care for nothing and no one.
And suddenly Mona felt as awkward and unloved and as unwelcome as she ever had in her life. She ought to get out of here. It was shameful that she had stayed so many days at this table, begging for forgiveness for once lusting after Michael, begging for forgiveness for being young and rich and able someday to have children, for having survived when both her mother, Alicia, and her Aunt Gifford, two women she loved and hated and needed, had died.
Self-centered! What the hell. “I didn’t mean it with Michael,” she said aloud to Rowan. “No, don’t go into that again!”
No change. Rowan’s gray eyes were focused, not dreaming. Her hands lay in her lap in the most natural little heap. Wedding ring so thin and spare it made her hands look like those of a nun.
Mona wanted to reach for one of her hands, but she didn’t dare. It was one thing to talk for half an hour, but she couldn’t touch Rowan, she couldn’t force a physical contact. She didn’t dare even to lift Rowan’s hand and put the lantana in it. That was too intimate to do to her in her silence.
“Well, I don’t touch you, you know. I don’t take your hand, or feel it or try to learn something from it. I don’t touch you or kiss you because if I was like you, I think I’d hate it if some freckle-faced, red-haired kid came around and did that to me.”
Red hair, freckles, what had that to do with it, except to say, Yes, I slept with your husband, but you’re the mysterious one, the powerful one, the woman, the one he loves and has always loved. I was nothing. I was just a kid who tricked him into bed. And wasn’t as careful that night as I should have been. Wasn’t careful at all, in fact. But not to worry, I’ve never been what anyone would call regular. He looked at me the way he looked later at that kid, Mary Jane. Lust, that was all. Lust and nothing more. And my period will finally come, like it always does, and my doctor will give me yet another lecture.
Mona gathered up the little sprigs of lantana there on the table, next to the china cup, and she walked away.
For the first time, as she looked up at the clouds moving over the chimneys of the main house, she realized it was a beautiful day.
Michael was in the kitchen, fixing the juices, or “brewing the concoction” as they had come to call it—papaya juice, coconut, grapefruit, orange. There was lots of undefinable slop and pulp all over.
It occurred to her, though she tried not to process the thought, that he looked healthier and handsomer with every passing day. He’d been working out upstairs. The doctors encouraged him. He must have gained fifteen good pounds since Rowan had woken up and climbed out of bed.
“She does like it,” he said now, as if they’d been discussing this concoction all along. “I know she does. Bea said something about its being too acid. There’s no evidence she finds it too acid.” He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.
“I think,” said Mona, “that she stopped talking because of me.”
Mona stared at him, and then the tears came, wet and frightening. She didn’t want to break down. She didn’t want to make such a demand or display. But she was miserable. What the hell did she want from Rowan? She scarcely knew Rowan. It was as if she needed to be mothered by the designee of the legacy who had lost her power to carry on the line.
“No, honey,” he said with the softest, most comforting smile.
“Michael, it’s because I told her about us,” she said. “I didn’t mean to. It was the first morning I spoke to her. All this time, I’ve been scared to tell you. I thought she was just being quiet. I didn’t … I don’t … She never spoke after that, Michael. It’s true, isn’t it? It was after I came.”
“Honey chile, don’t torture yourself,” he said, wiping up some of the sticky gunk from the counter. He was patient, reassuring, but he was too tired for all this, and Mona was ashamed. “She’d stopped talking the day before, Mona. I told you mat. Pay attention.” He gave her a little smile to mock himself. “I just didn’t realize it then, that she’d quit talking.” He stirred the