Practical Magic

Sally walks out onto the porch, but Gillian is still right behind her. She follows Sally down the driveway.

'You're not going to see that investigator. You can't talk to him.'

'He knows anyway,' Sally says. 'Couldn't you tell? Couldn't you see by the way he was looking at us?'

Just thinking about Gary's gaunt face and all the worry that was there makes her chest feel even worse. She's going to find herself suffering from a stroke or angina or something before this day is through.

'You can't go after that guy,' Gillian tells Sally. There's not a bit of nonsense in her tone. 'We'll both be sitting in jail if you do. I don't know what would make you even consider this.'

'I've already decided,' Sally says.

'To do what? Go to his motel? Get down on your knees and beg for mercy?'

'If I have to. Yes.'

'You're not going,' Gillian says.

Sally looks at her sister, considering. Then she opens the car door.

'No way,' Gillian says. 'You're not going after him.'

'Are you threatening me?'

'Maybe I am.' She isn't going to let her sister screw up her future just because Sally feels guilty about something she didn't even do.

'Oh really?' Sally says. 'How exactly do you plan to get to me? Do you think you could possibly ruin my life any more than you already have?'

Wounded, Gillian takes a step back.

'Try to understand,' Sally says. 'I have to set this right. I can't live this way.'

A storm has been predicted, and the wind has begun to rise; strands of Sally's black hair whip across her face. Her eyes are luminous and much darker than usual; her mouth is as red as a rose. Gillian has never seen her sister look so disheveled, so unlike her usual self. At this moment Sally seems to be someone who would rush headlong into a river, when she hasn't yet learned how to swim. She'd jump from the branches of the tallest tree, convinced all she needed for a safe landing were her outstretched arms and a silk shawl to billow out and catch the air as she fell.

'Maybe you should wait.' Gillian is trying her sweetest voice, the one that has talked her out of speeding tickets and bad affairs. 'We can discuss it. We can decide together.'

But Sally has made her decision. She refuses to listen; she gets into her car, and short of jumping behind the Honda to block it, Gillian can't do anything but stand and watch as Sally drives away. She watches for a long time, too long, because, in the end, all Gillian is watching is the empty road, and she's seen that before. She's seen it much too often.

There's a lot to lose when you have something, when you're foolish enough to let yourself care. Well, Gillian has gone ahead and done it by falling in love with Ben Frye, and her fate is now out of her hands. It's riding along, sitting shotgun in that Honda with Sally, and all Gillian can do is pretend that nothing is wrong. When the girls come home, she says that Sally's out running errands, and she orders from the Chinese take-out place on the Turnpike, then phones Ben and asks him to pick up dinner on his way over.

'I thought we were having lasagna,' Kylie says as she and Gideon set the table.

'Well, we're not,' Gillian informs her. 'And can't you use paper plates and cups so we don't have to mess around with washing dishes?'

When Ben arrives with dinner, Kylie and Antonia suggest they wait for their mom, but Gillian won't hear of it. She starts dishing out shrimp with cashews and pork fried rice, the sort of carnivorous fare Sally would never allow on her table. The food is good, but it's a dreadful dinner anyway. Everyone is out of sorts. Antonia and Kylie are worried, because their mother is never late, especially on a night when there's packing left to do, and they both feel guilty eating shrimp and pork at her table. Gideon isn't helping matters; he's practicing his belching, which is driving everyone but Kylie completely crazy. Scott Morrison is the worst, gloomy as can be at the prospect of a week without Antonia. 'What's the point?' is his response to just about everything this evening, including 'Would you like an eggroll?' and 'Do you want orange soda or Pepsi?' Eventually Antonia bursts into tears and runs from the room when Scott answers the question of whether or not he'll write while she's away with his same old 'What's the point?' Kylie and Gideon have to plead Scott's case through Antonia's closed bedroom door, and just when Scott and Antonia have made up and are kissing in the hallway, Gillian decides enough is enough.

By now, Sally has probably spilled her guts to that investigator. For all Gillian knows, Gary Hallet has gone over to the mini-mart on the Turnpike that's open all hours and rented a tape recorder so he can get her confession in her own words. Trapped with no recourse, Gillian has a major migraine, one that Tylenol couldn't begin to cure. Every voice sounds like fingernails against a chalkboard, and she has absolutely no tolerance for even the smallest piece of happiness or joy. She can't stand to see Antonia and Scott kissing, or hear Gideon and Kylie teasing each other. All evening she's been avoiding Ben, because for her Scott Morrison's philosophy really holds true: What is the point? Everything is about to be lost, and she can't stop it; she might as well give up and call it a day. She might as well phone for a taxi and climb out the window, with her most important belongings tossed into a pillowcase. She knows for a fact that Kylie has plenty of money saved in her unicorn bank, and if Gillian borrowed some she could get a bus ticket halfway across the country. The only problem is, she can't do that anymore. She has other considerations now; she has, for better or for worse, Ben Frye.

'It's time for everyone to go home,' Gillian declares.

Scott and Gideon are sent away with promises of phone calls and postcards (for Scott) and boxes of saltwater taffy (for Gideon). Antonia cries a little as she watches Scott get into his mother's car. Kylie sticks her tongue out at Gideon when he salutes, and she laughs when he takes off running through the damp evening, clomping along in his army boots, waking the squirrels that nest in the trees. Once those boys are gotten rid of, Gillian turns to Ben.

'Same goes for you,' she says. She's throwing paper plates in the trash at breakneck speed. She already has the dirty silverware and the glasses soaking in soapy water, which is so unlike her usual messy self that Ben is starting to get suspicious. 'Vamoose,' she tells Ben. She hates it when he looks at her that way, as though he knew her better than she knew herself. 'These girls have to finish packing and be on the road by seven a.m.'

'Something is wrong,' Ben says.

'Absolutely not.' Gillian's pulse rate must be a good two hundred. 'Nothing's wrong.'

Gillian turns to the sink and gives her attention to the soaking silverware, but Ben puts his hands on her waist and leans against her. He's not so easily convinced, and Lord knows he's stubborn when he wants something.

'Go on,' Gillian says, but her hands are soapy and wet and she's having difficulty pushing him away. When Ben kisses her, she lets him. If he's kissing her, he can't ask any questions. Not that it would do any good to try to explain what her life used to be like. He wouldn't understand, and that may be the reason she's in love with him. He couldn't imagine some of the things she's done. And when she's with him, neither can she.

Out in the yard, twilight is casting purple shadows. The evening has turned even more overcast, and the birds have stopped calling. Gillian should be paying attention to Ben's kisses, since they may well be the last they share, but instead she's looking out the kitchen window. She's thinking about how Sally may be telling the investigator what's in her garden, way in the back, where no one goes anymore, and that's where she's looking while Ben kisses her; that's why she finally sees the hedge of thorns. All the while no one was watching, it has been thriving. It has grown nearly two feet since this morning, and, nurtured by spite, it's growing still, coiling into the night sky.

Gillian abruptly pulls away from Ben. 'You have to go,' she tells him. 'Now.'

She kisses him deeply and pledges all sorts of things, love promises she won't even remember until the next time they're in bed and he reminds her. She works hard, and at last she wins.

'You're sure about this?' Ben says, confused by how hot-and-cold she is, but wanting more all the same. 'You could spend the night at my place.'

'Tomorrow,' Gillian vows. 'And the next night and the night after that.'

When at last Ben leaves, when she's watched out the front window to make certain he's really gone, Gillian goes into the yard and stands motionless beneath the murky sky. It is the hour when the crickets first begin to call out a warning, their song quickened by the humidity of the coming storm. At the rear of the yard the hedge of thorns is twisted and dense. Gillian walks closer and sees that two wasps' nests hang from the branches; a