“This isn’t something I’m proud of. It was right before that awful year when I was hurt. I saw him on the street around Christmastime. I was on my way to meet my boyfriend. It was so cold, and I was underdressed, and walking fast. I’d talked to my mother a few days earlier after ignoring her calls, but there were so many of them I finally picked up, and she’d told me she’d left my father. I had a moment where I felt like I was falling. It was as if you went out for a bike ride and when you came home you saw that all the windows of your house were rearranged. But I shrugged that off. I wasn’t thinking of either of them at that time. I thought I was headlong into my own life, and I didn’t care then that I was a little out of control. I liked it.
“Anyway, I’d gone around a block and was heading down another. I heard a man shout my name, and I turned in his direction. There were a lot of people along the street, and cars passing, but I could see it was my father. He caught my eyes for a split second, or at least I think he did. It was hard to tell from that distance. But I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to talk to him. He always seemed wounded to me in some small way, and now, after my mother had just left him—besides, I wanted to get to my boyfriend.”
Genevieve’s face was bathed in the amber light from the streetlamp. There was a lit sign in front of the school that read, Last Day of Classes: June 13th. Have a smart summer! The parking lot was empty and the building dark.
“I spoke to him one more time before I was hurt. But the time I was—well, when I was attacked—that was when he was in—” She felt an icy realization pass through her.
“Genevieve?”
“Yeah?” She was still staring up at the sky.
“In the story you told. About my father. And Kathleen and Tom and Joline. And the baby. When they were at the table eating lunch. How did you know my father was in Pakistan?”
Genevieve’s expression didn’t change, but she did close her eyes for a second or two before opening them again and staring upward.
“It was kind of a guess. But I’ll tell you how I guessed if you’ll tell me something.”
“How could you guess a place like Pakistan?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“You wouldn’t believe me seems like a funny thing to say after everything you’ve described to me.”
“I was there for a while. Not for long. Six months or so.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you that story if you’ll tell one to me.”
“What story do you want to hear?”
Genevieve finally turned away from the sky, shifted onto her side, and looked back at the building. She said, “Can’t you just see all those kids running out of here on the last day of school, with their backpacks stuffed with pictures and projects they’d forgotten to bring home earlier in the year? My mother would take me and my friends out for ice cream, and she’d sort through my pack, admiring everything I’d done. I used to love that. What’s today, the sixteenth? It was only three days ago for these kids. They’re already becoming their endless summer selves.”
“Not endless,” Claire said.
“No, but it seemed like it back then, didn’t it?” Genevieve fell back against the thin mattress with her fingers crossed and under her chin. She looked like a child, and this didn’t suit her. “You probably already know what story. The one about this scar.” She reached over and found the place and touched Claire through her T-shirt. “Of the time you were attacked. How it happened. And who you were with. And who did it to you.”
“I really don’t want to tell that story. I don’t think I’ve ever told it to anyone. Even Jack.”
“I know. That’s why it’s the one I want to hear.”
Claire looked at Genevieve’s face. There was a slight smile on her full lips, and she was staring at her without blinking.
“Just tell me part of it,” she said. “The first part. Then I’ll tell you the rest of Marc’s story, and while we’re driving you can tell me the rest of yours. Do you think we’ll make Chicago by tomorrow night?”
“There’s a chance. It’s a long way. But maybe before midnight tomorrow.”
“So this could be our last night.”
“That’s right.”
“Then start telling me your story, Claire.”
Claire rolled over onto her back and looked at the dark sky. With Lucy and Jack seeming so far away, Genevieve was now the only one who stood between her and this reunion. She tried to imagine standing at her father’s bedside, his gray head on a pillow. Her mother’s aging face.
“I was living in a tiny apartment in the city,” she heard herself begin. “It wasn’t, you know, a nice place. If you turned the lights on in the middle of the night, you’d see roaches scurrying under the spoons or saucers you left out. And in January, the cold came through the cracks in the walls, and you had to walk around in sweaters with your shoulders wrapped in a blanket. I remember one cold snap where we brought in a thermometer, and the temperature inside read forty-nine degrees. We took a photo and sent it with the rent check to the landlord, but of course he never did anything. We didn’t expect him to. I don’t think we were even outraged. Spring was coming, after all.”
“Who’s we?” Genevieve asked.