Agnes's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

Saturday morning Agnes was wiping down the kitchen counter when the doorbell rang. She was not expecting anyone. Tom was at the hardware store. Melissa was due for lunch at noon. Through the front window she saw a woman in a trench coat standing on the step, holding a covered dish. Mrs. Smith. Agnes had spent hours with her in the newspaper archive months back, asking questions she had not wanted to ask out loud. Mrs. Smith knew where Agnes had been for two years, and why. Agnes opened the door. "I heard you were back," Mrs. Smith said. She lifted the dish an inch. "Banana loaf. I won't stay." "Come in." "I really won't stay." Mrs. Smith stepped into the hall anyway. Her eyes moved over the coat rack, the two sets of shoes, the mail on the table with Tom's name and Agnes's name side by side. "So it's true." "It's true." "Bev at the salon said you were living here again. I told her she was wrong. I said, Agnes wouldn't just walk back after two years without a word to anyone." "I owe no one a word." Mrs. Smith set the dish on the hall table. "People will ask, Agnes. Melissa's expecting. That's the kind of thing folks connect. They'll want a story." "Then they can want." "I only mean —" Mrs. Smith adjusted her glasses. "If I heard by Thursday, Melissa will hear by Monday. From someone at the bakery. From a customer. You know how it goes." Agnes did know. She had counted on quiet. Quiet was the one thing she could not buy. "Sit down," Agnes said. Mrs. Smith sat at the kitchen table. Agnes poured two cups of coffee and set one in front of her. "Here is the story," Agnes said. "Tom and I were apart. Now we are not. The baby is coming and this house has a room for it. That is all of it. You may repeat that in exactly those words." Mrs. Smith blinked. "That's not much of a story." "It's the whole one. If you soften it or stretch it, it becomes gossip. If you say it plain, it becomes fact. Fact travels faster and dies sooner." Mrs. Smith looked at her a long moment. Then she nodded once. "Plain, then." "Plain." Mrs. Smith drank half her coffee and left the banana loaf on the counter. At the door she paused. "She's lucky, you know. Your girl." "She's tired," Agnes said. "Lucky is a word for later." At noon Melissa came through the back door with her coat open over her belly. She kissed Agnes's cheek and sniffed the air. "Someone brought banana loaf." "A neighbor," Agnes said. "She heard I was home. She wanted to be the first to know it herself." Melissa cut a slice and ate it standing. Agnes watched her chew and swallow. Nothing in her daughter's face had changed. The story had been set before it could set itself.