The Mothers (16 page)

“That's okay. I'll just watch.”

The tall one, who went by Miller, refused, resting his hands on the waist of his gray swim trunks.

“Nope,” he said, “can't go on without you.”

He reminded her of Mr. Turner, the quiet way he spoke, his constant alertness, but most of all, his smiles, which always looked deliberate. He seemed steady. The volleyball net was only a hundred feet away. She could always leave if she wanted to.

“Oh, what the heck,” she said, letting Miller help her up. His rough palm was gritty with sand.

She had made an impulsive decision, the type of thing she never did. Suddenly the night crackled with promise. She could be a different girl tonight, the type who could talk to strange men and not feel scared. She could only be that girl because she was with Nadia Turner. When JT returned with a volleyball, they walked together to the nearest net. He chatted with Nadia the whole time, carrying their blanket under his arm.

“How old are you really?” she said.

He grinned. “I told you. Twenty.”

She turned to Miller. “Is he lying?”

“No comment,” he said.

JT was eighteen, they found out later. After their match, they squeezed into a booth at Wienerschnitzel, sharing the chili fries and hot dogs the Marines had bought them. Both men had jostled at the cash register, arguing over who was going to pay. They'd only been
buddies for six months, Miller told them, but in the Marines, that felt like a lifetime.

“You shoulda seen this kid.” Miller pointed his fork at JT, dripping a string of cheese on the table. “Comes out here with nothin'. Don't know nothin'. Can't even wash his own socks.”

Miller was twenty-eight, wiser and shrewder. He'd joined the Marines fresh out of high school and had already been to Iraq twice. He'd lost partial hearing in his right ear from a mortar that exploded near his head.

“I can't hear you for shit,” he told Aubrey during dinner. “You talk so soft.”

She scooted a couple of inches closer. Her thigh pressed against his.

“Better?” she said.

He was just flirting with her, she thought, until his head dropped, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on hearing her. He wasn't the type to play flirty games. JT had spent half the volleyball game joking around and the other half missing the ball flying past because he was too busy watching Nadia in her bikini. Miller had dominated. He seemed like the type who played to win everything, who yelled at the TV screen when he lost in a video game or slammed his paddle on the Ping-Pong table after a bad hit. He'd never yelled at Aubrey when she messed up, though, and after she did the smallest thing right, he trotted up the court to give her a high-five. Had he always been this serious or had his seriousness come from fighting overseas? JT had never been deployed, but he knew his time was coming. He wasn't scared. That was the reason he'd enlisted in the first place, to complete missions.

“And to learn things and travel,” he said, through a mouthful of fries. “And to go to California to eat hot dogs with pretty girls.”

The beach was dark by the time they returned. The boys tossed the ripped cardboard from their two six-packs onto the fire they'd made, which burned steadily in the pit, crackling over driftwood and crumpled newspaper. Miller had wanted to start the fire without lighter fluid.

“It's cheating,” he'd said, kneeling by the stone circle with his cigarette lighter. He tried to coax the burning embers into a flame, stacking the wood in complicated geometric shapes. You had to let air in, he explained, but not too much or the fire would blow out. You had to find a perfect symmetry, because the same air that gave life had the capacity to destroy it. JT grew tired of waiting. He borrowed a can of lighter fluid from a few pits over.

“Just a little bit,” Miller said before JT doused the wood. The flames leapt and the girls screamed. JT just laughed.

“Fuck!” he kept saying. “You see how high that went?”

Miller eased off the ground, brushing sand from his knees. He looked disappointed.

“It's okay,” Aubrey said. “You almost had it.”

He smiled at her but with all lips, no teeth. She'd put her engagement ring back on after she'd taken it off to play volleyball and Miller had noticed it. She sat next to Nadia on a big log, both wrapped in their blanket. The night air was chilly and they scooted close together, sharing a bottle of Heineken. She rested her head against Nadia's shoulder, suddenly nostalgic for the summer they'd spent together, the car rides and movies, the hours swinging in Mr. Turner's hammock. She was getting married and Nadia was returning to the Midwest. Would they ever spend time like that together again? Could you be nostalgic for a friendship that wasn't over yet or did the fact that you were nostalgic mean that it already was?

Across the fire pit, JT plopped onto the sand. “Sure wish someone would cuddle with me,” he said.

“Don't look at me,” Miller said.

They shoved each other and the girls laughed. Later, the Marines would return to the barracks or maybe patrol the movie theater, looking for new girls. But for now, it was enough to pretend that they were all friends, that they would all see each other again. Miller gave Aubrey a pained smile.

“Enjoying the end of your freedom?” he said, nodding at her ring.

She didn't say anything, but she felt like she hadn't entered into her freedom yet.

“The end,” JT scoffed. “Hell, I'm just waiting for something to happen.”

He was quiet for a moment. The fire was dying, and Miller tossed another handful of cardboard scraps to feed the flames. Then JT grinned, hopping to his feet.

“I'm tired of just sittin' here,” he said. “Let's go for a swim.”

JT peeled off his shirt, tossing it into the sand, and shucked his flip-flops into his hands. He took off for the pier, yelping as he sprinted toward the water.

“Come on,” Aubrey said.

“Are you crazy?” Nadia said. “That water's freezing.”

“I don't care.”

She pulled Nadia off the log, their blanket falling into the sand. She dragged her past the fire, then they were running, half laughing, half screaming through the damp sand to the pier. Once she'd leapt off, crashing into the cold water, she thought about how her sister would kill her if she knew. She would lecture her about quadriplegics who'd landed in shallow water and shattered their vertebrae. But
she'd jumped and nothing bad had happened. Another cold wave hit her, soaking the shorts she hadn't bothered to take off. JT floated around them in circles. Nadia laughed, her hair turning curly, and Aubrey threw her head back, floating under the moonlight. On the shore, Miller stood alone, leaning against the concrete restroom, his shirt in his hand. She stumbled out of the water.

“Why're you standing out here by yourself?” she said.

“Because you're all crazy,” he said. “I'm not jumping off that thing.”

“Why? You scared?”

“Of dying?” he said. “Yes.”

He had fought in a war. He had killed people, or if not, he had been trained how to. He had lived with death, so he knew there was nothing brave in not fearing it. The only people who didn't were those stupid enough to not know the reality of it.

“I'm not scared,” she said.

“Of what?” he said.

“Of you.”

They were both still for a minute, then Miller reached an arm around her waist. She didn't move. He kissed her, soft at first, then harder, and when his lips trailed down her neck, she froze and burned at the same time. Before she knew what she was doing, she pulled him in the darkened bathroom, onto the grimy floor still covered in damp sand. She could barely see him in front of her, she could only feel him, his large hands squeezing her. He could kill her. He could bash her head against the floor. He could strangle her with those large hands and crush her throat. But she didn't feel paralyzed by the danger, only excited. She climbed on top of him, and he moaned into her mouth.

“I don't have anything,” he whispered.

A condom, he meant. She pulled away. Outside, the moon shone
brightly over the waves, and through the bathroom door, she could see Nadia and JT bobbing in the water, still laughing and splashing each other. She climbed off of Miller and waded out to join them, soaked again, unable to tell what was the ocean and what was herself.

—

“I
THINK HE L
IKED YOU
,” Nadia said. “The old one.”

They were parked, watching the sun rise over the San Luis Rey River, or what was left of it. In the summertime, the river dried up, cracked earth snaking through the trees. Aubrey leaned against the truck window, the glass warming her face. She swore she could still smell Miller on her. She wanted to tell Nadia about what had happened in the bathroom, how she had taken charge, how she hadn't felt afraid, but she didn't, for the same reason she'd refused Miller's number at the end of the night. She knew she would never see him again and she wanted to keep the memory to herself. She didn't feel unburdened by sharing hard truths. Hard truths never lightened.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she said.

“Tell you what?”

“About you and Luke. You were never gonna tell me.”

“Why would I? We hooked up in high school. It's not a big deal!”

“It is to me!”

She had never yelled at Nadia before and for a second, she felt proud watching her flinch. Then Nadia pulled her into a hug.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm sorry, okay? I won't keep secrets from you.”

She kissed her forehead, and Aubrey felt too exhausted to fight her. She sank into Nadia's side, amazed that after everything, she could still feel something as gentle as Nadia's fingers in her
hair.

T
he wedding was all any of us could talk about once the invitations had arrived. Shiny gold squares of paper with cursive so fancy you had to squint just to read it, tucked inside a white envelope with gold trim, closed with a seal that bore the first lady's initials, a slanting
L
propped against a curvy
S.
The bright invitations bounced light and when we held ours close at coffee hour, the card made our faces glow. We'd all heard secret details about the wedding; Deacon Ray's wife, Judy, told Flora the cake was from Heaven Sent Desserts, three levels high and rich enough to lose a tooth. Third John told Agnes there would be over a thousand guests at the wedding. At bingo, Cordelia, the church organist, whispered to Betty that the reception would be in the pastor's own house, servants ushering glass flutes on silver trays to and fro.

You can't blame us. At our age, we'd seen plenty of weddings, far too many of them, really. Weddings so boring we nearly slipped to
sleep before the minister even spoke, weddings between people who had no business even thinking about marrying, who couldn't bring themselves to share a sandwich, let alone a life. But this wedding, it got us feeling hopeful again. We were generally unimpressed with the stock of young people in our congregation. The boys were sullen and slow, slouching in the pews, tight-mouthed when you tried to speak to them. When we were girls, we knew boys who were Spirit-filled, Bible-quoting believers. (We also knew pool-shooting, cigarette-smoking gamblers, but at least they had enough sense to wear a belt.) Now the girls were even worse. Our mamas would've whooped our legs if we'd dared to come to church like these girls, bubblegum-popping and hair-twirling and hip-switching. Anyone knows a church is only as good as its women, and when we all passed on to glory, who would hold this church up? Serve on the auxiliaries board? Organize the Women of Worth conferences? Hand out food baskets during Christmas? We looked into the future and saw the long banquet tables growing dusty in the basement, the women's Bible studies emptied, assuming these girls didn't turn the meeting room into a disco hall.

But Aubrey Evans was different. When we'd seen her crying at the altar all those years ago, she'd reminded us of ourselves. Back when we were just girls piling into camp meetings wearing starched calico dresses and white gloves; girls who sang solos and baked sweet potato pies for the church picnic; girls who kneeled in segregated churches, forced to sit off to the side so the white preacher didn't have to look at us. In her, we saw us, or us as we used to be. Girls who had felt that first spark of a slow love. A pastor's hand on our forehead and we had fallen, hands back and arms wide and crying out, for the first time, a man's name. Jesus! And when we'd cried out a man's name for the second time, it felt like a shadow of that first moment. So even though
we hadn't known where she'd come from, we'd understood why Aubrey Evans couldn't stop crying when the pastor asked what gift she'd come forward to receive and she whispered, salvation.

—

T
HE NIGHT
S
HADI ARRIV
ED
, Nadia's father took them out to eat at a restaurant at the harbor called Dominic's. She'd spent all morning searching through her mother's prayer book. She turned each page slowly, pausing when she spotted her mother's loopy handwriting scribbled in the margins. Most times, her mother's blue pen had underlined a word or phrase in the prayer, random, abstract words like
peace
or
refuge
. Occasionally, her mother had written notes but those were impossible to understand—under one psalm, she'd jotted down what looked like a grocery list. Nadia wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for—a clue, maybe, but a clue that indicated what? Why her mother had wanted to die? What did she expect to find in the prayer book? A suicide note?

“It makes sense,” Shadi had said, on the ride home from the airport. “Don't most people leave notes?”

Part of her had always felt relieved that her mother had never left one. In Nadia's mind, her mother's suicide had always been impulsive and urgent, a need to die that had blinded her until she could see nothing else. If she'd had time to sit down and write a note, then she would have had enough time to realize that she shouldn't shoot herself. A note would seem selfish, a desire to justify what she'd already known was a hurtful choice. Still, Nadia had searched the prayer book, hoping to find anything that would help her understand her mother.

At dinner, her father ordered shrimp scampi and bought a bottle of merlot for the table. She didn't tell him that he'd paired his wine
wrong. Her father didn't drink wine and he went out to nice restaurants like Dominic's even less. He wanted to impress Shadi, and their chumminess only annoyed her. When she'd brought Shadi home, her father had given him a slow tour around the house, the two men standing almost identically, hands in their jeans pockets. They talked easily about things she didn't care about—golf, Michigan football—and she stood by awkwardly, listening, as if she were the guest meeting the parent for the first time. Worse, at one point during his tour, her father had gestured to the blank walls.

“Sorry,” he told Shadi. “As you can see, we need to do some redecorating around here.”

Both men had laughed. She'd excused herself from the room. But the more she thought about it, the more incensed she grew, until she was silent and surly at dinner.

“You had no right to do that, you know,” she finally said.

Shadi glanced at her. Her father paused, pasta flopping over the prongs of his fork.

“What?” he said.

“Take her pictures down.”

Her father's jaw clenched. He set his fork on the edge of his plate.

“Nadia,” he said, “it's been four years—”

“I don't care. She's my mother! How do you think that makes me feel? To walk in and she's just gone?”

“She
is
gone,” her father said. “And you've been gone too but now you want to tell me how to live in my own house? You think everyone's life just stands still while you're away?”

He slowly wiped his mouth with a napkin, then pushed away from the table. She watched him disappear around the corner to the bathroom, hating herself for not keeping her mouth shut. She held
her head in her hands and felt Shadi massaging her neck. Later that night, he tiptoed into her bedroom, slipping under the covers. She felt crowded with him squeezed onto her twin bed, but she was too miserable to refuse his company.

“I'm such a bitch,” she said.

“You're not,” he said. “It's okay to be angry.”

She felt suddenly annoyed by his patience. He was endlessly reasonable in a way she could never be. Just once, she wished he would get upset at her. Just once, she wished he would see her for who she truly was.

“I fucked the groom,” she said.

He was silent so long, she wondered if he'd fallen asleep.

“When?” he finally said.

“Four years ago.”

“Well,” he said evenly, “then that was four years ago.”

“He's marrying my best friend,” she said. “You wouldn't give a shit if your best friend had fucked me?”

“Not if you were seventeen then. When you're seventeen, you fuck everybody.”

He tightened his grip around her waist. Once he'd fallen asleep, she slipped out from under his heavy arm. She sat by the window, falling asleep in the moonlight, cradling the stolen prayer book.

—

N
ADIA C
RIED THREE
TIMES
at the wedding.

Once, when Aubrey walked down the aisle, smiling and clasping a bouquet of lilies, her white train trailing past like a gulf Nadia would never be able to cross. She'd dabbed her eyes a second time during Luke's vows. He'd written them himself and his hands shook
as he read them aloud. She'd watched his trembling hands, wanting to calm them with her own. Her eyes watered a third time at the reception during the first dance, while Luke and Aubrey swayed to a Brian McKnight song. He was probably singing in her ear, his voice scratchy and out of tune. At the table beside her, her father watched the two spin, Luke's dancing a little jerky because of his leg. Was her father thinking about her mother, their own wedding day? She'd heard the story, how they'd married with only two hundred dollars between them. Her mother's friend had sewn the dress, another baked the cake, and they'd served fried chicken and sandwiches for their guests. A cheap wedding for sure, her mother had said, laughing, but people told them for years it had been the most fun wedding they'd attended. She'd never imagined her parents as fun people, but maybe they had been then. Or was her father thinking about her own wedding someday? She glanced at Shadi, who smiled and squeezed her hand. She dabbed her eyes again, aware of a new way she would disappoint her father.

There was no alcohol at the reception. She hadn't expected the Sheppards to fund an open bar but she'd hoped for at least champagne. After an hour, she excused herself to the bathroom and stepped outside the reception hall for a breath of air. She slipped out the back door, surprised to see Luke outside, leaning against a planter, the silver tie around his neck already loosened.

“What're you doing out here?” she said.

“I needed a break,” he said.

“From your own wedding?”

He shrugged. She hated when he did that, shrugged instead of actually responding. At least Shadi wanted to talk about things.

“Want a drink?” Luke said. He pulled a flask out of his pocket.

She laughed. “Here? Are you crazy?”

He grinned, shrugging again as he unscrewed the flask and tipped it to her. She felt like they were kids, sneaking out to meet up in the park while their parents were sleeping. She took a small sip and then another, the whiskey burning her throat.

“I met your dude,” Luke said. “He's nice.”

“I like nice boys now,” she said.

He smirked. “He don't seem like your type.”

“I don't have a type.”

“Bullshit. Everyone does.”

“And Aubrey's your type?”

It came out meaner than she'd meant. She just didn't understand the attraction, and maybe she never would understand all the things that had changed since she'd been gone. He took the flask from her, tilting it back.

“No,” he said. “But that's why I love her.”

She had hoped for a release. She would go to this wedding and when she watched the two of them kiss at the altar, the part of her that was still hooked into Luke would finally give. A click, then the latch would open and she would finally be free. Instead, she felt him burrowing deeper into her. She felt the dull burn of an old hunger, all the times she had wanted him, the times she had hoped he might hold her hand in public, the nights she had dreamed about when he might finally tell her he loved her. He'd made her feel like love was something she had to claw her way into, but look at how easily he loved Aubrey. Well, of course he did. Aubrey was easy to love.

He passed the flask back to her. Behind the reception hall, near pipes and silver towers, away from the romance and lights, the crowds of well-wishers snapping photographs and dancing to oldies,
they drank together, growing tipsy and warm, passing the flask until it lightened and emptied. Luke tucked the flask back into his pocket, and silently, as if following some unspoken cue, they both headed back into the hall. In the lobby, Mrs. Sheppard was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She wore a pink skirt suit with a floral brooch that made her look like she'd been plucked off a rosebush, thorns and all.

“There you are!” she said. “Everyone's looking for you.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I just needed a minute.”

“Well, come on. You can't just go running off.”

She grabbed his arm, tugging him back into the hall. Nadia began to follow but Mrs. Sheppard blocked the doorway.

“This,” she said in a low voice, “needs to stop.”

Nadia felt twelve again, caught kissing and shamed behind the church building, and in her surprise, she said what she wished she would have said then.

“I didn't do anything wrong,” she said.

“Girl, who you think you're fooling? You know how many girls like you I've seen? Always hungry for what's not yours. Well, I'm telling you now this needs to stop. You already caused enough trouble.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Mrs. Sheppard said. “Who you think gave you that money? You think Luke just had six hundred dollars laying around? I helped you do that vile thing and now you need to leave my son alone.”

Mrs. Sheppard shook her head a little, daring Nadia to say something, and when she didn't, the first lady straightened her brooch and returned inside the reception hall. Nadia stood alone in the lobby so long that Shadi came looking for her, and she nodded when he asked
if she was okay. But later she would wonder how she hadn't questioned where Luke had found the money so quickly. She'd been so desperate, she'd imagined him capable of anything. Now she knew that he was.

—

I
N THE MORNING
, the newlyweds would be on a plane to France, two days in Nice, two in Paris. Luke's parents had paid for their honeymoon as a wedding gift with help from the congregation. One of their biggest collections ever, his father had told him, and Luke felt honored by the well-wishers, the members who could not even pronounce Nice and still donated to send them there. He would've been happy with a more local honeymoon. A Mexican cruise, a trip to Hawaii—he imagined spotting Cherry at the Aloha Café and ordering the Strawberry Sunrise—but Aubrey had her heart set on France. And even though he knew she only wanted to go there because Nadia Turner had been, he'd agreed.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight, in their hotel room, he eased up behind her, tugging the zipper on her dress, amazed, as always, by how delicately women's clothes were made, the tiny hooks, the slender buttons. The first time he unhooked a girl's bra, he'd fumbled around the clasps and he felt a similar nervousness now, giddiness even. He was scared he'd be disappointed and even more, he worried that he'd somehow disappoint her. But maybe it was the soft hotel lighting or the champagne room service had brought or the romance of the wedding, the silk flowers, the music, the decorations his mother had obsessed over. He'd always separated sex and love but now the two were intertwining and he felt as blustery as he had when he was fourteen. He slowly pulled down Aubrey's zipper until he saw skin and more skin. But she reached back and stopped his hand.