XXXI

The only problem now, Mrs. March thought, was the possibility that her sister might call while she was away, asking after her. She didn’t think Lisa would call; in fact she rarely ever bothered to pick up the phone outside of holidays and birthdays. However, she had been known to call randomly with updates about their mother. Once she phoned with the pressing news that their mother had stuck glitter to a handmade Christmas tree ornament at the nursing home.

Another lie was necessary. She was on a serious mission, after all. She’d cover her tracks and, depending on what she found, nobody need ever know she’d even made the trip to Maine. The prospect of having a little secret to herself, known only to her, possibly forever, thrilled her.

The following evening, after Martha had departed and George had sequestered himself in his study, Mrs. March telephoned her sister. “I wanted to tell you that I’ll be away for a few days, so in case you were thinking of calling, well, don’t. I won’t be here. Neither will George,” she added on a whim, “we’re going to a—a spa.”

“Oh, how lovely. I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous, who wouldn’t be?”

“True, I suppose,” Lisa said. “Where is it? This spa.”

“Oh . . . I don’t know.”

“You mean you don’t know where you’re going?”

“No, it’s a surprise . . . from George,” she said, impressed with herself.

“Oh. Lucky you,” Lisa said—tartly, Mrs. March thought. “What about Jonathan?”

“He’ll be staying with the upstairs neighbors.”

“Want me to call in and check on him?”

“No, no, I’ll be doing that myself. Again, I only called to let you know I won’t be home. I’ll ring you as soon as I get back.”

“All right then, dear. Have fun.”

Next, she called the airline and bought an open-ended ticket to Augusta.

“Thank you, ma’am, enjoy your trip! Maine is lovely this time of year,” said the saleswoman before the line went dead. Mrs. March went over to the closet and opened the doors solemnly—there seemed to be a grand purpose behind all her actions now—and pulled down a small tartan suitcase from a high shelf.

She was packing her tawny winter slippers when George walked in, and it was like living a scene she had experienced before, but from the other point of view. “I’m going to visit my mother,” she said as he had barely stepped over the threshold. “I spoke to my sister, and Mother’s not feeling well.”

She peered at George from the corners of her eyes as she pretended to busy herself with packing. He looked somewhat perplexed as he scratched his chin and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, honey. Is there anything you need?”

“No, it’s all settled,” she said, folding a few silk headscarves into the suitcase (her idea of traveling incognito).

“How long are you staying then?”

“Well, I bought an open-ended ticket, because I’m not sure how long they’ll be needing me. I told her I would stay as long as necessary.” She said this with an air of martyr-like pride, leaving George to reply, “Of course. Do what you need to do.”

“I’ll call you every so often to let you know how she’s doing.”

“Well, it looks like you have everything under control, as usual,” he said. It infuriated her, this deep lack of interest in her sudden trip. He walked over to her, and she tensed as he pecked her softly on the cheek. Like Judas, she thought. When he pulled his head back, she could detect the hint of a smile on his face.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

As soon as the shower was on she rushed into George’s study. He kept the keys to Edgar’s cabin in a small ceramic bowl on his desk, where she now spotted them in a bed of chewing gum wrappers and loose change. She took them gently, delicately, waiting to be caught in the act, but no one interrupted her as she pocketed them, and slipped out as quietly as she had entered.

MRS. MARCH kissed George goodbye and bade Martha farewell (Jonathan was in school). She stepped into the elevator, looking back at apartment 606. The door was closed.

In the elevator she took a deep breath. She hummed a little, looking down at her suitcase. She’d written her address on a leather name tag and the ink had smudged across her first name.

The elevator doors opened with their usual jolt. She walked out into the lobby, rolling the little suitcase behind her. She approached the glass doors, expecting George, at any moment, to appear behind her. She dared not turn around as she stepped closer, ever closer, to the exit.

The doorman hailed her a cab, and she waited dumbly as he fit her suitcase into the trunk with more fuss than was necessary. She thanked him and slid into the backseat, the door shutting after her. She glanced up at the apartment building, at the square windows and the square air-conditioning units.

As the cab took off, turning the corner so that she lost sight of the building, she was blindsided by a pang of guilt. She hadn’t visited her mother since Jonathan was a baby. Inside her lay the grim certainty that it was her mother who should have died—not her father. Her father, with his tanned, rotund belly she had only ever seen in Cádiz that summer. Her father, who always made their dinner reservations and knew who to call when their suitcases were lost in Greece. She had once prepared a repulsive dish of grapes and crumbled chocolate chip cookies and peanuts, garnished with salt and sugar and pepper, and had presented it proudly to her parents, encouraged by a beaming Alma. Her mother refused to try it, another reminder to her daughters that she wasn’t their friend and never would be. Her father had declined politely at first, but after some gentle prodding by Alma, he volunteered to give it a taste. He bent over the plate and shoveled a generous spoonful of the disagreeable mix into his mouth. He munched on it silently, no doubt regretting it. Despite the scalding sheepishness she had felt at the time, Mrs. March had also been thankful, and for the first time, perhaps, truly appreciative of her father.

Sitting on the cab’s odorous, cracked leather seat, she justified her neglect of her mother, reassuring herself that if her father were the one living out his last days, she would be visiting him plenty in Bethesda. In fact, she decided with sudden conviction, she wouldn’t even have allowed him to be taken so far away in the first place. She would have kept him as close to her as possible. Dear old Mr. Kirby. She wondered what he looked like now in his coffin. She usually pictured him as a floating newspaper with legs. He would have rotted away by now, leaving nothing but bones.

The trip to the airport was uneventful—nobody in pursuit, nobody stopping her. The cabdriver didn’t suddenly swerve off the expressway to murder her at some deserted location on George’s instruction.

Similarly, her flight was on time and there were no delays getting through security. She donned a comically large pair of sunglasses and a headscarf and avoided the airport bookstore, where George’s book taunted her on a revolving display.

As she queued up at the gate, she overheard a man talking loudly on a nearby pay phone. He was dressed in a trench coat and held a briefcase in one hand, the receiver lodged between his head and his shoulder. “Yes, Delmonico’s? Hello, this is John Burnett. Right. I’d like to make a reservation for dinner, for next Saturday. Yes. For two. Seven o’clock would be swell.”

Mrs. March displayed her boarding pass to the gate agent and walked onto the gangway, leaving the man to make his dinner reservation. How curious, she thought, that she knew where this stranger would be at seven o’clock next Saturday. She toyed with the idea of showing up at Delmonico’s, maybe even greeting him with familiarity, reveling in his surprise. Would he pretend to know her? Or was John an honest man? As she stepped onto the plane, she wondered who John’s dinner date was. Was this a romantic dinner with his wife? Or perhaps he was treating his lover to a bottle of champagne and oysters. But if that were the case, would he be making plans so brazenly on a public pay phone?

She sat by the window, her legs cramped, the seat belt slicing across her midriff. The takeoff was clumsy, and as soon as the seat belt sign was off she asked the stewardess for red wine. Forgoing the plastic cup and drinking straight from the tiny bottle, she imagined, should the plane crash, how long it would take George to find her. Once he spoke with her sister, he might assume she was having an affair, and when the days passed he might think she had run off with the man. She liked the thought of him fearing he had lost her, feeling remorse for how he had taken her for granted, for writing that abominable book.

AFTER A ONE-HOUR stopover in Boston, she flew to Augusta. The whole trip took a little over three hours. Since it would have taken half the time to get to Bethesda, she called George from a pay phone at the airport to say that she had arrived at her sister’s after an unforeseen flight delay. George seemed uninterested in her update, distracted even, and she could hear muffled giggles in the background.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s just Jonathan being silly.”

She wrinkled her nose, staring down at her shoes. She had never known Jonathan to be silly. “And you’re both all right then?”

“Yes, yes. We’ll miss you, but we’ll be fine. Don’t worry, honey. We’ll make do without you.”

“Very well. Don’t forget to tell Martha to make the lamb tonight. Otherwise it’ll go bad.”

“Will do,” said George. “Have fun! Give my best to everyone.” George hung up.

Mrs. March stood at the pay phone, blinking, the phone still clutched to her ear, and said, loudly, “I love you, too, darling. I’ll see you soon,” for the benefit of the woman next in line.

Under the pay phone scattered business cards listed numbers for local restaurants and cab companies. She called one of the taxi services. It took a few rings for them to pick up, and the man on the other end seemed surprised to be fielding a call, but he assured her that she’d have a cab in five minutes.

She stepped, with determination, into the freezing air, which slammed into her like a wave.