Claire wrapped her arms around herself. She closed her eyes in order to remember, to block out the simple, tame beauty of the early morning, the empty school, the dark ball field, and the starry sky, which was increasingly feeling like the only place in the world.
“What happened next wasn’t all that dramatic. I mean, it was so quick, when I think about it now. The man broke through the door and bellowed Seth’s last name. It wasn’t hard to find us, even though the lights were out. The place was so small. Seth had gotten to his feet, and was standing on the mattress, trying to keep his balance, and just as the man came through the doorway to the bedroom, I had pulled myself up, half-blinded by fear, and was reaching for Seth, reaching for him, but then I was overcome by some unexpected fury, and I turned toward the man and tried to hit him, and then fell toward him, and I have no idea whether he intended to hurt anyone or only terrorize Seth to get the money Seth had stolen, or hadn’t given to him, but I felt the knife enter at my shoulder, I felt it puncture my lung and go all the way through, and then the man pulled it out and I heard him say the first words of a sentence. ‘Fuck! I didn’t know—’ but then it was like he was speaking a different language, even though he couldn’t have been, and I heard Seth scream and dive forward, and he fell on top of me and I could hear the sound of someone running away. Seth was up on his arms, looking down, asking me a question, and I could feel droplets falling from his face, but it was still dark in the room, and I couldn’t tell what they were. He turned me over and was pushing on my chest, where the blade had come through, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He went away then, for what seemed a long time, and when he came back, I was cold, so cold, and shivering, and he covered me up and put his hand to my shoulder again. I could feel how wet the bed was around me, and he was pressing on my chest, but I could also hear him sobbing, his shoulders heaving, and he was repeating something over and over, but it was like I’d lost all capacity to understand language, and could only hear the words being made. I remember hearing sirens, though they were far off, and I was thinking of the Sirens of Greek mythology, and the way they would lure men toward their deaths. And I thought for a minute that I could be dying, and that Seth’s voice was the voice of a Siren. But then all I felt was the cold again, and I felt myself shaking, and Seth was gone, and I was alone in that room, and it was incredibly large and growing larger, with its receding walls, and I was alone, alone and—”
She stopped there because she could remember nothing else. She wanted to open her eyes, but was afraid to. She wanted to open them to California and that other life. She felt Genevieve shift next to her, she felt her shadow over her, and when she felt her lips on hers she didn’t flinch, didn’t turn her head. Genevieve left them there for several seconds, and when she pulled away, Claire raised her head to keep them there a moment longer. She opened her eyes, and Genevieve was still close, blacking out most of the sky.
“I’m sorry, Claire,” she said. Genevieve rested her hand on the side of Claire’s face, her thumb lightly stroking her temple. “There’s no Lucy. No Jack. No motel in California where you learned to love the summers.”
“I know that,” she said. “I know that now.”
She felt the ache in her belly and arms where Lucy had never been, but she would not cry.
“And I promise you, I promise you, that he won’t know that you know. That I would never tell him that you know.”
Claire did not think to ask who he was.
“Do you still want to hear the rest of Marc’s story?”
“Yes.”
“Claire, it would make him so happy that you still want to hear it.”
“I know that, too. I do know that, Genevieve.”
She closed her eyes and waited.
15
Marc could discern only the sounds of a city slowly waking—cars on a street several blocks away, the warning signal of a truck backing up, then a shout, a train in the distance braking on its rails. A man coughing as he walked past. He was still turned away from the window, but light now shone dully off the walls.
He realized he was barely breathing, waiting for Josephine to continue, waiting for her to rescue Claire from the moment of her … the moment of her …
But she goes on living, doesn’t she? he thought. She’ll climb out of the back of that truck bed, and when the sun rises, she’ll drive down the toll road toward Chicago, and Genevieve will tell the story of Marc and Kathleen at the lake house, and in the quiet and the cold, they’ll find a way to start talking again, and that night Marc will sleep curled next to Kathleen, and when Claire and Genevieve arrive outside of Chicago, Claire will drop her off at an L station, and they’ll say good-bye, and Claire will think about Lucy as she drives the two hours that will take her to the hospital where Marc lies dying.
He waited. But Josephine sat so quietly she may as well not have been in the room. He made a quarter turn toward her and felt the pain in his shoulder where he’d fallen.