Karen Fowler - Black Glass

“So,” he said. “You found the caves without me.”

“You’re kidding.” Lily stood up. “This little scrape in the rock? This can’t be the famous Two Trees caves. I won’t believe it. Tell me there are real caves just around the next bend.”

“You need something more?” Henry asked. “This isn’t enough? You are a hard woman.”

“Oh, come on.” Lily flicked her hair out of her eyes. “Are you telling me people come from all over to see this?”

“It’s not the caves.” Henry was staring at her. She felt her face reddening. “It’s what happens in the caves.” He moved closer to her. “It’s what happens when a beautiful woman comes to the caves.” Lily let herself look right at his eyes. Inside his pupils, a tiny Lily looked back out.

“Stay away from me,” said Lily. Was she the kind of woman who would allow a strange man in a strange place to kiss her? Apparently so. Apparently she was the kind of woman who said no to nothing now. She reached out to Henry; she put one hand on the sleeve of his shirt, one hand on his neck, moved the first hand to his back. “I gave you my car and my wedding ring,” she told him. “What do you want now? What will satisfy you?” She kissed him first. They dropped to their knees on the hard floor of the cave. He kissed her back.

“We could go somewhere more comfortable,” said Lily.

“No,” said Henry. “It has to be here.”

They removed their clothes and spread them about as padding. The shadow of the rock lengthened over them. Jep whined once or twice and then went to sleep at a safe distance. Lily couldn’t relax. She let Henry work at it. She touched his face and kissed his hand. “Your father did a nice job,” she told him, moving as close to his side as she could, holding herself against him. “You do that wonderfully.” Henry’s arm lay underneath her back. He lifted her with it, turning her so that she was on top of him, facing down. He took hold of her hair and pulled her face to his own, put his mouth on her mouth. Then he let her go, staring at her, holding the bits of hair about her face in his hands. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and something broke inside her.

“Am I?” She was frightened because she suddenly needed to believe him, needed to believe that he might love her, whoever she was.

“Incredibly beautiful.”

“Am I?” Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, she told him silently, too afraid to talk and almost crying. Don’t make me want it if it’s not there. Please. Be careful what you say.

“Incredibly beautiful.” He began to move again inside her. “So beautiful.” He watched her face. “So beautiful.” He touched her breasts and then his eyes closed and his mouth rounded. She thought he might fly apart, his body shook so, and she held him together with her hands, kissed him until he stopped, and then kissed him again.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Henry said.

It hurt Lily immediately, like a slap. So now she was the sort of woman men said this to. Well, she had no right to expect anything different from a man she didn’t even know. She could have said it to him first if she’d thought of it. That would have been the smart thing to do. Nothing would have been stupider than needing him. What had she been thinking of? “But you will if you have to,” she finished. “Right? Don’t worry. I’m not making anything of this. I know what this is.” She sat up and reached for Katherine’s sweatshirt. She was cold and afraid to move closer to Henry. She was cold and she didn’t want to be naked anymore.

“You sound angry,” Henry said. “It’s not that I couldn’t love you. It’s not that I don’t already love you. Men always disappoint women. I’m not sure we can escape it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lily told him sharply. She put her head into the red tent of the sweatshirt and pulled it through. “I should have gotten your sexual history first,” she added. “I haven’t done this since the rules changed.”

“I haven’t been with a woman in ten years,” Henry said. Lily looked at his face in surprise.

“Before that it was five years,” he said. “And before that three, but that was two at once. That was the sixties. Before that it was fifteen years. And twenty before that. And two. And two. And before that almost a hundred.”

Lily stood up, pulling on Katherine’s jeans. “I should have gotten your psychiatric history first,” she said. The faster she tried to dress, the more difficulties she had. She couldn’t find one of Katherine’s socks. She was too angry and frightened to look among Henry’s clothes. She put on Katherine’s shoes without it. “Come on, Jep,” she said.

“It can’t mean anything,” Henry told her.

“It didn’t. Forget it.” Lily left without the day pack. She hurried up the trail. Jep followed somewhat reluctantly. They made the crest of the hill; Lily looked behind her often to see if Henry was following. He wasn’t. She went past the painting without stopping. Jep preceded her through the gate into Mattie’s backyard.

Mattie and Katherine were waiting in the house. Katherine put her arms around her. “You went to the caves,” Katherine said. “Didn’t you? I can tell.”

“Of course she did,” said Mattie. She stroked Lily’s hair. “Of course she did.”

Lily stood stiffly inside Katherine’s arms. “What the hell is going on?” she asked. She pushed away and looked at the two women. “You sent me up there, didn’t you? You did! You and Egan and probably Allison Beale, too. Go to the caves, go to the caves. That’s all I’ve heard since I got here. You dress me like some virginal sacrifice, fatten me up with Hostess cupcakes, and send me to him. But why?”

“It’s a miracle,” said Mattie. “You were chosen. Can’t you feel it?”

“I let some man pick me up in a bar. He turns out to be a nut.” Lily’s voice rose higher. “Where’s the miracle?”

“You slept with Henry,” said Mattie. “Henry chose you. That’s the miracle.”

Lily ran up the stairs. She stripped Katherine’s clothes off and put her own on. Mattie came and stood in the doorway. Lily walked around her and out of the room.

“Listen to me, Lily,” Mattie said. “You don’t understand. He gave you as much as he can give anyone. That’s why in the painting the woman’s hands are empty. But that’s his trap. His curse. Not yours. When you see that, you’ll forgive him. Katherine and Allison and I all forgave him. I know you will, too, a loving woman like you.” Mattie reached out, grabbing Lily’s sleeve. “Stay here with us. You can’t go back to your old life. You won’t be able to. You’ve been chosen.”

“Look,” said Lily. She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes with her hands. “I wasn’t chosen. Quite the opposite. I was picked up and discarded. By a man in his thirties and not the same man you slept with. Maybe you slept with a god. You go ahead and tell yourself that. What difference does it make? You were still picked up and discarded.” She shook loose of Mattie and edged down the stairs. She expected to be stopped, but she wasn’t. At the front door, she turned. Mattie stood on the landing behind her. Mattie held out her hands. Lily shook her head. “I think you’re pretty pathetic, if you want to know the truth. I’m not going to tell myself a lot of lies or listen to yours. I know who I am. I’m going. I won’t be back. Don’t expect me.”

Her car waited at the front of the house, just where she had parked it the first night. She ran from the porch. The keys were inside. Left and left again, past the bar where the martini glass tipped darkly in the window, and onto the freeway. Lily accelerated way past eighty and no one stopped her. The foothills sped by and became cities. When she felt that she was far enough away to be safe from small-town Madonnas and immortals who were cursed to endure centuries of casual sex with as many loving women as possible — which was damn few, in fact, if you believed the numbers they gave you — she slowed down. She arrived home in the early evening. As she was walking in the door, she noticed she was wearing her wedding ring.