The Sweetness of Salt (6 page)

chapter

11

The hot water felt good against my skin, but it did nothing to ease the ache that was beneath it. Still, I stood under it for so long that clouds of steam began to make the walls sweat. When I opened the door, the blast of cold air shocked me. I wrapped a towel around myself quickly. Except that I couldn’t do anything quickly, it seemed. Everything felt as though it took an enormous effort—even breathing. The towel scratched against my skin like sandpaper, and the muscles in my calf muscles were tight as knots. I got dressed, pulling on my soft jeans, a white T-shirt, and flats, and knotted my wet hair into a loose ponytail.

“Hi,” Mom said softly, getting up from her chair as I came down to the kitchen. Her green stem-stripper gloves were on the table, next to her coffee. “How are you feeling?” I didn’t answer, reaching instead for my purse, which was hanging on the back of one of the chairs. Mom’s eyes were taking in my appearance, but slowly, as if she didn’t want to frighten me.

“Are you going to work?” I asked, nodding at the gloves.

“I thought I would,” Mom said. “It’ll be slow at the shop today, though. If you need me to…”

“No. I’m leaving.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I’m meeting Zoe for lunch.”

“Don’t you want to dry your hair first?” Mom came around behind me, surveying my ponytail. “It’s soaking wet, Julia. The whole back of your shirt is…”

“It’s fine,” I said curtly. “It’ll dry on my way over. I have to go.”

“Well, hold on a minute,” Mom said. “You haven’t eaten anything yet, honey. I made you some scrambled eggs and toast.”

“I’m not hungry.” I swung my purse over my shoulder and headed for the door.

“Julia.” Mom rested her hand on side of the stove. “You father had to run out to get a few things but we want to talk to you. Honey, please. Could we just talk before you leave?”

I slammed the door behind me with a sharp
thwack
.

I spotted Zoe immediately, sitting on a swing next to a little kid, who was pumping his feet furiously. “Come on!” she yelled to him. “You gotta get super high first. Come on! Pump!” Pieces of the boy’s brown hair blew backward as he threw back his head and strained his legs. “That’s it!” Zoe said. “You’re almost there! A couple more! Keep going! I’ll tell you when!”

The swing shook as it flew forward and then back again. Even from where I stood, I could see the boy’s eyes scanning the patch of ground up ahead of him. He looked terrified.

“Okay!” Zoe yelled as the swing began another upward ascent. The boy’s face was white. At the apex of the swing, Zoe stood up. “
Now
!” she screamed. The boy let go all at once, his eyes the size of quarters. He soared through the air, arms and legs flailing like a kite unleashed. Just for a moment, it seemed, he hung there—suspended against the fading light, almost as if he had been pinned up against the sky somehow—and then he came crashing back down, a tangle of elbows and knees, rolling in the dirt. He skidded a few feet and then lay still, flat on his back.

Zoe rushed over to him and got down on one knee. “You okay?”

The little boy sat up. He blinked a few times, and then grinned. “I want to do it again.”

“That was friggin’ awesome,” Zoe said. “You were flying! Gimme five!” She held up both hands. The boy slapped them hard and raced back to the swing set.

Zoe spotted me coming up behind him. She trotted over quickly and slowed as she got closer. “You still look like crap.”

“Thanks.”

She interlocked her elbow into mine and led me over to the small cluster of trees that overlooked the pond. Arranging herself along one of the thick roots, she settled in, tucking her legs under her. I leaned against the side of the tree, poking the grass with my toe. “I really don’t feel like talking.”

“Just sit, okay?” Zoe squinted up in my direction. “Please. Humor me.”

I sighed heavily and sat down.

Zoe stared out across the park at the little boy who was still working his way up to jumping height on the swing. “I’m worried about you,” she said quietly.

“Don’t be. I’m fine.”

She swiveled her head, looking at me sharply. “Don’t give me that. The only thing I know that would make you stay in your room for twenty-four continual hours would be a college rejecting you. And since you got accepted to not one, not two, but all
ten
of the colleges you applied to, I’m assuming it’s not that. So what is it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t.”

“I don’t know why you always shut me out,” Zoe said. “I told you about my mom. You’re the only one too.”

I thought about this for a moment. It was true. The real reason Zoe and Milo’s parents had moved across the country so abruptly two years ago was because their father had discovered their mother was having an affair. The move was a last-ditch effort to keep their marriage together, but things were strained. The last time they had fought about it, Zoe said, her mother had started crying and said that she felt as though she was living in jail. Milo had never said anything to me about it.

“I know,” I said, stalling. “This is just…I don’t know. I guess I need a little time.”

Zoe plucked a blade of grass out from between her toes. “Does it have anything to do with Melissa’s party? With Milo and Cheryl, I mean?”

My stomach twisted at the sound of his name. “No.”

“Have you talked to Milo?”

“No,” I lied.

“There he goes,” Zoe said, pointing at the swings. I looked up. Zoe held her breath as the boy became airborne once again and then hurtled back down to earth. “Yes!” she whispered. The little boy scrambled back up to his feet and looked over in our direction. Zoe stuck her arm out, thumb up. “Awesome!” He grinned and clapped, and ran over to the swings again.

“He’ll do that jump a million times,” Zoe said. “Because now he knows he can.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute.

Then Zoe turned and looked at me. “What about the internship? Are you worried about that? I mean, is hanging around inside that courthouse something you really want to do all summer?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

“Fine.” Zoe said the word slowly, rolling it around in her mouth like a marble. “You say that a lot, you know that? What does fine mean, anyway?”

I stood up. “Listen, I gotta go.”

Zoe stood up too. “Don’t blow me off.”

“I’m not!” I turned my hands up. “Seriously. I just have things to do at home.”

“Like mope around in your room? Feel sorry for yourself?”

“Whatever.” I shrugged her off. “Because you know everything.”

Zoe stopped walking. “I know some of this is about Milo,” she called. “You should just tell him the truth, Julia.”

Now I stopped walking. “The truth about what?”

“How you feel.” Zoe crossed her arms. “I mean, how long are you two gonna go on like this, pretending that there wasn’t—and still isn’t—something between you?”

I could feel the blood rush to my neck and then spread across my cheeks. “What are you talking about? Did he say something?”

“Milo?” Zoe snorted. “Milo doesn’t say two words to me unless you’re around. But he doesn’t have to. God, it’s so obvious you guys are crazy about each other. Why don’t you just…”

“Stop, okay?” I said. “Could you just
stop
for ten seconds? As usual, you have no idea what you’re talking about, but you just talk and talk and talk anyway. It’s not what’s bothering me anyway.”

“So what
is
bothering you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I turned around again, walking toward the entrance of the park.

Zoe grabbed my arm. “Julia.”

“God!” I shouted. “Lay off, will you? It’s like you just like to hear yourself talk and most of the time you’re talking about nothing!”

Zoe steadied her bottom lip with her teeth.

“I’m tired of listening to nothing, okay, Zoe? I’m not built that way. I need quiet. I need to think. I like to be alone. So if you want to be my friend, do that for me, okay? Just leave me alone. Let me have some peace and quiet. For once.”

I strode away from her, looking straight ahead.

“You’re just afraid!” She called after me.

I winced as the words hurtled through the air between us, and then subconsciously raised one shoulder, as if to ward them off. But they rang in my ears as I kept walking, and then settled in beside me, an unwelcome passenger, as I got back into the car.

chapter

12

I drove around for a long time after leaving Zoe at the park. My destination was anywhere but home. I knew as soon as I set foot inside the house that Mom and Dad would be all over me. I didn’t know
what
I wanted right now, but I knew I didn’t want to talk to them. They would insist on a discussion about Maggie, pushing the issue until every last question had been raised and then answered. Dad would insist on “resolving the matter,” as if it were just another court case that he had to sift through, complete with an appeal to the jury. Except that the appeal would be to me this time and I knew he would not stop—he would not rest his case—until I assured him that I understood.

Well, I didn’t understand. I doubted if I would ever understand. And nothing they could say or do was going to change that.

I already knew Mom and Dad and Sophie had had a whole life before me in Milford. Even the revelation about Maggie wasn’t what was ripping away inside of me right now. It was that they’d kept it from me. All three of them. For seventeen years. Mom and Dad said it was to protect me. But what was Sophie’s reason? It was her silence that really bothered me, I realized, making a right on Amsterdam Avenue. I’d never known Sophie to be silent about anything.

What would happen if I reversed things? If I went up there and confronted
her
the way she’d confronted Mom and Dad all these years? She’d been there too, after all. Dad had said she’d seen everything. Why shouldn’t she be the one to tell me? What would happen if I went up to Poultney and asked her to tell me her side of the story? Would it help anything? Or just make it worse?

I pulled into a gas station on the way home and asked the attendant to fill up the tank. Then I had him check the oil level, which was low, and the tires and windshield wiper fluid too. I packed as soon as I got home, tucking three full outfits—underwear, shirts, matching pants—into my suitcase, along with an extra pair of sneakers, socks, my toothbrush, floss, and cell phone. I stayed in my room to avoid conversation with Mom, printing out a map and step-by-step directions from my computer instead. It was not until I heard the front door slam, followed by Dad’s “Hey! I’m home!” that I finally came downstairs, bag in hand.

“Hi,” Mom said, obviously startled by my appearance. She had circles under her eyes. “You hungry? Dinner’s almost ready.”

“No,” I said.

Dad was holding the mail. He glanced at my bag and raised his eyebrows.

“I’m leaving.” I talked loudly, hoping it would make me sound confident. “I’m going to Sophie’s for the weekend.”

Dad put the mail down slowly. “You’re going to Sophie’s? Right now?”

I nodded.

“Julia, it’s already five o’clock. Do you have any idea what a long drive it is?”

“I already printed out the directions. If I leave now and take some breaks, it won’t be too bad. Sophie’ll be up.”

“You can’t drive in the dark, Julia!” Mom said. “It’s too…”

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ve driven in the dark before.”

They both stared at me for a few seconds, eyes wild. If I had the ability to look inside their heads, I thought briefly, I would see gears and cogs moving at the speed of light.

“You’re going up for a visit?” Dad asked finally.

“Yeah. I need same time away.” I shrugged.

Mom turned suddenly, wiping her hands on the edge of a dishcloth. “Well, let me at least pack you something to eat…”

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just stop at a Burger King or something.”

Dad dug into his back pocket and extracted his wallet. He pulled out three twenty-dollar bills and held them out to me. “Take this too.”

“I’m fine, Dad. Really.”

He strode over to me and pushed the money into my hands. “I know you’re fine, Julia. But take the money anyway. You never know…” He left the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air between the three of us like a storm cloud.

I took the bills and shoved them into my pocket. “Thanks.”

“Be back on Sunday.” Dad said.

I nodded. “I’ll call before I leave.”

“Hit the road earlier rather than later,” Dad said. “You’ll want to be fresh for your internship on Monday.”

I pushed past him and headed for the door.

“Julia?”

“I know!” I turned, my hand on the doorknob. “I will be back for my internship, Dad. You don’t have to worry.”

He dropped his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “All right, then.”

Mom stepped forward, her hand on his arm. “Make sure to call us as soon as you get there safely. I mean it. As soon as you get there.”

“It’ll be late,” I protested.

“I don’t care what time it is.” Mom’s eyes flashed. “Just call me when you get there.”

“Okay.” I pushed the door open. “I’ll call you when I get there. Bye.”

I got into the car and shut the door. Mom and Dad stayed in the open doorway, watching as I inserted the key into the ignition and reversed the vehicle out of the driveway. I gave them a small wave as I put the car back into drive and surged forward.

At the stop sign, halfway down the street, I glanced briefly in the rearview mirror.

They were still there, watching from the doorway, Dad’s arm encircled around Mom’s thin shoulders, the tips of Mom’s fingers pressed against her lips. Sophie and I used to do this thing sometimes, just for fun, where we positioned objects at a distance in between our thumb and index finger. It was a trick of the eye, of course, an optical illusion, meant to make us feel bigger, I guess, than the things that actually were. And this was what I did now, fitting both of my parents—still reflected in the rearview mirror—in between my slightly parted fingers.

They were so small, I thought. Like dolls. Little kids, even.

I stepped hard on the gas and did not look back again.