There was no point in analyzing why she felt so happy to see him or how touched she was that he found time in his day to see them off, or how safe she suddenly knew she was-there was someone in the world who cared for her, who probably even loved her, and who would be here on island, waiting, the next time she returned. For now, David was what she needed most: he was her friend.
She decided not to wave; she didn’t want the kids to notice him. He wasn’t there for the kids, anyway; he was there for her. Beth did put down her window and turn her face in his direction. She wanted to give him something to hold on to while she was gone-the memory of her smile, warmed by the summer sun.
Chapter 8
T he most amazing aspect of life, Beth thought, was the way that time passed-the days, the months, one following the next without slowing down or stopping for tragedy or triumph.
They returned to New York and-how else could she say it?-resumed their lives. It took two weeks for Beth to readjust to New York, but then one day she woke up and realized everything was back to normal. The laundry was done, the apartment had been cleaned, the last of the Nantucket bread and tomatoes had been consumed-now the kids were devouring bags of apples and gallons of cider, almost faster than Beth could buy them. Winnie had her first physics quiz and she rattled off formulas in a cheerleader’s chant. Garrett had his first soccer game at the end of the week, plus his application for Princeton was due soon, if he wanted to qualify for early admission. One night, Beth found him in Arch’s study on the phone-odd, because he normally took calls on the cordless in the kitchen. He was sitting at Arch’s desk doodling on a legal pad, and with his head bent, he looked so much like Arch that Beth caught her breath, inadvertently announcing her presence-she had planned to slip out of the room unnoticed. But Garrett looked up and saw her and she asked, “Who are you on the phone with, honey?” The typical response whenever she asked either of the kids this was, “None of your business,” but this time Garrett moved his mouth away from the receiver and whispered, “Piper.”
Beth stood in the doorway for a beat. She wanted to ask, How’s she feeling? How’s the baby? What does the doctor say? She wanted to talk to David. The phone line led directly to Nantucket, and although she was now back in New York, Beth yearned to transmit herself there. Instead, she nodded and closed the door.
Winnie started her senior year at Danforth a changed woman. She was no longer the naive goody-goody spoiled brat child of privilege whose life had been torn apart by the untimely death of her father, she was no longer a girl who thought it was okay to wear her father’s Princeton sweatshirt as though it were a mourning band or torture her body by denying it food. And she was no longer a virgin, physically or emotionally.
While it was true that her relationship with Marcus changed- there was no way to keep up the intensity of their friendship when they lived apart-it ended up being okay for both of them. Winnie’s time was occupied by school. She nurtured the friendships that she’d all but ignored as of March sixteenth, and she tried to foster friendships with one or two of the African American kids at her school, although she soon realized that just because these people were black did not mean they had an excellent character like Marcus. Winnie did her best to eat as much as she could and three afternoons a week she worked out in Danforth’s weight room as she prepared for the upcoming swim season. She was going to surprise everyone on her team by trying the butterfly this year.
Marcus’s life got incrementally better. During the summer his father had cleared the apartment of most of Constance’s things, which helped. Marcus had school which he took seriously; he studied hard. He, too, went to the gym three afternoons a week, and he got a job working two evenings plus Saturdays at a pizza shop in the student union at Queens College. It was a job that could easily have gone to a work-study student, but Marcus’s old boss at the grounds department put in a good word for him, even though he knew about Marcus’s mother. Marcus didn’t actually make pizza-no tossing or spinning of dough, no painting of sauce or collage of toppings-but he did become proficient with the pizza peel, the pizza cutter, and the cash register. He made $6.75 an hour and by mid-October had saved almost two hundred dollars toward his debt to Dome Books.
On Sundays, Marcus took the seven line into Manhattan to watch the Giants game at Winnie’s apartment. Those afternoons on the leather sofa were a quiet fantasy. They snuggled under a fleece blanket, and although there was no opportunity for sex- Beth was always around-they reveled in the warmth of each other’s body, just as they had on those nights in Horizon when they’d done nothing but sleep. Beth served them Cokes from a silver tray and made delicious pub food-potato skins, chicken fingers, mushrooms stuffed with sausage and Parmesan cheese. Sundays that autumn made Marcus glad to be alive.
Thanks to Beth, he’d met four times with Kara Schau, who actually traveled to Benjamin N. Cardozo High School to speak with him during his study hall. Mostly, he talked and she listened, but she left him with a few helpful sentences: You can be related to someone who’s done a bad thing and not be a bad person. You can love someone who’s done a bad thing and not be a bad person. You can even be someone who’s done a bad thing and not be a bad person. It helped Marcus to think this way, and he cut a deal with his father- sometime before the holidays he would go up to Bedford Hills to see Constance. He refused to partake in the weekly phone calls with Bo and LaTisha. When he was ready to talk to Mama, he told himself, he would do so face to face.
The first Saturday in November he rescheduled his work shift and he and Winnie went to the prison together, on the train. They were as solemn as they would have been at a funeral, holding hands and gazing out the window as the last of the fall leaves in Westchester County passed them by. Since Marcus had never been to the prison before, Bo told him what stop to get off at and how to catch the free bus to the prison grounds.
“It’s not a pretty place,” Bo said. “You know that, right?” Marcus knew it intellectually, but that was different from actually seeing the Bedford Hills Correctional Institute-the barbed wire, the armed guards, the stench of lost hope, the absolute concrete and metal desolation of the place. It was hell on earth. When Marcus and Winnie stepped down from the bus, they were herded into a huge waiting room filled with other visitors. Marcus gripped Winnie’s arm and led her to a space on a vinyl couch. There were glass-topped coffee tables with torn magazines and coloring books and broken crayons-because the waiting room was filled with little kids. It could have been a pediatrician’s office except for the edgy way the adults acted, sneaking glances, both shameful and interested, at one another. Everyone in the room loved someone who had done a bad thing.
During the wait, Marcus nearly fell asleep. He felt his body wanting to check out, shut down. Because it was too much to handle-the prospect of seeing his mother. Winnie was reading her English assignment, Macbeth, and Marcus wished he’d brought something to read, though he doubted anything would distract him. Finally, over the buzz of the room, Marcus heard his name. He helped Winnie up and walked toward the heavy black woman who was waiting for him. He tried to clear his mind as he would before a swim meet.
Constance, when he saw her, was behind glass, but Marcus marveled at how familiar she was. His mother. Mama. He’d expected her to look sad or tired; he’d expected her to look older. But, in fact, she looked much the way she had his entire life- with smooth brown skin, wide brown eyes, and the hair she always claimed she could do nothing with. At home, she wore silk scarves over her head, but here she made do with a navy blue bandana.