“See, I don’t want you to wear a disguise. I want you to be just who you are. And you can’t be Miranda on a sailboat with Joseph Vargas.”
Now I turned in his arms, so we faced each other. “I disagree. I maintain that I am more Miranda on a sailboat with Joseph than anywhere else in the world.”
“That depends on who Miranda is, I guess.”
“This,” I said. “This is who I am.”
He touched his forehead against mine. The cot was so narrow, the edge so close, I thought I might tumble off if it weren’t for Joseph’s hand on the small of my back, Joseph’s leg gently pinning mine in place.
“How did you do it?” I whispered. “How did you survive? Being locked up in that terrible place.”
“I just did. How did you survive being married to that bastard?”
“That was my choice.”
“Well, maybe prison was my choice.”
“How could you choose prison?”
“Because the alternative was worse. Because I figured nothing in my life could ever be so bad as what happened that night, so I might as well go away somewhere where . . .”
“Where what?”
“Where nobody knew a thing about me. Where I didn’t know anybody. Because nothing hurts more than that, nothing ever hurts you more than the people you love.”
“I would never hurt you.”
“Not on purpose,” he said quietly.
We were so close on that pillow, our noses nearly touched. Our lips moved side by side. We were stripped of everything that did not belong to each other, our clothes, our vanity, our misery, our secrets. There was just warmth and breath and skin. A scent that was not his or mine, but ours. I still remember it, the smell of us that night.
“You didn’t answer my question, though,” I said. “How you survived.”
“I don’t know. I just did. Kept my head down. Got in a few fights at first, that’s how they say hello. But the rage, the tough guys, that’s not the worst part of prison. The worst part’s the boredom. Boredom makes you hopeless, makes you insane, makes you do stupid things. That’s what you have to fight. You have to find something to care about again.”
“Yes.” I moved my head, so my face was buried in his neck and he couldn’t see what was in my eyes.
“So I read. Read everything I could get my hands on, taught a few guys a few things. I thought of you and your dad, and I got some of us together to read aloud, all kinds of books.”
“What else?”
“Exercise,” he said. “Exercise keeps you sane. And boats. Taught myself draftsmanship. I must have designed about a hundred of them, racing yachts mostly.”
“What did you do with them? The drawings, I mean.”
“I left them all behind.”
I looked up at his chin. “How did you do it?”
“How did I leave the drawings?”
“No, I mean escape. How did you escape?”
There was a pause, about the length of a single circuit of the light. I was about to ask him again when he spoke, in a voice that only just rose above the noise of the gears.
“It was so damned easy. They trusted me.” He moved his hand in my hair. “They trusted me.”
I waited for him to say more, to tell me the specifics, the planning and execution, but he didn’t. I said, “That’s why you’re going to turn yourself back in, isn’t it? Because they trusted you.”
“Just stop talking, all right?”
“Don’t do it,” I said. “Don’t go back. You don’t owe them a thing. We’ve got a sailboat. I bought one for Hugh. It’s stocked with food and everything. We can leave whenever we want.”
“And do what, Miranda?”
“Your old dream. We’ll sail the world.”
“That was a boy’s dream.”
“Well, what do you dream about now?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes you do.” I struggled out of his arms and sat up. “What about your drawings? You could start a business, building ships.”
Joseph made a sound of exasperation. “Building ships? Are you kidding me? Where? How? I’m a goddamned fugitive.”
“Somewhere. Anywhere. We’ll find a harbor on the other side of the world and settle down together, and you can do what you love.”
“But you can’t. You can’t be a movie star on the other side of the world.”
“I’ve done that already. I don’t need it anymore. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Then what do you want?”
I put my hands on either side of his head and bent to kiss him. “You. That’s all. We’ll live in a hut somewhere. I’ll pick up a hammer and you’ll show me how to build a boat.”
“Miranda—”
“We’ll make our own paradise.” I slid my leg over his hips—he was already aroused, he had been stiff for some time as we lay there against each other—and I watched his expression soften into rapture as I drew him back inside me, so deep as he could reach, so deep as I could take him. For a moment, I held him there, while his hands made fists against the mattress and his head swung back to expose the pulse underneath his jaw. I kissed his throat and his jumping artery and said, “We’ll make this—”
“Jesus Mary—”
“—make our own island, make our own children—”
Joseph grasped my waist and flipped me on my back.
“Lord Almighty,” I said.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
He took his time, as if we had any of that left. I felt the might of his discipline, the pendulum beat of union as if there might be no end to us, an infinity of Joseph and Miranda, until somewhere in the middle of that infinity I went straight out of my mind and off this sheer, vertical cliff into oblivion. I must have made some kind of howl that caused him to stop and ask—again—if I was all right. I assured him I was. So he lifted himself high on his palms, threw back his head, arched his back for several long seconds then crashed against me like a shipwreck, a total loss, and the sexual ecstasy was nothing to that of his weight on mine, his sweat, his emission like a purifying balm on my womb. Our skin touched at every inch, every knob and plane, every junction. There was no part of me that was not married to some part of his. I remember wondering what time it was, whether we had made love for hours, whether it might be dawn. At some point, he rolled us on our sides. This time I faced the metal wall just beneath the windows, lit intermittently by the passage of the light. I loved the messiness of the bed, the wild state of my hair, the wetness between my legs, the chaos. I thought in wonder, Joseph.
“If they come for you,” I said, “you have to sail away. Even if you leave me behind.”
“I can’t just sail away from you.”
“You can. You will, because you love me, and that’s what I want from you.”
“You want me to leave you?”
“I want you to be free.”
He didn’t answer, and I must have fallen asleep, because I remember waking at the jump of his body.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He was already out of bed, yanking on his trousers. “It’s Mama,” he said, and he dove for the hatch in the floor.
I didn’t know what to do, whether to rise and dress and follow him, or to stay where I was and wait for some kind of signal, wait for him to return. I looked out the window and saw that it was still the middle of the night, and the tide was reaching its slack. I might now safely depart, but I didn’t move. The pillow smelled of Joseph, the sheets. I leaned to the floor and found my dress, and the strip of white cloth in one of the pockets. The light was too uncertain for reading, so I just ran my finger along the small, neat black letters, over and over, while my nerves strained for news from below. When I couldn’t stand the incessant noise of the gears any longer, I pulled the dress over my head and started down the hatch.
I banged right into Joseph halfway down the corridor that led to the living quarters. He grabbed my shoulders to steady us both.
“What??
?s wrong?” I asked.
“She wants a priest.”
“Oh God. What about a doctor?”
“She won’t see a doctor. I’m going back out to the beach. Everyone’s still there, the sky’s lit like the Fourth of July.”
“But you can’t! They’re out there, Frank and Johnny. The marshals.”
“They won’t notice me in the crowd.” He set me aside and continued down the corridor in long strides until he reached the ladder, and I was astonished at his strength as he hauled himself up like an acrobat. He called, “Wait there, I’ll be right down.”
In less than a minute, he dropped back down the ladder, using only his arms. He wore his shoes and his shirt, which he tucked into his trousers as he spoke.
“I need you to stay with her, Miranda. Can you do that?”
“You stay with her. I can go instead.”
“No. You’d have to row. You can’t sail it, and they’ll hear a motor. Miranda, please. Stay with her. Stay with her. I’ll be back before you know it.”
The corridor was dark, and his face was shadowed. When was the last time I saw Joseph Vargas in full daylight? Not since that afternoon on the cliffs, eighteen summers ago. I was seized with terror that I would never see the sunlight on his face again. I took his arm. “Don’t go.”
“I should’ve been with her. Downstairs all alone while you and I—while we—aw, hell.”
“She was not all alone. We were right here, you went to check on her.”
“I have to go. I have to go now. Don’t argue, I don’t have time to argue.”
“Is it that bad?”
“I don’t know. I’m no fucking doctor, God help me. But she wants a priest,” he said, in a terrible voice. He wasn’t even looking at me, he was looking at the ceiling, as if he could see God through it, brandishing some thunderbolt because he, Joseph, had been upstairs enjoying sexual intercourse with some woman while his mother lay dying, this woman who stood before him, flushed and unwashed, and he was damned.
So what choice did I have? I followed him down the corridor and through the doorway into the living quarters. Ahead, I glimpsed the old sofa, the entrance to the kitchen, but Joseph turned away from these, to the right, up an old staircase that creaked under our feet. The landing was dark and windowless. I grabbed Joseph’s hand and he led me to her room, Mrs. Vargas’s bedroom, where the bedside lamp was lit next to a woman I hardly recognized. Her gray hair was spread across the pillow, brushed and dull, and her face was like a skull’s, though her eyes were closed. There was a peculiar smell in the air, not of body fluids but something else, sour and dreadful. Joseph went to the bed and smoothed the skull’s forehead. “Mama, I’ve brought someone to sit with you while I fetch the priest.”
In the gap beneath Joseph’s arm, I saw her eyelids move, and for an instant, as she looked into Joseph’s face, she seemed almost human. I could have sworn that her skin smoothed out, that the blood rushed into her face and revived her. I stepped closer as Joseph stepped back.
“Don’t go,” Mrs. Vargas mumbled.
“I have to go, Mama. You want me to fetch the priest, right?”
“Yes!” she burst out.
“Then I’ll be right back. Miranda will stay with you.” He dragged a chair next to the bed and turned to me.
“What if something happens?” I whispered.
“Then it happens. Done all we can.” But his eyes were glassy with tears. He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”
He was gone so fast, I didn’t have time to think of a reply, not even You’re welcome. I was too stunned. I stood there behind the chair and heard the sound of the door. For an instant I thought of bolting. Going after him. My God, she was like a corpse lying there, and I didn’t even know her. The corpse of a stranger. And here I was, some stranger, some strange woman, standing in her bedroom. Her son’s lover. His handprints still fresh on my skin. And she was dying, this was possibly her dying day, her dying hour, and I was all she had.
I crept closer and sat quietly in the chair. She lay with her eyes closed. Her hands twitched on the bedclothes. There was just the single lamp, and beneath its light her skin looked too delicate and too papery for life. The sour smell was strong, though the bed was immaculate. I saw the pitcher and glass on the nightstand, and I asked if she wanted some water. She didn’t reply. The twitching went on, stilled, and resumed.
I thought maybe a prayer would comfort her. I knew the Hail Mary from one of my films. I leaned next to her ear and said it now. Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary—
Her eyelids flew open and settled down again.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Her lips moved. “Thank you, Father.”
“I’m not—”
“Say it again.”
Hail Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus—
Her hand shot from the blanket and scrabbled for mine. I hesitated an instant, looked at her bony witch’s hand in horror, and then I was ashamed and laid her fingers in my palm and closed my other hand over it.
She whispered, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“But I’m not—”
“It has been many years since my last confession. I don’t know how many.”
She spoke slowly, littering pauses between the words, but her voice was remarkably clear. When Carroll’s mother had died a couple of years ago, at the end of a long decline, I couldn’t understand anything she said. Not a word. It was as if her voice had sunk deep into her chest, and her tongue, attached to her shuddering throat, had lost its will and couldn’t quite shape itself around the necessary sounds.
I squeezed her hand and said, “The priest will be here soon. Joseph is bringing the priest.”
“Joseph. My son.”
“Yes. He loves you so much. He’ll be back soon.”
Her fingers curled into the back of my hand. “Not yet!”
“No. Not yet. Maybe an hour.”
“An hour, an hour. We have no time. Bless me, Father.”
“I’m not—”
“Bless me!” she shouted, lifting herself from the pillow. “Father!”
“I—I—bless you, my child,” I said helplessly. “Lie back, now. You need to rest.”
“Joseph cannot hear this, Father. You must never tell him.”
“Just rest, Mrs. Vargas. You need to rest. Close your eyes.”
“I don’t need to rest. I need to confess.”
“Not to me!”
“And who else, Father? Who else is there to absolve me?” She clutched at my hand, lifted herself again and leaned over and kissed it. “Hear my confession, please. Grant me absolution in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit—” She crossed herself.
“Please stop.” I rose from the chair. “Please stop.”
“Father! Father!”
“I’m not—I’m not the priest! I’m Miranda! Miranda Schuyler!”
She shook her head. “Miranda’s gone. She’s a movie star now. My husband showed me the magazines.”
“No, I came back. I’m here. It’s me.”
Mrs. Vargas stared at my face, and the strangest feeling overtook me, of being seen but not understood. Maybe it’s the light, I thought. Maybe she can’t see me.
“Please, Father,” she said. “Please, Father. I don’t know why you won’t hear my confession. Is it because I haven’t been to church since then?”
There was something mesmerizing about the way she looked at me, the way she spoke, in that pitiful, halting voice that was not quite a whisper. I said, without thinking, staring at her lips, “Since when?”
She said, “Since I killed him.”
10.
I remember many details about the night of my stepfather’s murder, but I can’t remember the who
le of it put together, if that makes any sense. From the moment I woke up on the sofa until many days later, maybe even a month, my memory is more like a kaleidoscope than a linear, cinematic recollection.
I remember watching Mrs. Vargas speak on the telephone, in her low, calm voice. I remember wondering whom she was speaking to, and what she was saying. She turned away, so I couldn’t pick out the words. I asked her what had happened, where was Joseph, was he okay, and she put down the receiver and said Joseph was just fine. It was my stepfather. He had been injured.
Naturally, this confused me.
“But Mr. Fisher’s at Greyfriars,” I said. “He’s gone to bed already.”
Mrs. Vargas stared at me without expression, holding the telephone receiver to her chest, which was covered by a dressing gown of dark red flannel. “You’re mistaken,” she said in a flat voice. “He’s not in bed with his wife. He is here with me.”
She then returned the receiver to her ear and turned away, and I rose from the sofa. I think I wanted to find Joseph, to get this terrible misunderstanding cleared up, to steady this quaking world around me. To wake me up, if I was dreaming, or having some hallucination, some curious psychological visitation of the moment I heard of my father’s death. But Mrs. Vargas snared my arm as I started across the room and shook her head sternly, so I just stood there until Joseph himself appeared through the doorway, a minute or two later. The front of his shirt was wet with blood, and so were his hands. He didn’t seem to see me. He just looked at his mother and said, in the same flat voice, “He’s dead.”
That’s when the memory snaps—possibly I fainted or something, although I never faint—and other memories appear. The police and Isobel and my mother’s screams outside, because they wouldn’t let her in. The noise from all those motorboats, the Coast Guard, whatever.
And also the smell, a peculiar, putrid sourness in the air, the smell of death.
11.
An odor I recollected now, as I stared at Mrs. Vargas’s lips, although I couldn’t decide if it originated from inside my own head, in the region of memory, or whether it actually existed, floated in the air, connecting me to that terrible night eighteen years ago. I said to her, “This is a grave sin, Mrs. Vargas.”