The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve Read Free Book Online Page B

silver rings catching the sun at their navels, despite the chill. Their presence reminded her that it was a Saturday. Each girl wore her hair parted in the middle and pulled tightly against the head into a ponytail. Her own hair dating her because she herself couldn’t manage the current, sleeker style. The ponytails flicked in the wind like their namesakes.
    — Whatever happened to Peter?
Thomas asked, lighting a cigarette. The question took her by surprise.
    — I don’t know exactly. He went back to London. Once when I was there, I looked in the phone book, but there was no one by that name in the city.
    Thomas nodded, as if the disappearance from one’s life of someone to whom one had once been married were commonplace. The sunlight that was reflected from the water was unforgiving, showing every imperfection in his face, never perfect even in his youth. She didn’t want to think about her own face and struggled against the urge to put herself in shadow.
    — Have you ever been back?
Thomas meant to Africa.
    — No. I would have liked to take my children there. But it was always so expensive, and somehow I never did.
    — It’s a dangerous country now.
    — We thought it was dangerous then.
    — It
was
dangerous then. But it’s worse now. I’m told tourists need armed guards.
    Inexplicably, it was warmer on the island, and, after they had landed, they had to take off their coats. Thomas removed his blazer, and she found herself studying his hexagonal shoulders in his white shirt. She was conscious of her blouse, of the weight of her breasts, that familiar heaviness. Lately, she’d occasionally had the sensation of milk letting down, and thought it must be hormones run amok.
    They walked up a street between wooden cottages, Thomas with his jacket folded over his arm, like a colonial improperly dressed in the heat. It might have been Nairobi or Lamu after all. She wore her coat over her shoulders, not wanting to imitate that masculine gesture.
    — Was there a baby?
she asked.
    — False alarm.
    For a moment, the street spun, and Linda struggled to reclaim her bearings.
    — What an irony,
she whispered.
    — What?
    She wouldn’t, couldn’t, tell him of the ordeal at the Catholic hospital. Of the hostility of the nuns. Of the kindness of the Belgian doctor who had declared the abortion a necessity. Nor of the undisguised malice of Sister Marie Francis, who had brought the fetus in a jar for Linda to see. She would not be the one to cause Thomas any more pain.
    — You must keep writing,
she said breathlessly after a time.
However difficult.
    For a time, Thomas was silent.
It’s a struggle I lose more often than I win.
    — Does time help?
    — No.
He seemed to have the conviction of long experience.
    They walked up a hill and left the road and sat upon a boulder. For a long moment, she put her head against her knees. When she looked up, her hands were still trembling. She was better dressed for this occasion than Thomas and was reminded that they’d missed, together, the great dressing-down of America. She’d never seen him in a T-shirt, and, not having seen it, could not imagine it. His dress shirt, she saw, was crisp, of excellent quality. She had a sudden longing, instantly disowned, to put her hand to his back. Desire sometimes came to her in the night, unannounced and unwanted — an intrusive presence in her bed. It made her restless and fretful, causing her to realize with renewed finality what she’d lost.
    (Vincent and she, lying face-to-face, the surface of their bodies touching at half a dozen places, like electrodes. Maria and Marcus out with friends on a Saturday afternoon; the luxury of time and sunlight on the bed. Vincent saying, his eyes dark and serious, as though he’d had an intimation of mortality,
I hope I die before you do.
Her eyes widening: this from Vincent, who was not a romantic.
I’d have to destroy the bed,
he’d said.
I couldn’t bear it.
)
    And she, who had once been a