The Ocean House. Mary-Beth Hughes
The next week, the second week of sixth grade, Courtney’s new teacher, Sister Frances, said they were old enough to know the ins and outs of hell. They weren’t babies anymore. They had power. They could pray for those already in hell and for those who were well on the way, stumbling blindly along the dark path.
Paige. Obviously. She’d let boys rummage around in her underpants.
Sister Frances then prompted the prayer for those who had sinned against us. This was the merciful part, the intervention for our enemies. This was all fascinating and not something their mother had agreed with, ever. She had suspended her belief when she was little, she told them, like a balloon. Like a zeppelin! And she seemed to think this was very funny. So Courtney hovered now between whether to try this prayerful intervention for her sister or not. But then she did. She imagined lifting Paige out of her quick certain slide into hell at the last minute, throwing a damp towel over Paige’s scorched wispy leaf-tangled hair. She prayed and nothing changed. So on Thursday afternoon Courtney tried her mother again. She hid her mother’s play earring, a pearly cluster on a rusty clip, under the bed skirt. She had a candle stub from the kitchen drawer. She nestled the stub in the shag carpet and lit it. The instant the bed skirt caught fire Ruth was banging on the door.
Something about the look of Paige, her legs wide, knee socks high, oxfords laced, backbone lined up at the sagging corner of the old outhouse, hair a nest with dead leaves tangled at the top of her head, underpants hanging in heavy folds, her nipples, her nylon school blouse reminded Courtney of a painting her mother had kept hanging on the wall of her dressing room. Nymphs, water nymphs, bored and dozy-eyed like Paige with bodies that looked electric under the winding fabric mostly on their hips. The nymphs dragged toes through shallow ponds. They sat on rocks or propped their bodies against tree trunks like Paige at the outhouse. Courtney could kill Paige. Just kill her. Paige’s underpants all baggy around her legs just like their mother’s bathing suit because their mother had become too thin.
Even though their father had tried to fatten her up with barbecued steaks on the grill, salt in the air, blood rolling on their plates. Their mother would lick and chew. Hurry now, said Mrs. Hoving standing at the back door. Come girls. The light still pink over the ocean, Mrs. Hoving tucked them into bed. Then their parents would come and find the exact place on each forehead to efficiently deliver their love. Their father had forgotten all about that. No one was delivering anything anymore. But Paige in the orchard with her baggy pants was transmitting something to the boys on the ground and they were the ones with precision now. Courtney hated her sister for deserting her this way. She truly hated her. And that made her feel very sick in her stomach.
Downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for her father to come home and adjudicate the bed fire, her mother’s pearly play earring sitting on a dish like poison, Courtney slumped and still—not a word now, hissed Ruth, not a sound—two things occurred to Courtney. The first thing was that Ruth had knocked before charging in, which she seldom did, and the second was that she must have been right outside the door the whole time, waiting for Courtney to do something bad.
Ruth stood now whisking rye bread crumbs into gravy at the stove top. Potatoes roasting in the oven. A soft, soothing pop-pop of gunfire from the den, where Paige, home from school, watched television. When their father came in at dinnertime, Ruth would then wash her hands of Courtney and her obstinate refusal to accept the love and nurturance so abundantly provided. She was finished being treated like the servant, she said, stirring the gravy, rehearsing. This was it.
But their father was in no mood for Courtney. Right away he tried to shoo her into the den with Paige. You stay where you are! said Ruth.
Listen, he needed to talk to Ruth, now, because he wasn’t going to let the bastards win.
Of course he wasn’t, said Ruth, but she squinted when he put his briefcase down on the chair beside Courtney. He might let the bastards win, her look said. He just might.
And it occurred to Courtney that Ruth washing her hands of all of them might be the answer her mother was giving to the prayer. Her mother would never do anything to hurt Paige, Courtney now understood, even if she did have to go to hell. Their mother had protected Paige against the boy ghost and the ocean. Like their mother, they only swam in the pool. And one time she’d found Paige in the dark rock cellar: I see you, darling. Come out now. She’d been missing for so long, their father had given up and feared the worst. Courtney had forgotten about all that.
Don’t move, Ruth said. Don’t move a muscle.
But to her father, Courtney had become invisible. The corrupt thieving assholes on the town council, the bastards at the Beach Club. He turned blood red. Courtney knew how this might unfold. Sometimes their mother had hidden them in the ocean house, hidden herself. But Ruth was too stupid and the house too small for really hiding. Courtney slithered down lower in her chair as a warning, staring at Ruth until finally she got the hint and relented. I’ll call you girls in a bit. Out! Out! Right this instant.
Turn it up, Courtney said in the den. Quick.
You, said Paige. But when the voices got louder in the kitchen, she threw Courtney the remote.
They lay low together on the sofa. On the television, a triple homicide and not a single suspect so far. The detectives were stumped. Courtney couldn’t follow the story.
Of the three boys still left in the orchard, the ones who hadn’t graduated last year, Courtney preferred the youngest, Eddie, with the leaky-blue-pen girlish lips. He was in the other sixth-grade class. On the playground, if she kept very still she could feel him watching her from within the clump of boys who shuffled around under the basketball hoop. The dark head of probably Eddie turned slightly toward her. She could feel it. Like an arrow. A dart.
She asked Paige, casually, through the veil of the loud TV, she was just wondering, if Eddie had ever said much about her.
About who? asked Paige, her head turning sideways, ready, for once, to give a straight answer. Who do you mean?
Courtney waited a moment. Paige was teasing her. Then she realized, no, she wasn’t. She hadn’t heard her. Well, I mean, does he mention Fiona Murphy? asked Courtney.
Not a prayer, snorted Paige. Good one.
In a little while, Ruth appeared in the door then closed it behind her. Turn that down, will you?
Courtney pushed the mute.
Set up the TV trays and I’ll bring in sandwiches. She was talking to them as if they were all at the Beach Club. And they were just another pair of snotty kids waiting for their fries.
The following Monday, Mr. Kemp from the orchard called Ruth on the telephone with terrible, shocking news about Paige. News that Ruth could scarcely believe much less repeat. Now Paige was the one sitting at the kitchen table waiting for justice. And Courtney was curled up on the sofa in the den still in her school uniform, eyes half-closed, watching a western. The long ruffled dresses on the saloon girls, the spark in their attitude, smiling for the deputy, who was a dunce, and longing for the sheriff, who was not. Bang, bang, bang, the crooked guys were run out of town. Most of them near dead. Now Paige was listening to Ruth’s threats, rehearsing what their father would say when he knew what she’d been doing in Mr. Kemp’s good clean orchard. People eat those apples!
Ruth was bug-eyed with excitement. And something in her enthusiasm, the lush happiness of it, made Courtney feel that she’d told on Paige herself. Maybe she had. For so long later she would still feel the mistake in her heart, as if she had carried a mean little boy there, someone who would take aim at Paige and harm her, hope for the worst. Over and over and over until she was dead.
During the commercial, Courtney made a casual trip to the kitchen for some milk. But Paige wouldn’t meet her eye. Outside in the yard, the holly bushes caught the first pink rays before the sunset. The phone rang, and their father’s voice spilled out of the receiver held close to Ruth’s ear.
Right away, Ruth said.
She punched the receiver back on the wall, rummaged in her purse for the car keys, and headed for the garage. Now Paige caught Courtney’s