The weight of water - Anita Shreve [98]
“I suppose.” She shifted in the bed, bringing her face a little closer to my own.
“Do you think the men are all right? You don’t think anything could have happened to them?”
I had thought once or twice, briefly, not liking to linger on the thought, that perhaps John and Evan had met with an accident on the way to Portsmouth, although that seemed unlikely to me, and, in any event, hours had passed since Emil had come with the message, and if some ill had befallen the men, I thought that we would have heard already.
“I believe they are safe in Portsmouth. Perhaps in a tavern even as we speak,” I said. “Not minding at all their fate.”
“Oh,” she said quickly, “I think my Evan would mind. He would not like to sleep without me.”
My Evan.
She reached out a hand from the covers and began to stroke my cheek with her fingers. “Oh, Maren,” she said, “you are so watchful over us all.”
I did not know what she meant by that. My breath was suddenly tight in my chest from the touch of her fingers. I wanted to throw her hand off and turn my back to her, but I was rigid with embarrassment. I was glad that it was dark, for I knew that I must be highly colored in my face. To be truthful, her touch was tender, as a mother might stroke a child, but I could not appreciate this kindness just then. Anethe began to smooth my forehead, to run her fingers through the hair just underneath my cap.
“Anethe,” I whispered, meaning to tell her to stop.
She moved her body closer, and wrapped her hands around my arm, laying her forehead on my shoulder.
“Do you and John?” she asked, in a sort of muffled voice. “Is it the same?”
“Is what the same?” I asked.
“Do you not miss him at this moment? All the attentions?”
“The attentions,” I repeated.
She looked up at me. “Sometimes it is so hard for me to sit in the kitchen until it is proper to go up to bed. Do you know?” and she moved herself still closer to me so that her length was all against my own. “Oooh,” she said. “Your feet are freezing. Here, let me warm them,” and she began, with the smooth sole of her foot, to massage the top of my own. “Do you know,” she said again, “I have never told anyone this, and I hope you will not be shocked, but Evan and I were lovers before we were married. Do you think that was very wrong? Were you and John?”
I did not know what to say to her or which question to answer first, as I was distracted by the movement of her foot, which had begun to travel up and down the shin of my right leg.
“I no longer know what is right or wrong anymore,” I said.
Her body was a great deal warmer than my own, and this warmth was not unpleasant, though I remained stiff with discomfort, as I had never been physically close with anyone except my brother Evan and my husband. I had certainly never been physically close with a female, and the sensation was an odd one. But, as will happen with a child who is in need of comfort and who gradually relaxes his limbs in the continuous embrace of the mother, I began to be calmed by Anethe, and to experience this peace as pleasurable, and, briefly to allow myself to breathe a bit more regularly. I cannot explain this to the reader. It is, I think, a decision the body makes before the heart or the head, the sort of decision I had known with John, when, without any mental participation, my body had seemed to respond in the proper ways to his advances. In truth, as Anethe laid her head on my chest and began to stroke the skin of my throat, I felt myself wanting to turn ever so slightly toward my brother’s wife and to put my arm around her, and perhaps, in this way, return something of the affection and tenderness she was showing to me.
“Do you do it every night?” she asked, and I heard then a kind of schoolgirlish embarrassment in her own voice.
“Yes,” I whispered, and I was shocked at my own admission. I wanted to add that it was not my doing, not my doing at all, but she giggled then, now very much like a girl, and said, to my surprise, “Turn over.”
I hesitated, but she gently pushed my shoulder, and persisted with this