I recall how Maureen came to our house for every holiday, how she spent her birthdays with her brother engaged in an activity she knew I didn’t enjoy, how she never married or had children. How I cannot remember her mentioning the name of a single friend.
“I’ll take care of the album.” She stops at the edge of the parking lot and touches my arm. “Good-bye.”
I feel cold, smooth metal against my skin.
When I look down, I see she has slipped my rings onto the fourth finger of her right hand.
She follows my gaze. “For safekeeping.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
“Thank you for seeing me today,” I say to Kate as I settle into my usual spot on her couch.
Though I haven’t been here in months—since when I was still married—the room is exactly the same, with magazines fanned on the coffee table and a few snow globes on the windowsill. Across from me, in the large aquarium, two angelfish languidly wind around a leafy green plant, while orange-and-white clown fish and neon tetra swim through a rock tunnel.
Kate is unchanged, too. Her eyes are large and sympathetic. Her long dark hair is brushed back behind her shoulders.
Richard caught me the first time I snuck into the city to meet Kate. I didn’t return for quite a while. When I did, I made sure to tell him I was going to visit Aunt Charlotte. Then I deliberately left my phone at her place while I rushed the thirty blocks here.
“I’m divorced,” I begin.
Kate smiles slightly. She has always been so careful to avoid letting me know how she feels, but even though we’ve met only a few times, I’ve learned to read her.
“He left me for another woman.”
The smile disappears from Kate’s face.
“But she’s not with him anymore, either,” I add quickly. “He had a kind of breakdown—he tried to hurt me and there were witnesses. He’s getting help.”
I watch Kate as she processes all of this.
“Okay,” she finally says. “So he is . . . no longer a threat to you?”
“Correct.”
Kate cocks her head to the side. “He left you for another woman?”
This time it’s me who smiles slightly. “She was the perfect replacement. That’s what I thought the first time I saw her. . . . She’s safe now, too.”
“Richard always did like everything to be perfect.” Kate leans back in her chair and crosses her right leg over her left, then absently massages her ankle.
The first time I met Kate, she’d merely asked me a few questions. But the queries helped me untangle the twisting thoughts in my mind: Can you tell me why you think Richard is trying to keep you off-balance? What would his motivation be for this?
The second time I came to see Kate, she’d reached for the box of tissues on the side table between us, even though I hadn’t been crying.
She’d stretched out her arm to pass them to me, and my gaze had fallen on the thick cuff bracelet on her wrist.
She’d held her arm still, letting me take it in. But she hadn’t said a single word.
Seeing that distinctive cuff shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, collecting information was part of the reason why I’d sought out Richard’s ex, the dark-haired woman he’d been with before me.
It hadn’t been difficult to find her; Kate still lived in the city and was listed in the phone book. I was so careful. I never even mentioned her by name when I wrote about our meetings in my Moleskine notebook, and when Richard discovered I’d snuck into the city, I told him I’d been to see a therapist.
But Kate was even more careful.
She listened to me thoughtfully, but she didn’t seem willing to share the story of what had happened during the years she and Richard were together.
I believe I discovered why during my third visit.
During our previous meetings, Kate had moved to one side after letting me into her apartment, gesturing for me to walk ahead of her toward the living room. When she stood up to signal our conversations had concluded, she motioned for me to go first and then followed to see me out.
On our third visit, though, when I wondered aloud if I should simply try to leave Richard and go stay with Aunt Charlotte, Kate abruptly stood and offered me tea.
I nodded, confused.
She walked into the kitchen while I stared after her.
Her right foot dragged along the floor; her body compensating for it by tilting down and up, gathering momentum to propel her forward. Something had happened to her leg, the one she massaged at times during our talk. Something that had left her with a pronounced limp.
When she returned with the tray of tea, she merely said, “What was it you were saying?”
I shook my head when she tried to hand me a cup. I knew my hands were trembling too violently for me to hold it.
I looked at the intricate platinum necklace she was wearing, that cuff bracelet, and the emerald ring on her right hand. Such exquisite, expensive pieces. They stood out against her simple clothing.
“I was saying . . . I can’t just leave him.” I choked out the words.
I rushed out a few moments later, suddenly terrified that Richard was trying to call my cell phone. That was the last time I’d seen Kate until today.
“There’s a police record of the incident. And Maureen has stepped in to watch over Richard,” I say now.
Kate closes her eyes briefly. “That’s good.”
“Your leg . . .”
When Kate speaks, her voice is emotionless. “I fell down some stairs.” She hesitates and shifts her gaze to stare at her fish gliding through the aquarium. “Richard and I had argued that night because I was late to an important event.” Her voice is much softer now. “After we got home and he went to bed . . . I left the apartment. I was carrying a suitcase.” She swallows hard and her hand begins to massage her calf. “I decided to take the stairwell instead of the elevator. I didn’t want anyone to hear the chime. But Richard . . . he wasn’t asleep.”
Her face crumples for an instant, then she recovers. “I never saw him again.”
“I’m so sorry. You’re safe now, too.”
Kate nods.
After a moment, she says, “Be well, Vanessa.”
She stands and walks me to the door.
I hear her lock click behind me as I start down the hallway. Then my head snaps back to look toward her apartment, a connection firing in my brain as I recall a long-ago vision.
The woman in the raincoat who’d stood outside the Learning Ladder, staring while I packed up my classroom. She had turned away with an odd jerking motion when I approached the window.
It could have been a limp.
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
I awaken to feel rich sunlight pouring through the slats of the window blinds, warming my body as I lie in bed in Aunt Charlotte’s spare room.
My room, I think, spreading out my arms and legs like a starfish so I take up the entire bed. Then I stretch out my left hand and turn off my alarm before it can blare.
Sleep still eludes me on some nights, as I turn over in my mind all that has happened and try to put together the pieces that remain a mystery to me.
But I no longer dread mornings.
I rise and wrap myself in my robe. As I walk toward the bathroom to take a quick shower, I pass my desk, where the itinerary for our trip to Venice and Florence rests. Aunt Charlotte and I leave in ten days. It’s still summertime, and I won’t begin work teaching pre-K students in the South Bronx until after Labor Day.
An hour later, I step out of the apartment building into the warm air. I’m not in a rush today, so I stroll down the sidewalk, taking care not to smudge the chalk hopscotch squares a child has drawn. New York City is always quieter in August; the pace seems gentler. I pass a cluster of tourists taking photos of the skyline. An elderly man sits on the steps of a brownstone, reading the paper. A vendor fills buckets with clusters of fresh poppies and sunflowers, lilies and asters. I decide I’ll buy some on my way home.
I reach the coffee shop and pull open the door, then scan the room.
“Table for one?” a waitress asks as she passes by with a handful of menus.
I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m meeting someone.”
I see her in the corner, lifting a white mug to her lips. Her gold wedding band glints as it catches the light. I pause, staring at it.