Dangerous Women

“You knocked it onto the floor,” Tonia replied.

She hadn’t. It was extra. She already had two on the bed. Her heart was beating wildly, pounding in her chest, her pulse racing. Should she challenge Tonia now, tear it out into the open and face it? Dare she? That would make it irrevocable. Then what? What was left of their relationship after that?

“No, I didn’t,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve still got two!”

Tonia smiled, as if that were exactly what she had wanted her to say. “You had three, dear. One to prop you up if you wished to read.” She gave a very slight laugh, dry and brittle. “Did you think I brought it in here to suffocate you with? Why on earth would I do that? Have you done something dreadful that I don’t know about? Is that why you don’t eat well, and wake up screaming in the night?” She stood up, still holding the extra pillow in her arms.

“No, of course it isn’t!” Susa

“Yes,” Tonia agreed softly. “Yes… I do!” And still carrying the pillow, she went out and closed the door silently, as totally silently as she had come.

Breakfast was miserable. Susa

“You look hungover,” she said briskly to Susa

Kate was undecided.

“Come on!” Tonia called. “It’s a wonderful morning! Crisp and sweet, and I can hear a blackbird singing. The wind’s coming in off the sea, and it smells like heaven.”

Susa

But she would rather not face it alone. “Come on, Kate!” she added with decision. “A big clean wind blowing through everything will do us a lot of good!”

Kate obeyed, reluctantly, and the three of them walked abreast up to the rise at the edge of the grass, over the heavy stones and at last onto the thin rim of hard sand at the edge of the tide. All of them were watching for the odd big waves, and ran very smartly up the stones when they came, always just avoiding getting wet.

They went toward the rocky point where the tidal pools were full of treasures. They reached the begi

It was a time when no words were necessary, but Tonia spoke.

“Magnificent, isn’t it? Elemental, like the great passions of life.”

Kate looked away. “I suppose so.” She was staring along the shore at the curve of the beach and the miles of coast with rocks and spurs and jagged standing outcrops as far as the eye could see.

“Oh, yes,” Tonia went on. “I can understand passion, even the lust that’s so strong it overtakes all morality, and you want something so badly you just take it, even if it belongs to someone else. Can’t you, Kate?”

Kate swung around, the wind blowing her hair across her face. She pushed it back impatiently. She was close to Tonia, but about three feet lower. “For God’s sake shut up about it!” she shouted. “You knew Ralph and I were in love! I’m sorry! He was your husband, and he loved me. I loved him too! We couldn’t both have him. You lost.”

“Both?” Tonia laughed, and control of it escaped her, her voice rising high and wild. “He’s dead, Kate! He died in a toilet in the state prison! He was stabbed in the belly, and bled to death there on the floor! Nobody near him! Not you, not me, not even dear Susa

Kate swayed as if she would lose her balance. “What do you mean, Susa

“Of course he didn’t like her!” Tonia shouted back, her eyes narrowed, her lips drawn tight over her teeth. “But he knew she was clever! He tried to use her, at the bank. But our dear little Susa

Kate wheeled around, almost overbalancing, her face white, eyes blazing with a passion of rage. She started down toward Susa

“I didn’t!” Susa

“You gave him up!” Kate said with incredulous fury. “It was you who betrayed Ralph!” But it was not a question. She had heard the knowledge in Tonia’s voice, and the guilt in Susa

“I didn’t betray him!” Susa

Kate hit her, hard, across the side of the face, hurling her off balance backward to the rock shelf again.

“You killed him!” she cried in a howl of anguish. “He loved me! I could have prevented him from doing that! If you’d come to me, I’d have saved him!” She was sobbing as memory, broken dreams and unbearable loneliness swept over her. “I loved him! I could have…”

“I know you loved him!” Susa

“Yes he did! He could have…”

“He could have… but he didn’t! He chose not to!”