“Penny can’t drink anymore, but—”
Izzy closed her eyes. How much more ridiculous could she get? “We can go to brunch!” She sounded like her mother, who had a habit of clasping her hands together joyfully and blurting out things no one wanted to do. Wouldn’t it be lovely to drop in on Mrs. Sims? Her son doesn’t visit much, you know. And she’s got that gorgeous parlor that never gets used!
“Yeah.” He looked around, and she cringed as she saw his eyes fall on her car parked in her driveway. Her taillight was gleaming new, but the area around it looked to have been in a fight with a tiger. “Yikes. Were you in an accident? Everything okay?”
The longer he stayed, the worse this was going to get.
“It was just some dumb thing.” He was staring at her. “Just a flesh wound,” she managed, one of their favorite movie quotes, and he rewarded her with a small smile.
“If you say so. Almost forgot.” He held out a bundle he must have grabbed from her mailbox—junk envelopes, catalogs, some sort of rudimentary-looking newspaper she hadn’t subscribed to but would probably get billed for. It was defeating, how things you didn’t want to deal with could show up at your doorstep anyway.
She didn’t linger to watch him leave. She closed the door and retreated to the kitchen, the bundle of mail still warm from his hands. She hugged it to her ferociously as she gave in to the fresh tears that had been threatening. Then, with a flick of her arm, she dropped it in the recycling bin as if it were on fire.
16
Most courts use the “best interests of the child” test to determine whether to award a stepparent requested visitation. Courts review whether continuing the child’s relationship with a stepparent enhances the child’s life and improves his or her welfare. If the answer is “yes,” visitation is awarded.
—Passage highlighted by Paul Kirkland in a “Rights of Stepparents in Custody and Visitation” brochure, with a question mark doodled in the margin
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Clara whispered. Benny kept on as if he hadn’t heard her. He dashed through the darkness, closing the gap between their yard and Paul and Kristin’s with a few long strides, and ducked behind the Kirklands’ detached garage, motioning impatiently for her to follow. She stole a glance through the narrow gap between the trees and out toward the street, where reporters, copies of The Color-Blind Gazette in hand, were too slowly packing up their vans in the wake of a stern admonishment from Detective Marks. “There is literally nothing to see here,” Clara had heard her booming. “You can do your reporting without further distressing these families.” Beyond them, Izzy’s house was dark save for a single upstairs window, and Clara couldn’t help wondering if Izzy was hiding up there—possibly even from her. She had no idea what any of her neighbors were going to think of this, what they were going to think of her, though she’d received confused, alarmed, “What the hell?” texts from Randi and Rhoda and promised to fill them in later. First, she had to deal with Paul.
“Come on!” Benny hissed. She was trying his patience. She’d called him at work and given him the short version of her afternoon with Hallie, Natalie, and Detective Bryant, but that hadn’t padded his shock at arriving home to the chaos assembled outside. The reporters had yelled questions at him as he slunk up the walk in a posture that broke Clara’s heart with its un-Benny-ness. All she could do was watch helplessly through the window. “Mr. Tiffin, were the Kirklands clients of your accounting firm?” “Mr. Tiffin, what do you make of your wife’s involvement with the case?” “Is it true that your wife was with Kristin Kirkland the night before she disappeared?” “If she wanted to be a whistle-blower, why this neighborhood newspaper? Why not do an interview with us?” “What else does she know?”
Clara took a deep breath, patted her jeans pockets to be sure the baby monitors were snug, and leaped ungracefully across the grass, knocking into her husband behind the garage wall and breaking her fall with a fistful of his shirt. “Too bad the cameras didn’t get a shot of that,” he muttered. “It would lay to rest the questions of your stealth.” She punched his arm. Benny would do this, forcing jokes to pretend he wasn’t upset when he really was—and usually, his going through the motions would stick. He wouldn’t be upset anymore. She wasn’t sure about this time, though. He hadn’t said he held her responsible for getting them pulled into this, but he hadn’t said he didn’t, either.
A distinctly autumnal chill had descended at sunset, and Clara’s shiver of anticipation doubled in intensity. The last of the summer’s locusts chorused as she and Benny peeked around the corner toward the sliding glass doors to Paul’s kitchen. The new back window gleamed, its pane standing apart from the weathered tone of the others, and the effect was one of someone trying too hard to blend in, failing to recognize that nothing about perfection was normal.
He was seated with his back to them at the table, alone, a lowball glass in front of him filled with ice and a brownish liquid. Bourbon, maybe. Clara didn’t want to be here. She knew it had to be done—Benny was right about that. But still …
She didn’t want to be here.
“I don’t feel right about sneaking up on him this way,” she said, stalling.
“It’s not like we can knock on the front door.”
“But maybe over the phone…”
He gently pressed her forward, out of the shadows into the expanse of grass illuminated by the lights of the house. She untucked her hair from behind her ear and let it fall over her face, a futile attempt to hide behind it somehow, and headed toward the low back porch with Benny half a step behind her. The wooden stairs creaked, and Paul turned and caught sight of them before they could knock. Quickly, he stood. He was wearing a T-shirt and pajama pants and had swapped his contacts for glasses. Though he wasn’t exactly disheveled, it was so foreign to see him dressed down that she felt a bit taken aback, as if they’d come upon him in an intimate moment.
Which, of course, they had. Sometimes solitude was the most intimate thing of all.
His face registered nothing—not surprise, not displeasure, not dread—as he crossed to the door and slid it open. He and Clara stared wordlessly at each other.
“Hey, man,” Benny began. “We can’t tell you how awful we feel about this. We wanted to clear the air—” Paul stepped aside and gestured toward the kitchen table. Benny filed in obediently, and Clara followed.
“Join me for a drink? Scotch? Beer?”
“No thanks,” Benny said. “Long day at the office tomorrow.”
“Clara? Come on, it’s bad form to let a neighbor drink alone.” She understood that this was a test of some sort. She also understood what he might have added but didn’t: Don’t tell me you have somewhere to be tomorrow. You’re right over there. All day. Right next to me.
“A beer would be great,” she managed, and as Paul made for the fridge, Benny shot her a look. She flipped her palms open in a way that she hoped conveyed, in the subtle language developed over years of marriage, that she had no fucking clue what he expected her to do.
“What the hell,” Benny called after him. “Make it two.”
Paul opened the bottles and handed one to each of them. “I have cookies, casseroles, you name it,” he said, tilting his head toward a cluster of Tupperware on the counter. “Any takers?” They shook their heads, and he slid back into his seat. “I went back to work yesterday and today. Only half days, but better than just sitting here. The nurses don’t know what to do but overfeed me. Then again, depending on what they make of that little gazette, this may be the last of the meals on wheels.” His voice was casual but pointed.
Clara wondered if he was turning a blind eye or if he, too, had read the comments threads on the early articles about Hallie’s project.