The Spires

by Moretti, Kate

  Genevieve waved from the chair and gave Penelope a wide, bright smile. “I’m so excited to meet you! Willa talks about nothing but you! Pip this, Pip that. All good things!”

  She still couldn’t get used to Pip again. Penelope said, “Well, Willa exaggerates. I’m mediocre at best.” She smiled blandly and sat on the opposite end of the couch. “Everyone but Willa calls me Penelope.”

  Genevieve’s smile faltered, just a little, her eyes going to the hallway and back. “Such a pretty name.” She stumbled a bit when she said it, and Penelope could have sworn she paled a bit. “You’re a kind soul to take in an old friend after twenty years. After all she’s been through. What would she have done without you?”

  “I’d be dead in a ditch without Pip,” Willa said, her hand reaching out and gripping Penelope’s. Still freezing cold, her fingers prying. Penelope’s face felt frozen in a smile, and she pulled her hand away sharply.

  There was a silence then, heavy and slow, as everyone searched for something to land on. Penelope could scarcely focus on anything but Willa. Willa, Grey, Violet. The pictures. The knife, a smear of blood. What did it all mean—all of it together? Why was Willa still in their house? What did she want from all of them? Why didn’t she go home to her gray-haired husband and that little blonde girl?

  Penelope smelled him before she saw him—that light, rainwater-scented body soap that her husband had worn for as long as she’d known him—and then suddenly he filled the doorway: a blue button-down shirt and a pair of dark jeans, slung low, his hair thick and still slightly damp, curled against his collar. Handsome and fresh. Penelope felt nothing.

  He paled in the doorway, blurted, “Gen?” before trying to cover it up. The realization came in slow motion: the familiarity (he knew this woman), the shock (she was out of place, here in his home), the fear (his wife would put it all together).

  And she did. Put it all together, that is. It was that fucking comb.

  They’d taken a Siesta Key trip a few months after the layoff. Brett had been distracted and snappish. It ended up a mediocre weekend of long silences set against romantic sunsets where they both half faked it. It had been months ago, the previous October. When things were just starting to feel forced. The whole vacation was filled with halting conversation. They got drunk and made love once. Later, after they’d returned, she’d found this comb.

  On the underside, Penelope would wager the whole house, was a small silver sea turtle, about the size of a pea. Penelope had been cleaning out their suitcase, unpacking, doing the laundry, when it fell out of Brett’s shorts pocket. It was small—only about two inches wide—and light. Wrapped in tissue paper. She left it on his side of the bed and later that night asked him about it, her voice light. Oh, for Tara! I found it in that beach shop under the hotel, and I don’t know why—I just bought it on impulse. It seemed like something she’d like? And Penelope remembered thinking, What about Linc? And then also, It’s not at all anything Tara would like. It was delicate and pretty and much too small. Tara’s thick, unruly hair was in a perpetual ponytail. But then the comb disappeared, Penelope forgot all about it. She could have sworn she saw it on Tara’s dresser at some point, but couldn’t remember when.

  And now, here it was. In “Gen’s” hair.

  In slow motion, Penelope watched Genevieve watch Brett. Her mouth open and closing, wordless protest. Her husband and the quick, almost unnoticeable shake of his head, just for a second, before plastering on a big smile.

  “Genevieve worked in my office,” Brett said, smooth. He was always smooth. God, so fucking smooth. “Well, works. I was let go. She wasn’t. One of the few left!” He laughed then, an aw shucks attempt that fell like an anvil. No one else laughed.

  Genevieve’s face had gone deathly white, her lips bloodless. She stood shakily. In shock, with some detachment, Penelope wondered how this would go down. Which one of them would scream and yell? Likely neither one. Brett didn’t do screamers and yellers.

  Genevieve was tiny, poised, her skin light and smooth. Next to her, Penelope felt giant, coarse, old—and furious.

  “I didn’t know this was your house. I knew the neighborhood . . .” Genevieve said, her voice trembling, her eyes downcast, her fingertips fumbling with her purse. “I think I should go.”

  Penelope felt an odd surge of power and, conversely, a heady sense of impatience. Finally, this was how her marriage would end. And before she could control it: Oh, thank God. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her gaze landed on Willa, who twisted her own wedding ring around her finger nervously, looking confused.

  Later, Penelope would analyze the night for hours. Their words, the ugliness of it all, how it came out in a tumble, and wonder if she could have done anything differently, more elegantly, better than her blunt, utilitarian Penelope-ness. She’d close her eyes and remember their faces: Brett’s shock and fear, Genevieve’s grief, and somehow the most unsettling part of the whole night would be that moment when—before all hell broke loose, before Penelope pulled the plug on their little domestic fantasy—she’d remember Willa. Perched on the edge of the couch, twisting, turning that ring, watching them all, her face blank in horror.

  And just once, so quick that Penelope couldn’t be sure it happened at all, the gleam of excitement in her eyes and a small self-satisfied smile.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  February 25, 2020

  “No one is leaving,” Penelope said. Inside, she felt a pulse of wild rage, her heart railing against her rib cage, her mind skipping from thought to thought. But this was what she did: at work, at home. She projected calm. Kept her voice even, kept everyone comfortable.

  Well, fuck that.

  “You.” Penelope looked at Brett, really looked at him. The crow’s feet around his eyes, the broad planes of his cheek, the bright, sad blue eyes.

  “Pen. It’s not what you think,” he offered lamely, the refrain of cheating husbands everywhere.

  “What do I think?” She folded her hands in front of her to keep them still. You cheating bastard, you cheating bastard, you cheating bastard. She couldn’t stop thinking the words, like a refrain. She was tired of trying to do the right thing while it seemed like everyone around her gave in to their basest impulses. Penelope would hold it all together; Penelope would fix it. Penelope never lost her shit. She’d fought against a full-blown affair because it was wrong. For what?

  “It just happened.” He sounded tired, impatient. Where did he get off being impatient with her? She’d expect contrition. Even begging. But impatience? No. Absolutely fucking not.

  “Do you have anything but platitudes and lines you’ve seen on soap operas?” It was a deep cut, and Brett winced. He had started watching daytime television. Not soap operas, per se. But reruns of television dramas on Netflix—shows he’d missed while he was working. Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters. Penelope had teased him more than once about it—What’s going on in your stories today, dear? A subversive reminder that he now had time on his hands, although she hadn’t thought of it like that at the time.

  Genevieve was trembling, inching across the living room, toward the door.

  “I said, no one is leaving,” Penelope hissed at her, and Genevieve stood deathly still, her eyes darting between Penelope and Brett.

  “Pen.” Brett’s voice—that placating, soothing tone he’d taken with her lately—was going to be the last proverbial straw. Penelope clenched her teeth together. “You can’t keep her here,” he said, infuriatingly reasonable.

  “When did it start?” Penelope asked them both. She felt a pulsing need to make this whole conversation as unbearable as possible. She wanted them both to feel humiliated, embarrassed, regretful. She would not do her Penelope thing and go along to get along. She would not. When no one answered her, she stepped toward her husband. “When!” It was a demand, her voice inching up higher.

  “September. Right before Siesta Key.”

  “After you were laid off.”


  “Yes.”

  Genevieve said, “I didn’t know—”

  “That’s ridiculous, of course you knew. You knew he was married.” Penelope waved her hand dismissively and for good measure said, “Shut up.”

  “He said you were separating,” Genevieve whispered it, and Penelope felt the shock of it right in her breastbone. She took two steps to her left, reached out, plucked the comb from Genevieve’s hair. She’d never put her hands on another person in anger in her life. She never even spanked her children.

  In that moment, though, she was not careful. When a few strands of glossy hair tangled in her fingers and she yanked, she did not feel anything but rage and triumph when Genevieve cried out in pain.

  “For Tara, you told me.” Penelope held the comb inches from Brett’s nose, and he sighed. Impatient with her! How dare he.

  “Penelope, this is unlike you. This is . . . inappropriate,” Brett said quietly. “Genevieve can leave, and we can talk about this like adults.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Penelope took a step back, looked at all of them. She dropped the comb on the ground and then carefully stepped on it. She felt the satisfying crunch under her shoe, the snap of the cheap silver, the grinding of the turquoise sandstone. Genevieve looked away. Brett looked embarrassed, but not for himself. Penelope studied his face. He was embarrassed for her! First pity, now embarrassment? No.

  He gently tugged her elbow, bringing her closer to him. He turned his back to Genevieve, spoke quietly. His blue eyes narrowed, and while his voice was gentle, cajoling, his expression was hard. She was crossing him in a new way. “You haven’t been yourself for weeks, Pen. You’re paranoid, delusional. You’ve been blaming poor Willa for everything that’s happened around here. If you would just calm down, you would realize this was inevitable.” His hands swept the room. What this was he referring to? The affair? Willa? The dissolution of their marriage?

  That, at least, they could agree upon.

  Penelope was so tired of making Brett’s life comfortable. Of worrying about his mental health, his state of mind. The whole time he was . . . what? Fucking a coworker. How provincial. And truthfully, she realized, this was where her anger stemmed from. Not the affair. No, she was furious—at herself. She’d been martyring herself for a whole year. Acting like she was being a good, dutiful wife. While lusting around after her daughter’s friend’s father. The whole time, trying to make accommodations for Brett—he was tired, he was stressed, she would get the kids, cook dinner, take care of the house while he went on a wellness retreat. Licking her own wounds in a dark bedroom while Brett . . . what? Fucked his coworker. God! She was a doormat.

  Penelope even felt a slice of jealousy then. Not for Brett, the cheat. But for Jaime. She’d been wrestling with her own attraction for months. Keeping herself in check. For them, for their marriage. It was all a facade.

  “How much of the past year was a lie?” Penelope turned her gaze to Genevieve, who had the good grace to look like she wanted the floor to swallow her. “The health retreat he went on? Was that with you?”

  Genevieve’s gaze bounced back to Brett. “At Pike Springs?” She seemed to be whispering everything. She closed her eyes.

  “So, that’s a yes, then.” Penelope nodded, once. Stepped back. “Just so I know.”

  “Pip.”

  Penelope had forgotten Willa was there. She whirled around, stared at her friend. “You sit the fuck down.”

  Brett and Willa audibly gasped.

  “Penelope, this is not you. Honey, please.” Willa’s eyes shone with tears. Penelope studied her. Big, fake crocodile tears.

  “You’re a liar too.” Penelope was shouting now, her voice pitched up, sounding not like her own. She’d been sitting in the living room at Grey Hudson’s house that morning, but it felt like weeks ago. She could barely remember it. Penelope could hear herself, feel herself coming unglued at the seams. Such an odd expression: she imagined her limbs being torn from her body, falling to the floor with a thump, all her stitching, her frantic attempts to keep herself together (keep them all together?), exposed and fraying. She was surrounded by people who claimed to love her but did not. By people who had been lying to her. Even Jaime’s loyalties were suspect—her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands on her ass.

  “Pen, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Willa’s voice took the same cadence as Brett’s: soft and slow.

  “Oh, you don’t? Six months! Do you know where I went today? Your house. I’ve met your husband—not Trent but Grey. I even met your little girl—her name is Violet.” Penelope inhaled a long shuddering breath. “And the knife! Why do you have a bloody knife in your bag? Why have you come back? What do you want with us?”

  Willa looked at Brett, her eyes wide, and back to Penelope. “I don’t have children, Pip. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who is Grey? Who is Violet?” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “What bloody knife? You are scaring the shit out of me.”

  Genevieve’s head bobbed back and forth between them, sincerely afraid now, and she let out a small yelp.

  Brett pressed the pads of his thumbs into his eye sockets before reaching out to grip Penelope’s shoulders.

  “What about the pictures? All those pictures? They were right on top of my bookcase, I found them all! And then they were gone. Photos of me with the kids, as babies! Who took all of them? I can’t trust any of you!” Penelope screeched, her hands frantically clawing at Brett’s as she tried to wrench away.

  “Who were you with today?” Brett asked and turned to Willa. Willa held her hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Do you know what pictures she’s talking about?”

  “Penelope, honey,” was all Willa said, and the walls felt like they were closing in, the deep-red accent wall she’d chosen years ago because it was a “pop of color!” seemed to be closing in on her, and she wondered if she had realized at the time how close it was to the color of blood.

  “Not the blood on the knife,” she said and wasn’t sure if she said it out loud, but Brett gripped her shoulder and shook it gently, but Penelope felt nothing but absolute blinding, all-consuming rage.

  It was all connected; she was sure of it. Willa brought all this to her doorstep, somehow. Why would he try to silence her about Willa unless he knew something? Was Brett in on it too? And if he knew, what had he told Genevieve? Did they all have a good laugh at her expense before she got home? Poor, dumb Penelope. Always so practical. Passionless.

  Brett had called her that once—years ago. In a fight. God, when was that? He said she was cold. Calculated. She couldn’t just let herself go wild. Ha. What did he think now?

  “Can you hear yourself? Seriously?” Brett shook her a little again, but harder this time, and her head snapped back.

  Penelope saw red—like the color of the wall, and she always thought that expression was meaningless until that moment when she couldn’t process anything but the swath of blood rage across her field of vision—and her palm connected with Brett’s cheek in a shocking slap that reverberated up her arm.

  Someone said, “Oh my God.”

  Her arm swung again. Harder this time.

  She never did find out who called 911.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Then—Changing Tides

  Something had shifted in the house. It was subtle, and nothing could be done about it outright. They all just needed to try harder. But the cold fact was, it had been the five of them from the beginning, and while they welcomed Grace at first, it was a hard act to keep up. She just never got it. And even if they could explain it all to her, she’d have to duck out before the end of the explanation, take a phone call from her sister.

  It wasn’t just her physical presence; she wasn’t as invested. How could you be? For the five of them, the only world that existed was within the confines of the house. Grace was a constant reminder that the world outside continued to turn. She went to work, came home with coffee shop stories th
at none of them cared about, talked about her own friends, a roommate. Sometimes whined that they spent too much time at the Church House.

  “Don’t you guys ever go out? Go to a bar? A restaurant?” Her voice held an unattractive pout, and she downed her drink.

  “Sometimes. Grace, you should be an honorary Spire,” Willa said, ice clinking in her glass, and Penelope wanted to throttle her.

  “She’s the Yoko Ono,” Bree said, talking about her as though she wasn’t sitting right there on Jack’s lap.

  “Didn’t the Beatles hate Yoko?” Jack’s voice was sharp, his hand running up and down Grace’s side. “You guys love Grace.”

  “We do love Grace,” Willa agreed, but her smile looked plastic. She rolled her eyes surreptitiously to Penelope, who tried not to laugh.

  “See, Bree? You’re so ruthless.” Jack said it like a joke. “Atropos, for sure.”

  “What do you call them? The Fates?” Grace asked, wide eyed, a placid look on her face.

  Jack grinned. “The Moirai. The three sisters of fate.”

  “I’m Clotho—the young pretty one. I create life.” Willa unfurled her arms, wide into the air, and took a small bow. “Now it gets complicated. Depending on the day, we have Lachesis”—Willa pointed to Penelope—“or Atropos.” Willa pointed to Bree.

  “Atropos is the ugly one.” Bree gave them all a wicked smile. “But she’s also the most heartless.”

  “They’re all ugly. He’s such a dick.” Willa got up to mix them more drinks. “Lachesis measures life; Atropos cuts the thread of life and ends it. I think that’s Penelope. Atropos also means inevitable, and I’ve never met anyone who is more fatalistic than Penelope.”

  “I’m not fatalistic. I’m responsible. And restrained.” Penelope snatched her drink away before Willa could pour more booze into it. Bree gave her a sharp look, and Penelope replied with a soft, one-shouldered shrug.

  Jack coughed while laughing. “Bree is Atropos. She’s got those pruning shears.”

  “Didn’t Lachesis wear white all the time?” Penelope asked. She had looked it up on Jack’s laptop.