulled her arms around him. Only one word was spoken.

“Tighter,” he said.

She grabbed on as hard as she could, her hands laced across his hard, flat stomach, her breasts pressing into his hot back.

He drove her through town, across the Newport Bridge. The bridge's lamplight had glimmered on the surface of Narragansett Bay a hundred feet below. High above the water, hair blowing out behind her, she'd never felt like this before. Precarious, dangerous, her body welded to J.D.'s.

Lights of ships at sea glinted all the way out to Block Island, a dark wedge on the horizon. Newport and Jamestown sparkled to the east and west. They cruised around Jamestown, and J.D. found a deserted lane bordered by a field and woods.

Maura had shivered with excitement, ready to lie down with him right there, in the field's soft green grass. But no: J.D. had taken her hand, led her through the woods. Bats darted overhead; the sound of traffic seemed to come from the sky. She realized they were just beneath a second suspension bridge—the Jamestown Bridge. He showed her a narrow iron ladder. Arm tight around her waist, lips to her ear, he said, “Climb up. I'll be right behind you. You won't fall.”

“I don't like heights.”

“You're afraid of them?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Don't be. You want to do this—you know you do.”

What she wanted was dangerous, and had nothing to do with the bridge. She felt his arms around her, leaned back into his body.

“You want to experience everything, don't you?” he asked.

“Everything?” she asked.

He nodded, his blue eyes bright, teasing, seducing her past the point of any return. She had blocked Andy from her mind, but she thought of him now, waiting for her at home. Their home. He was always so careful, protective. He would never ride a motorcycle; he'd never break the rules and climb a bridge. He'd never ask her to do something reckless. She thought of Andy's bridge, the covered bridge, as safe and pretty as a Currier and Ives print.

“Dare to be great,” J.D. said.

And Maura put her foot on the first rung and climbed. She barely noticed the thin metal, the fact there was nothing to break a fall—one misstep and she'd tumble a hundred feet down to the ground.

Studying history, she'd used her imagination to travel back in time to every exploration, each siege, the bloodiest battle. Reading literature, she'd wanted to fall in love like Anna Karenina, like Madame Bovary She'd wanted to want to die for love. No one could have this with Mr. Sisson.

She felt wild; pressure in her throat, racing heart, not caring what happened next, as long as she got to feel this way, feel J.D.'s fingers brush her ankles, reminding her he was right behind her, close enough to touch.

And they got to the top of the ladder—not to the road surface where all the cars and trucks whizzed past, but the catwalk just below. Narrow and rickety, made of the same metal as the ladder, it ran the length of the Jamestown Bridge. She hauled herself up and turned to give him a hand.

What she saw took her breath away—he had looped one leg through the ladder rungs, was leaning back without holding on— just arching into the wide-open as if he wished he could fly, his wavy brown hair ruffling in the summer wind. It was a moment of sheer joy, pure abandon.

And it was wonderful. J.D. loved life, was afraid of nothing. She felt the smallest ripple of fear, but it was too late: she was in love with him.

Their eyes met and it seemed that he vaulted up to her. He came straight at her, smiling and with the happiest eyes she'd ever seen; she'd thought his joy came from the panorama all around them, Narragansett Bay's west passage extending out past Beavertail Light all the way to the black Atlantic Ocean, but no. It focused in on her, and he put his arms around her, and his mouth hot on hers, he kissed her hard and deep.

He took off his shirt, laid it down on the hard grate, eased her gently down. They lay side by side, stroking each other's faces, gazing into each other's eyes. Words, endless conversation, always such an important part of every date with Andy, played no role. The only sounds came from the traffic speeding overhead—so close it sounded like the trucks might crash through the roadbed and crush them—and warm wind whistling, slicing through the bridge's suspension cables.

He eased her shirt over her head; she wriggled, helping him push her shorts down. They fumbled over his belt buckle, the snap and zipper of his jeans. They never stopped kissing, they didn't close their eyes. Was this what he'd meant by “everything”? Because how could there be anything else?

His mouth scalding hers, their naked bodies pressing together, the feeling of hanging in midair. The catwalk was a cradle; they had left the world. There was no such thing as time. The earth was orbiting the sun, and they were somewhere above the planet, lost to schedules, obligations, promises, plans. This was the moment they conceived their daughter.

“What's that?” she asked when they broke apart at last, pointing at the distant white beacon that swept the water.

“The lighthouse at Beavertail.”

“Can we go there next?”

He laughed, holding her tight. “I'd love that,” he said. “You want to climb it with me?”

“Yes,” she said, stroking his face. “I want to do everything with you.”

Maura would never let him go, and she'd never belong to Andy again. That was the new truth, and it nearly swept her over the side—as if a great tidal wave had reared out of the sea, come charging into the bay, to the tall bridge, to claim her. She felt the catwalk give way. And suddenly vertigo kicked in. The world and bridge were tilting.

“I'm scared,” she said, clutching J.D.

“You're okay,” he said, stroking her hair back from her eyes, understanding instantly. “I have you.”

“How will we get down?” she asked, breathless.

“The same way we got up.”

But it didn't work that way. Maura was paralyzed. She couldn't let go of him—she was like a tree monkey clinging to its parent. The wind picked up; it was going to blow them off the catwalk like dry leaves. Was the bridge shaking? Yes, it was rocking slightly.

The world below whirled as Maura swayed. She thought of Andy proposing on one knee, on the riverbank by the covered bridge. She felt a sob in her throat—but not of guilt, more of sorrow.

“Okay Maura.” J.D. said her name so gently as he dressed her, helped her into her clothes one leg at a time, even as she clenched her arms around his neck, unable to let go even for a second. “That's it,” he said. “There, now your arms, put on your shirt … okay, one arm at a time. I have you.”

“No,” she kept saying, her eyes squeezed shut. “No …”

But “Yes,” he said. “Yes. We're going to climb down now. You have to do it yourself, I can't carry you. But I'm with you, Maura. I'll be right with you, nothing will make me leave you.”

An eighteen-wheeler rumbled overhead, and she started to cry. She felt stupid, humiliated, terrified. She'd never let anyone see her like this before. She'd always been so competent, brave in the things she tried. In high school, she and a bunch of friends had gone kayaking in Vermont, down Mad River. They'd hit white-water rapids, a terrifying run.

Her heart had been smashing through her rib cage, but she hadn't shown her fear—she hadn't made a sound, just concentrated on staying in the boat, upright and alive, and when she stepped out onto dry land, knees buckling, she said she'd had the time of her life.

And here she was on the Jamestown Bridge, all her bravery gone. She might have expected a daredevil like J.D. to laugh or tease her, but he did the opposite. He became even gentler, softer, stroking her arms, reminding her of how strong she was, how she'd hauled herself all the way to the top.

“Going down will be so much easier,” he said. “We'll get closer to solid ground with every step. Don't look down… just look out across the water. See how beautiful it all is. It's there for you, Maura. I wanted to show you….”

She forced herself to try. Her hands were glued to the ladder. He went first and kept talking to her, saying, “Move one hand, there you go. Now the other. Your left foot, down one step. Now your right. That's it, Maura… you're doing great.”

“I can't,” she said, frozen about twenty-five feet down from the top.

“You can,” he said. “And you are. We're a quarter of the way there. Just keep going, and we'll be on the ground in five minutes.”

She grabbed onto that—five minutes, a quarter of the way there. One step at a time, then two, then three. She suddenly knew she wouldn't be climbing the lighthouse, ever. This had been it, their moment above the earth. J.D. was right below her.

She had never been so attracted, and she'd never been so scared. She would return to this moment over and over, the rest of her life. Balanced on a rusty ladder, the earth tilting below. She and J.D. had just become part of each other, and that would never change.

Andy was peace and the river; J.D. was danger and the sea. But love isn't one thing or the other. Love is all of it. Weights and measures: too much of this, not enough of that. Maura's heart kept track. No matter how hard she tried to live in Andy's world, the gentle life he'd made for her and their children, she'd never been able to give up J.D. He'd been with her all along.

Stephen had walked over to a stone bench overlooking the half-moon bay that reached from Newport across to Middletown, the mouth of the Sakonnet River. Follow that river up, and there was Katharine's saltwater farm.

“You can't go back to Ohio. There's another reason you have to stay,” Stephen said.