Saturday Morning
Bess wakes up at four o’clock in the morning. She assumes that the quirks of pregnancy (indigestion, sharp pains under the rib cage) have jostled her to attention, but in fact it’s all the clashing and thumping going on down the hall. Cissy, of course.
Another reason she can’t have a baby. What example does she have? Bess loves that crazy woman, but sometimes she fantasizes about one of those regular homemaking, cookie-baking moms. Really though, Bess doesn’t care about sweets. She’d settle for someone not risking her life for a house, someone not knocking about in the dead of night doing Lord knows what.
Bess turns onto her left side. She lies there for several uncomfortable minutes before turning onto her right. When that doesn’t work, she flips faceup but then remembers that pregnant women aren’t supposed to sleep on their backs. Then again, does it matter?
All spun up into a wired-exhausted state by 4:42, Bess lurches out of bed. After grabbing a robe off the pink bureau, Bess wraps it around herself with a double knot and patters out into the hallway. She’s surprised to find it dead dark, all the way down to Cissy’s room. The thumping has disappeared; the only sound is that of the waves breaking beyond.
Was Bess imagining things? Jacking up the volume on the home’s creaks and cracks?
Suddenly she hears the front door whoosh open and then slam shut. It’s not even five o’clock in the morning and the old bat is already out of her lair. Bess runs to the round window in the hall, a window now partially blocked by Cissy’s ill-conceived secondary flagpole.
“Damn it, Cissy,” Bess grouses with a laugh.
Although the view is obstructed, Bess has a clear shot of Baxter Road, and one Mrs. Caroline Codman scuttling across it like a blond crab. And what do you know, she’s headed straight toward Chappy Mayhew’s.
Bess inhales, holding the breath behind her chest until her raging heartburn intervenes and she’s forced to let go. What is Cissy doing? Breaking and/or entering? Damaging property? Every possibility seems farfetched yet likely at the same time. This is how it goes with the woman, a respected town doyenne and shooter-of-Kennedys both.
Bess turns away from the window and jogs back to her room. When she fishes her phone from the depths of a Young Family Reunion windbreaker, Bess sees an unread text. It’s from Evan, time-stamped 10:33.
Hey—Just got your text. Wish I could’ve gone to party but at LAX tourney on the cape. Keeping phone off as a good example to kids. Hope you had fun. Talk Sunday.
Bess smiles even as tears fill her eyes. She can’t believe how happy she is because of a few words. He was with a bunch of kids.
You’re supposed to be the good example in this scenario? she types in response. Poor kids. JK. Travel safe.
Bess thinks to text her mom (I see you! Step away from the Mayhews’!), but remembers it won’t get read until sometime next week. She chucks the phone onto her bed, tosses on her ratty espadrilles, and then books it downstairs and out the front door, bedclothes and all.
Bess stalks across Baxter Road. As she gets closer to Chappy’s, Bess notices there are lights on inside, which means Cissy’s operations are not covert. A confrontation, possibly? Her mother wouldn’t physically harm the man, Bess doesn’t think.
Soon she is on the property, tramping through the yard. Rose stems prickle Bess’s skin as she winds between the hedges and flowers. It’s foggy. The air and ground are wet, her ankles already filthy. After lunging over three low plants, Bess sidesteps some type of open-trench situation before ultimately steadying herself on a windowsill.
Bess glances down to see scratches crisscrossing her legs. Her palms are scuffed up and her nightgown looks like she’s been locked in an Appalachian barn for twenty years. But Bess will not remember the minor abrasions. When evaluating that particular night, these discomforts will prove the least of the damage.
Traumatic brain injury is nothing to joke about, but there’s no other way to describe Bess’s emotions after looking at the window and the appalling portrait it frames. Here is a real-life shot of Chappy Mayhew, stark naked and bucking, jamming an equally naked, very willing Cissy Codman against a wall.