Richard Ford - A Multitude of Sins

“For once, no,” she said.

Up ahead, d’EMBARQUEMENTS/DEPARTURES was jampacked. Cars, limos, taxis, people loading golf bags, collapsible cribs and taped-up coolers from the backs of idling vans. Policemen with white oversleeves were flagging everyone through in a hurry. He had only a suitcase, a briefcase, a raincoat. It had become a wonderful autumn day. Clouds and haze were being cleansed from the sky.

He continued holding her hand, and she grasped his back in a way that felt important. What would it be like finally, he wondered, to grow uninterested in women? Things he did— going here, there, deciding this, that — he’d always had a woman in mind. Their presence animated things. So much would be different without them. No more moments like this, moments of approximate truth vivifying, explaining, offering silent reason to the choices you made. And what happened to those people for whom it wasn’t an issue? Who didn’t think about women. Certainly they achieved things. Were they better, their accomplishments purer? Of course, when it was all out of your reach — and it would be — you wouldn’t even care.

On the curb side, amid skycaps and passengers alighting and baggage carts nosed in at reckless angles, a family — two older adults and three nearly grown blond children — were having a moment of prayer, standing in a tight little circle, arms to shoulders, heads bowed. Clearly Americans, Henry realized. Only Americans would be so immodest about their belief, so sure a fast amen was just the thing to keep them safe — at once so careless and so prideful. Not the qualities to make a country great.

“Do you think if we asked, they’d include us in their little circle?” Madeleine said, breaking their silence as she pulled to the curb, right beside the praying Americans. She meant to annoy them.

“We’re represented already,” Henry said, looking at the pilgrims’ hefty, strenuous backsides. “We’re the forces of evil they think so much about. The terrible adulterers. We worry them.”

“Life’s just a record of our misdeeds, isn’t it?” she said. He couldn’t open his door for the pray-ers.

“I don’t think that.” He held her warm, soft, moist hand casually. She was just letting the other subject go free now — the lying, tricking, having a joke at his expense. Though why, for God’s sake, not let it go free?

He sat a moment longer, facing forward, unable to exit. He said, “Have you decided you don’t love me?” Here was the great mystery. His version of a prayer.

“Oh, no,” Madeleine said. “I wanted us to go on and on. But we just couldn’t. So. This seemed like a way to seal it off. Exaggerate the difference between what is and what isn’t. You know?” She smiled weakly. “Sometimes you can’t believe the things that are taking place are actually taking place, but you need to. I’m sorry. It was too much.” She leaned and kissed him on the cheek, then took both his hands to her lips and kissed them.

He liked her. Liked everything about her. Though now was the wrong moment to say so. It would seem insincere. Reaching for too much. Though how did you ever make a moment be worth as much as it could be, if you didn’t reach?

Outside, the Americans were all hugging one another, smiling big Christian smiles, their prayers having reached a satisfactory end.

“Are you trying to think of something nice to say?” Madeleine said jauntily.

“No,” Henry said. “I was trying not to.”

“Well, that’s just as good,” she said, smiling. “It might not be good enough for everybody, but I understand. It’s hard to know how to end a thing that didn’t completely begin.”

He pushed open the heavy door, lifted his suitcase out of the back, stepped out into the cool fall light, then looked quickly in at her. She smiled at him through the open doorway. There was nothing to say now. Words were used up.

“Wouldn’t you agree with me about that, Henry?” she said. “That’d be a nice thing to say. Just that you agree with me.”

“Yes, okay,” Henry said. “I do. I do agree with you. I agree with you about everything.”

“Then rejoin your fellow Americans.”

He closed the door. She didn’t look his way again. He watched her ease away, then accelerate, then quickly disappear into the traffic heading back to town.

On the first day of their Maine vacation, they drove up to Harrisburg after work, then flew to Philadelphia, then flew to Portland, where they rented a Ford Explorer at the airport, ate dinner at a Friendly’s, then drove up 95 as far as Freeport — it was long after dark — where they found a B&B directly across from L. L. Bean, which surprisingly was open all night.

Before getting into the rickety canopy bed and passing out from exhaustion, Nancy Marshall stood at the dark window naked and looked across the shadowy street at the big, lighted Bean’s building, shining like a new opera house. At one a.m., customers were streaming in and out toting packages, pulling garden implements, pushing trail bikes and disappearing into the dark in high spirits. Two large Conant tourist buses from Canada sat idling at the curb, their uniformed drivers sharing a quiet smoke on the sidewalk while their Japanese passengers were inside buying up things. The street was busy here, though farther down the block the other expensive franchise outlets were shut.

Tom Marshall turned off the light in the tiny bathroom and came and stood just behind her, wearing blue pajama bottoms. He touched her shoulders, stood closer to her until she could feel him aroused.

“I know why the store’s open ’til one o’clock,” Nancy said, “but I don’t know why all the people come.” Something about his conspicuous warm presence made her feel a chill. She covered her breasts, which were near the window glass. She imagined he was smiling.

“I guess they love it,” Tom said. She could feel him properly — very stiff now. “This is what Maine means. A visit to Bean’s after midnight. It’s the global culture. They’re probably on their way to Atlantic City.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. Because she was cold, she let herself be pulled to him. This was all right. She was exhausted. His cock fit between her legs — just there. She liked it. It felt familiar. “I asked the wrong question.” There was no reflection in the glass of her or him behind her, inching into her. She stood perfectly still.

“What would the right question be?” Tom pushed flush against her, bending his knees just a fraction to find her. He was smiling.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe the question is, what do they know that we don’t? What are we doing over here on this side of the street? Clearly the action’s over there.”

She heard him exhale, then he moved away. She had been about to open her legs, lean forward a little. “Not that.” She looked around for him. “I don’t mean that.” She put her hand between her legs just to touch, her fingers covering herself. She looked back at the street. The two bus drivers she believed could not see through the shadowy trees were both looking right at her. She didn’t move. “I didn’t mean that,” she said to Tom faintly.

“Tomorrow we’ll see some things we’ll like,” he said cheerfully. He was already in bed. That fast.

“Good.” She didn’t care if two creeps saw her naked; it was exactly the same as her seeing them clothed. She was forty-five. Not so slender, but tall, willowy. Let them look. “That’s good,” she said again. “I’m glad we came.”

“I’m sorry?” Tom said sleepily. He was almost gone, the cop’s blessed gift to be asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

“Nothing,” she said, at the window, being watched. “I didn’t say anything.”