THERE HAD ONLY BEEN one other instant when Belinda had questioned her motives for going to England. It had happened as she was counting the money — the bills she’d saved from eighteen years’ worth of birthday cards sent by her mother. It was just enough to pay her airfare. She considered the irony of rejecting her mother’s money all these years, only to finally spend it on a flight back to Wiltshire. Suddenly she wondered why she had kept the money at all. She could have sent it back, or donated it to charity. But then she remembered that she hadn’t wanted to begin an exchange with her mother; she didn’t want to suggest her consent to maintaining their connection. And giving the money to charity felt wrong. Belinda felt it wasn’t right for anyone to benefit from her mother’s attempts to buy love.
Even as Belinda tried to rationalize it away, part of her wondered if there was more significance to her decisions. For the briefest second, she wondered if on some level she had known all along she would use the money to return to England one day. She dismissed the idea almost as quickly as she’d conjured it.
But she faced the same scenario again with Prim in the crop circle. Up until that moment, she’d believed that a series of coincidental events had led her on this journey. She’d opened herself to them, let them sweep her along. But meeting Prim forced her to wonder if she’d had more control than she realized. When she told Prim she couldn’t be there, what she’d meant was that she couldn’t bring herself to believe that Prim could be standing in front of her, a real live body marked with lines of age and imperfections. She didn’t want to see the ghastly white streaks in Prim’s hair, the drooping, wrinkled skin under her chin. This was not the way Belinda wanted to imagine her. And this was not the way her crop circle experience was supposed to turn out. It felt like a violation. It was as if Prim’s presence in the crop circle called into question Belinda’s purpose for being there. Had Belinda willed this into being? Had she subconsciously directed her pilgrimage of self-discovery back to the place of her birth? Had she chosen Wiltshire, deep down envisioning the possibility of a reunion? She was not willing to consider these thoughts. She wanted them gone.
And Prim left. It wasn’t the reaction Belinda was expecting. She turned around and walked away without saying a word, as though she had been anticipating Belinda’s rejection. She retrieved her small handbag lying in the field and took it with her, back down the curving arm of the formation and out of sight. Belinda, fists clenched at her sides, had watched her trudge away, holding her white hat by the brim as the wind lifted it like the lid of a kettle. Belinda’s body felt rigid, as if all her muscles had swelled and stiffened, leaving her a statue.
Dr. Longfellow was first to leave the group and approach her.
Did you know that woman? he asked.
No, Belinda blurted. I don’t know anything about her.
He offered her a bottle of water and she took it, dazedly. As she drank, her hands, her mouth, the cold water running down her throat, felt separate from her. Dr. Longfellow peered in the direction in which Prim had gone. I’m sorry, he said. Everyone goes through something like this.
Excuse me? Belinda said. A bead of water trickled from the corner of her lips and ran down her chin.
Well, it was bound to happen, he said. Unfortunately, our line of work often attracts — unstable people. I hope she didn’t upset you too much?
No, Belinda said, no. She looked at Dr. Longfellow for a moment, shaking her head mechanically. No, she repeated.
I was speaking with the owner of the farm, he said, pointing over to a man standing among the strangers. Apparently that woman showed up this morning asking if she could join the tour. He said there was something off about her from the start.
Off? Belinda said. She felt the bead of water hanging from her chin, poised to drop.
Well, Mr. Beaton told me it didn’t seem like she was here for the crop circle.
I — I see, Belinda said.
She was with someone, too, he said. Her son, presumably. Very strange fellow, so says Mr. Beaton.
A man? Belinda said, wiping her chin. Where? Where is he? She scanned over the strangers in the distance, all of whom looked middle-aged.
Didn’t come, Dr. Longfellow said. He was with her this morning, but she was alone when she returned for the tour.
Belinda gave the water bottle back to Dr. Longfellow. Her hand touched his and she held it there, her fingers pressing into his knuckles.
It was her son, my — she said, her breath swallowing her words. Dr. Longfellow looked at her queerly.
Don’t be alarmed, he said. We’ll find out how she got your name. I’m sure she’s harmless.
I think — Belinda began, then nodded. I have to go, she said, and began to run.
When she reached the edge of the field, her pulse thumping in her ears, Prim was nowhere to be seen. Belinda followed the path out to the road. A line of vacant cars sat parked on the sloping shoulder. No one in either direction. She was about to turn around when she saw a shape moving through a grassy field beside a farmhouse, a few hundred yards down the road. Belinda ran as if the wind were chasing her, sandals slapping on asphalt. She had no idea what she was doing. She was following a blind hope, a sudden urge to understand what she was feeling, the hulking chasm in her gut — as if she’d been deceived. Cheated by her own fantasies.
Nothing had changed on the street leading up to her mother’s house. She could picture it now, and herself running along it. Stick fences, slumping with age, standing at lazy angles to the square houses. The cobblestone streets collecting rivers of water in their cracks, covered with hairy patches of moss like a checkerboard. The pristine old bicycle propped against the front steps of the house on the corner, tangled in wild grasses. The patchy bit of stucco on the front of their house that her mother had tried in vain to repair, and rose stems climbing towards it on a rickety trellis. And her mother, alone, barely alive, sitting inside hunched over the embroidery on her knees. Up until now, her aloneness had seemed selfish. But there was something too familiar about that way Prim had turned her eyes, the way her mouth had begun to pucker at the edges. Prim was not married, not happy. Belinda knew without having to ask.
Prim saw her coming. She met Belinda on the drive leading up to the house, but her smile had faded. She held her hands in a tight heart against her chest.
Belinda, winded from the run, clutched her knees and let the sweat river down her face. She took a moment to catch her breath. Prim watched her, expectantly. Belinda wasn’t sure what she wanted to say.
Where’s Sebastian? she finally said.
At home, Prim said. He can’t be around strangers for too long.
Belinda felt her eyebrows twitch.
He’s autistic, Prim explained, a sudden sharpness to her voice. Belinda recognized it as bitterness.
Oh, Belinda said. She resisted her impulse to apologize. Sebastian was well over thirty years old by now, Belinda figured.
Prim looked down at her feet, nudged a small stone with her toe. Belinda stared at the gravel on which they stood, breathing heavily, searching for words. She examined the gravel’s rocky texture, imagined zooming in on a patch of ground and seeing the same texture repeated. Zoom further, same texture. The same pattern, again and again, into infinity. A formula — fixed, unyielding.
I named my son Sebastian, Belinda said, more to herself than to Prim.
I know, Prim said.
Why? Why did I do that? Her mind was spinning, the words flinging out like splashes of mud.
Prim stared at her blankly. I’m not sure what you’re asking, she said.
I haven’t seen you in thirty-six years, Belinda said. I want to know why I’m so — afraid of you. I’ve always been afraid of knowing you, knowing anything about you.
Prim bit her lip. I don’t know, she said, squeezing her eyes shut against her tears. I don’t know. She wiped her palm over her eyes. Perhaps . . . perhaps you didn’t want to turn out like me.
Belinda turned her gaze to the fields, stretching out in long waves behind the house. She focused on the thin lines of wheat stalks, trembling together in the wind. The crop circle was just visible in the distance, a shadowy inkblot, like a spill on the landscape.
And when she looked back at Prim, she saw nothing but a woman. She was just an ordinary woman, like anyone else. Nothing special, as her mother had always said. All these years Prim had remained stagnant — a woman, a mother, reduced.
But I did, Belinda said. I turned out just like you.