I knew this was a lie. If she’d had a reason that good she would’ve led with it. How many times in my life have I known someone was lying and said nothing? How many times have I lied and watched the other person feign belief? We say nothing, we say nothing. Life would be unbearable without lies.
“Is that so,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was cool and crisp, impenetrable. She’d make no effort to persuade me. She is a good liar. She doesn’t care if you believe her.
I look forward to her visits. They are what I look forward to. Forlorn is not the wrong word for how I felt. This is the second time she’s canceled on me. Does she fail to understand what a cruelty it is?
“Also,” she said, “I wanted to tell you I think we should put the history project on hold for a while.”
“What?” I said. “Why?”
“I’m starting to book other clients, and I don’t think I’ll be able to give it my full attention.”
“That makes no sense. Why book other clients when I’m paying you to come here?”
There was a brief silence, and then she said, “To make a living as a massage therapist, I need to have a good-sized client base.”
“But I’m paying you to come here.”
“And I still will. For massage.”
“This makes no sense, Jennifer.”
“Margaret, I’m sorry. Milo’s calling me. I’ll see you on Wednesday at the usual time?”
I put on my sweetest, most genteel voice and said, “Of course.” Then I hung up and sat there trembling. I was supposed to tell her the end of the story today, but she’s bottled me up, and the feeling is unbearable. I can tell it to her anyway, when she comes here. I can insist. But it wouldn’t be the same to blurt it out lying on the table or afterward when she’s hustling out the door. I need her to be listening. I need to see in her face what she thinks of what I’ve done. Otherwise what is the point?
I drove to her house when my appointment was supposed to be. Just to see if she was there. I had in my head that if she wasn’t there it would prove she was lying, though I realize now that’s nonsense, as she could’ve taken the boy to the playground or the grocery store. It’s impossible to be inconspicuous coming up her long gravel drive, so I planned my excuses. I took an egg from the carton and made a paper-towel nest for it inside a Tupperware container. It took me some time to decide how best to transport that single egg. If she was there, I planned to say I was replacing the egg she loaned me. She’d just think it was some antiquated politeness. In my day, and so forth. Being old has so few advantages. One must take them where one can.
She wasn’t there. No car in the drive. At that moment, I still believed this proved she’d lied, and I sat there taking in that knowledge. I was angry but tears pricked at my eyes. I’d told her what happened to Kay—something I’d never told anyone, not anyone. I suppose I’d thought she might say it wasn’t my fault, she might absolve me after all these years. But she said I’d lied about what happened to Kay, in the aggrieved tone of the betrayed, and then she said I should just change the story. And now she’d rejected me. I can’t change the story, Jennifer! Don’t you think I would if I could? I can’t, I can’t, and you can’t either.
I got out of the car. I was at her house, and she wasn’t. What detective would fail to seize such an opportunity?
Of course, I had no idea whether she locked her door. Most people here don’t, or anyway that’s the local lore. It’s the kind of place you don’t have to lock your doors, they say with satisfaction. Unlike Nashville, that crime-ridden flatland, that alien planet. Unlike the rest of the world. Sometimes up here on this mountain it can feel like there is no rest of the world. All those other places we’ve been are just dreams we had, as life would seem like a dream from the pretty claustrophobia of heaven.
I can’t believe in heaven. Even now, as death grows ever harder to unimagine.
Her door was unlocked. She must have heard the same conversations. Inside, the house was much as I had seen it before—disastrous. Not the home of someone who expects to invite anyone inside. But you never know when someone might appear at your door—a neighbor, the UPS man. You must always be presentable. That’s what my mother taught me. You must always be ready to conceal.