Close Your Eyes

2

In the cavernous church, Mae bowed her head. She pressed her hands together in prayer and saw that they were old, the veins prominent and dark. She remembered her mother saying, as she shuffled slowly to take communion, This isn’t me, honey. This old person isn’t me.

Mae was an old person now. But she could still remember the August morning when she’d unpacked Victoria’s overnight bag and found a red dress, soaking wet. “Victoria!” she’d called. “What on earth is this?”

Victoria had stood in the doorway of the laundry room, pale. She was wearing a bathrobe. Seventeen! She was just seventeen.

“Why is your dress wet?” asked Mae.

“I went swimming,” said Victoria.

“Swimming! Where?”

“We went to a party on the beach.” Victoria held up her hand as if to stop her mother from talking. She was shaking. “Listen,” she said. “Mom, something really bad happened.”

“Tell me,” said Mae. She sank back onto her heels, the dress falling to the floor. Victoria came to Mae and sat in her lap like a child. Mae ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Victoria began to cry, racking sobs.

“What happened, baby?” said Mae.

“It was a party,” said Victoria. “I was drinking. I drank so much.”

“It’s okay, honey,” said Mae. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“No,” said Victoria, turning her face to her mother. “No! No, Mom! No!” She balled her hands into fists and shoved them into her eye sockets, saying, “No, no, no …”

“Get ahold of yourself, Victoria,” said Mae.

“I was drunk. We were at a party on the beach,” said Victoria.

Mae shook her head, trying to take it in. Her daughter on some beach, drunk …

Victoria went on, “I went to find Sylvia’s father—it was the same town. I thought I could just talk to him. I wanted to make him understand. Sylvia needs him!”

“Sylvia’s father?” said Mae. Her head spun. “What are you talking about?”

“I— I found some whiskey,” babbled Victoria. “It was in a glass bottle—a decanter. I just thought … I don’t know what I thought. I was going to drink some. I was going to talk to Sylvia’s dad. I went upstairs. I thought maybe I would find a place to sleep or something. I forgot which house …”

“Good Christ,” whispered Mae.

“Listen to me,” said Victoria, seizing her mother’s shoulders painfully. “Listen to me.” Mae nodded, her mind already a few minutes ahead. Victoria would finish this story, and Mae would call Preston, who would know a lawyer. Breaking and entering, unlawful trespassing …

“I went upstairs,” said Victoria. “There was a lady. She got out of bed. She was mad. She came toward me. I … I was scared. I thought I’d get in trouble. I just— I wasn’t thinking. I thought I’d knock her down so I could run away. I hit her. I hit her with the decanter. I hit her really hard, and she fell.”

Mae gasped.

“I ran. I ran to the beach, and I swam out with the … with what was left of the decanter. I swam as far as I could, and then I dropped it.”

“Was this woman,” said Mae, her hand over her mouth, “was this woman okay?”

“I don’t know,” said Victoria, pushing her fists into her eyes again, shaking her head. “I don’t think so,” she whispered. Then she looked up at her mother. “What do I do? Mom, what do I do?”

In that moment, Mae made a decision. She saw the possible avenues, and she chose one. “Don’t ever tell anyone else what you’ve told me,” she said. “This never happened. Don’t say a word.”

Victoria pressed her lips together and nodded. Mae held her tightly.

And until she was arrested, twenty-four years later, Victoria never again told the story. When the police came to Lark Academy, when the woman’s death was in the paper, when the husband was arrested and sent to jail. They were silent, the both of them.

And furthermore.

Now, staring at her hands, Mae listened to Father Richard talk about sin. She thought about her husband, who had died of a heart attack on the golf course. She did not feel he surrounded her and watched over her. Nor did she believe he was in hell. He was simply gone.

When the police came for Victoria, they handcuffed her in front of her daughters. Mae drove behind the cruiser to the Holt station. As they interviewed Victoria, Mae sat next to a soda machine in a long hallway. She stared at her wedding ring, twisted it around and around on her finger.

Finally, between two police officers, Victoria emerged. She was still shackled. Mae stood. She almost hoped Victoria had told the police what she—Mae—had done in advising Victoria to stay silent. Then Mae would be arrested as well.

“I told the truth, Mom,” said Victoria. She looked almost relieved. She held her mother’s gaze, and the police did not move toward Mae. She had told the truth, her eyes said, but not the whole truth. She had protected her mother.

Mae embraced her daughter. “I should have saved you,” she whispered.

“You tried,” said Victoria.

A child was being baptized in St. Gabriel’s, a boy. As he poured the water, Father Richard said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. May the Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Spirit, and Who hath given thee the remission of all thy sins, may He Himself anoint thee with the Christ of Salvation, in the same Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life eternal.”

Winter sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows with a cold intensity. Mae would spend Christmas with her granddaughters and their father. After the New Year, they would move to Greece without her. Mae had bought them books that they would not read. She had unpacked the crèche, laid the wooden baby Jesus in his hay-bale bed, and set his mother next to him, watching over him, her head bowed in reverence.

Mae rose and walked toward the altar, though she did not know the family. The baby began to cry as his original sin was washed away, and the sound pierced Mae’s heart clean through. She reached toward the infant, and he looked at her. His eyes were as green as jade.