BooksBarbecue
Back The Harpy Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. The Harpy
  2. Also by Megan Hunter
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. The Harpy
  8. Part I
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. 14
  23. 15
  24. 16
  25. 17
  26. 18
  27. Part II
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. Part III
  36. 26
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. 38
  49. 39
  50. Part IV
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. Back Cover

But I think of his sleeping, of the satisfied childish calm of it. Of the women at the party, Mary’s face as she turned to me on the street. Antonio: pity, not desire, I realize now, his features softening towards me again in my mind’s eye.

•

I open the photos app, and for a long time there is nothing. Or rather: there are the boys, our boys, the unfolding flowers of their faces, the mysterious shortening of their legs, their reverse growth, like time-­lapse plants across the screen, moving backwards from school age to irresistible toddlerhood. Did we realize, at the time, how beautiful they were? Do we realize now?

There are tears coming now, dropping over the phone’s screen. Waterproof, Jake had said when he first got it. You can immerse it up to ten metres deep. And I’d imagined Jake as a diver in a perfect Aegean sea, spinning downwards, the device cupped in his hands.

I wipe the moisture from the screen with my sleeve, breathe outwards, shudderingly, into the bad weather of my own crying. No photos. No evidence.

Then I see it: of course I do. A folder. Work pictures, it’s called. There is one last shining moment of hope, when I imagine microscopic images of bees: their honey sacs, their small, furred, long-­dead legs.

Instead: how to describe what I see? It is the end of my life, I think, the end of life like the end of the world in a children’s book, a flatness you can fall into, a waterfall that encircles me. Here is Vanessa, and Vanessa, and Vanessa, and Jake, and Jake and Vanessa, and Jake, and Vanessa and Jake. She is naked, of course, or wearing just a bra, or just underwear. He is shirtless, and naked, and alone, and with her.

I breathe. I keep breathing, taking air into my body, releasing it. I try not to do it too fast, try not to hyperventilate. That would not help me now. I select one photo: they are both naked, they are kissing, their bodies one sordid body made whole, visible from the waist up, the camera held by Jake’s arm above his head.

I click on the tiny box, the tiny arrow. I am shaking, but this makes no difference. The tiny box, the tiny arrow. Taking aim.

The list of options: email is the last, the original. I choose this one, complete the movement before I can stop myself: body memory, a mechanical gesture, as easy as riding a bike. I only need to enter one letter – f – and it appears: ­facultystaff@. So easy. Send. Message sent.

Undo, the phone offers me, kindly. Undo. But I do not undo anything. I let it go.

Part III

III

~

When everyone knows, surely they will say they saw it coming.