Reliance, Illinois by Mary Volmer

Author:Mary Volmer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2016-02-29T00:58:46+00:00

20

To be honest, I’d come to enjoy reading aloud to my turtlehead; it made no difference to him how often I stopped and reread for meaning or for the f ine sound of a line. The Metamorphoses reminded me of the Old Testament, which I preferred to the New because it was full of bizarre occurrences. Floods, parting seas, and men living in the bellies of whales didn’t seem all that different in scale from races of men growing out of serpents’ teeth or people transforming into trees or birds or cows. It reminded me, too, of newspaper stories Hanley and I read that summer—about scandals and murders and wars and young people dying horribly for love. Once in the Times, I read about a girl (rich) and boy (poor) who ran away to swallow arsenic and die (horribly, of course) in each other’s arms. And, well, there was no doubt in my mind, no doubt at all, that Thisbe would eat arsenic for Pyramus.

I wanted to tell William this, to reassure him. I didn’t need him to explain last week. It was enough that he thought an explanation necessary. In the glow of his presence, all aspects of my life at the manor brightened considerably. I wanted to tell him about Alby and Mrs. Nettle and Hardrow, and Miss Rose’s gowns, about my lessons with Mrs. French . . .

But not, of course, with Violet listening. She hooked one arm under his elbow, steering him toward the gardens and would have left me behind if William hadn’t offered me his other arm. I could feel bone and muscle through his jacket. No more booze. He smelled of shoe leather and Macassar oil and spoke with great and worried affection about Clara, who would not give up cooking, though her lungs were not healthy and her shakes worse. “Rebecca does what she can, but with the baby, she’s running herself ragged,” he said.

The complex tangle of longing and guilt I felt at this was bearable because he was talking to me alone when he said these things.

“Hanley sure misses you,” he said after a pause.

“Hanley?” said Violet breaking in. “That great big ugly devil. What do you think? He asked me to dance at the gala!”

“Hanley? Asked you?” I asked. Hanley went to the gala? A peacock strolling with regal sloth unfurled the blue eyes of its preposterous tail.

“And?” said William.

“Well, I told him no, of course.” Violet brushed her curls behind her ear as if brushing Hanley aside.

William should say something, I thought, especially after Hanley cared for him. I should have said something, but kept quiet. William excused himself to sit on the grass by Mr. Clemens, who lounged, pipe in hand, in a lawn chair in the clearing between the manor and the kitchen garden, overlooking the river. Miss Rose had settled beneath her parasol on the stone bench next to him. There was a cold breeze, clouds to the south.

“The right way to do autobiography,” Mr.

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