Quentin walked to the counter and sat on his usual stool. Ray put a hand on his arm, and Justine could see the fifty years they’d known each other in her touch. “I’m so sorry, hon.”
He rubbed his face. He didn’t seem to see the others standing in an awkward half circle with their coffee cups. He said to Ray, “You remember how I worried about my boy in Iraq? I always told Nate he was lucky to have Jake close. Even with all the trouble that boy got into, I never thought he’d get himself killed not five miles from home.” He closed his eyes, gave a shaky sigh. “Nate hasn’t even answered my calls.”
Quentin’s son was a captain in the marines who’d been decorated for valor during Desert Storm. He had a pretty southern wife and two little boys. The oldest was the pride of the Little League. The younger loved peewee football. Justine had heard Quentin tell Nate these things in the voice of a man who knew that, in the ledger of sons that all men keep, he was the richer. His face was gray with grief over his nephew’s death, but Justine understood why his brother didn’t want to talk to him right now.
The morning crowd broke their silence. They lowed a murmuring chorus of regret, and one by one they approached Quentin. The men put their hands on his shoulders. The women embraced him. And as she watched him lean into the arms and hands of his neighbors, Justine felt an envy almost indistinguishable from sorrow. No one in the world—not one person—would touch her the way these people were touching Quentin, no matter the tragedy she suffered.
Arthur Williams slid into her booth, surprising her. “I hope you don’t mind. I see you here every morning on my way to the office.”
“Not at all,” Justine said. She was glad for a reason to look away from Quentin.
Arthur glanced at the grieving man and shook his head. “A shame,” he said. “Though not entirely a surprise.” With that oblique comment he returned his attention to Justine. “I didn’t just stop in to say hello. I had a phone call yesterday from someone looking for you. A Patrick Gallagher.”
Justine put her hands in her lap. She tried to keep her face from betraying the flood of emotions that swamped her—shock, fear, anger, and, though she despised herself for it, a small ripple of pleasure.
“He said he was your boyfriend, and you’d disappeared without telling anyone you were leaving or where you were going. He saw my number on your phone bill and wanted to know if I knew where you were.”
He paused. The air in the diner felt thick with foreboding. Justine licked her lips. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him I couldn’t discuss our conversation.”
Justine exhaled. Arthur regarded her keenly. He said, “My client is Lucy Evans’s estate, not you. Our conversations aren’t privileged. But I didn’t feel comfortable answering his questions without checking with you first.”
“Thank you.” Outside, a pickup drove by, a huge brown mastiff pacing restlessly in the back. It was a Chevy, the same model as Patrick’s, but it was black and filthy, where Patrick’s was white and clean. Though if he drove it two thousand miles to Williamsburg, it wouldn’t be clean, would it? Justine wrenched her gaze away. She needed to get out of the diner. She needed to get someplace quiet, where she could think.
“Well,” Arthur said. “If he calls again, I’ll answer him in the same way.”
“Yes, thank you.” Justine slid out of the booth, ignoring the startled look on his face. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
She went to the library, to her favorite chair, which overlooked the small back garden. A brown bird landed on the empty stone birdbath, then flew away, disappointed. Justine remembered how, the week Patrick moved in, he’d taken down the bird feeder Francis and Melanie had built from a kit and hung on the balcony. It hadn’t come together right; the walls were askew and the floor slanted, but Melanie had loved watching the birds fly in and out. Patrick took it apart on the kitchen table and reassembled it so it was square, then held it up for them to admire how good he was at fixing things. Melanie never looked at it again.
She’d been so careful not to leave a trace. No credit cards, no checks. But he had looked at the phone bill. It hadn’t occurred to her that Arthur Williams’s number would show up there, but she also hadn’t expected Patrick to try that hard to find her. Not that he wouldn’t try at all. He’d ask Mrs. Mendenhall, he’d ask the girls’ teachers, he’d call Dr. Fishbaum and Phoebe. But she’d assumed he’d give up after that. Because in her experience, when you left people, they disappeared in the rearview mirror along with the towns they lived in. You didn’t leave an address, you didn’t write or call or send Christmas cards, and you never heard from them again.
She knew other people weren’t like her and her mother, of course. Other people kept address books with the names of high school classmates and sent cards on their birthdays. They called when they came to town and got together for drinks. They sent graduation announcements, and holiday cards with pictures of the kids, and—she thought of Quentin—condolences when someone died. Still, they were easy to leave behind, if you really wanted to.
Here was the problem, and she should have seen it from the start: Patrick wasn’t like other people either. Even the ordinary leaving that other people did was too much for him. That was why he needed to know where she was all the time. Why he touched her so often and wanted to be with her every possible moment. So she shouldn’t be surprised he’d checked the phone records. He’d probably already figured out where the Williams law firm was. The phone was in Lucy’s name, but her name was Evans, too; how long before he called to see if she was a relative? Thank God she hadn’t changed the recording on the answering machine.
She should call him.
The thought echoed inside her brain. It was absolutely the right thing to do. She needed to do what other people did when they ended a relationship. She should have done it that way in the first place, if not to his face, then at least over the phone from Salt Lake City or Vegas or any of the other towns they’d stayed in on the way here. If she had, he wouldn’t be looking for her now.
But what would she say? What were you supposed to say? I’m sorry? We’re not right for each other? It didn’t work out but I’ll always love you? All Maurie had ever taught her was how to sneak out when your lover’s back was turned. Plus she wasn’t sure she could actually do it. If she opened the door wide enough to talk to him, he might push it open the rest of the way. Already that timid voice in her head was saying he could fix the oven and figure out the propane, and she couldn’t let that voice win. She thought about this for the next four hours, in the library. She thought about it as she picked up her daughters. She thought about it so much she forgot to stop at the Safeway. She was still thinking about it when she walked into the kitchen and saw the light flashing on the answering machine.
Shit. It was Patrick; she knew it was. She sent the girls into the living room to the television. “It’s freezing in there,” Melanie complained. Justine snapped, “Turn up the radiator!” Melanie jerked her head in surprise, then left the kitchen without another word.
Justine leaned over the machine, gripping the edge of the counter. She forced herself to calm down. It was too soon for him to have found this number. Wasn’t it? It was probably just her mother, calling with an update on her drive. Or it was for Lucy, and she’d have to call the person back and tell them she was dead.
She pressed the button. It was a woman’s voice she’d never heard before, businesslike, the vowels broad and unpleasant. “This is Elizabeth Sorensen, the assistant principal at Williamsburg Elementary,” it said. “We’ve been having some trouble involving your daughter Melanie. I’d like to meet with you at your earliest convenience so we can discuss it.” She left a number and hung up.
The answering machine beeped once, then sat, silent and impassive, on the white tiles. Justine stared at it without seeing it. Her face was numb. A low buzzing began in her temples.
I had a phone call yesterday from someone looking for you.
We’ve been hav
ing some trouble involving your daughter.
It didn’t matter how far away you went. How far away you ran. Or how hard you shook the dust from your feet.
She walked into the living room. The girls were on the sofa fighting over which program to watch. Neither of them looked at her until she hit the power button on the television and the picture snapped into a white line and then a dot. Melanie opened her mouth to protest but stopped when she saw her face.
“You’re doing it again,” Justine said. Her voice sounded far away, blurred by the buzzing in her head.
Melanie crossed her arms. “Doing what?”
“The school called. They’re having trouble with you. You know what that means.”
“No I don’t.”
Justine smashed her hand on the top of the television. Both girls jumped. “Damn it, Melanie! I’ve seen how you do your homework, how you walk in and out of that school! You’re getting a bad reputation already, you’re ruining that school for yourself just like you ruined the school back home, and I won’t let you! Not after we’ve come all this way!”
Angela gaped at her in shock. Melanie’s back went rigid, and she clenched her fists. “No. I’m not doing any of that stuff.”
“Why am I getting this phone call, then? If you’re not doing anything why is the assistant principal calling me?”
“I don’t know!”
“I don’t believe you!”
Melanie jumped up. Her mouth was twisted, her face red. “I don’t care what you think! I hate that school! I hate everyone in it! I hate the way they look at me! I hate the way they talk about me! I hate this house, this lake, and this whole stupid town! I wish we’d never come here!”
“You can’t even give it a chance, can you?” Justine was shaking now. “You’re the one who wanted to come! Angie didn’t, but at least she’s trying! But you’ve already made up your mind, and now you’ve got to ruin everything for your sister and me with your sulking and your pouting and your determination to be miserable! Because that’s what you always do!”
Melanie stood straight and slender as a blade, her eyes bright with angry tears. “I didn’t want to come! I didn’t even want to leave San Diego! I just wanted to leave Patrick! You’re the one who ruined everything, because we never would’ve had to go if you hadn’t let Patrick live with us in the first place. If you hadn’t made Daddy leave!”
This hit Justine like a cup of oil on a fire. She flew across the room and grabbed Melanie by the shoulders, her fingers digging into the flesh beneath her daughter’s coat. “I didn’t make your daddy leave! I kept him there! I kept him there for years! I never said a word to him about the drinking or the drugs or the nights he never came home! No one could’ve kept him longer than I kept him!” She threw Melanie backward onto the sofa. The buzzing in her head became a roar, a howl, a wail of fury at Francis, at Patrick, at her mother, at Melanie, at a hundred other nameless things, and it filled up the room and drummed in her blood, the rush of it blocking out all other sound, even the sound of her own voice gouging her throat like nails.
Then, small and far away, she saw Melanie’s spidery hands on the sofa cushion, her body cringing in the too-big coat, and in the corner Angela, cowering on the floor with her head buried in her arms. Justine’s anger dissolved into horror. She brought her hands to her face. In the long, fractured silence that followed, Melanie looked at her mother, the fear in her eyes giving way to disgust, and Justine looked back, through the prism of her fingers, until Melanie leaped to her feet.
“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! I hate you! I wish you had left! Everything is your fault! Everything!” She pushed past Justine and ran up the stairs. The slam of the bedroom door echoed through the house.
Justine collapsed on the sofa as if someone had cut a string. Angela whimpered in the corner and Justine bent over, hugging her legs. Oh, God, it had all been a mistake. A terrible mistake. This house wasn’t a starting-over place. It was cold and isolated and wrapped in a half-sentient pall of tragedy, and she hadn’t escaped anything, she’d only made everything worse. They should go home. Patrick wanted her back, he would take her back, and maybe Dr. Fishbaum hadn’t replaced her yet. They could leave today and they could walk right back into their apartment, to the worn brown carpet and the humming hallway clock, and it would all be familiar and theirs and exactly the same.
But at the thought she recoiled so viscerally she nearly retched. If she went back she’d never leave again. She’d live in that apartment with Patrick for the rest of her life, making his meals, managing his moods, massaging his fragile ego, snatching precious moments of silence at the kitchen table before his alarm went off, and every day in a thousand tiny ways he would remind her that she’d left; that she’d broken his heart; that she could never love him enough, no matter how hard she tried to make amends. Angela would try to make everything all right, as she’d always done, and Melanie would watch it all, as she always had, the festering welt of her resentment growing more rancid every year.
No. They couldn’t go back. So they would have to go somewhere else. Somewhere Patrick could never find them. It didn’t matter where. They would just pile their things in the Tercel and drive to another town. To another apartment, another school, another job. She knew exactly how it was done.
“Angie, sweetie, come here,” Justine said, and Angela crawled to the couch. Justine gathered her close, and into the silken froth of her hair she sobbed like a little girl.
Lucy
The morning after Independence Day, I lay in my bed and watched the sun creep from one floorboard to the next. Lilith was awake, too; I could feel it in her arm that lay around my waist. From the kitchen we heard the clink of forks on plates, but neither of us moved until Mother came upstairs and opened our door. Her hair was in its snood and her dress was pressed in crisp pleats beneath her apron. Time to get up, she said.
She’d made an elaborate breakfast: hotcakes, sausages, eggs, potatoes, and even corn muffins, Lilith’s favorite. Father ate in his deliberate way while Mother scrubbed the pans, the sawing of the wire-bristle brush loud in the little room. I rearranged my food with my fork and stared at the butter dish in the middle of the table. The butter was soft, and brown crumbs crusted it where Father’s knife had cut. No one spoke. Lilith’s feet didn’t touch mine under the table. Emily’s eyes worried between Lilith and me, sensing trouble she didn’t understand.
Even though I wasn’t hungry, I picked up my corn muffin and reached for the butter. Before I could pick it up, Father lifted the dish and set it by my plate. I looked up at him. He seemed his normal self, not the agitated man who’d waited for Lilith in the parlor the night before. He smiled at me, and I gave a small, tentative smile in return. Lilith’s fork stopped for a moment on its way to her mouth, and suddenly I felt disloyal and guilty, as though with that one smile I’d taken Father’s side against her. After that I didn’t look at anyone.
When Father was done, he kissed Mother and Emily before he picked up his bag. We listened to his car drive away, the engine fading into the woods.
Then Lilith announced, “I’m going to Betty’s.” I stared at her, startled and hurt. She’d never done that; even after she began going to the lodge at night, she still spent her days with me. But I knew she was angry at me for smiling at Father, and this was her way of punishing me. I watched with misery as she washed her plate, put it on the drying rack, and walked out the front door without meeting my eyes. Mother twisted her hands together, pitying me, but I didn’t want her pity, so I ignored her, and after I cleared my plate I walked out myself, letting the door slam.
Once I was outside, though, I couldn’t think where to go, so I sat on the steps. The lake was listless in the sun. A loon swooped lazily, its wing tips pricking the water. Some of the littler boys fished off the end of the dock. Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Pugh strolled by on their way to the lodge, fanning themselves. I picked at a scab on my knee until blood seeped through the crust.
The porch doo
r opened, and Emily came to sit beside me. She turned her face to mine, hopeful and nervous. Her eyes were wide and black, like Father’s. “Do you want to come play with the kittens?” she asked. I didn’t answer her. I just stood up and left her there alone, as Lilith had done to me not ten minutes before, and it gave me a shabby sort of satisfaction.
I went into the woods, and without planning to, I followed Lilith’s and my secret path to the Hundred Tree. We still hadn’t gone there that summer, and I’d never gone without her, but my feet knew the way through the leafy light. I felt brave to be out in the forest alone. I also felt a smarting pride. I wasn’t sitting around waiting for Lilith to come back; I was going on an adventure by myself. I imagined her asking me that night what I’d done without her. Oh, I went off to the Hundred Tree, I’d say. By yourself? she’d ask, and I’d shrug, as if it were no big thing.
But when I got to the clearing, everything looked different. The hole in the base of the tree didn’t look like the door to our secret cave; it gaped like the entrance to a tomb. The great tree’s branches that had always seemed so sheltering reached for me like the talons of an enormous bird. I thought about how far I was from the lake, and the forest through which I’d just come seemed to whisper with menace. Every nerve urged me to run back to the boys fishing on the dock, to Emily and her kittens.
The undergrowth behind me erupted. I screamed and spun around. Matthew Miller stood there, his hands raised in apology. I glared at him in shock and fury—just like that, his invasion made the clearing mine again. “You followed me,” I accused. The thought of him creeping behind me through the woods was both frightening and a little bit thrilling.
“It wasn’t hard. You’re really loud.”
“This is our place. It’s private.”
“I know all about this place. I found it years ago. I wondered who was using it.” He gestured to the tree, filled with last summer’s treasures, sodden and abandoned.
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