“Okay, well . . .” Blair takes a few steps backward, and for once, Mara says nothing to keep the conversation going. “We’ll let you know if there’s any news.”
She walks fast to keep up with Chloe on her scooter, west across Harlow Street toward the drugstore. It’s the kind of spring day that makes everyone feel light and optimistic, but she can’t relieve herself of the cement in her stomach. It is Xavier. But it is also the key she can’t ask Whitney about. It is something in how Aiden let things go a little too quickly that morning.
She’s not convinced of anything.
They stop at the light. The question comes out of her mouth before she can stop herself:
“Chloe, I need to ask you something. Have you ever seen Whitney get angry with Xavi when I wasn’t there? Like, really, really angry?”
The words feel like a betrayal. Her best friend. A decision she won’t be able to undo. In the swell of guilt is a shard of wanting to hear something damning about her. Something she’d be obligated to pass along.
She stares at the sidewalk as Chloe thinks.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you mean you don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”
Chloe bangs the rubber toe of her sneaker on the sidewalk. She thinks some more. “I’ve never actually seen her get mad. It was just that one time, at the party in their backyard. And the time we dropped off the cookies.”
They’d gone over the day before Christmas, a tin with cookies still warm from the oven. Chloe wanted to leave it on the table in the foyer as a surprise, she’d written a note from Santa’s elves and taped it to the lid. She’d taken a quiet step inside and then turned back to Blair with wide eyes. Blair heard it too. A child’s screaming from somewhere, the growl of Whitney’s voice. And thumping. And then slamming. And then crying.
Blair had pulled Chloe back outside, closed the door quietly, and placed the cookies on the doormat. She’d felt the same unnerving fear she had at the barbecue, privy to something far too intimate. She wanted to unhear it. At home, she’d sat on the sofa and pulled Chloe in to sit with her. She’d reminded her that sometimes grown-ups lose their patience. But you don’t do that, Chloe had said. You’re never scary. Blair had said something about everyone having bad days. And then she’d convinced herself of the same thing.
Now, Chloe’s eyes stay on the sidewalk. Blair knows she isn’t being honest. She has an intimate understanding of her daughter, every expression, every mannerism, and she knows she’s hiding something. That she’s doing what she thinks a good girl should do.
In the drugstore, she leaves Chloe looking through the row of get-well cards. She stares at the shelf of condoms at the back near the pharmacy counter. There are more choices than she remembers. More serums and textures and tingling jellies, a world she has no use for anymore. She imagines someone rolling the rubber taut over Aiden’s dick.
She digs out the corner of the foil packaging from her pocket. One by one she opens boxes from the brand Aiden used to buy. She looks for the same shade of green, the same rippled edge, but she can only find a similar jewel tone in plum. She pulls a row of condoms from the box and holds the purple next to the ripped foil. They have identical weight and texture. The corner in her hand is the same dimension.
She could check the brand’s website for their product line. She could ask someone who works there if they have other varieties in the back room. And then what? She’ll be here in this place where she’s been for months. Looking for more proof and then looking for more excuses.
She finds Chloe, who is reluctant to decide among the three cards she holds. She wants to leave without buying any of them. The news about Xavier is sinking in. Blair crouches to her level and takes her cheeks in her hands.
“Hey, honey, you okay? Tell me how you’re feeling.”
Chloe’s face crumbles and Blair knows the tears will come next. “I just want to go home. I don’t want to go to school today.”
“I’m so sorry you’re feeling upset. I understand, I really do. It’s completely normal to feel this way, he’s your best friend. You just want him to get better, right?”
Chloe cries into her chest and tries to stifle the noise. Blair closes her eyes. They shouldn’t have told her yet, not when there is still so much unknown.
“But that’s the problem. He isn’t my best friend anymore.” She pulls away from Blair and tries to catch her breath between sobs. “I said some mean things to him on Wednesday, at morning recess. Really, really mean things that made him cry in front of everyone. And then Hayden Ross threw a granola bar at his face. I wish I helped him. But I didn’t, I just laughed and then everyone else did, too, and then he hid in the bathroom. I was going to say sorry to him yesterday when we walked to school, but now I can’t.”
“Oh, Chloe. Come here.”
She pulls Chloe’s head against her chest and it registers. Wednesday. The night of the accident. Xavier adores Chloe. She’s his only real friend, but he’s one of many for Chloe. This would have devastated him.
But it’s not the time for reprimanding her. She hushes her instead, and then puts her lips to Chloe’s ears: “Don’t worry about that right now, okay?” She kisses her. She wipes Chloe’s tears and takes her hand. “Come on, let’s go pay for this and get to school.”
“Will you take him the card and his airplane? And tell him I’m sorry I said that nobody would care if he died, and he should just disappear?”
Nobody would care if he died. Disappear. The words fold in Blair’s mind, and then fold again, and then fold again, until they are as small as she can make them. She stares ahead at the display of wrapping paper squares and the poms of spiral ribbons for gifts, and she can see only one thing. Xavier, alone, leaning over the bedroom window. Not caring, either, if he died.
39
Whitney
The Hospital
Her phone appears in front of her, in Jacob’s hand. He’s back in the room, he smells like toothpaste. He’s wearing different clothes. It must be morning. He’s saying something about texts from her assistant, she’s sent Whitney three messages, but the screen is locked, so he can’t read them to her. Does she want to check? Does she want him to call the office for her? The meeting, there was that big meeting this morning. He can let them know what’s happened to Xavier, that she won’t be available for a few days. Whitney doesn’t answer, she doesn’t want to think about work. Jacob waits. He’s unsure of what she wants. And then he makes the decision for her. He says he’ll slip out of the room to call Grace, he’ll be just a minute.
But then she snatches the phone from him. She sucks in the stale hospital room air, but her lungs don’t fill like they need to. She grips the phone as tightly as she can, and she needs Jacob to back away, to leave the room. Because Grace doesn’t ever text, she only emails.
Someone else in her phone is listed as Grace.
She asks Jacob to go downstairs to get her a sandwich. Says she thinks she might finally be hungry. Her voice is too tight; he’s quiet for a moment. And then he looks around for his wallet, says he’s glad her appetite is back, but she knows he doesn’t believe her.
When he is gone, she unlocks the screen and reads the three texts.
I’m sorry. For everything.
I need to see you again.
I think she’s close to finding out.
40
Rebecca
She is still alone on the floor in the empty nursery. She has an ache for something she can’t recognize at first, and then the obviousness is overwhelming. She wants to see her mother.
Her mother’s voice is full and hopeful on the other end of the line when Rebecca asks if she can stop by later that morning. She’s avoided seeing her mother as often as she should. Being around her reminds Rebecca of the relationship she herself might never have. They usually talk about other things instead, politics, her work, the condo board her mother has joined, but she knows her fertility is on both of their minds.