The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

room. She marched to the kitchen. He stood over the counter, gobbling some cheese and bread. My God, he’s eating, like there’s nothing wrong.

She glared at him. “I don’t ever want to see you again. You disgust me.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed.

She turned and stormed out the door. Tears erupted, clouding her vision. The cold wind chilled her face. She stumbled down the dark, deserted street, swiping a sleeve over her wet cheeks and nose.

As she picked her way through the quiet neighborhood, the wind whipped around buildings and whooshed down streets. She clutched her purse close to her side and leaned into the gusts, her steps ragged and unsteady. In the night’s clear skies, stars peeked out, flickering faintly. The occasional car whizzed by, indifferent and impersonal.

She remembered that time she’d wandered Boston’s streets after walking out on Nick. He’d come begging her to marry him. It was daytime then, and she’d harbored some hope. But this was night, and Nick had killed all hope—after he’d told her he could never love anyone else.

She boarded the streetcar, avoiding the eyes of the passengers hunkered in their seats. Only a smattering of others climbed aboard during the trip to Boston’s North Station.

She scanned the schedule board at the station. Yes, there was a B&M train leaving in the hour. She ambled to the ticket box and muttered, keeping her head down, “A ticket to Plymouth, please.”

She boarded as soon as the doors opened and took a window seat. As the train jerked out of the station and gained speed, swaying as it rounded curves, she surrendered to its movements. Months earlier, in the stifling heat of August, she’d traveled across the whole country, hardly able to endure the painfully long journey back to Nick. Now, with the bite of winter in the air, all she needed was a few hours to get away from him forever.

It was just past midnight when the train pulled into Plymouth.

She turned up the collar of her coat. She’d forgotten her wool beret. Well, she’d not need worldly comforts much longer. She walked along the deserted Holderness Road, crossing the Pemigewasset River and heading northeast. She knew these roads well. She and Nick had camped and hiked the Squam Lake area.

In the distance, she spied headlights. She tromped over the snowbank along the road’s edge and ducked down, waiting for the car—no, it was a truck—to pass. Then she continued on her way, through wisps of swirling snow, for about four miles, until she reached the Mt. Prospect trail and its sheltering trees. She tacked along the trail, deep into stands of pine. Leaping off the path to avoid leaving any sign of footsteps, she elbowed her way through the dense firs. She stumbled onto a meandering brook bed and followed it farther into the woods. Ah, there was a nook for resting. She sat down in the hollow and looked around. Nick would never find her here. Perhaps no one would.

She looked up at the sky, dark as the deepest ocean. Come to me, sweet oblivion. That’s all I want.

She reached into her pocket and took out the bottle of pills. She shook three pills into her hand and threw them into her mouth.

They stuck in her throat. She scooped up a handful of snow and swished it around her mouth, making enough moisture to swallow—three more pills, then four more pills, then the last nine.

Here I go, without a word. And you'll never know where I've gone. May you wonder about me for the rest of your years.

She inhaled the crisp night air and lay down in the hollow. Ah, escape—as silent and slight as a butterfly’s flight. She was free now. Around and above her, the wind swirled.

✭

Her memory reached back to a glossy green field, an emerald sea rippling up a rise. Butterflies flitted from blossom to bloom, beautiful butterflies of all the rainbow’s hues: some with gold wings and teardrop designs; a few as blue as kittens’ eyes; others bright as clouds or black as night and flecked or streaked in sherbet or white; everywhere tiny fairies with tissue-thin wings, bouncing lithely on the floral-scented wind.

Barbara gathered a handful of daisies and buttercups and stuck the stems in her thick chestnut hair. Standing still, she circled her arms over her floral-wreathed head. “Look, Daddy, I’m all flowers, and now the bees and butterflies are my friends.”

Her father laughed at that.

She skipped through the tall grass, and her arms sprayed dewdrops in sparkling arrays. Stopping, she craned her head back, looked up into the shimmering aquamarine sky, and watched the swallows soar and dip in daring flight.

Like a diver, she drew her arms overhead and plunged into the meadow’s waves, inhaling their hay-like scents and running her fingers over striped stems.

Her father called, “Barbara, where are you?”

She scurried ahead on all fours to hide from him. When she came upon a hollow, she hunkered down in it. It’s just me and the creatures of the sky and earth and all the plants that live on it, she thought. A black beetle scurried around towering stalks and over blisters of earth. Poor, scared beetle—a monster was chasing it. “Run fast, little beetle, hide if you can,” she whispered.

Then her father bounded up to her—“Here’s my little butterfly.” He lifted her by the arms and twirled her around until her ears buzzed with rushing air.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

HELEN

New York, December 1943

It’s been four long years since Barbara disappeared. Countless mornings, I’ve awakened crying, yearning to see my beautiful daughter. I refuse to believe she’s dead. A spirit as buoyant as hers couldn’t just be snuffed out, not without some trace. I hope she escaped to some personal paradise.

But when I look back on the sadness of Barbara’s life, I cannot escape the conclusion that I am complicit: guilty of putting myself first; guilty of living through Barbara’s prodigious talent; guilty of using her to help me through my own miseries.

I’ve asked myself: