Beneath the Pines

Beneath the Pines

Proglogue

I

t was the first week of April, 1958, and gray clouds sagged over the field behind the McDonnells’ house. Mary Alice was running along the edge of the woods, sprinting as fast as she could in her loafers and wool skirt. The damp grass licked her ankles, and the cool spring air thrust its way deep into her lungs. She felt a burning in her chest but did not slow down.

Michael ran behind her. Under normal circumstances he could have caught up to her easily, but she was running with unusual speed.

Something had gotten into her. They had been sitting in his parked car when she threw open the door and began running across the yard to the back of her house. At first he called after her but she didn’t turn so he had to follow.

A sliver of sunlight peaked out from behind the clouds low in the afternoon sky and the trees cast long shadows on the wet grass.

Michael’s elongated silhouette followed Mary Alice’s. She turned from the field to the forest and he relaxed. This was an admission of defeat. The forest was their place, where they had always met. He would catch her in the woods.

It was darker beneath the canopy of trees, and the dense tangle of broken twigs and wet undergrowth forced Mary Alice to slow down. The soggy air smelled of rot and growth, accented by pine needles. She was panting now but continued forward, even as 11

branches scraped her legs and arms. She felt possessed. She couldn’t remember exactly why she had started running from Michael but felt she must run from him – run from herself, even, for there was nothing that he wanted to do to her that she didn’t want him to do.

This was not a game; she did not feel light-hearted, was not playing hard to get. Of course she knew he would catch her, but she ran to postpone the inevitable catching.

Her lungs were growing weak and her legs were shaking. As her pace slowed, Mary Alice heard Michael’s footsteps nearing. She forced herself forward, teetering as though drunk and heaving for air. Her pale cheeks had turned hot and red, and sweat dripped down her forehead, making her eyelids flutter. A large pine trunk loomed in front of her. She knew she could not make it past the tree. She stopped moving, drew a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

Michael stopped just behind her. She felt the heat of his body and then his arms wrapping around her waist. They stood still, both panting and sweaty. She leaned back against him, her head just below his chin. She could feel his heart beating through his cotton shirt and smelled his familiar scent of skin and sweat. And then it didn’t matter what had come before or what was going to happen next.

All that mattered was his hand on her stomach, her head against his neck; that she was sixteen and anything was possible.

Michael tightened his grip around her, and Mary Alice smiled because she knew she had been caught.

12

Chapter One

M

ary Alice McDonnell often thought that fourth period was the longest of her day. Her Honors Biology I students were comparatively responsive and eager – if not to learn, then at least to make parent-pleasing, college-caliber grades. But they were also hopelessly unfocused, hormonally addled, and impatient for lunch, all of which presented a formidable challenge to the education process.

She was introducing chapter sixteen of their battered, eight-yearold biology textbooks – Basic Genetics – and had covered the dry erase board in her rudimentary drawings of black and white sheep, which were actually undulating ovals with little sticks for legs, connected by arrows and lines to demonstrate the principles of inheritance.

Her classroom was neat and orderly as always. Behind the rows of blue heavy-duty plastic desks stood five lab stations, out of use at the moment due to the non-experimental nature of chapter fifteen.

The white cinderblock walls were covered in posters and diagrams providing colorful explanations of photosynthesis, animal kingdoms, and biological diversity in the Amazonian rainforest. A faint smell of disinfectant hung over the room.

Mary Alice herself was as tidy and sensibly put together as her classroom. Her long cotton sweater was ample enough to cover any possibly bulging areas around her stomach and hips and draped 13

casually over gray wool-polyester blend slacks. She wore no makeup or jewelry, sensible flats, and had kept the same hairstyle for the past ten years – short, choppy, and naturally gray, almost the same color as her large wide-set eyes. She looked every day of her sixty-one years but had aged gracefully, making no attempts to fight the natural processes at work.

“So if these two sheep have a lamb together, what color will it be?” Mary Alice’s thick alto resonated across the room, bouncing off the linoleum floors. Twenty-nine pubescent faces stared back at her or in her general direction. Except for one Korean girl, the class was completely white and had the same last names – Lester, Wade, Harmon, Sowers, Boyd – as Mary Alice’s own high school classmates forty years ago. The girls these days all exposed their belly-buttons in low-cut jeans and high-cut t-shirts. The boys slouched in baggy clothes.

Some hands went up. “Teddy?” she called out, pointing to a skinny redhead in the first row.

“Black?”

“That’s right.” Eight minutes were left in class, and Mary Alice felt confident with the kids’ understanding of the lesson – those who had stayed awake through it, anyway. She began erasing the blobs in order to write a homework assignment on the board. A shuffling sound spread across the room as the students began whispering, putting away notebooks, and shifting in their seats.

“All right class, for tomorrow answer the odd questions at the end of the chapter.” The shuffling sounds rose in volume. Mary Alice didn’t bother telling them to be quiet; she too was eager to get to lunch. She walked back to her desk on the side of the room. As she sat down, the crackle of the intercom brought a hush to the room, and she looked up at the cranky old speaker in the corner above her desk. The chirpy twang of the school secretary sputtered through the intercom.

“Mrs. McDonnell, you have an urgent message in the office.”

The class twittered, hopeful that she might leave them unattended.

14

Mary Alice considered for a moment but stayed seated at her desk.

She seriously doubted the urgency of any message that could be waiting for her and resented the class’s assumption that they would get out early because she’d been called away. “Settle down,” she called out in a threatening tone. They continued to shuffle around but became quieter. “You can get a start on your homework during the next five minutes. No talking.” A few of them began working.

Others stared determinedly into space. Mary Alice took out her lesson plans and jotted down notes.

At the sound of a knock, the students looked back at her, eyes shining in anticipation of the coming interruption. Mary Alice stood, but before she could get to the door, it opened from outside. It was Elma herself, a broad middle-aged woman, looking at Mary Alice with pity and fear. This was a common expression for Elma, so Mary Alice didn’t think much of it, except that it was strange, her coming down to the classroom like this.

“Hi, Mrs. McDonnell,” said Elma, peeking behind Mary Alice into the classroom. “Can I have a word with you?”

“Of course.”

“Out here?”

Mary Alice stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. Now the class would erupt and there would be no stopping the relentless flow of adolescent energy.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” began Elma. Shifting her weight from side to side in her navy blue corduroy jumper and white t-shirt with pink flowers crocheted around the neck. She was nervous.

“Yes?” “It’s your mother, dear. She passed away this morning. Dr. Brunswick called the school to get the news to you. I’m so sorry.”

Mary Alice stared at Elma’s large dimpled face, wondering how to react. “What happened?”

“She went in her sleep,” Elma took Mary Alice’s right hand and began patting it. Elma’s hand was plump and dry. Mary Alice wanted 15

desperately to pull hers away.

“Dr. Brunswick said she seemed very peaceful.” Elma gave her a sad smile. “Mr. Conner said to tell you to go on home at lunch. He’ll find someone to cover your fifth and sixth period.”

Mary Alice straightened up and retrieved her hand. “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can take care of everything after three o’clock.”

Elma raised her eyebrows. “Don’t worry about it, Mary Alice. Just go on home.”

“Really, I’m fine.” Mary Alice sharpened her voice. “Thank you for letting me know, Elma. I should get back to my class.” She turned before Elma could say anything else.

The class was rowdy as she had expected. “Quiet!” she thundered, and they obeyed immediately, sensing extraordinary circumstances in her tone. She went back to her desk and lesson plans. The bell rang and the class scrambled up out of their seats and into the hallway.

After a moment’s commotion, they were all gone, and the room was silent. She looked up from her planner and around at the empty desks. Lavinia was dead, and she didn’t know what to think about it.

The wall clock ticked loudly above her desk, and she noticed a lone black sheep in the corner of the board, which she had neglected to erase.

Mary Alice had not spoken to her mother in over forty years. She

left home at age sixteen and never returned to her parents’ house – not once for a visit or dinner or funeral or anything. She would in fact go two miles out of the way to avoid passing the place on the drive from Harveyville to Pine Ridge. Lavinia, likewise, had avoided Mary Alice, and even though mother and daughter lived only fifteen miles apart they managed to exist in completely different spheres.

Occasional encounters were inevitable; the last one had occurred in 1993 at Kroger’s. Mary Alice saw her mother in the produce section and promptly left the store, abandoning her cart full of groceries in 16

front of the tomatoes. She never knew if Lavinia had seen her as well.

Mary Alice’s hatred of her mother was a solid, bulky thing that she had carried around for most of her life. It was rooted in personality but had flowered due to specific events upon which Mary Alice preferred not to dwell. This hatred flourished in place of the memories that she had carefully banished from her mind. Therefore, even though they had been estranged for so long, Lavinia’s death left an emptiness in her where that hatred belonged. As long as her mother had been alive, Mary Alice could continue to resent her. And she did, resented her for everything; every flaw in her own existence could be traced to her mother, of course. And how easy to blame everything that was wrong with herself now on what had come before in her past. Lavinia’s passing was the end of her own personal Cold War; the enemy against which she had silently struggled for so long was gone. It was lonely. She couldn’t give up the hatred now anyway; Mary Alice had grown up and old around it, and it was connected to too many essential organs to be removed.

Lavinia’s lawyer, John Dupont, called that evening. He explained that the will had taken care of all the funeral preparations, and Reverend Hutchinson at Pine Ridge United Methodist Church had already made arrangements at a local funeral home. Mr. Dupont cleared his throat. “You weren’t mentioned in the will.”

Mary Alice almost laughed. “Of course not, I wouldn’t have expected it. Just out of curiosity, though, who is mentioned?”

“Well, she left a sizable amount to the Pine Ridge Methodist Church, but the majority, including the house, is going to her granddaughter, Claire. Your niece, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about Claire.” Mary Alice could almost hear Mr. Dupont’s disapproval in the silence which followed. “Have you spoken to her?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, she is out of the country at the moment, studying in France. I spoke to her mother.”

Mary Alice tried to remember how old Claire would be now. She 17

was the child of Mary Alice’s little brother, Truman, who had died of stomach cancer when Claire was only a baby. Her mother had raised her in California, and through the years, Mary Alice had slowly stopped sending Christmas cards or receiving family update letters.

On the day of the funeral, Mary Alice went to school, though she knew some of her colleagues’ eyebrows would be raised. In a town as small as Harveyville, folks noticed when you skipped your mother’s funeral. But Mary Alice felt it would be hypocritical to attend, like only going to church on Easter. She taught third period Honors Biology II just like normal. Only once, she glanced at the clock as she lectured and paused for a moment, hardly perceptible to her students, thinking, my mother’s body is in the ground.

Each morning she was greeted with the smell of high school – sweaty teenage bodies, cheap citrus scents, musty clothes, and pencil lead. In the afternoons, she returned to her cozy, one-story brick house on the edge of downtown Harveyville, worked in her garden, and took walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes she got dinner with one of her friends on the faculty. Other nights, she watched TV. But the loneliness tugged, the hatred sagged, and Mary Alice felt tired without reason. She didn’t even dare think her mother’s name, but the not thinking was exhausting.

One evening the phone rang. “Hello, Mary Alice?” said the bright, cheerful voice which had interrupted “Trading Spaces.”

“Yes?” “This is Claire McDonnell, your niece.”

Mary Alice registered some surprise, but then this wasn’t altogether unexpected. “Well, hello, Claire. Where are you calling from?”

“New York, I’m in grad school at NYU.” “Oh, I heard you were in France.”

“Yeah, that was just for spring break. I was doing some research for my thesis. Are you still teaching?”

“Oh, yes. Retirement’s a few years off yet.”

“Well, I called to let you know that I’m coming to Virginia next month.”

18

“That’s nice,” said Mary Alice, but her voice lacked interest.

“I’ll be spending the summer, and I hope we can get to know each other. I hate that I’ve never met any of my father’s family.”

“Well, I suppose I’m all that’s left.”

C laire called Mary Alice on the very day of her arrival in June, and

they made a tea date for the next afternoon. Her niece arrived on Mary Alice’s doorstep with a wide smile of sparkling toothpastecommercial teeth. Mary Alice shook Claire’s thin, limp hand.

“It’s so great to finally meet you!” her niece said, and Mary Alice instinctively leaned back from her, nervous that she would try to move in for a hug. But Claire just smiled. She smiled a lot. She made small chirping noises as Mary Alice showed her around the house, oohing and aahing at the solid oak hutch in the dining room and collection of throw pillows on the couch. Mary Alice suspected her niece of an essential optimism that she found immediately tiresome.

“I love your house!” Claire exclaimed, and then giggled. All of her statements sounded like exclamations and were followed by giggles.

Mary Alice had no patience for giggling.

“Thank you,” she replied. “How was the drive down from New York?”

“Oh, not bad. I took my time, though – lots of coffee breaks.”

Mary Alice nodded as she led Claire to the living room without bothering to look back at her niece.

A half-hour later, they were sitting across from each other at Mary Alice’s kitchen table but had nothing to say, having already covered all of the obvious bases. Mary Alice had told Claire about Pine Ridge and her students at Harveyville High, and Claire had told Mary Alice about New York and her graduate coursework. She talked fast, out of what appeared to be extreme nervousness. “It was a really interesting class,” Claire rambled on, seemingly unstoppable.

“Well, I mean, I find the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic really interesting, though I guess not everyone would.” Mary Alice made 19

a face which must have indicated that she was one of those people who was not fascinated by the political climate of seventeenthcentury Holland because Claire stopped speaking. Mary Alice didn’t have the will to make anymore small talk.

Claire was visibly anxious, holding a cup of tea in one hand, while fidgeting with her necklace with the other. She was pretty in an unexceptional way, with slightly droopy blue eyes and clear, peachy skin. By far, her most striking feature was long, luxurious auburn hair. Mary Alice was wearing a cardigan despite the warm summer weather, in part to cover her thickened middle area which once upon a time before menopause had actually been a waist as slender as her niece’s belly was now. She stared down into her tea cup, as though the bits of leaves might divine to her something to say, and then looked back up at Claire. The girl was tugging at her necklace with such absentminded determination that Mary Alice felt sure it would break. Her niece’s anxiety was unbearable, and Mary Alice forced another desperate attempt at dialogue. “So, you’re getting your PhD?” “Yes. In history. I want to spend the summer writing my thesis.

I never really figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I just stayed in school. I guess I like having my life on a semester schedule.”

Claire smiled, desperate for approval, like a panting puppy. Then she giggled. Mary Alice stared back at her with a blank face.

“When did your summer vacation start?” asked Claire.

“Last week. Summers off – still the best reason to become a teacher.”

“Do you work at all during the summer?”

“I used to, but not these days. I garden mostly.” Mary Alice sounded old even to herself.

Claire cleared her throat and looked around at the white kitchen cabinets. After a moment of silence, she looked back at Mary Alice.

“I feel a little uncomfortable.”

Mary Alice was relieved to hear her admit the obvious. “Well, 20

these are strange circumstances.”

“I don’t really have a right to my grandmother’s house. I only met her twice in my life.”

“You have as much right to that house as anyone. Don’t worry, I have no interest in it, whatsoever.”

“I’ll be happy to give you anything you want from it. I’m sure it all has much more meaning to you than to me.”

“I don’t want any of it.”

Mary Alice finished off her tea and put down the cup. “I’m glad you came by, Claire. We’ll have more opportunities to get to know each other over the summer, I suppose.”

Claire stood. “I would love it if you could show me around Pine Ridge sometime.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Claire stepped onto the brick walkway in front of the house, stopped, and turned back.

“I almost forgot. The strangest thing – I met someone from Pine Ridge in New York. He knew your family years ago. His name’s Michael Harrison – does it ring a bell?”

Mary Alice stood perfectly still for fear of losing her balance. She hadn’t heard his name spoken in years, and the force of its impact left her feeling faint. She managed to mumble, “Yes. We went to high school together.”

“That’s what he said! Here, he wanted me to give this to you.”

Claire fished around in her pocketbook for a small square of folded white paper. She handed it to Mary Alice, who tried desperately to keep her hands from shaking as she opened it. Written in blue fountain ink in a neat script was Michael Harrison’s email address.

Mary Alice looked as if she thought it might bite her if she made any sudden movements.

She looked up at Claire. “Thank you.”

“I’ll call to set up a time for you to show me around.” Moving quickly, Claire leaned forward and hugged her aunt. Mary Alice stiffened.

21

She retreated into the house, glad to be away from her cheerful niece. As she collapsed onto the couch, Mary Alice realized that she hadn’t thought to ask how Claire had met him or what he was doing in New York. What was he doing alive and present in her life at all, for that matter? It had been decades since she had stopped thinking about him – wondering where he was and if he might someday return – a foolish pastime, which she had given up along with her youth. Now that she was old and rid of him, she did not want him to come back. Years of careful forgetting had already been undone in the short time it took her niece to say his name aloud, and Mary Alice did not want to remember.

22