Her arm was up off the table and she was trying to break Top's grip on her hand; yet still she stared at me. For my part I held her other hand firmly, her fingers digging their nails into my palm.
I saw Top's face then. It surprised me. It was not unlike the demonic visage that had briefly loomed over him. A splash of water-- And Moira coughed, spluttering in amazement, as I swiveled around to see who had dumped the bucket of water on her, but... no one was there, just the darkness with its glinting bits of candlelight. Now a cry of outrage from Roberta. I turned back around.
Roberta wanted to wipe the streaming water from her face, but neither Neal nor her son would release their hold on her struggling hands. Nobody commented on the inexplicable dousings. "Please not yet," Joe pleaded with her.
Neal was watching him, toting up what he was seeing, what he was feeling. His lips were working as though tasting what he was about to say. Maybe it was Top, but I knew what Neal would say before he said it. It was: "Wait until you're comfortable with it, Josie."
The bedraggled Roberta looked at Neal with an irritable, puzzled look. But I knew, suddenly, what he meant. The disembodied spirit-head may have looked like a man, like Edgar, to us, but not to Joe. To him it was something like Alicia. The boy's expression was of a sorrow that I felt was strangely satisfying to him, like a bittersweet goodbye. There was a sad smile on his face and a sheen to his reddened eyes as he stared back at Neal. His mother saw it but didn't understand it, or didn't want to. She turned her attention again to Moira.
When I too looked at Moira I felt something like a physical blow to my chest. I felt it and heard the impact, but I knew it was entirely a spiritual thing. Her cold blue eyes seemed to be boring into my skull. 'He's a boy not a girl,' I heard Roberta say; but not there at the table, but years ago, in the shadowy bathroom. 'He's a boy--' It echoed through my head like a drumbeat, like the psychic force that had struck my chest.
"Let him see it," Top said to Roberta. She looked defeated, but not submissive. "I hate you," she said, weeping, "I hate you, how dare you..."
Moira whispered to me, "I remember."
And I saw it, in black and grey, Roberta jerking the small eleven-year-old boy to his feet, exposing his genitals; the dark water sloshing up against the child Moira's budding breasts. 'He is not a girl! He's a boy who can do--this!' It was an explosion of rage, of an exasperation that had reached its limit.
I didn't see it happen in the fading vision, but I could sense it, even feel it. I heard the hissing gasp of pain, then the frightened crying, the taste of blood in the bathwater. Then "GET OUT!" so real that it startled me. I could see the pale washed-out image of Roberta, her contorted face, directing her wrath at her husband. I felt him step back out and shut the door, sensing it as if I were the door that was being closed, striking the doorframe, so real that a phantom pain afflicted my forehead.
"It's real enough," Top said.
But he wasn't speaking to me. He was looking across the table at Joe. But I should say Josie. I paid him no attention other than to recognize that he sat there with his hands in his lap, his face set in a poignant sort of contentment. I was looking at Roberta, her hands to her face, her head bowed, sobbing. Defeated. Resigned to it. Hating her loss.
Neal was rubbing his palms as though to warm them. "He should've been here by now," he remarked. Top was gazing at the gingham curtains of the window next to the door. "He's here," he said confidently. "He's getting out of his rental. I didn't want him barging in on us. Indeed."
I guessed who they meant. It couldn't have been anyone else.
Moira pulled her hand free of mine. I saw then that Top had let her go. She scooted back her chair, her eyes on the door. I wondered if they were still hard like marbles.
When she stood up I looked at Top. I had an urge to accompany Moira outside, and suspected it was Top's idea. It didn't matter. I would do it regardless. It bothered me that Moira didn't ask me to go with her. And when I did, reaching the door first and opening it, she did not look at me or say anything to me. She just went out into the night like she belonged to it. And I followed, feeling like a stranger.
She stepped down off the cement porch and stood with her arms at her sides, looking at the curve in the drive and waiting. I didn't know what to say.
Roberta was striding past us, up the drive with a fury; then Josie following, with a glance back at Moira that seemed pure pathos. She said nothing. Moments later we heard Roberta and a man arguing briefly, then silence as Josie turned the corner, vanishing behind the black moon-etched trees.
A murmur of angry, anxious voices floated back to us. "They're leaving," I said, "all three of them. Top doesn't want them coming back. He's done his thing. It's over with."
Moira turned to me, her head down. In a tired voice she said, "He didn't stop her heart."
Strangely, I had forgotten about that little angle. "Did you really want him to?" I noticed then that her hair was dry. Her face and sweatshirt, dry. She looked up at me. "I wouldn't have cared. I don't know about Josie."
"I think he got what he wanted. How do you feel?"
"Did you see it?" she asked, and smiled. The smile had me uncertain as to what she meant. She saw my confused look and said, "Nightie, I mean. The cat. Roberta's cat. Didn't you see it jump up from my lap and run out the door?"
I considered that, and said, "No, and I think no one else did either. Just you. So, how do you feel?"
After a soundless laugh that had no trace of mirth in it, she leaned against me and whispered, "I have some explaining to do, don't I?"
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