Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman [75]
Ben has spent his whole life afraid that whoever he loves will disappear, and there’ll be no finding her: not behind the veils, not in the false bottom of the largest wooden box, the red lacquer one he keeps in the basement but cannot bring himself to use, even though he’s been assured he can drive swords through the wood without causing a single wound. Well, that had changed. He wanted an answer, right then, before Gillian got dressed and ran back to the safety of her sister’s house.
“It’s very simple,” he said. “Yes or no?”
“This isn’t a yes-or-no kind of thing,” Gillian hedged.
“Oh, yes,” Ben said with absolute certainty. “It is.”
“No,” Gillian insisted. Looking at his solemn face, she wished then that she’d known him forever. She wished that he had been the first one to kiss her, and the first to make love to her. She wished she could say yes. “It’s more of a thinking-it-over kind of thing.”
Gillian knew where this argument would lead. Start living with someone, and before you knew it you were married, and that was a human condition Gillian planned to avoid repeating. In that arena, she was something of a jinx. As soon as she said “I do,” she always realized that she didn’t at all, and that she never had, and she’d better get out fast.
“Don’t you understand?” Gillian told Ben. “If I didn’t love you I’d move in today. I wouldn’t think twice.”
Actually, she’s been thinking about it ever since she left him, and she’ll keep right on thinking about it, whether she wants to or not. Ben doesn’t understand how dangerous love can be, but Gillian certainly does. She’s lost at this too many times to sit back and relax. She has to stay on her toes, and she has to stay single. What she really needs is a hot bath and some peace and quiet, but when she sneaks in the back door she finds Antonia and Kylie waiting up for her. They’re frantic and ready to call for an ambulance. They’re beside themselves with worry. Something has happened to their mother, and they don’t know what.
The bedroom is so dark that it takes Gillian a while to realize that the lump beneath the blankets is indeed a human life form. If there’s anything Gillian knows, it’s self-pity and despair. She can make that particular diagnosis in two seconds flat, since she’s been there herself about a thousand times, and she knows what the cure is, too. She ignores the girls’ protests and sends them to bed, then she goes to the kitchen and fixes a pitcher of margaritas. She takes the pitcher, along with two glasses dipped in coarse salt, out to the backyard and leaves it all beside the two lawn chairs set up near the little garden where the cucumbers are doing their best to grow.
This time when she goes to stand in Sally’s doorway, the jumble of blankets doesn’t fool her. There’s a person hiding in there.
“Get out of bed,” Gillian says.
Sally keeps her eyes shut. She’s drifting somewhere quiet and white. She wishes she could shut her ears as well, because she can hear Gillian approaching. Gillian pulls down the sheet and grabs Sally’s arm.
“Out,” she says.
Sally falls off the bed. She opens her eyes and blinks.
“Go away,” she tells her sister. “Don’t bother me.”
Gillian helps Sally to her feet and guides her out of the room and down the stairs. Leading Sally is like dragging a bundle of sticks; she doesn’t resist, but she’s dead weight. Gillian pushes the back door open, and once they’re outside, the rush of moist air slaps Sally in the face.
“Oh,” she says.
She really does feel weak and is relieved to sink into a lawn chair. She leans her head back and is about to close her eyes, but then she notices how many stars are visible tonight. A long time ago, they used to go up to the roof of the aunts’ house on summer nights. You could get out through the attic window, if you weren’t afraid of heights or easily scared by the little brown bats who came to feast on the clouds of