Hemingway's Girl (42 page)

“Shall we ask Mariella to join us at the table?” said Pauline. “Have a glass of wine,
perhaps?”

Papa stopped cutting and looked up at Pauline. Mariella thought she would have died
if she were on the receiving end of his look. Pauline gave it back like she had nothing
to lose, since it was already lost. A fly landed on his meat and he didn’t wave it
away. They stared at each other for a full minute, or was it an hour? It was painful,
but Papa looked away first.

“I’m just curious why the help gets more consideration than the wife,” said Pauline.
“Do you have any insight into that, Mariella? Because my husband doesn’t seem to have
any idea what I’m talking about.”

Everything stopped. Mariella was afraid to move. The clock in the hall ticked loudly.
Mariella’s eyes darted to Pauline. Something changed in Pauline. She shrank in her
chair. She wanted to take it back. It would have been better if Pauline had kept her
posture, but the lion sensed the animal was wounded. He went in for the kill.

In a rush of linens and china, he lifted the whole table off the floor and tipped
it over sideways, crashing it into the opposite wall. Mariella couldn’t believe the
display of violence, and was afraid to
move. She looked at Pauline, who had jerked her chair back and had her face in her
hands.

My God.

He crossed the dining room in a stride and gripped the armrests on Pauline’s chair,
putting himself inches from her face. Pauline began freely sobbing. She was sorry,
so sorry. She loved him; how could he do this to her? She was just being ugly because
she loved him so. And he screamed over it all, words that made no sense, words angry
and boorish. He pushed his finger into her shoulder, hard, and Mariella was afraid
he’d hurt Pauline. She could feel his violence, potent in the room. But the violence
ignited something in Pauline and she stood up and began to yell a string of accusations
at him about Jane and Jinny and Mariella and any other woman he’d been in contact
with.

Mariella knew she had contributed to this mess and felt sick. She didn’t know whether
it would be best to stay and defend herself, or go. She wanted to defuse the situation
and make it better, so she spoke.

“Stop, Pauline,” said Mariella, her voice steady. Pauline stopped yelling and turned
to Mariella. “You’re wrong. Papa’s never crossed any line with me.”

“Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” said Pauline. “Since when does the help contradict me.”

“Don’t you speak to her that way,” said Papa. “She’s done nothing wrong. Your jealousy
is making you ugly.”

Pauline flinched like she’d been punched. All of her fears about being unattractive
were validated. He shoved the knife in where it would wound her most, and Mariella
knew the situation was now hopeless.

“Papa, please,” said Mariella.

Pauline suddenly sneered. “Papa.” She spit the word out. “Weak, like
your
miserable excuse for a father.”

It was Mariella’s turn to flinch. “What did you say?”

“Pauline—no!” said Papa.

“What—are you going to play Mariella’s
Papa
?” shouted Pauline.

“Stop, Pauline, no!” shouted Hemingway.

“Her pathetic parents.”

Mariella’s hands clenched and she stepped toward Pauline. “How can you speak that
way about my parents? You didn’t even know my father. You don’t know my mother.”

“I didn’t know him, but I know
of
him,” said Pauline.

“Pauline, no!”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” said Mariella.

“Stop!” Papa was trying to push Pauline out of the room. Mariella couldn’t understand
what Pauline was saying and why Papa was trying to stop her.

“Your father was weak,” said Pauline. She pushed Papa off her. “Weak like Ernest’s
father.”

The room was silent again except for the ticking of the clock. Mariella looked at
her for a moment before she understood. Her eyes filled. The secret hit her with gale
force. The secret everyone knew but her.

Papa pushed Pauline into the kitchen and screamed at her to get away from them. Pauline
sobbed and ran out into the hall and up the stairs. Ernest made a move toward Mariella,
but she stepped back.

“Mari.”

Mariella turned and ran out of the house.

The rain slapped Mariella’s face in blasts, but it was the wind that most hindered
her progress. A wave of nausea rose in her stomach. She put her hand against the banyan
tree in the Hemingways’ yard and retched behind it. She wiped the spit from her mouth
with the back of her sleeve and started running. Soon she stood at the gate of the
marine scrapyard. She could see her father’s boat and tried to push the gate in, but
it was locked. She banged it with her hands and groaned in frustration.

There had to be another way in.

Mariella ran along the outer perimeter of the fence until it switched to a smaller
chain link. Behind a bush of pampas grass, she could see a tear in the fence. She
put her face down and brushed past the grass, feeling its sharp blades scratching
at her neck and pulling at her hair. She squeezed through the hole in the fence, stood,
and wiped the mud from her hands.

It was raining harder now, and Mariella knew she should get to John’s house, but she
couldn’t face them yet. She wanted to see the boat.

In a moment it was before her, leaning on its side whispering,
ForEva
. She walked up to it and placed both hands on it. The wood felt cold and soft, as
if she could crumble it in her hands. She walked around the stern and looked at the
empty space where the engine had been.

She started to think of all the clues she’d missed—his depression in the weeks preceding
his death, the fishermen out of work because of the glut, his frustration over Eva’s
suggestion that he find another trade, his sudden death. Eva’s meetings with the priest
at St. Mary’s, no more newspapers in the house, her mother’s depression.

Gavin knew; John knew; the Hemingways knew. Key West knew. She recalled the deputy
trying to keep her away from the boat that day, Nicolas pulling her, insisting she
come away with him. Now she understood they hadn’t wanted her to see because then
she’d know that her father had killed himself.

Mariella shook her head. She felt like a fool.

A sudden gust blew a chunk of wood off the boat and into Mariella’s leg. She flinched
and reached down to touch her calf.
When she picked up her hand, blood covered her fingers. She had to go to John’s house.

When she got there, Papa’s car was parked out front.

She walked up to the door, and when she opened it, her mother and Mutt rushed to her.
Eva grabbed Mariella and hugged her. She ran her hands over Mariella as if she needed
confirmation that she was there and okay. Mutt sniffed her leg. Eva gasped when she
saw the blood, but Mariella mumbled that it was just a shallow cut.

Papa and John watched Mariella. Estelle played dolls with Lulu on the floor, but watched
the adults.

“Mari, I’m so sorry about what Pauline said,” said Papa. “I can’t ever fix this, but
you’ve got to know how sorry I am.”

“At least
she
told me the truth,” said Mariella.

John looked down at the floor.

“Don’t you understand,” said Eva. “I just wanted to protect you.”

“You had to know I’d find out.”

“I prayed you wouldn’t,” said Eva, beginning to cry. “On my rosary every day I prayed
for Hal’s soul and for you not to find out. I asked God to at least make it so you
wouldn’t know. You were Hal’s light and he was yours, and I don’t know how he could
have done that to you and to all of us.”

Mariella felt the tears on her face but didn’t wipe them away.

Eva continued. “And I felt so guilty, like I pushed him too hard. And I couldn’t stand
for you to find out, because I knew you’d blame me. And, God, Mariella, I can’t stand
to lose you, too.”

Eva collapsed on the sofa and buried her head in her arms, sobbing. Mariella stared
at the floor, unable to speak and unsure
what to think. She thought maybe Eva was to blame, but then something inside her knew
that it wasn’t her mother’s fault. There was something wrong inside Hal, the same
thing wrong in Hemingway’s father, and the vet, and every other person who’d taken
his own life: a staggering inability to cope.

While Mariella thought of this, Estelle stood from her dolls and walked over to her.

“We needed you,” said Estelle.

Everyone turned to her, surprised to hear her speak.

“To keep us going,” said Estelle. “If you knew, you’d have been the same as Mama.”

Mariella looked at her sister with new eyes and found her voice. “Did you know?”

Estelle looked at Eva and then at the floor. “I heard Mama talking to the priest,”
she said.

Mariella was filled with pity for Estelle. All along she’d known and kept it from
Mariella to protect
her
, while she was tortured with the knowledge. Mariella wiped her tears with the back
of her hand.

The sound of a chair scraping across the front porch reminded them of the storm. Papa
stepped outside and brought in the chair. He put it in the bedroom and came back to
the living room. He walked over to Mariella and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I have to go,” he said. “Are you all sure you don’t want to come with me?”

“They’ll be safe here,” said John.

Papa looked at Mariella, his misery palpable. She could feel his sadness and anger.
She feared for Pauline.

“I’m glad she told me,” said Mariella. “Don’t hate her for me. I’m glad.”

He looked at her for a moment and nodded. Then he was gone.

5:00 p.m.

The barometer read 28.42. The power had failed. The train hadn’t been ordered by Ghent
until after two o’clock.

It wouldn’t get there in time.

There was still no sign of the Morrows, so Gavin rounded up more of the wives and
children from camp three and loaded them into his work truck. He had a young vet take
them north. The kids’ eyes were as wide as the taillights Gavin watched disappearing
into the storm. He said a prayer for them and hoped they’d make it. He knew they stood
a better chance up north than they did on Lower Matecumbe. As they were leaving, Ed
Butters pulled up to the hotel. Gavin saw Ed struggling to get himself and his son
into the hotel, so he ran to help. It felt as if a thousand needles were pushing into
his back, and he had trouble standing up straight. As he dragged them in, little sparks
ignited in the air.

They fell in through the door of the hotel, and it took three of them to push the
door closed. Gavin reached up and felt his neck. He pulled his hand away and looked
at it, spotted with blood from where the sand had ripped his skin.

“What the hell were those sparks?” he asked.

“Sand,” said Ed, wiping at his eyes. “The force of the wind’s making it explode when
it hits.”

Fran stopped setting out the sandwiches she’d put together for the vets and covered
her mouth with her hand.

“The wind—not the accelerator—pushed my car into town,” said Ed.