Here on Earth

“Who the hell was that?” is what she thinks he’s shouting.

“Wait a second,” March says.

He’s really hurting her; any more pressure would probably snap her wrist bones.

“Hollis!” she says.

“Who was that on the phone?” He pulls her over to the dressing table, then shoves her against the mirror. The glass is icy cold against March’s bare skin. “Who were you going to meet?”

“It was Ken.”

“Don’t fuck with me, March.” His voice sounds completely empty.

“I’m not.” Her heart is beating much too fast, as if she were scared of him.

“I mean it.”

“So do I. It was Ken Helm on the phone.” Thank God it was only Ken, that’s what she’s thinking. That is the one and only thought she can manage. “That old tree on Fox Hill is dying and he wants me to meet him to okay some work.”

Hollis looks at her closely. He may not believe her yet.

“That’s not your property. Why would he ask for your okay?”

“He probably thought it was too trivial to bother you with.” March can feel herself sweet-talking Hollis. That’s what she’s doing, and it turns out she’s good at it. Who would have guessed? She’s not only a good liar, she is better than average at flattery. Already, Hollis is easing up on her wrists and she’s no longer pushed against the mirror. She doesn’t want to think about the way glass breaks, a jagged, unreliable shattering, so that you never can tell who will get hurt. “It’s a stupid tree. That’s all. He wouldn’t have thought you’d be interested.”

Hollis is still looking at her, but the situation no longer seems as dangerous. Maybe it never was, March thinks. It probably never was. He raises her wrists to his mouth, kissing first one, then the other, right at the most delicate spot, where the veins crisscross.

“I thought you went crazy on me,” March says, relieved.

It turns out that her legs are shaking. They probably have been all along, but she doesn’t realize this fact until he draws her closer to the edge of the dressing table. This is where Annabeth Cooper used to carefully apply her lipstick and rouge; she had three hairbrushes, all made of tortoiseshell, all imported from France.

Hollis pulls March nearer still, close enough so he can ease off her panties and fuck her right there, without saying a word, without asking.

“Listen,” he tells her when he’s done, “tell Ken Helm to do whatever he wants. I don’t mind paying to save that tree.”

When Hollis leaves, March stands at the bedroom window. He didn’t hit her, that’s all she knows. He wouldn’t do that to her. She watches Hollis get into his truck and drive away. She knows what people say about Belinda, but she doesn’t care. Hollis never loved Belinda, and she was a fool to marry him. This is what no one has ever understood, including Susie: He is different with March, and when all is said and done, he didn’t mean to hurt her. He’d never do that.

She’ll think about the yard at Fox Hill, that’s what she’ll do. She’ll think about the nights when she and Hollis sat out there, searching for privacy and for stars. Whose tree is it, March now wonders, that chestnut so old there isn’t another like it in the entire county? Does it belong to the man who owns the land where it grows, or the woman who looked into its branches every day for three years, or the person who can save it from blight? Does it belong to those doves who come back year after year to nest, or to the sky above, or to the earth in which its roots are settled?

March showers for a long time, hoping to get rid of those cold, blue marks Hollis left on her skin where he grabbed her and held on too tightly. When she faces the mirror she notices the white strands in her hair. She should go into town to the Bon Bon and have it colored, or buy a package of dye at the pharmacy, but she’s simply in no mood for that. Instead, she pulls her hair back into an elastic band; she gets dressed in an old thermal undershirt of Hollis’s and a pair of jeans, then pulls on her boots. What will happen to those foolish doves if the tree has to be chopped down? They should have been chased away in October; March should have shaken a broom at them until they were forced to flee from their own bad judgment.

When she’s dressed, March makes tea and toast with butter, but she’s really not hungry. The way he twisted her wrists hurt, and the way he fucked her hurt as well, but she’s not going to think about that. Nothing happened, after all. Not really. It’s just that some mornings you want breakfast, and some you don’t. When Hank comes downstairs, still half asleep and uncomfortable in March’s presence, she suggests he have her toast. As she washes up the few dishes in the sink, March can look through the window to see Gwen in a nearby pasture, exercising that old racehorse. From this distance they look so small, horse and girl both, like toys made of tin.