"Don't you remember? You told me that Erin couldn't get married, but I said that Katie probably could?"
Katie felt herself stiffen, less at the memory than at the serious tone he was using. She knew exactly where this was leading. "I remember," she said with forced lightness. "I think I said I would have to meet the right guy."
At her words, his lips tightened, as if he were debating whether to continue. "I just wanted to know if you thought about it. Us eventually getting married, I mean."
The water was still warm as she started on the silverware. "You'd have to ask first."
"But if I did?"
She found a fork and scrubbed it. "I suppose I'd tell you that I love you."
"Would you say yes?"
She paused. "I don't want to get married again."
"You don't want to, or you don't think you can?"
"What's the difference?" Her expression remained stubborn, closed. "You know I'm still married. Bigamy is illegal."
"You're not Erin anymore. You're Katie. As you pointed out, your driver's license proves it."
"But I'm not Katie, either!" she snapped before turning toward him. "Don't you get that? I stole that name from people I cared about! People who trusted me." She stared at him, feeling the surge of tension from earlier in the day, recalling with fresh intensity Gladys's kindness and pity, her escape, and the nightmarish years with Kevin. "Why can't you just be happy with the way things are? Why do you have to push so hard for me to be the person you want me to be rather than the person that I am?"
He flinched. "I love the person that you are."
"But you're making it conditional!"
"I'm not!"
"But you are!" she insisted. She knew she was raising her voice but she couldn't seem to stop it. "You have this idea of what you want in life and you're trying to make me fit into it!"
"I don't," Alex protested. "I simply asked you a question."
"But you wanted a specific answer! You wanted the right answer, and if you didn't get it, you were going to try to convince me otherwise. That I should do what you want! That I should do everything you want!"
For the first time ever, Alex narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't do this," he said.
"Do what? Tell the truth? Tell you how I feel? Why? What are you going to do? Hit me? Go ahead."
He physically recoiled as though she'd slapped him. She knew her words had hit their mark, but instead of getting angry, Alex set the dish towel on the counter and took a step backward. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm sorry that I even brought it up. I didn't mean to put you on the spot or try to convince you of anything. I was just trying to have a conversation."
He paused, waiting for her to say something, but she stayed silent. Shaking his head, he started to leave the kitchen before coming to a stop. "Thank you for dinner," he whispered.
In the living room, she heard him tell the kids it was getting late, heard the front door open with a squeak. He closed the door softly behind him and the house was suddenly quiet, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
32
Kevin was having trouble staying between the lines on the highway. He'd wanted to keep his mind sharp, but his head had begun to pound and he'd been sick to his stomach, so he'd stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka. It numbed the pain, and as he sipped it through a straw, all he could think about was Erin and how she'd changed her name to Katie.
The interstate was a blur. Headlights, double pinpricks of white, rose in intensity as they approached from the opposite direction and then vanished when they passed him. One after another. Thousands. People going places, doing things. Kevin driving to North Carolina, heading south to find his wife. Leaving Massachusetts, driving through Rhode Island and Connecticut. New York and New Jersey. The moon rose, orange and angry before turning white, and crossed the blackened sky above him. Stars overhead.
Hot wind blew through the open window and Kevin held the wheel steady, his thoughts a jigsaw of mismatched pieces. The bitch had left him. She'd abandoned the marriage and left him to rot and believed she was smarter than he was. But he'd found her. Karen Feldman had crossed the street and he'd learned that Erin had a secret. But not anymore. He knew where Erin lived, he knew where she was hiding. Her address was scribbled on a piece of paper on the seat beside him, held in place by the Glock he'd brought from home. On the backseat was a duffel bag filled with clothes and handcuffs and duct tape. On his way out of town, he stopped at an ATM and withdrew a few hundred dollars. He wanted to smash Erin's face with his fists as soon as he found her, bloody it to an ugly pulp. He wanted to kiss her and hold her and beg her to come home. He filled the tank near Philadelphia and remembered how he'd tracked her there.
She'd made a fool of him, carrying on a secret life he hadn't even known about. Visiting the Feldmans, cooking and cleaning for them while she plotted and schemed and lied. What else, he wondered, had she lied about? A man? Maybe not then, but there had to be a man by now. Kissing her. Caressing her. Taking her clothes off. Laughing at him. They were probably in bed together right now. Her and the man. Both of them laughing at him behind his back. I showed him, didn't I? she was saying as she laughed. Kevin didn't even see it coming.
It made him crazy to think about. Furious. He'd been on the road for hours already, but Kevin kept driving. He sipped his vodka and blinked rapidly to clear his vision. He didn't speed, didn't want to get pulled over. Not with a gun on the seat beside him. She was afraid of guns and always asked him to lock his up when he finished his shift, which he did.
But it wasn't enough. He could buy her a house, furniture, and pretty clothes and take her to the library and the hair salon and it still wasn't enough. Who could understand it? Was it so hard to clean the house and cook dinner? He never wanted to hit her, only did it when he had no other choice. When she was stupid or careless or selfish. She brought it on herself.
The engine droned, the noise steady in his ears. She had a driver's license now and she was a waitress at a restaurant called Ivan's. Before he left, he'd spent some time on the Internet and had made some calls. It hadn't been hard to track her down because the town was small. It took him less than twenty minutes to find out where she worked. All he had to do was dial the number and ask if Katie was there. On the fourth call, someone said yes. He hung up without a word. She thought she could hide forever, but he was a good detective and he'd found her. I'm coming, he thought to himself. I know where you live and where you work and you won't get away again.
He passed billboards and exit ramps, and in Delaware the rain started to fall. He rolled up the window and felt the wind begin to push the car sideways. A truck ahead of him was swerving, the trailer wheels riding the lines. He turned on the wipers and the windshield cleared. But the rain began to fall even harder and he leaned over the wheel, squinting into the fuzzy orbs of oncoming headlights. His breath began to fog the glass and he turned on the defroster. He would drive all night and find Erin tomorrow. He'd bring her home and they'd start over again. Man and wife, living together, the way it was supposed to be. Happy.
They used to be happy. Used to do fun things together. Early on in the marriage, he remembered, he and Erin would visit open houses on the weekends. She was excited about buying a house and he would listen as she talked to the Realtors, her voice trilling like music in the empty homes. She liked to take her time as she walked through the rooms, and he knew she was imagining where to put furniture. When they found the house in Dorchester, he'd known she wanted it by the way her eyes were sparkling. That night, lying in bed, she traced small circles on his chest as she pleaded with him to make an offer and he could remember thinking that he would do anything she wanted because he loved her.
Except have children. She'd told him that she wanted kids, wanted to start a family. In the first year of marriage, she'd talked about it all the time. He tried to ignore her, didn't want to tell her that he didn't want her to get fat and puffy, that pregnant women were ugly, that he
didn't want to hear her whining about how tired she was or how her feet were swollen. He didn't want to hear a baby fussing and crying when he got home from work, didn't want toys scattered around the house. He didn't want her to get frumpy and saggy or hear her ask him whether he thought her butt was getting fat. He married her because he wanted a wife, not a mother. But she kept bringing it up, kept harping day after day until he finally slapped her and told her to shut up. After that, she never talked about it again, but now he wondered whether he should have given her what she wanted. She wouldn't have left if she had a child, wouldn't have been able to run away in the first place. By the same token, she could never run away again.
They would have a child, he decided, and the three of them would live in Dorchester and he would work as a detective. In the evenings, he'd come home to his pretty wife and when people saw them in the grocery store, they would marvel and say, They look like the all-American family.
He wondered whether her hair was blond again. Hoped it was long and blond and that he could run his fingers through it. She liked when he did that, always whispering to him, saying the words he liked, turning him on. But it hadn't been real, not if she'd been planning to leave him, not if she hadn't come back. She'd lied to him, been lying all along. For weeks. Months, even. Stealing from the Feldmans, the cell phone, taking money from his wallet. Scheming and plotting and he'd had no idea at all and now another man was sharing her bed. Running his fingers through her hair, listening to her moans, feeling her hands on him. Kevin bit his lip and tasted blood, hating her, wanting to kick and punch her, wanting to throw her down the stairs. He took another sip from the bottle next to him, rinsing the metallic taste from his mouth.
She'd fooled him because she was beautiful. Everything about her was pretty. Her breasts, her lips, even the small of her back. At the casino, in Atlantic City, when he'd first met her, he'd thought she was the prettiest woman he'd ever seen, and in their four years of marriage, nothing had changed. She knew he desired her, and she used it to her advantage. Dressing sexy. Getting her hair done. Wearing lacy underwear. It made him lower his guard, made him think she loved him.
But she didn't love him. She didn't even care about him. She didn't care about the broken flowerpots and smashed-up china, didn't care that he'd been suspended from his job, didn't care that he'd cried himself to sleep for months. Didn't care that his life was falling apart. All that mattered was what she wanted, but she'd always been selfish and now she was laughing at him. Laughing for months and thinking only about herself. He loved her and hated her and he couldn't make sense of it. He felt tears beginning to form and he blinked them back.
Delaware. Maryland. The outskirts of Washington DC. Virginia. Hours lost to the never-ending night. Raining hard at first, then gradually the rain dissipated. He stopped near Richmond at dawn and ate breakfast. Two eggs, four pieces of bacon, wheat toast. He drank three cups of coffee. He put more gas in the car and went back to the interstate. He crossed into North Carolina under blue skies. Bugs were cemented against the windshield and his back had begun to ache. He had to wear sunglasses to keep from squinting and his whiskers had begun to itch.
I'm coming, Erin, he thought. I'll be there soon.
33
Katie awoke exhausted. She had tossed and turned for hours during the night, replaying the horrible things she'd said to Alex. She didn't know what had come over her. Yes, she was upset about the Feldmans, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember how the argument had started in the first place. Or rather, she did remember, but it didn't make sense. She'd known he hadn't been pressuring her or trying to force her to do anything she wasn't ready for. She knew he wasn't remotely like Kevin, but what had she said to him?
What are you going to do? Hit me? Go ahead.
Why would she have said something like that?
She eventually dozed off sometime after two a.m., when the wind and rain were beginning to taper off. By dawn, the sky was clear and birdsong was drifting from the trees. From the porch, she noticed the effects of the storm: broken branches strewn out front, a carpet of pinecones littered across the yard and drive. The air was already thick with humidity. It was going to be a scorcher, maybe the hottest day of the summer yet. She made a note to herself to remind Alex not to keep the kids out in the sun too long before she realized that he might not want her with them. That maybe he was still mad at her.
Not maybe, she corrected herself. He was almost certainly mad at her. And hurt as well. He hadn't even let the kids say good-bye last night.
She took a seat on the steps and turned toward Jo's, wondering if she was up and about. It was early, probably too early to knock on her door. She didn't know what she would say to her or what good it would do. She wouldn't tell her what she'd said to Alex--that was a memory she'd rather erase in its entirety--but maybe Jo could help her understand the anxiety she'd been feeling. Even after Alex left, she noted the tension in her shoulders, and last night, for the first time in weeks, she'd wanted the light on.
Her intuition told her that something was wrong but she couldn't pinpoint what it was, other than that her thoughts kept returning to the Feldmans. To Gladys. To the inevitable changes in the house. What would happen if someone realized Katie's information was missing? Simply imagining it made her sick to her stomach.
"It's going to be okay," she suddenly heard. Whirling around, she saw Jo standing off to the side in her running shoes, cheeks flushed and perspiration staining her shirt.
"Where did you come from?"
"I went for a jog," Jo said. "I was trying to beat the heat, but obviously, it didn't work. It's so steamy I could barely breathe and I thought I was going to die of heatstroke. Even so, I think I'm doing better than you. You seem downright glum." She motioned to the steps and Katie scooted over. Jo took a seat beside her.
"Alex and I had a fight last night."
"And?"
"I said something terrible to him."
"Did you apologize?"
"No," Katie answered. "He left before I could. I should have, but I didn't. And now..."
"What? You think it's too late?" She squeezed Katie's knee. "It's never too late to do the right thing. Go over there and talk to him."
Katie hesitated, her anxiety plain. "What if he won't forgive me?"
"Then he's not who you thought he was."
Katie drew her knees up, propping her chin on them. Jo peeled her shirt away from her skin, trying to fan herself before going on. "He'll forgive you, though. You know that, right? He might be angry and you might have hurt his feelings, but he's a good man." She smiled. "Besides, every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive it."
"That sounds like the counselor talking."
"It is, but it's also true. Long-term relationships--the ones that matter--are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys. And you are still thinking long-term, right?"
"Yes." Katie nodded. "I am. And you're right. Thanks."
Jo patted Katie's leg and winked as she unfolded herself from the steps and stood. "What are friends for, right?"
Katie squinted up. "Do you want some coffee? I was going to start a pot."
"Not this morning. Too hot. What I need is a glass of ice water and a cool shower. I feel like I'm melting."
"Are you going to the carnival today?"
"Maybe. I haven't decided yet. But if I do, I'll try to find you," she promised. "Now head on over there before you change your mind."
Katie sat on the steps a few minutes longer before retreating into the house. She showered and made herself a cup of coffee--but Jo was right, it was too hot to drink it. Instead, she changed into shorts and sandals before walking around to the back of the house and getting on her bicycle.
Despite the recent downpour, the gravel road was already drying and she was able to pedal without exerting much energy. Good thing. She had no idea how Jo had been able to jog in this heat, even first thing in the mornin
g. Everything, it seemed, was trying to escape the heat. Normally, there were squirrels or birds, but as she turned onto the main road, she saw no movement at all.
On the road, traffic was light. A couple of cars zipped past, leaving fumes in their wake. Katie pedaled onward and as she rounded a bend, the store came into view. Already, there were half a dozen cars parked out front. Regulars who came to eat biscuits.
Talking to Jo had helped, she thought. A little, anyway. She was still anxious, but it had less to do with the Feldmans or other troubling memories than what she was going to say to Alex. Or rather, what he was going to say to her in return.
She pulled to a stop out front. A couple of older men were fanning themselves on the benches and she walked past them toward the door. Behind the register, Joyce was ringing up a customer and she smiled.
"Good morning, Katie," she said.
Katie quickly scanned the store. "Is Alex around?"
"He's upstairs with the kids. You know the way, right? The stairs out back?"
Katie left the store and went around the side, toward the rear of the building. At the dock, a line of boats queued, waiting to fill up.
She hesitated at the door before finally knocking. Inside, she could hear footfalls approaching. When the door swung open, Alex stood before her.
She offered a tentative smile. "Hi," she said.
He nodded, his expression unreadable. Katie cleared her throat.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about what I said. I was wrong."
His expression remained neutral. "Okay," he said. "I appreciate the apology."
For a moment, neither of them said anything, and Katie suddenly wished she hadn't come. "I can go. I just need to know whether you still need me to watch the kids tonight."
Again, he said nothing, and in the silence Katie shook her head. When she turned to leave, she heard him take a step toward her. "Katie... wait," he said. He peeked over his shoulder at the kids before closing the door behind him.
"What you said last night..." he began. He trailed off, uncertain.
"I didn't mean it," she said, her voice soft. "I don't know what got into me. I was upset about something else and I took it out on you."