Everything Beautiful Began After Part 19

Henry sat up and looked out to sea. "Maybe happiness is just finding the right people at the right time."

"But how do you find them?" George said.

"Just run them over."

George was then suddenly interested.

"But say you do find the right people-how do you love without smothering them?"

Henry looked uncertain.

"How do you not suffocate them with all the love you've built up in their absence?" George said.

Henry thought for a moment. "You don't," he said. "And that's the whole point-it works in a way it just wouldn't with other people."

After sleeping for a while, they woke up and saw that Rebecca was still in the sea. They strolled to the water, still chatting, and then swam to the rock upon which she was resting. George swam out a little farther and splashed around.

"I've been loving you from a distance," Henry said.

Her mouth broke into a smile, but her eyes didn't change-as though attached to thoughts beyond the moment. "I was thinking," she said.

Henry touched her cheek. "About what?"

Then George appeared. "I'll tell you soon," she said.

"I thought we could swim around there," George said.

They found they had swum into a cave that widened into a larger s.p.a.ce. The sand was dark and compact. Without carrying the sun on their backs, the cave felt almost cold. Their voices were louder and more distinct. The ceiling of the cave was ridged like the inside of a mouth.

The cave echoed with the breath of each wave, and through s.p.a.ces in the rock sunlight fell in columns of yellow.

They talked for an hour and then swam into the darker, deeper hollows of the cave, which were teeming with so much life that things brushed up against their legs. For a while they lay on their backs on the cool wet sand. Then the tide swept in and washed over them. They swam against the current and out toward the beach-to their jumble of possessions in the glow of early evening. They packed up without saying much.

When they reached the top of the cliff, George and Henry found the scooters and wheeled them quietly toward the road. Just as they were about to mount them, Rebecca stopped.

"I want one more look at the place where I was so happy," she said.

They turned around and walked back to the edge of the cliff.

Rebecca found George's hand. "I'm so glad we're working it out," she said.

The sun was beginning to fall behind distant rocks. It was very quiet and they stood for some time before anyone spoke.

"My whole life," Henry said, "I've felt as though I were missing something, that the happiness a.s.signed to me existed always at a distance, somewhere, in some place that was somehow beyond me-and when I moved, it too moved, always away but never so far as not to haunt me with the feeling of what it might be like to be happy."

"But with you," he said, turning to George and Rebecca, "I feel as though I am leading the charge toward death. Happiness and I have swapped places, and now it's pursuing me for its very existence."

"No matter what happens from this moment on," Henry announced. "Here, in this place, I will always have my defining moment of victory against sadness."

"I wonder if we'll ever come back here," Rebecca said.

"I think we will," George said.

Waves broke against the cliffs.

Rebecca fell into a deep, dreamless sleep on the boat back to Athens.

George and Henry chatted about the coming day, hypnotized by the lights that grew nearer and brighter as their boat skimmed home in the quiet dusk.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

Henry's apartment was warm and dark. It was not late, but they were all very tired and had nothing to say. Rebecca fell asleep again on the metro from Piraeus. George agreed to stay over if he could borrow some clothes. The professor was expected early the next morning.

Henry brewed some tea, but Rebecca and George were already asleep by the time it was ready. The smell of peppermint filled the kitchen. Henry drank a cup and thought about their day together. He checked on George and then went into his bedroom, where he shed his clothes silently and slipped into bed with Rebecca.

A scooter went past.

Light from the hall fell upon their bed like a spine.

Henry turned to kiss Rebecca and saw that she was awake.

She looked at him and stroked his face with her hand.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too."

Then he asked what she had been thinking about when he swam out to meet her.

She hesitated for a moment. "Can I tell you tomorrow?"

Henry smiled. "Is it something about George?"

"No, it's about you and me."

Henry blinked quickly.

"But not tonight, Henry, maybe tomorrow when we're alone."

"I think we should talk tonight," Henry said. "Otherwise I'll worry about it tomorrow."

Rebecca touched his arm. "Can we please wait?"

"George is dead asleep-I checked."

Rebecca closed her eyes. Henry turned abruptly to face the shutters.

"Are you mad at me?" she said.

"A little," Henry said. "If there's something you need to say-say it."

"I'm afraid to."

Henry turned to face her. "I've spent my whole childhood with people too afraid to speak-so if there's something you need to say, say it, Rebecca."

Rebecca sat up.

"So?" Henry said.

"George is really asleep?"

"He's dead asleep."

Rebecca covered her face with her hands. "It's serious."

"Whatever it is-I'm yours," he said. "I love you now."

"I'm afraid that if I tell you, you'll leave me and I'll turn out just like my mother and sister."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm pregnant."

Henry's face dropped.

"At least, I think I am."

"How?"

"I missed my period and then took a test," she said. "And the test was positive."

"Jesus. Jesus," Henry said.

Rebecca reached for him, but he pulled away into some private world.

"Henry," she said softly, but he seemed not to hear her. "Henry," she said again.

"It's awful," he said, "so awful, you'll hate me."

Rebecca threw back the covers and went over to the window, where she stood, a shadowy outline against the starlight.

"There's something I have to tell you that's awful," he said.

"Tell me then," she replied coldly.

His instinct at that moment was to hold her, but Henry found himself suddenly pinned by the sight of his baby brother, not asleep but dead. His parents screaming. They pulled at his body with scissors.

The only baby Henry had ever held was no longer living.

Rebecca watched him cry. When she finally came near, he escaped into the bathroom and vomited. Then he sat quietly on the tiles.

By the time he went back into the bedroom, determined to admit everything, Rebecca was asleep and it was nearing dawn.

Henry got into bed and held her so tightly that she opened her eyes and smiled.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

The professor kept his word and pulled up to the apartment at six o'clock sharp. The car was very loud. Henry heard it coming down the street while it was still far away and quickly dressed. He had spent most of the morning awake, staring at the window, watching the ghostly arc of pa.s.sing headlights lessen against the glow of dawn.

George was fully dressed when Henry emerged from his bedroom.

Henry combed his hair in the mirror then went to find his briefcase of notes.

Rebecca was still sleeping. Only half her body was covered by the sheet.

Henry imagined a life growing inside her.

He knew things like this could be taken care of in a few hours-like a tiny candle blown out with a puff. He wondered if it was what she wanted.

A moment before leaving the apartment, he hoped Rebecca would wake up so he could rea.s.sure her they would work it out together. But she was motionless and Henry let her sleep. George held the door. His face was slightly burned.

"Is Rebecca not coming?"

"She's still sleeping."

n.o.body talked on the drive up, so Professor Peterson turned on the radio. The sky was very bright. George rolled down his window.

If they had the child, where would they live? Would she give birth in France? And what if the child were born dead? What if the child came out in a tangle?

It would all take place within a single year.

Unsolvable questions swirled in Henry's mind.