riding her shoulders, and it isn’t until she reaches New Bedford and is walking along a street that parallels the harbor that she realizes that cities remind her of Halifax. What she feels along her shoulders, she realizes, is a hunching against impending disaster.
Honora likes to walk the tracks. She puts her hands inside the pockets of her dress, sets her cloche on her head, and points herself north or south along the railroad tracks. She appreciates the way they stretch out seemingly forever — the ultimate open road. No stop signs, no traffic, seldom an encounter with any other person, though there is plenty of life. The backs of houses that no one ever sees. Wash on a line. An old Ford up on blocks. Summer tea in a jar on a picnic table next to a well. An open garage filled with rusted bits of machinery. Sometimes she passes another woman in an apron and a head scarf, hanging out her laundry, and she and the woman wave to each other. But if Honora sees a man on a back stoop smoking a cigarette, a man who is home in the middle of the day, she doesn’t wave. When a train passes, she steps back from the gravel bed and waits for the engineer to give her a quick salute.
“What did you do today?” Sexton asks, flushed from a recent sale and running his fingers through his well-oiled hair. Snapping his suspenders off his shoulders. Yanking the knot out of his tie.
“I went walking,” she says.
“It’s from my mother,” Honora says.
“What’s new?”
“May isn’t doing well.” Honora is holding her own breast through the cotton of her blouse. She puts her hand down.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sexton says.
When they returned to the house, an air of reproach had permeated the rooms, like that of a once-favored dog who’d been left alone all day and hadn’t yet been walked. Honora moved from room to room, holding the letter that was waiting for her on the floor of the front hallway, and it wasn’t until she’d inspected the entire house that she had allowed herself to sit at the kitchen table and read it.
Sexton pours himself a drink from a bottle of illegal bourbon a client gave him to celebrate a deal. Six No. 7’s at a 4 percent discount to a textile manufacturing company in Dracut, Massachusetts.
“And Mother asks again if we can go there over Labor Day,” Honora says.
“You want a sip?”
She nods. He hands her his glass and pours liquor into a coffee cup for himself. They are silent, just drinking.
“I should do the laundry,” she says.
“I’m going to buy you a washing machine,” Sexton says.
“Really?”
He sets the bourbon down and bends to kiss the underside of her chin. “Forget the laundry,” he says.
The blouse rises above Honora’s arms as if it might fly away. Her clothes make a heap on the floor. Sexton likes to see her naked and has her stand a table length away. It is understood that he will tell her what to do, that she doesn’t have to think about or guess at his desires. As for her own, they are buried deep inside her, bulbs that might one day send up strong shoots through a dark soil.
Vivian
“I’m so hot I can’t drink,” Vivian says.
The air is motionless, a phenomenon she has never observed so close to the water, not in all the years she’s been coming to Fortune’s Rocks. Beyond the beach, the Atlantic lies as flat as a wrinkled sheet. In each tiny wave, Vivian takes hope.
“Let’s get out of here,” Dickie says.
“Where would we go?”
“My house,” he says.
“Now?”
“You’ve never seen it,” he says. “There might be a breeze. Something of a breeze, anyway. Normally the place is crawling with workmen, but no one will be there now.”
“We should say good-bye,” Vivian says. “Whose house is this?”
She glances into the sitting room of the shingled cottage. Near the French doors, a Spud cigarette is burning a notch in a mahogany desk. Another butt is ground into the Persian rug. Ima Thurston is blotto, hanging
Honora likes to walk the tracks. She puts her hands inside the pockets of her dress, sets her cloche on her head, and points herself north or south along the railroad tracks. She appreciates the way they stretch out seemingly forever — the ultimate open road. No stop signs, no traffic, seldom an encounter with any other person, though there is plenty of life. The backs of houses that no one ever sees. Wash on a line. An old Ford up on blocks. Summer tea in a jar on a picnic table next to a well. An open garage filled with rusted bits of machinery. Sometimes she passes another woman in an apron and a head scarf, hanging out her laundry, and she and the woman wave to each other. But if Honora sees a man on a back stoop smoking a cigarette, a man who is home in the middle of the day, she doesn’t wave. When a train passes, she steps back from the gravel bed and waits for the engineer to give her a quick salute.
“What did you do today?” Sexton asks, flushed from a recent sale and running his fingers through his well-oiled hair. Snapping his suspenders off his shoulders. Yanking the knot out of his tie.
“I went walking,” she says.
“It’s from my mother,” Honora says.
“What’s new?”
“May isn’t doing well.” Honora is holding her own breast through the cotton of her blouse. She puts her hand down.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sexton says.
When they returned to the house, an air of reproach had permeated the rooms, like that of a once-favored dog who’d been left alone all day and hadn’t yet been walked. Honora moved from room to room, holding the letter that was waiting for her on the floor of the front hallway, and it wasn’t until she’d inspected the entire house that she had allowed herself to sit at the kitchen table and read it.
Sexton pours himself a drink from a bottle of illegal bourbon a client gave him to celebrate a deal. Six No. 7’s at a 4 percent discount to a textile manufacturing company in Dracut, Massachusetts.
“And Mother asks again if we can go there over Labor Day,” Honora says.
“You want a sip?”
She nods. He hands her his glass and pours liquor into a coffee cup for himself. They are silent, just drinking.
“I should do the laundry,” she says.
“I’m going to buy you a washing machine,” Sexton says.
“Really?”
He sets the bourbon down and bends to kiss the underside of her chin. “Forget the laundry,” he says.
The blouse rises above Honora’s arms as if it might fly away. Her clothes make a heap on the floor. Sexton likes to see her naked and has her stand a table length away. It is understood that he will tell her what to do, that she doesn’t have to think about or guess at his desires. As for her own, they are buried deep inside her, bulbs that might one day send up strong shoots through a dark soil.
Vivian
“I’m so hot I can’t drink,” Vivian says.
The air is motionless, a phenomenon she has never observed so close to the water, not in all the years she’s been coming to Fortune’s Rocks. Beyond the beach, the Atlantic lies as flat as a wrinkled sheet. In each tiny wave, Vivian takes hope.
“Let’s get out of here,” Dickie says.
“Where would we go?”
“My house,” he says.
“Now?”
“You’ve never seen it,” he says. “There might be a breeze. Something of a breeze, anyway. Normally the place is crawling with workmen, but no one will be there now.”
“We should say good-bye,” Vivian says. “Whose house is this?”
She glances into the sitting room of the shingled cottage. Near the French doors, a Spud cigarette is burning a notch in a mahogany desk. Another butt is ground into the Persian rug. Ima Thurston is blotto, hanging
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