A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [57]
“Come on, Alice,” he said, popping up and laughing. “You don’t have to beat me to make me want you. I miss you. We need to play.” I made a mental note to tell Theresa about him someday if we spoke again: Howard and I could be mortal enemies, but in the interest of sex we could frolic for half an hour and then resume guarding our fortresses. It was like the Germans and the Russians playing soccer on the battlefield on Christmas Day. I lay back thinking I was going to start crying after all, not ordinary tears, but a new brand, each the size of a small fresh water lake with vacation bungalows neck to neck. He was kissing my eyelids and my cheeks. I found my mouth moving against his in what I suppose was a kiss. I needed to tell him about Grogan, about how I wasn’t sure why I was shivering even now, but that there was a specific reason which would undoubtedly be evident sooner or later. I put my hands in his thick, coarse black hair that was like some ancient medicinal holy stuff that could staunch blood and cause other general healing wonders. Maybe when he slept I could pull out a clump and wear it in a locket around my neck. It might make me well overnight. I felt as if the weight of Howard’s heavy head was on my mouth. He had me now, as he kissed me, the weeks of sorrow and weariness and the dull ache after comfort, all of that pressure was on his lips, moving against my mouth. I remember the feeling coming over me, slowly, slowly, that this was how it went, the way down under the water, sinking and sinking, past the murky seaweed, looking up to the surface, looking up into the paddling feet of a turtle. I relaxed and I saw the moon come through the water and glare at me. My hair was floating in front of my face, just beyond the kiss, and my outstretched hands pawing the water were like someone else’s, gesturing me to come closer. If we could stay that way forever; if we could stay filled to the brim and floating toward the darkness, never suffocating or dying …
It was in his fervor, when he started clutching at me, that I suddenly couldn’t bear it, not any of it. He was coming down and down on me, over and over, crushing me as he thrust. I had to get out, couldn’t stand the heat, couldn’t endure his damp body, and still I hardly knew that I was heaving up, gasping for breath, knocking him over, leaping from the bed. I stood at the dresser, panting.
In the dark I could see him thrashing like he’d been shot and then curling up into himself. “Why are you doing this?” he said quietly.
I used to get pleasure from being the parents, making love with the door closed, getting up afterward and making sure the girls hadn’t woken during the naughty interlude. Howard swabbed his stomach with a T-shirt, and then gathered his coveralls and his underwear and left the room with the things in his hands. He had never taken his boots off. I was still trying to breathe, having an idea finally what it might have felt like for Lizzy when the world overhead wavered and was gone.
The next morning Howard didn’t come into the house until nine o’clock. I watched him walk across the lawn, and then stand outside the kitchen door as if he was uncertain about who lived at his address. His coveralls were flecked with hay. He looked as if he had taken the skin off of his face and not put it back on properly. I had no idea where he had slept. He was trying to get something from his pocket and after a moment he produced a washer, a screwdriver, and a piece of plastic tubing.
I went out onto the porch and crouched on the orange and red rag rug that he, in his color-blind pride, had bought for me at a church bazaar. The night before had been peculiar, certainly for many reasons, but not least because somehow in my mind Lizzy, Howard, Mrs. Mackessy, and Robbie had become joined, as