The weight of water - Anita Shreve [37]
“I don’t understand,” she says.
She puts the spindly leg on her plate and wipes her fingers on the napkin in her lap. She holds the crumpled napkin in one hand.
“The car accident,” I explain. “Thomas was driving.”
She still seems not to understand.
“There was a girl with him. In the car. Thomas went off the road, caught his rear wheel in a ditch, and flipped the car.”
Adaline reaches up and, with her finger, absently picks at a piece of lobster between her teeth. I look down and notice I have a spill of lobster water on my jeans.
“How old was she?”
“The same age as he was, seventeen.”
“He was drunk?”
“Yes,” I say.
I wait.
I see it then, the moment of recognition. I can see her processing the information, reciting lines to herself, suddenly understanding them. Her eyes move to the stove and then back to me.
“The Magdalene Toems,” she says quietly.
I nod. “But her name wasn’t Magdalene. It was Linda.”
Adaline flinches slightly at the word Linda, as though the commonness of the girl’s name makes it real.
“He loved her,” she says.
“Yes,” I answer. “Very much. I don’t think he’s really ever gotten over it. In a way, all of his poems are about the accident, even when they seem not to be.”
“But he married you,” she says.
“So he did,” I say.
Adaline puts her napkin on the table and stands up. She walks a few steps to the doorway of the forward cabin. She has her back to me, her arms crossed over her chest.
Rich bends his head into the cabin. “Jean, you should come out here,” he calls. “The light is perfect.”
He stops. Adaline is still standing in the doorway with her back to me. She doesn’t turn around. Rich glances at me.
“What’s up?” he asks.
I uncross my legs under the table. “Not much,” I say.
I fold my hands in my lap, stunned by my betrayal. In all the years that I have been with Thomas, I have never told a single person. Nor, to my knowledge, has he. Despite our fears when he won the prize, no one discovered this fact about Thomas’s youth, as the records were well sealed. Now, however, I know that Ada-line will tell others. She won’t be able to keep this information to herself.
I can’t have done this, I am thinking.
“Rich, leave this,” I say quickly, gesturing toward the mess on the table. “I want to go up. With Thomas. With the light still good. I’ll do the dishes later.” I push away from the table. Rich comes down the ladder and stands a moment with his hands over his head, holding on to the hatch. He seems puzzled.
Behind me, Adaline goes into the forward cabin. She shuts the door.
The Honorable R. P. Tapley of Saco, Maine, was the lawyer for the defense of Louis H. F. Wagner. George C. Yeaton, Esq. was the county attorney. The Honorable William G. Barrows was the presiding judge. The members of the jury were Isaac Easton of North Berwick, George A. Twambly of Shapleigh, Ivory C. Hatch of Wells, Horace Piper of Newfield, Levi G. Hanson of Biddeford, Nahum Tarbox of Biddeford, Benajah Hall of North Berwick, Charles Whitney of Biddeford, William Bean of Lim-ington, Robert Littlefield of Kennebunk, Isaac Libbey of Parson-field, and Calvin Stevens of Wells.
Although all of the jury, the lawyers, and the judge were white men of early American — that is to say, English — stock, neither the accused nor the victim, nor the woman who survived, nor even most of the witnesses, was an American citizen.
In the cockpit, Thomas comes to sit beside me. Billie leans against Thomas’s legs. My hands begin to shake. I feel an urge to bend forward, to put my head between my knees.
The three of us watch the sun set over Newcastle and Portsmouth, watch the coral light move evenly across Appledore and Star, leaving in its wake a colorless tableau. From below, Rich switches on the running lights.
I want to tell Thomas that I have done something terrible, that I don’t know why I did it except that I couldn’t, for just that moment, bear Adaline’s certainty that she