Hold Still Read online

  It’s forty minutes to Annie’s, but they have to stop halfway there to put the top up as a cloud comes out of nowhere—a big loud Florida storm that rains torrentially for fifteen minutes before they’re clear of it. Annie reaches past Ellie to relatch the car’s top and Ellie presses herself hard against the seat to be sure their skin doesn’t brush.

  “He doesn’t hate it,” Annie says. It takes Ellie a minute to realize to whom Annie’s referring. It’s been half an hour since the comment about Jeff hating the car. “He just gets worried about me and Jack. He thinks I drive too fast.” Ellie’s eyes wander to the speedometer. Annie’s been going ninety the whole trip. Annie laughs, watching Ellie’s eyes. “I’m better with Jack.” She reaches up to the thick expanse of plastic that stretches across the middle of the car. “We have the roll bar. I always make him wear his seat belt and sit in his booster. It’s not much different from any other car.” Annie keeps one hand on the roll bar, arching her back and rolling her head down to her chest and then right and left, ears against shoulders. She turns and winks at Ellie. “The fresh air’s good for us.”

  She looks a little younger than forty now, though when Ellie does the math she realizes she must be closer to forty-three or -four. Ellie’s mom was twenty-two when she was Annie’s teacher. They’re only six years apart.

  “How’s everyone?” Annie asks her. “Your mom?”

  “Fine,” says Ellie. It’s her father’s least favorite word. He says it doesn’t mean anything. But Ellie’s not sure what or how much she wants to give Annie yet.

  Annie nods.

  “And you? How are you?”

  Ellie wants to ask her what she knows, how much her mom has told her, how much she’s left out. She thinks, briefly, of telling her the whole thing start to finish, just to see if she’s still willing to let her near her kid.

  “I’m fine,” El says.

  “Right,” Annie says.

  Ellie holds her right arm out the window. She straightens her elbow and moves her hand in waves up and down as they hit the exit and head toward Annie’s house. It’s the same exit that takes them to her mom’s.

  “You know, just trying to be Good this time,” Ellie says. She smiles straight ahead. “I’m the Great Struggle of all their lives.” She keeps her voice low as she says the last part and her eyes roll up higher in her head.

  “Hmmm,” says Annie. “I used to be one of those.”

  At Annie’s wedding: Ellie’d worn a yellow dress that she’d loved when she’d found it with her mom in a little store near their house in Brooklyn. It was a simple sheath but flared at the waist with lines of slightly brighter yellows folded in. Her mom had told her she looked beautiful and she’d believed her. She’d been grinning, proud, as the saleslady stood behind her watching when she’d tried it on. They’d done her hair up in a simple twist. She’d worn drop pearl earrings that were her mom’s, and she’d felt grown-up the whole ride to the wedding. Benny wore a blue bow tie and El had held his hand. She’d liked the feel of her mom so close to her and proud to be there, other people smiling down at her and then up at her mom. But then everyone had gotten quiet and Annie had come up over the dunes all by herself and perfect, not looking like a bride at all. Her dress was nothing like the ones Ellie had seen in pictures or at the handful of other weddings they’d been to. She didn’t wear a veil. The dress had thick twisted straps and the neckline bunched down into her chest. It was a perfect cream, falling down her body with no ornamentation until below her waist. Then, just above her knees, layers of thin lace fell one atop the other, blowing in the ocean’s breeze. And every face, hands reaching up to shade against the setting sun, smiled, eyes focused on Annie. And Ellie felt herself begin to disappear.

  “You tired?” Annie asks. “Hungry?”

  Ellie shakes her head. She’d stayed up all night staring out her upstairs window, wishing she were free enough to roam around instead of being trapped inside. She hadn’t wanted to worry her mother. It was her last night with them and she had resolved no matter what to try her very best to be Good. They’d eaten a quiet, simple dinner, pasta with spinach and sausage, her dad had cooked, and afterward she’d sat on the couch with her feet in her mom’s lap.

  “I wasn’t with him,” she’d said. Her mom held a book and was looking down at it. Ben was flipping channels on the TV. Their dad was outside working in the garden in the twilight. Ellie’s mom shook her head.

  “All right, El.”

  She’d wanted to hold her face up close to her mom and beg to be believed, to have Joseph call her to confirm she hadn’t been with Dylan. But there was no point in proving just this once that she had been better than her mom thought. She had years of proving still to do no matter what.

  She’d curled in with Benny after everyone had gone to bed. He didn’t say anything to her. They were too old to touch; she just liked being close to him. She’d left his room before the sun rose, slipped on shorts and boots and one of her mom’s old sweaters, and left before anyone woke up. She’d walked out down Seventh Avenue and smelled the city wake up one last time.

  It’s still early afternoon when they get to Annie’s house, which is smaller than Ellie’s mom’s house, simple with mounds of overly lush landscaping obscuring it almost completely from the street. The exterior is a mustard-yellow and the roof an orange-red. There’s a screened-in room right off the driveway. The door has a latch but no lock and there’s a large couch and two chairs covering one full side of the room, a brown ceiling fan whirring on high overhead. Behind that room is a frosted glass door with slats in it. You can make out only shadows on the other side.

  Annie nods toward the slatted door. “That’ll be your room,” she says.

  Ellie looks over at Annie, who nods again, and Ellie lets herself in. It’s a single room, but separate from the main house. There’s a small bathroom off the back. The bed is built into the wall, with two levels of bookshelves built-in around the edge. There’s a window AC unit in the side window and the other window looks out over the lush backyard. There’s a desk across from the bed and drawers underneath.

  “It’s a little tight,” says Annie. “But it’ll give you some privacy.”

  The bed’s been made up in a simple white comforter with large green and yellow flowers; the walls are yellow too. A sort of bright but unobtrusive yellow that has Ellie smiling despite herself. “It’s fine,” she says. “Thanks.”

  She finally turns to Annie, looking full at her for the first time since the airport. And, before Ellie can think of how to stop her, Annie leans in and hugs Ellie tight against her, and Ellie rests her fingers on two separate nubs of spine and stretches her neck up, not willing to let her head settle too close to Annie’s face.

  “Oh, El,” she says. “I’m really so happy you’re here.”

  Ellie keeps her back hard and straight till Annie finally lets her go. They hear a car pull up behind them, and then a man’s voice, with laughter coursing through it: “You were suffocating the poor girl.” Both Ellie and Annie turn toward the driveway. Jeffrey looks much the same as he did ten years ago. He wears swimming shorts and flip-flops. His hair is long and floppy and he’s not wearing a shirt. His whole body’s firm. He walks over to the passenger’s side and opens the back door, then pulls a blond, wiry boy from the backseat. He’s a near-replica of Jeffrey, and Ellie wonders how Annie could have had so little to do with what this boy’s turned out to be.

  “Hi, boys,” says Annie. She grins at Ellie, the lines around her eyes all bunched up and lovely, then turns her smile to her son. The boy jumps from his father’s arms and walks shyly toward them. Annie scoops him up and kisses his cheek.

  “Jack”—she nods toward the boy—“this is Elinor. Ellie, Jack.”

  “Hey,” Ellie says to the little boy, offering her hand to him. She used to babysit, when she was fourteen and fifteen, before people in the neighborhood knew enough to call other, less troubled kids. But Ellie had always been a hit with this age group, mo
stly because she treated them like peers. Jack’s eyes are small and blue and set wide on his face. His skin is nut-brown and he has a full head of white-blond hair.

  Jack looks at his mom, then over at Ellie. “Nor,” he says, then smiles big.

  “That works,” says Ellie. “Hi,” she says again.

  “I like it,” says Jeffrey. He’s close to her suddenly. He kisses Annie on the cheek and offers his hand to Ellie. “Wonderful to see you again, Nor.” His eyes wander up the length of her and he leans in to kiss her too. “You’ve aged much better than we have, it seems.”

  Jack fingers the thin white linen of his mother’s shirt, glancing at Ellie. “You want to go swimming?”

  Annie repositions Jack on her hip and chirps a bit too loudly, “What do you say Ellie, no better way to welcome you back down here than a swim?”

  Ellie smiles at Jack, then glances briefly at his father. “Sure,” she says. And she’s not tired suddenly. “I guess.”

  Jeffrey walks past her into the room Annie has said is Ellie’s and turns on the air conditioner. “All right, then,” he says. “You two get changed before it gets too late.” He turns toward Ellie and she feels small beside him. He’s only a couple of inches taller than Annie, but he’s so much broader. He has a little stubble spread across his chin and cheeks.

  The air conditioner chokes, then coughs, getting started, then blows cold and hard with a low chug against her back.

  Jeffrey rests his hand just below her shoulder. “Leave this on while we’re out so it cools down for you,” he says. “It’ll take you a while to get used to this heat.”

  Ellie nods and waits for them to filter into the main part of the house. She goes into her room and breathes in deep. She unpacks her toiletries in the bathroom, where Annie has laid out clean towels and washcloths. There’s shampoo and conditioner in the shower, face wash, lotion, Tylenol, two kinds of sunscreen (one for face and one for body), and aloe all lined up in the cabinet over the sink.

  Ellie washes her face, then applies the sunscreen. She stands naked in front of the full-length mirror that hangs on the bathroom door. Her hip bones jut out below her abdomen and she runs one hand over her pale stomach, then up to her chest. She thinks briefly again of Annie long ago, tan and perfect in that dress. She walks out into the main room and begins rifling through her suitcase. Of course the bathing suit has managed to fall to the bottom.

  She hears the door to the main house open. She’s cold from the window unit that continues to blow hard across her skin. She hears the smack of flip-flops and then nothing but the chugging of the air conditioner. Through the clear slats of the door she sees a wide expanse of shoulders. She stands still a minute, freezing without her clothes on, then pulls a shirt over her head and dumps her bag over the bed to find her bathing suit.

  Winter 2013

  “I didn’t … I’m so sorry,” Charles says.

  Maya looks around. The hall outside the room is empty. The paisley on his shirt makes Maya want to cry.

  “No,” she says. “I’m sorry. I just …”

  He grabs his book from the desk and holds it. It’s like a shield against his chest.

  She smiles at him, slowly. She wants to sit somewhere and let him put his head across her lap.

  “I’ve been wanting—”

  She stops him. “Oh, honey,” she says. “Don’t.”

  She’s been too hard. The “honey.” He steps back from her and his face closes off.

  She walks quickly back to her office. She’s hot. It’s twenty-three degrees, but she holds her coat over her arm. She’s left him there, Charles. She feels twelve years old.

  She brushes past a colleague, then another, nods, cannot broach a smile. She thought she’d remembered the lock, but her office door is open; she goes in.

  He’s sitting in her desk chair. She stops and thinks he knows, then realizes that he can’t.

  She breathes out long.

  He holds up his key ring. “I forgot I had a key.” He looks more closely at her.

  “You okay?”

  She’s fine. She’s been silly. Nothing even happened. Everything is fine.

  Her husband’s legs cross at the ankles, stretched out beneath her desk. His shoes have tassels that hang above his toes. “Maya?”

  “Fine.” She attempts a smile. “What do you need?”

  He looks at her. Careful. He cocks his head, his eyes rolling down her length.

  “I was in class.” Her vowels are all wrong. She watches Stephen swallow hard a wince. He sits up straight in her desk chair. He wears a dark blue blazer, a yellow shirt, no tie. He’s hung his coat up on the rack near the door to Maya’s office. She still holds hers over her arm.

  “I know Maya. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Just cold out.”

  He leans forward, motioning toward her. “You forgot to put on your coat.”

  She sits down across from him. She’s not sure she’s ever been on this side of her desk.

  “Maya, listen.” He’s trying to be careful with her. His voice is like balancing an egg out on a spoon. “Her doctor called.”

  There are options here that she feels she might be privy to. Crawling underneath the desk, for example, holding tight to Stephen’s tassels as he talks to her about these things she’d rather try not to look directly at.

  “You have to stop with the letters, Maya.” He’s acting as if there has not been a fight. As if, if he works very hard to help direct her toward actions that are good and reasonable, he should be forgiven for not loving his wife or his children as he should.

  “It’s the only way we’re allowed to communicate with her.”

  She’s only written two. She has both of them memorized, runs over and over them now to see if maybe she’d gotten at least some of what she means and needs to tell her daughter right.

  “Maya.” He’s gaining strength now, the words are leveling. Her name’s a word he’s said confidently and just like this so many million times. “He thinks you should be seeing someone.”

  “How does he know to be worried about me?”

  “You know they read the letters. They screen everything.”

  She must have been told this. But Stephen would have been the one to tell her. She was still refusing to speak to the doctors those first few months.

  “You didn’t even tell me you were writing her.”

  “I have to tell her everything I can,” Maya says. “I’m trying to give her something, Stephen, to help her. I keep thinking, maybe if I shape things properly …” She tries not to think when she writes to her. Her hope is that something greater than what she’s tried to give all these years will slip through these almost unconscious utterances, that something whole is passing through and into Ellie, helping fill her up again.

  “He says you’re enabling.”

  “What kind of asshole doctor tells on me to my husband, instead of calling me?”

  “You can’t give him the impression we’re negligent,” he says. He’s trying so hard to be steady. He rubs the curve of the left side of his collar with his thumb. “He’s concerned that you’re not fully competent to make decisions without me.”

  “This is serious? Like I’m some hysteric? We need to find her someone else to see.”

  “I’m worried about you, Maya.”

  She looks past him through her one small window. The snow has started up again. “We have to get her another doctor. A woman.”

  “This man is supposed to be one of the best, Maya. He’s why we sent her there …”

  “Well, he’s not, obviously. Obviously …” She stops. She picks a few stray flakes of snow off her coat. “I’m trying to figure out how to love her again.” She almost whispers this.

  Her husband’s voice gets firmer, quieter. He crosses his arms and wheels the chair in closer to the desk and shakes his head. “You think you can make it better? What she did?”

  She sees the curve of Charles’s waist below his shirt.

>   He looks across the desk at her, then around at all her books. He opens the copy of Mrs. Dalloway and starts flipping through it. It’s the copy that he gave her, years ago, her birthday, twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth—she can’t believe she can’t remember—it was one of the first birthdays she had after they’d met. He’d forgotten. She’d been hurt, though she’d never thought herself a woman who cared much about birthdays. And then, late at night, he’d shown up at her apartment with this book, a book of which, he knew, she had probably five copies already, because, he’d said, he was certain she’d love it.

  “You know what, Maya? The thing you hate about me? Whatever it is about me that’s so reprehensible to you. It’s something you created. We created it together. I had no choice but to become the stolid, cold one. There wasn’t any room for me to be anything else.”

  That day: “Mommy”—Maya hadn’t heard Ellie’s voice in months. They’d communicated through short missive emails. Text messages, the punctuation of which hurt Maya’s eyes. For less than a second Maya’d thought, She’s coming back to me. My girl.

  But then, quickly, violently, this thought dissolved. Ellie was in the car, Jeffrey’s, the Jeep they’d given her to use. She was pulled over on the side of the road. She was afraid to go back to their house. But no one was there and she had to get her things. She had no wallet. No clothes, besides the underwear she’d been wearing when it happened, the wet shirt and T-shirt lost somewhere. Underwear, thought Maya. Why underwear? And she knew, of course. She understood what she, herself, had done, sending her daughter there. Inflicting her daughter on that boy. Telling Annie bits, but not enough, not warning her properly of what Ellie might be capable of. They’d given her scrubs at the hospital, Ellie said. Maya had an image of her. The flat hot roads of Florida, scrub grass, lines of houses that all looked the same. Ellie small and crying, shoulders bare, dark hair matted to her head, going under, maybe not coming back up.

  “El,” she said. But she couldn’t help her, wasn’t sure she could stand to hear what her daughter had done.