was it the cold weather, or the way he looked at her, or the wind that was shaking the trees?
You build your world around someone, and then what happens when he disappears? Where do you go-into pieces, into atoms, into the arms of another man? You go shopping, you cook dinner, you work odd hours, you make love to someone else on June nights. But you’re not really there, you’re someplace else where there is blue sky and a road you don’t recognize. If you squint your eyes, you think you see him, in the shadows, beyond the trees. You always imagine that you see him, but he’s never there. It’s only his spirit, that’s what’s there beneath the bed when you kiss your husband, there when you send your daughter off to school. It’s in your coffee cup, your bathwater, your tears. Unfinished business always comes back to haunt you, and a man who swears he’ll love you forever isn’t finished with you until he’s done.
As they drive through town, March watches Hollis carefully; everything about him is both completely familiar and absolutely alien. When she knew him he didn’t have these lines in his face, and the nervous cough he seems to have now. She thinks of the moment when she first saw him, the way he squinted his eyes in the sun, how dark his hair was, how ready he was to run. It is that boy who is beside her in the pickup truck. That boy who kisses her when they stop at a red light. March is nearly forty; beneath the drugstore tint she has those same gray streaks plaited through her hair which appeared the winter he went away, but this boy doesn’t seem to mind. He wants her not only for who she is, but for who she was: The girl who never got over him. The one who knew him inside out.
The women at the Lyon can only imagine how deep Hollis’s kisses are, since he never kisses any of them, at least not on the mouth. His embrace is hot and greedy, exactly the way March remembers. When the light turns to green March pulls away. She has always considered herself a loyal sort of person, but loyal to whom? Richard knew what he was getting into when he married her. It was Hollis back then, and maybe it still is. Maybe she’s no longer a woman with everything to lose. She’s a girl again. She’s March Murray, whose father is everyone’s favorite lawyer, whose big brother is lazy and drinks too much. She’s the one with dark hair and too much confidence, who does whatever she’s not supposed to when no one’s looking, when no one’s around.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” Hollis says. “That much is true.”
He smiles, that same predatory grin which always frightened other people, but only served to convince March that she knew him best of all. The difference between a lion and a lamb, some might suggest, is in the naming, not in the beast itself. Both are warm-blooded-isn’t that a fact? Both close their eyes when they settle down to sleep for the night.
As they turn onto the rutted dirt road, Hollis has to switch on the wipers to keep wet leaves from sticking to the windshield. There are tornadoes of leaves, and fallen branches are scattered across the road. It’s getting colder by the minute; it’s the sort of night when pumpkins will freeze on the vine, and grapes will turn hard and become far too bitter to use for jelly or pies. It’s a night when any sparrow or dove foolish enough to nest in this town for the winter will realize a mistake has been made, and survival will depend not on skill but on plain blind luck.
All over town tonight, the wind will drive women from their beds. They’ll think of their first true love and search through their jewelry boxes for trinkets-gold lockets, ticket stubs, strands of hair. March would be one of those women, but instead she’s here, on the road where there were once so many foxes. If truth be told, she’s been here all this time, in this dark and windy place, like a ghost trapped inside the location of her memory.
Hollis pulls over beside the quince bushes, where he parked the other night when he watched March walk the dog. He turns the key in the ignition, and once he does that the wind sounds ferocious. They used to hide and do this whenever they had the chance: pretend there was no one else in the world. Hollis has his arms around her, beneath her coat. He begins to kiss her, the way he used to, but before March can respond, she hears a sound and pulls away. Someone is out on the porch.
“Shit,” Hollis says. “What is she doing there?”
From this distance, Gwen looks like a girl March has never seen before. She’s wearing her black jacket, but under the glow of the yellow porch light, she could be anyone. Gwen’s face is flushed, but the color in her cheeks isn’t from the cold. On this night, when the Founder ran over the hill, she seems to have fallen in love. She can’t stop thinking about Hank-everything he said, everything he did. He held her hand all the way across the hill; before he left, he kissed her goodnight, and she can’t get that kiss out of her mind. In truth, she hopes she never will.
“She’s going inside,” March whispers to Hollis as Gwen fumbles with the door. Once Gwen goes into the house, they wait for her to close the door, but instead she reappears with the dog. How surprisingly responsible. What bad timing.
“She’s taking the dog for a walk,” March says.
Hollis groans and leans his head against the seat.
March laughs, then leans close and kisses him. Who is the child here? Who is the reckless girl? She kisses him again and again. as if daring fate, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“That’s right,” Hollis whispers to her, as if she were still that good girl she used to be, only too ready to please. “Give me more,” he tells her.
Just then, Sister turns in the direction of the parked truck and barks, a long yip that is usually meant for rabbits. The dog is staring at the quince bushes, which March hopes can hide Hollis’s truck from Gwen’s view. Thankfully, Sister is on a leash, and Gwen gives the dog a tug in the other direction, back toward the house.
You have to go where you’re taken, don’t you? You have to follow where you’re led. Don’t think, don’t stop, don’t hesitate. Maybe this is destiny; it’s the hand of fate against your skin, the love of your life. If there’s a warning to be heard, March won’t listen. She’s like those foolish doves who have stayed on to nest in the chestnut tree this fall, and who will probably freeze to death before the New Year. She’s kin to the rabbit who dared to cross Sister’s path, then decided it might be best to lie silent, rather than break and run.
Hollis has his hand inside her jeans now; he’s pushed her down so that her back is flat against the seat. She knows the way he likes it, as if love was a secret; or at least, that’s the way he likes it with her. Other women, the ones from the Lyon, would say he prefers to get his business over with fast, and maybe it’s just as well. He’s so intense he can scare some women. Alison Hartwig fainted the first time Hollis fucked her, and now she calls him every day on the telephone, so she can hear his voice and imagine that he loves her before she hangs up.
All this time, March is the one Hollis has wanted. She’s the one who made him miserable, and he hasn’t forgotten that for a moment. Night after night, he’s come here and parked in this same exact space, to stare at this house. Over and over again, he’s anticipated the hour when she’d come back to him, and how good it would be to have her be the one to beg, but maybe he’s waited too long. Maybe all that waiting has tainted things, and left his love with a sour taste. It’s always been this way for Hollis; the more he has of something, the more he wants. Maybe he can never be satisfied, but he knows how to satisfy March; he’s doing it right now, she’s there at the edge as he moves his fingers inside her slowly. He doesn’t stop when she tells him to, and then he stops just when she’s about to come. He kisses her then, he leaves her longing for more; desperate is exactly the way he wants her.
By now, Gwen has unhooked the dog’s leash and gotten herself a soda from the fridge. Maybe she’s wondering why her mother’s out so late, as she goes into the sewing room, where her bed is made up. Maybe she thinks she sees something, there behind the quince, when she looks through the window. On any other night, March would have worried about her daughter, alone in the house, but she can’t think about that now. She’s already agreeing to see Hollis tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that. Sometimes love is like a house without any doors. It’s a sky filled with so many stars it’s impossible to see a single one. Out in the front yard, the mourning doves are chattering with the cold. Their pale gray feathers are no comfort in the wind, yet they stay. It’s too late, after all; they made their choice at the end of summer. They’ll just have to accept the consequences.
11
Every Wednesday afternoon, at the farmers’ market held in the parking lot of the library, Louise Justice buys fresh herbs. She always fixes her roast chicken the way the Judge likes it, with sage and pepper and plenty of rosemary, for remembrance. In October, the weather can be a tricky thing, but today it’s warm and sunny, with a
