I gently pull his door closed and dawdle in the hallway, preparing for reentry from the lovely quiet cocoon of his bedroom. I hear their voices, low and serious, as I reach the nook at the end of the staircase. I hesitate before I enter the living room when I hear him say, “It’s the deepest regret of my life.”
I turn my back to the built-in bookshelves near the bottom of the stairs and stand flat against the wall, bare feet on the hardwood floor.
She says, “It’s so nice to hear you young fellows talk like that. When JJ was born, John was out in the waiting room, smoking and pacing. Babies were women’s work. So if he showed up late, I don’t even think I would’ve noticed.”
“Oh, she noticed all right.”
“It’s different these days. Men and women expect different things than they used to.” Kay sighs loudly enough that I can hear it. “But you were late, huh?”
Eric laughs at that and explains that he wasn’t simply late; he missed it altogether. He tells her he didn’t remember anything about the day and had to piece it together from what others told him later. “The guys I work with told me that all of a sudden, toward the end of the afternoon, I jumped up from my cube, yelled something about having a baby, and all they saw was me running down the stairwell. Then, less than three minutes later, they see me burst back into the work area, rip open my top drawer, throw Post-it notes and a stapler into the air, grab my keys, and sprint to the garage.”
Kay giggles.
“And I found out from the doctors, about two days later, that an eighteen-wheeler hit me head-on, and I broke my leg and had some internal bleeding.”
I can’t make myself walk into the room. I find it interesting what he doesn’t say. He never describes the accident as his fault. And that’s always how he talks about his injuries: a broken leg and some internal bleeding. That’s the dinner-party anecdote version. Not a clue as to the real extent of what happened.
She says, “That sounds pretty bad.”
“Well, it was kind of touch-and-go there for a while. I actually died on the gurney in the X-ray room. No pulse, no breath, nothing.”
He never talks about that. To anyone. He’s got a touch of bravado in his voice, but I hear the confessional tone underneath. He obviously wants her to know this. With difficulty, I swallow the lump in the back of my throat.
“Yep, they split me wide open. You know how on TV, they always use that thing that looks like a reverse bear trap, stick it in the sternum and crack it open?”
“That’s not always what they do,” Kay says.
“Right.” He sounds impressed. “That’s what I was going to say. They only do that in surgery. So I don’t have one of those scars. Mine is under here,” and he picks up his shirt and shows her the scar from the gash under his ribcage.
Long pause. The air goes stale.
“Oh.” Her voice is thick and syrupy.
I poke my head around the corner. I see her fuzzy gray hair but not her face. Eric’s back is to me. He doesn’t speak, but he’s still holding his shirt up, high, so his elbows are pointing to the sky.
She clears her throat and asks, “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
“You know, my friend Barbara, she’s a nurse, and she told me there weren’t too many young men walking around with this kind of scar.”
Her words don’t match the tightness in her voice. It sounds like she’s trying hard to make her vocal chords do something they can’t. “Most people with this scar don’t live to show it to anyone.”
“You okay?” he asks, relaxing his arms a bit.
She closes her eyes. “John had this scar.”
No response.
“The EMT did that to him, even before they got to the hospital. He had smoke in his lungs, but one of the boys told me his heart stopped as they were loading him into the ambulance. The EMT was JJ’s best friend. Couldn’t stand to lose John, too. Cut him open right there, before they pulled away from the scene.”
The longer she talks, the lower her voice. “They cut him,” she repeats.
“Did you see it?”
“At the hospital. They cleaned him up and had him all tucked in like a baby, but I pulled back the sheets. I had to look at all of him. I don’t think it sunk in until I saw that horrible cut, right there, just, just …”
In a heavy voice, he says, “Just like this?” and raises his arms again.
She nods slowly but doesn’t say anything.
My lurching stomach crashes like the wave of a hurricane, trying to erode the seawall of my stance. I’m afraid to move. I can barely breathe. I can’t take my eyes off them. I hear a low noise, almost like a sob.
When Kay asks, “Is it okay?” she’s not asking whether the injury has healed yet.
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Kay Robberson is feeling Eric’s scar, running both her hands from one side of his chest to the other, and swaying her head with the movement. She’s almost in a spell, with her hands together and her eyes closed and tears escaping down the lines in her face. She’s murmuring something, but I can’t make out the words. My eyes lock on them, as if I’m in a trance.
This continues for a full minute, maybe two, with him holding up his shirt and her swaying like that. She ducks her head lower, and I have to stand on my tiptoes to see. The color drains out of the room as her face moves near his scar, with her hands still on his flesh, and she holds her cheek against his chest. I can’t see the expression on his face. He bends his head forward, like he’s watching, with care, the same way I used to watch Toby while he slept in my arms. He’s still holding his shirt up above his nipples, frozen in the pose, elbows still crooked high.
A shudder starts in the back of my neck and snakes its way down my spine. I retreat into the safety of the nook and shake my head until I can see color in the world again—the amber tones of the hardwood floor under my feet, the cinnamon in my toenail polish. Gradually, I regain the sensation of the cool floor on my feet; the reality of my physical position in the world occurs to me like a seeping stain.
There has to be a logical explanation for this. Something I haven’t considered. Something I don’t know about her. I nod my head slowly, starting to understand. Poor Kay. She’s got dementia. Like that rant the other day. I wonder if she even remembers it now. Clearly, she’s delusional. Completely disoriented.
Poor Eric. I wonder if he even realizes what’s going on. How awkward for him. I don’t want to make it worse, but I wish I could give him a heads-up. I hope he tries to bring her out of it without embarrassing her. I’ll wait until the moment passes.
I can’t stand it. I poke my head around the corner again.
Eric finally lets go of his shirt and takes her head between his big hands, his long fingers in her gray hair, his face close to hers. She’s crying now and won’t look at him.
It’s awful. He’s always so uncomfortable when women cry.
“Hey.” He says it so intimately that I do a double take. He doesn’t sound uncomfortable. He doesn’t sound one little bit uncomfortable.
“Look at me,” he tells her, and she moves her head a smidgen. “In the eye.”
She balls her hands into fists and starts pounding on his chest. “Why?”
“You know why.”
I want to scream, No she doesn’t, Eric. What are you doing to this poor woman? I lean in to get a better view.
She moves her hands up to her cheeks, on top of his hands, gripping them hard. She slowly shakes her head from side to side, and she’s moaning something, but I can’t make it out. No? Is she saying no?
He starts nodding, in the same rhythm as her head shaking. “Kay. I’m here. I’m right here.”
It’s like watching a snake charmer. Bizarre. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s holding her head and won’t let her go. They stay like this for a long time. A really long time. He nods, yes, yes, and she’s crying and shaking her head, no, no, and he keeps nodding.
I feel as if a sticky spider w
eb has fallen on me, gluing me to my spot, and all I can do is stand there, mesmerized, agreeing with Kay, shaking my head right along with her. No. No. No. Whatever it is, no.
Finally, her head stops shaking. She looks at him, straight on. Her expression is still. Her hands are still gripped tight, on top of his. They’re locked together.
I hold my breath. My pulse pounds audibly against my temple, lub-dub … lub-dub …
She blinks her swollen lids. When she speaks, her voice reminds me of an eel emerging from a dark, dim cave.
“Are you … ?”
He nods.
“… John?”
His entire face cracks into a grin. “I’m right here, sugar.”
She clasps her hands tighter, still on top of his, on the sides of her face.
“I’m right here.” He says it again, with no hesitation. “I’m right here.”
She swipes his hands off her face, and for a split second, it almost looks like she’s about to kiss him full on the lips, and I can’t tell whether I see my husband pull away from her or if I simply absolutely need to see that.
I take a rapid and deliberate step into the living room.
“Eric?”
Before he can answer me, Kay reels and slaps him, open handed, right across the cheek.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
*
WHAAAAT?
Ow!” He’s holding the side of his face, turning toward her. “What was that?”
I stride into the middle of the living room, holding my arms out like a traffic cop. “What’s going on here?”
“Git!” Kay jumps off the sofa. “You get away from me!” She backs up into the hallway, looking over her shoulder, toward the guest-room door.
He’s struggling to stand, but his foot gets caught between the cushions. He finds his footing and takes a step toward her, away from me. “Talk to me!”
She bucks backward and shrieks, “No!” as she runs into the bedroom and slams the door.
I follow her before Eric can go much farther. He obeys my arm signal to halt.
“Kay?” I say into the closed door.
“I shouldn’t be here,” comes the muffled response. “I shouldn’t have come.”
I can’t tell if she’s afraid or pissed or what. Hell, I don’t even know what to think or how I feel. I stepped into the living room on sheer instinct—some inexplicable urge to interrupt whatever was passing between them, an unconscious reaction to protect what’s mine. Now I’m having the adrenaline shakes. I can’t tell if I’m afraid or pissed or what.
I don’t know if I should try to talk to her or Eric first. I look over at him. He’s not afraid or pissed; he looks like he’s just woken up.
I lead him back over to the sofa. “Eric? What happened?”
Suddenly, Kay’s door explodes with energy, the doorknob slamming into the wall. “Stay back,” she hisses at Eric through clenched teeth. Her suitcase, only half-zipped, knocks over a porcelain lamp that shatters as it hits the hardwood. I hear Toby call out, and I step toward the stairs in case I need to go to him, which means I also step directly in Kay’s warpath.
She bumps me, hard, as she jerks past. My head bangs into the corner of the stairway.
“Ow!”
She grunts, throws her arm out like a left hook to reposition the purse sliding off her shoulder, and doesn’t slow down.
“Hey!” Eric calls out, reaching for her arm and missing her by a centimeter. “Don’t you run out on me!”
She whips open the front door, turns, and spits, “How dare you!”
I reach for the puppy as he bolts past me. Before Eric or I can get to the open front door, we hear the ignition. He calls after her several times before he decides to chase the puppy. I stand in the driveway, watching Kay’s escape from Oasis Verde.
I don’t know why she came, and I sure as hell don’t understand why she’s running away now.
Eric returns with the puppy. I have to touch the little guy just to make sure I didn’t make it all up. That fifteen pounds of squirmy white fur is the only concrete evidence of Kay’s visit. The night air is still, the park empty. It feels like I’ve just lived an episode of The Twilight Zone. Neither of us says anything for a long moment.
“Umm …”
“Yeah.” He turns and dumps the puppy in my arms. “You stay with Toby.”
“What about you?”
Without a word, he makes a beeline for the house, leaving me on the sidewalk. I wait, expecting him to return. Instead, our Prius squeals past me, Eric hunched over the steering wheel, apparently in hot pursuit of Kay. The puppy whimpers and strains to join the chase, his toenails scraping against my belly.
“No!” I clamp him tight against me as I pivot a hard turn toward the still-open front door, determined not to let a puppy get the best of me.
CHAPTER FORTY
*
WHO ARE YOU RIGHT NOW?
The house looks like thieves have ransacked it. I put the puppy in his crate and start to sweep up the remains of the broken lamp. My heart is pounding in my ears as I bend over to replace the broom and dustpan in the pantry closet. I stare at my sofa, half expecting to find a bloodstain, but all I detect are telltale indentations on the pillows. I place my hand on one, but there’s no trace of body heat. Eric’s phone is on the coffee table. I have no idea where he is or how long he’s been gone or how long he’ll be gone. I have no idea what to say to him when he returns.
I turn toward the guest room as if I’m in a trance. I strip the bed and cringe as I collect the bath towel, still damp from Kay’s shower. An unfamiliar toothbrush lies askew in my sink. I swipe it into the trash, pick up the linens, and start the washing machine. A shiver runs down my spine, and I stand in the laundry room until I hear the water reach the fill line and the agitator begin to churn. I go to the kitchen and wipe down the countertops until my fingers are sore and the smell of bleach makes me dizzy.
As much as I’m supposed to want Eric to show up and explain it all away, in my gut, I don’t want to be here when he comes back. I’m not sure who’s going to show up. I put down my sponge and take the stairs, two at a time, on the way to Toby’s room. Just as I’m about to wake him up, I realize Eric has the car. Unless I’m willing to take Toby and carry him—where?—in the middle of the night? No.
I’m stuck here.
That’s when I finally start to cry. I back out of Toby’s room but stop short of my own bedroom. I end up a crumpled mess in the hallway, trying not to allow full sentences to form in my head. Trying not to admit how scared I am.
I hear the garage door open. I jump to my feet, my back pressed against the wall, my eyes wild. Footsteps in the hallway. On the stairs. He knows exactly where I am.
I dart as far as I can from Toby’s room before he sees me. I fumble to find a pose that won’t give me away. He’s standing right in front of me, still not saying a word.
I choke out, “Did you catch her?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t need you jumping my shit about it. She got away, all right?” He goes into the bedroom—my bedroom—and mutters, “You coming or what?”
My stomach plunges. On sheer instinct, I turn and sprint to Toby’s room, my footsteps slapping against the hardwood floor. Before I can get there, my bedroom door seems to explode as the doorknob bangs a hole in the wall.
“Dammit,” he bellows, yanking the door free. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I whirl toward him and hiss, “Lower your voice.”
“Damn, woman. After all I been through today.”
I do a double take.
He mocks me with his own double take, complete with a sneer.
I shake my head.
“Quit looking at me like I got two heads. It’s just me.”
“Is it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who are you right now?”
His eyes narrow. He strides toward me. I wi
sh I could suck those words right back down my throat, but there they are, hanging in the air between us like a toxic gas. I step forward so he won’t come closer.
“See for yourself. Look at me,” he says, his voice eerie and insistent. “Right in the eye.”
I can’t do it.
A jet stream of fright hits me full-on, square in the sternum, knocking me down, backing me up to Toby’s door. One knee slams on the hardwood floor as I twist and bolt upright again. I can’t breathe. I pluck Toby out of his bed and hide his face in my shoulder.
I lurch toward my backpack, jam my feet into flip-flops on my way to the garage, and whip open the driver’s door to squeeze behind the wheel with Toby writhing in my lap. I start the car over Toby’s cries, my headlights glaring at the stranger’s shadow haunting the doorway. I push the button to the garage-door opener, and the chainsaw buzzing noise seems an appropriate soundtrack that both echoes and amplifies my fear. The three seconds it takes for the door to open feel like three hours.
Almost as if John Robberson is acknowledging that I finally realize the extent of his invisible influence on my life, he decides to let me go. If he wanted to trap me inside the garage, he could do it with one push of that square white button only inches from his shoulder. If he wanted to burn the house down with me in it, he could’ve done it. John Robberson has been calling the shots for a long time.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
*
WHAT HAS CHANGED?
I’m worn out by the time I reach Pa’s house. I see the lights flip on. I tell him we need a place to stay tonight, and that’s enough for him. He pulls out the sofa bed for Toby. I have nothing with me, no clothes, not even a toothbrush, so he digs around until he finds a new one in a drawer, still in the plastic wrapper from the dentist’s office.
He asks if I want him to throw my clothes in the wash while I sleep. I bury my face in his shoulder like I did when I was a little girl. My nose is runny, and he rocks me back and forth while we’re still standing.
“All right, baby girl. All right. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
On the way to his second bedroom, I ask if he has any sleeping pills. He retrieves a prescription bottle, which alarms me a bit since I was expecting an over-the-counter option. I’m too tired to question it. I take one and lie down to wait for the chemical blanket of drowsiness to envelop my head.
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