A Girl Like You: A Novel Part 33

"It looks solid enough," Frances says, seeing Satomi's delight.

It will blow their budget, so they will have to decorate it themselves, make do on the furnishings, but it's perfect.

"Square-built. Nineteen twenties, I guess," Frances says.

Satomi loves the unadorned frontage that belies the charm of its s.p.a.cious interior. There isn't much of a garden, but you can see the ocean from all sides, and the rooms are filled with light.

"It's beautiful," she says.

"A lot of upkeep," Frances says. "And nothing much will take in the ground here. The salt, you see."

When Abe comes home on the weekends their time is spent decorating, sanding down the woodwork, peeling off the dark wallpaper, painting the rooms in soft grays and blues, the colors of the ocean.

They make love on a blanket on the floor, the smell of paint and ozone mingling in the air. The urge, frequent and overwhelming, can't be resisted.

"We'll move in as soon as the bed comes," Abe says. "What more do we need?"

"So many things." She laughs, picturing them sleeping in a big comfortable bed with cotton covers, a crib by the side of it.

"We'll be in by the end of the month," he says, and kisses her. "Wish we could have Wilson with us here, but it wouldn't be fair to take him."

"A puppy of our own, then?" she suggests.

"I guess."

The windows of the salt marsh house are open in the day to the tang of the marshes. There are drapes now at the windows, a spa.r.s.e a.s.sortment of furniture in the rooms, and Frances has donated two rag rugs. The house has become a home.

There's no picket fence around her salty garden, and she refuses to wear an ap.r.o.n, but she is a.s.suming the ident.i.ty of the suburban, middle-cla.s.s American wife, loving it so much that Manzanar has retreated to the less conscious part of her mind. She is. .h.i.t by the certainty of love, by the contrast of her life with Abe to the unreal time she had spent with Joseph.

She gets a card for the local library, does her marketing at the store that Frances shops in, even has a laundry day. Frances is teaching her to cook Abe's favorite dishes, pickled beets and creamed codfish, broiled chicken and cornbread. People seeing her with Frances include her in their greeting, begin to recognize her when she is on her own. She sees the reserve in them still, but doesn't mind so much. She believes Abe when he tells her it's the same for all newcomers in Freeport. It takes time, that's all.

"Before you know it," Frances says, "you'll be a local."

They have Abe's best friend, Don, and his girlfriend over for dinner, and Abe helps her roast a chicken and she attempts a pear pie. She's a wife like any other. She's happy.

Abe sees and loves the difference in her. She's all his now, apart from those irritating times when she comes to stay overnight with him in the city, and hooks up with Joseph while he's at work. He doesn't mind so much anymore the idea of Cora. That unreachable bit of Satomi, the times when she seems remote from him, has to do with Cora, he thinks. He would like to find Cora too now, to see Satomi at peace.

In their city bed his pa.s.sion spills over so that he is not always tender. She doesn't know, as Abe himself doesn't know, that it's payback for Joseph. But she's as eager, as demanding as him for it. When he falls asleep across her, she revels in the intimacy of his trust, his sharp after-s.e.x scent. She bears without complaint the weight of him until he chooses to roll away from her.

She is determined not to let the camp impinge on their life, or allow the odd socialite life she had led with Joseph damage them. To make a balance sheet of what is gained, what lost, would be mad. She will be grateful, ignore that contradictory thing that stirs in her heart when memories of Cora are evoked. The girl who was Satomi Baker is lying low under the ident.i.ty of Mrs. Abe Robinson.

At Abe's request she goes to the city to bring back the last of their things from the apartment. He has to work and the new tenants are eager to take possession. She packs their linen, her books, and the toaster they bought because the grill on the old cooker had stopped working. There's the tin tray ill.u.s.trated with the New York skyline, and some cream china cups with gold rims that they found together in a bric-a-brac store. There's the silver-framed photograph of their wedding, Abe's binoculars, the alarm clock.

Abe has a week on nights and will sleep in one of the on-call rooms in the hospital.

"It's torture being apart," he says, kissing her.

"Worse than torture," she groans.

They sleep in the apartment for the last time, picnicking on sweet rolls and potato chips, making love in the creaky bed with its cheap mattress.

"We won't miss it," Abe says.

But she can't let go of the ache of leaving. She will never get used to endings.

Abe puts her on the train to Freeport, hauling the packed suitcases onto the rack above her seat in the empty compartment.

"You'll need someone to help you down with those at the other end."

"I'm stronger than you think, Abe."

"I know it, honey. You are strong and I love you. Still, find someone to help you with them anyway. Promise?"

"Promise."

His kiss is firm, without pa.s.sion, she's disappointed. She can tell he is distracted, wants to be on his way.

"Only a few days before I'll be home for the holiday," he says. "I'll get the earliest Hempstead train I can, and be with you before you know it."

"Time to wish away," she says.

"Frances makes such a big deal of Thanksgiving you're not going to believe it. She'll love having you to show off to."

"I've had enough of missing you, Abe."

"I'll be home before you know it."

She hangs her head out of the window, holding on to the sight of him as he pauses, waving briefly, before striding to the exit. He hates goodbyes, she knows. There's pleasure in knowing what he hates, goodbyes and new shirts, ginger chocolate, milk in his coffee, surprises.

She knows him as he knows her, and everything is as it should be. But as he disappears from her view a feeling of melancholy invades her, and for a moment she debates leaving the train, catching up with him, the pair of them laughing at her silliness. But the train is already moving. It's love, she supposes; with love comes the feeling that every minute apart you are risking something.

"Just till Thanksgiving," she comforts herself. "Just till Thanksgiving."

Penn Station to Babylon.

On Thanksgiving eve Frances is in the thick of it. She hasn't been able to keep the smile from her face all day. The oven's heat at full blast is fierce; a fresh-baked chocolate cake is cooling on the table, pumpkins are on the boil, steaming up the windows so that she has to open the door to let the cool air in. It reminds her of last year and all the years before, when she has done the same. Only this year it feels different, nicer, she has to admit. She has Satomi with her, Abe's Satomi, and now she needn't worry about him anymore, he has found his girl.

"Give those cranberries a stir, will you, Sati? I think they're beginning to stick."

The candied smell of the simmering berries, of the sweet pumpkins that she will mash to velvet for her special pie, spice the air.

"I want to get all this out of the way before Abe gets home. We always have hamburgers with my tomato relish on the night before Thanksgiving, and I haven't even started on them yet."

"I can't imagine ever being able to cook like you, Frances."

"Oh, you're learning. And I bet you already have a few of your own traditions."

"I don't know, maybe. We always have a drink on deck after we have put the boat to bed." She flushes at the thought of what else they do, but that is hardly for Frances's ears. "And we never go to sleep on an argument, if you mean that sort of thing. But nothing to do with food, Abe is still a better cook than me. He often cooks for himself in the city."

"Good heavens, does he? I've only ever known him to heat beans."

Both women fall silent as they picture him in their minds. Frances summons her big broad boy waving to her as he comes into harbor, a bitter-sweet reminder of his father. Satomi feels rather than sees his presence, the bulk of him, firm lips, strong hands, that odd contrast of feelings he induces in her, safe and risky at the same time.

"Oh, my G.o.d, the turkey." Frances's face is flushed, she is hot, excited. There's nothing like getting ready for Thanksgiving to gin things up.

"We have to cover it with bacon, give it a coat of maple syrup to sit in overnight."

"This Thanksgiving stuff is a real workout, isn't it?"

"Didn't your mother do it?"

"Not really, my father didn't care for turkey. He preferred my mother's j.a.panese dishes. The mess hall in the camp made an effort, but it was hard to be thankful there, even for the patriotic ones."

"And you didn't feel patriotic?"

"No, not the slightest bit. I spent my whole time at Manzanar angry or afraid. I never felt like celebrating."

"And now?"

"Oh, now everything is different. I want to celebrate with you and Abe, be thankful."

"Where were you last Thanksgiving?"

"We were at the Yacht Club at Fishers Island, Joseph and me, and his best friend, Hunter. He loves it there in the winter and it's smart to be at Fishers for the holiday." She wishes she hadn't said it. The words have a show-off, brittle feel to them.

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes, Joseph was in good form, he always is when Hunter is around."

"I guess you miss him, huh?"

"Well, I can still see him in the city when I go."

"You could have asked him here, you know. It would have been a bit odd, but he is your friend, and we will have to get used to that, I guess."

"I thought about it, but honestly, I don't think Abe is ready for that yet, and Joseph wouldn't know what to do with himself in a normal family."

Frances laughs. "I'm glad you think we're normal."

Satomi doesn't want to think about Joseph tonight. Thinking about him induces feelings of guilt, the idea that she is not ent.i.tled to her happiness. She has attempted in small ways to make Joseph a part of her and Abe's life, but neither man seems willing to give friendship a try. Inch by inch and without intention it feels as though she is letting Joseph go.

Perhaps, though, her feelings of guilt are really about Cora, about the child she has promised to reclaim. Now that Abe is willing, she must put more effort into finding Cora; she will never be completely happy, she knows, while what happened to that little one remains a mystery. She is due a letter from Dr. Harper anytime soon. Perhaps he has found a trail for them to follow.

Frances, noticing that Satomi has fallen into one of her reveries, puts aside the cooking and suggests they go outside. "We could do with some fresh air," she says, guiding Satomi to the door.

Unhooking Abe's waterproof from the stand on the porch, Satomi hangs it around her shoulders. It flaps against her calves, reminding her of the peacoat issue at Manzanar. She can feel the curve of Wilson's ball in the pocket against her thigh.

The day has been cold, mostly overcast, but as they look up at the night sky the clouds part, allowing a slice of moon to light the sea. It plays on the tips of the waves as they roll into the harbor. All along the coast where sea strikes sh.o.r.e the coves shift in an undulating silver seam.

"Just look at that," Frances marvels. "The moon and the black sea. Now, that sure is a sight."

Satomi slips her arms into the sleeves of Abe's jacket as the moon dusts up behind a cloud. It's Thanksgiving eve and Abe will already be on his way home. It's time to shower, to loosen her hair and put on the blue cardigan and the narrow Capri pants that she brought from home to change into, because Abe says she looks s.e.xy in them.

"You make everything you wear look a million dollars, honey."

"It's an odd time of day," Frances says, turning back toward the house. "Too early for a drink, too late for a nap."

Out on the Richmond Hill track, stalled in the dark, the Hempstead train, with its air brakes jammed, sent its flagman with flag and lamp to slow down the oncoming Babylon train, only four minutes behind it.

Press accounts in the aftermath of the collision made much of the fact that the Babylon train had been barreling down the line close to sixty-five miles an hour when it slammed into the rear of the stationary Penn-to-Hempstead with a boom some likened to the sound of an atomic bomb.

The truth of it was, though, that the motorman of the Babylon, too late to do much about it, had made out in the gloom the stilled train, the panicked flagman at the side of the track frantically waving his flag. In the last seconds of his life he had applied his emergency brakes, slowing his speed to more like thirty than sixty. Still, thirty was speed enough to shunt the Hempstead train seventy-five feet along the track, to toss its last car higher than a house, and send the onrushing train slicing down the middle of the Hempstead, causing "overcoating." Such a word, such an ugly addition to the human vocabulary.

They hear the news of it on the radio as Frances is cutting a lemon for their gin and tonics. It doesn't seem real at first, a story told to frighten, so that you might laugh at it after, might think what a fool you were to have been taken in. It's a Halloween story, not a Thanksgiving one.

"It won't be Abe, not Abe," Satomi cries. But Frances doesn't hear her; her head is full of, Not again, please, G.o.d, not again. Her knees have buckled under her so that she has to hold on to the sink to keep upright. And Satomi, seeing her distress, can't go to her. If what she sees in Frances is a mother's intuition, then it is a horrible thing. A thing she can't bear the sight of.

The news is coming at them unrelentingly, the voice on the radio almost hysterical. Satomi is shaking, Frances whimpering. On and on it goes, the reporter's voice rising at each new discovery. They listen, sucking the words in, finding it hard to breathe them out.

Neighbors from across the track are the first on the scene. They had been deafened by the sound of the crash, sickened by the sight of it. The train cars are high above the bank, too high for them to reach at first. They had rushed for ladders, blankets, first aid. They are eager now to give witness.

"The ground shuddered. You felt the noise as much as heard it."

"We had to jimmy those doors open to get them out. People were screaming in pain, beating at the windows."

"There were limbs everywhere, arms and legs on the floor, hanging from the windows."

"They were packed like sardines in their own blood."

In Frances's sweet-smelling kitchen they hear on the airwaves fire engines and ambulances ferrying the wounded to the hospital. For some there isn't time even for that, so surgeons have converted the kitchen of a nearby house into a crude operating theater. They work under a bare bulb on the family's kitchen table covered with a sheet.

"People are giving their all," the reporter shrieks.

"Abe will be helping them," Frances says in a moment of hope, her voice hard and emotionless. "He'll be needed there tonight."

"But Abe always goes in the first car," Satomi wails. "He says it makes him feel that he is getting home quicker." She is on the floor now, rocking herself back and forward, banging her head against Frances's leg.

And suddenly Frances too has crumpled to the floor, torrents of hot tears streaming from her eyes, although she doesn't feel as though she is crying. She is merely comforting Satomi, who has gotten everything out of proportion.

Satomi doesn't want to go to the funeral. She doesn't want to see Abe lowered into the wintry ground, see the casket that Frances had chosen on her own, because Satomi is a coward, because she couldn't bear to even look at one.

"Satin-lined oak. Their best line," Frances had reported back in a papery voice.