Thirty-two
After Mary burned Patrick’s check, after she turned on the water, leaning over the sink and watching the ashes swirl then disappear in the stainless steel of the basin, she looked back toward Hannah. “You want to go to the beach?” she asked, her elbows still resting on either side of the sink, her voice deep and dry.
“Now?” asked Hannah.
Mary nodded.
“But what about the food?”
“We’ll eat it in the car.”
Hannah glanced out the front window, which was slicked black with night. “But it’s cold out,” she said.
Mary smiled. In Sandy Bank, she used to sleep on the beach in the winter, bringing a sleeping bag and slinking through the night while Diane lay oblivious in her bed. But that was before Hannah was born. She turned back to the sink and looked at the round mouth of the drain. “Are you getting soft on me, Bunny?” she asked.
Hannah was silent for a moment. “Fine.”
On the way to the beach, the girls passed the white containers of takeout between them—Hannah taking huge slurping bites, Mary simply letting the warmth from the food seep into her legs.
“Why aren’t you eating?” asked Hannah, her mouth full as she gave her sister a sidelong glance.
“I don’t know,” said Mary. “I guess I’m not hungry.”
They parked in one of the spots along the road that ran along the coast. By morning, they’d be full of cars with surfboards strapped to their roofs and wet suits in the trunks. But now, the girls had their choosing.
They walked down the steep wooden stairs that led to the beach, each of them holding a sleeping bag, Mary also carrying a backpack.
Mary paused, looking out onto the limitless Pacific, which breathed invisibly in front of her in the dark. “It’s strange,” she mused. “Having the ocean to the west.”
“Why?” asked Hannah, who had stopped a few steps farther down to look back at her sister.
Mary just shook her head. “Everything is all flipped around. It’s like we’re at the end.”
Hannah made an annoyed huff and shivered, her sweatshirt hood pulled over her head. “Everything’s exactly where it always was,” she said, as she started down the stairs again. “You could just as easily say that this side’s the beginning. The earth’s round, remember?”
Mary followed Hannah. At the bottom of the steps, Hannah turned toward her sister. “Where do you want to sit?”
Mary looked down the beach, which dipped into a graceful curve before jutting out into another point. Cottages with pale yellow windows sat with their backs to the black hills behind them. “Let’s walk down a little.”
They found a spot by an old bleached cypress trunk. Hannah set her bag down, shimmied inside, and pulled it up to her chin. “It’s freezing,” she said, as she shook off the chill.
“It’s not that bad,” said Mary, who was stone-still and looking down the beach.
Hannah stiffened. “What are you looking at?” she asked.
Mary lifted her chin toward a pair of yellow eyes making their way down the sand. “It’s a raccoon.”
Hannah sunk deeper into her sleeping bag. “Is it coming toward us?”
Mary chuckled. “Yeah, but,” she said, still watching it. “It’s just checking things out. Looking for dead stuff.” Mary let her backpack slide off and unstrapped her sleeping bag, then laid it next to Hannah.
“Nicky’s dad was bit by a raccoon that had rabies,” said Hannah, as Mary slid in next to her. “He had to get shots in his stomach every day for a month.”
“Mrs. Pool once went ape shit on a bat that got into her house.” Mary looked at Hannah and saw her small smile from beneath her sleeping bag. “She beat the crap out of it with a couch cushion, then ran all the way to the 7-11 in her nightgown.”
A spring of laughter, real and true, came from Hannah’s lips. She knew Mrs. Pool mostly from stories. Her recollection of Sandy Bank and the Water’s Edge was spotty and dim.
Mary closed her eyes and lay down flat in her bag, feeling the familiarity of sand under back. It was like being home. She took a deep breath. “Anyway,” she said.
She felt Hannah watching her. “Are we gonna sleep here?” Hannah asked.
“No,” replied Mary. “Let’s just rest.” And she pulled her hand from her sleeping bag and blindly found Hannah, laying her arm protectively over her. “I think we both need to rest.”
And that night, as the girls lay beside each other, Mary thought about the continent behind them. About all that had happened. All that had ended. About the sun that had sunk into another sky, as if sinking into the ocean itself.
Mary waited until she heard Hannah’s breath slow, until she felt her body lie limp in the sand. Then she carefully got up and walked toward the water. The wind had picked up now, and it blew her hair around her head as if it were something alive, something animated. Above her hung a full, fat moon, watchful and silent. She took off her sweater and let it drop to the sand. She had on a tank top underneath and no bra. She felt the hair on her skin rise.
She slipped off her sweatpants, coaxing each leg down with the opposite foot. She stepped out, leaving those, too, on the sand. She took another few steps toward the water. The frigid waves lapped up to her feet, swirling around her ankles before sliding back into the sea. She stood there for a moment, in her tank top and underwear, until her feet became pleasantly numb. She could dive in, she knew. She could swim and swim until there was no more land. Until her limbs slowed with the cold. Until they no longer responded. She could swim until her lips became vein blue and Stefan and Northton and all that was lost no longer existed.
She closed her eyes, pulled off her tank top, and tossed it behind her. Then she stepped deeper into the water. She felt it meet her knees, then her thighs. She walked farther still, her body immune to shudders, her skin contracting from the cold. She felt the water pass her stomach. She wouldn’t go too much farther she told herself. She just wanted to taste the salt on her lips. She felt the water pass her breasts. She was part of the tide now. She felt it moving her back and forth, her hair like bleeding ink around her back, her body weak against the temperature. It wasn’t up to her now, the retreating tide took her out bit by bit until the water passed her collarbone, passed her neck, and then she let herself sink. Through her closed eyes, she saw Hannah when she was little, when they were still at Sandy Bank. When they used to face each other, holding hands, and plunge down into the ocean, into a world of their own. Through her closed eyes, she could see the fluid, refractive surface of the water; she could see the sun filtering through. She could see Hannah looking like light; she could hear her calling her name. Mary! It was muffled by water and memory and time. But she heard it again. Mary! It came again and again. Each time louder, more real. Until the words themselves pulled Mary to the surface.
“Mary!” Her body reacted, shaking violently from the cold. And Mary turned back to the shore. Hannah was wading in after her, frantic and furious, the sea in sprays around her. Hannah was up to her knees.
With sluggish arms, Mary began paddling back to shore. Hannah was up to her hips when they reached each other. She clutched at Mary, wrapping her arms around her waist and hurling her angrily toward the shore.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
Mary’s teeth chattered so fiercely, her words were barely intelligible when she said, “I just wanted to go for a swim.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” asked Hannah, pushing Mary from behind toward the shore. Mary stumbled against the strain, her arms crossed over her bare chest. “You could have died! ”
And Mary laughed, though she couldn’t have said why.
“Shut up, Mary!” said Hannah, as the girls waded out of the water. When they reached the sand, Hannah bent down and, with her hands on her knees, let out a silent convulsive sob.
Shaking so hard, she could hardly grasp it, Mary bent down and picked up her sweater.
From behind her, Mary felt another forceful shove, and she fell against the sand, feeling it on her lips, tasting it. “Don’t be mad, Bunny,” she said, as she brought herself to her hands and knees.
THE CHASE GIRLS DROVE HOME THAT NIGHT with the windows closed and the heat on high, neither of them saying a word, Mary with bare feet and wet hair bleeding onto her back, Hannah with her sleeping bag covering her legs. When Mary put the Blazer into park in front of their apartment, Hannah abruptly pushed open her door and got out of the car. With her shoulders softened and her back slumped, Mary felt another involuntary shudder move through her body. Then she followed her sister out of the truck.
Hannah stomped up the stairs in front of Mary. Mary followed slowly, grasping the handrail.
“Here,” called Mary, tossing the keys up to Hannah. They landed at Hannah’s feet. She bent over, picked them up, and opened the door, letting it swing behind her after she stomped in.
When Mary walked into the apartment, the water was already running. Hannah had turned the shower on, and the bathroom door was closed. Mary knocked on it. It was thin and hollow, with wood veneer that had grown mottled and yellowed at the bottom from humidity and age.
“I’m in here!” said Hannah.
“I need to come in, too.” Mary was still bent with cold.
“No!”
“Bunny . . .”
“I’m taking a shower!”
Mary stuck her fingernail into the groove in the center of the doorknob and turned, releasing the lock.
With a slap of the vinyl shower curtain, Hannah’s face appeared. “I’m in here!”
“I need to take a hot shower,” Mary said. Her teeth chattered in corroboration. “I’m freezing.”
“That’s because you decided to go for a fucking swim!”
Without a word, Mary peeled off her clothes, letting them drop on the floor atop Hannah’s. She pushed open the back side of the curtain and stepped in behind her.
“Hey!” said Hannah, covering herself with wet limbs.
Mary was doubled over with the cold. “Like I haven’t seen you naked before,” she said.
At the sight of Mary wincing against the heat of the water, Hannah softened. “Here,” she said, her voice still gruff. She stepped aside so that Mary could stand directly under the showerhead. “You can be here.”
But Mary didn’t move. She simply looked at Hannah. “Bunny” was all she said. Then she straightened her cold-wracked body and wrapped her arms around Hannah’s neck.
“Get off of me!” commanded Hannah, as she pulled Mary’s slick arms away. But Mary’s arms immediately found her again. “Seriously! Get off! ” Again Hannah tried to break free, but again Mary’s arms reached for her, pulling her close. “What the hell?” she demanded, as she tried to duck out of Mary’s grasp.
It went this way until Mary felt Hannah’s body finally give in. Until Mary felt Hannah’s head lean into her shoulder. Until Mary heard a high, sustained cry escape Hannah’s lips. “I’m so sorry, Bunny,” she whispered, resting her hand on the back of her head.
They stood there like that until the bathroom filled with steam, until the memory of the cold evaporated. Until Hannah was silent. Until all that could be washed away was.