Read Online The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard - Free Book Online
Authors: Hannah Pittard
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Nora and Sissy.” He couldn’t help laughing. “Goddamn twins.”
Mrs. Boyd didn’t believe it of course, but she couldn’t help making the usual round of phone calls. Eighteen years of phone-tree etiquette had engrained it in her. She picked up the phone and started with the second mother on her list—Mrs. Hatchet, after all, was dead.
“Twins,” she said to Mrs. Epstein. “Can you imagine?”
O ur mothers tried, but we were the ones who really could imagine it. We were the ones who could picture those twins as if they were ours. We gave them the best of Nora. We gave them her hair—red, just as Jack Boyd had described. We gave them her poreless skin and her overabundance of freckles. We kept them slim, just as Nora and Sissy had been. Here and there, though, we added or subtracted a few inches. Paul Epstein kept them short, rounded their noses to look more like his mother’s than like Nora’s or Sissy’s. Winston Rutherford would have given them well-defined chins. “The chin is a sign of character,” he said to Maggie Frasier when he finally married her. He pointed to his own chin. “You can’t fake that.” He would have said this to Nora Lindell if she’d ever given him the chance. Drew Price, still not convinced Mr. Price wasn’t his real father, no doubt had the twins closing in on six feet tall.
Jack Boyd didn’t have the luxury of fantasy since, he insisted, he’d seen them for himself. But perhaps the real reason he couldn’t imagine them as his own was because he could see too much of the man he suspected was the real father. Something he didn’t admit for years, something he probably should have kept to himself, was that those two little red-haired girls had the undeniable and aggressive look of Trey Stephens. A savageness and confidence that, among us, only the public schooler had ever displayed. Those girls belonged to Trey, Jack Boyd finally confessed, some time after Epstein v. Stephens came to an end.
Jack was crying when he told us. We were drunk. Our wives were in the kitchen. Our daughters were huddled together in bedrooms on second and third stories. We were allowed, this once, to smoke our cigars inside in the basement. Jack put his hand on Paul Epstein’s back. “Maybe if he’d known about his own girls, he wouldn’t have touched yours,” he said. We looked in other directions, trying hard to pretend we didn’t know what he was talking about; trying hard to believe those twins weren’t real, that Nora wasn’t real anymore, that none of it was real—not even Paul’s pain, and especially not the things that had happened to his daughter.
Nora Lindell was gone. And, with Trey Stephens in jail, he was gone, too, in a way. By this time, we’d already lost Minka Dinnerman and Mr. Lindell as well (a car crash and cancer, respectively). It seemed, some days, that life was nothing more than a tally of the people who’d left us behind.
7
T hey did have sex once—Nora and the Mexican. Of course they did. It would have been impossible not to, unrealistic even. How it happened was simple, expected. He got drunk. It wasn’t sexy. She’d been expecting it, and perhaps this more than anything demanded that it happen.
They’d been married two years, a little longer than the babies had been alive. She’d lost the weight and then a little more. She talked about waiting tables again but the Mexican said no. They didn’t need the money.
She spent mornings in the backyard, cultivating what few herbs were able to grow—mint mostly, a eucalyptus tree, some other juicy thick-leafed plants. Afternoons she spent in the pool with the girls. They were naturals in the water, just as she’d been. Just as Sissy had been. Evenings she spent in the kitchen, the windows open, the babies on a towel on the linoleum floor. She wore very little these days—a dress the weight of a slip, underwear, flip-flops. The breasts she’d grown while nursing had dried up, had shrunk smaller than the
Mrs. Boyd didn’t believe it of course, but she couldn’t help making the usual round of phone calls. Eighteen years of phone-tree etiquette had engrained it in her. She picked up the phone and started with the second mother on her list—Mrs. Hatchet, after all, was dead.
“Twins,” she said to Mrs. Epstein. “Can you imagine?”
O ur mothers tried, but we were the ones who really could imagine it. We were the ones who could picture those twins as if they were ours. We gave them the best of Nora. We gave them her hair—red, just as Jack Boyd had described. We gave them her poreless skin and her overabundance of freckles. We kept them slim, just as Nora and Sissy had been. Here and there, though, we added or subtracted a few inches. Paul Epstein kept them short, rounded their noses to look more like his mother’s than like Nora’s or Sissy’s. Winston Rutherford would have given them well-defined chins. “The chin is a sign of character,” he said to Maggie Frasier when he finally married her. He pointed to his own chin. “You can’t fake that.” He would have said this to Nora Lindell if she’d ever given him the chance. Drew Price, still not convinced Mr. Price wasn’t his real father, no doubt had the twins closing in on six feet tall.
Jack Boyd didn’t have the luxury of fantasy since, he insisted, he’d seen them for himself. But perhaps the real reason he couldn’t imagine them as his own was because he could see too much of the man he suspected was the real father. Something he didn’t admit for years, something he probably should have kept to himself, was that those two little red-haired girls had the undeniable and aggressive look of Trey Stephens. A savageness and confidence that, among us, only the public schooler had ever displayed. Those girls belonged to Trey, Jack Boyd finally confessed, some time after Epstein v. Stephens came to an end.
Jack was crying when he told us. We were drunk. Our wives were in the kitchen. Our daughters were huddled together in bedrooms on second and third stories. We were allowed, this once, to smoke our cigars inside in the basement. Jack put his hand on Paul Epstein’s back. “Maybe if he’d known about his own girls, he wouldn’t have touched yours,” he said. We looked in other directions, trying hard to pretend we didn’t know what he was talking about; trying hard to believe those twins weren’t real, that Nora wasn’t real anymore, that none of it was real—not even Paul’s pain, and especially not the things that had happened to his daughter.
Nora Lindell was gone. And, with Trey Stephens in jail, he was gone, too, in a way. By this time, we’d already lost Minka Dinnerman and Mr. Lindell as well (a car crash and cancer, respectively). It seemed, some days, that life was nothing more than a tally of the people who’d left us behind.
7
T hey did have sex once—Nora and the Mexican. Of course they did. It would have been impossible not to, unrealistic even. How it happened was simple, expected. He got drunk. It wasn’t sexy. She’d been expecting it, and perhaps this more than anything demanded that it happen.
They’d been married two years, a little longer than the babies had been alive. She’d lost the weight and then a little more. She talked about waiting tables again but the Mexican said no. They didn’t need the money.
She spent mornings in the backyard, cultivating what few herbs were able to grow—mint mostly, a eucalyptus tree, some other juicy thick-leafed plants. Afternoons she spent in the pool with the girls. They were naturals in the water, just as she’d been. Just as Sissy had been. Evenings she spent in the kitchen, the windows open, the babies on a towel on the linoleum floor. She wore very little these days—a dress the weight of a slip, underwear, flip-flops. The breasts she’d grown while nursing had dried up, had shrunk smaller than the
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