“That’s why I followed you,” Benny said. “I can’t say I saw the whole thing, but I saw enough.”
“Whatever you think you saw, you’re mistaken.”
“Oh, I was mistaken all right. Do you know I’ve actually convinced people to give you the benefit of the doubt? I even doubted my own wife, and for what? Because I pitied you! Because I thought: Well, his job is to care for women!” Benny was emitting an anger—no, a disgust—that sent a chill through Izzy. “I feel sorry for any child who came into this world and had to see you first.”
An ugly fire flashed in Paul’s eyes, and Benny put a protective arm around Izzy’s shoulders, sending a wave of gratitude washing over her.
“Let’s not blow this out of—”
“Save it for the police. I’ve already called them.”
Paul’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “Not very neighborly of you, Ben,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t you think I’ve been through enough?”
“No,” Benny said, sounding almost his jovial self again. “I definitely don’t.”
“Neither do I,” said a voice from the open gate behind them.
Detective Bryant was pretty nice to have around, after all.
43
I wasn’t going to do anything—she never would have even known I was there if she hadn’t come outside.
—Sentence most repeated (five times) throughout the course of Paul Kirkland’s statement to the police after his arrest
There was not even the slightest hint of a question anymore: Izzy knew what she had to do. And the sooner the better. Never mind that she’d barely slept last night, the adrenaline unrelenting long after she’d waved Benny away, declining his offer to send Clara over to stay with her, saying she just wanted to be alone when really the thought of it made her queasy. The bandages on her foot had chafed as she’d tossed and turned, though fortunately it was only badly scraped. She had other bruises, welts shaped like fingers, and the process of having her injuries photographed and cataloged by the police—as apologetically invasive as they were heartbreakingly practiced in the matter—had driven home the odd combination of relief and horror that came with knowing she’d gotten off easy. She’d finally fallen asleep not long before dawn and had been awakened by the phone not long after.
But she’d rest more easily than she had in far too long once this was done.
She dug through her closet until she found the oversized canvas tote she was looking for, a freebie from a book fair she’d dragged Josh along to, and steeled herself as she slung it over her shoulder and crossed the hall to the guest room.
The things stored here were not, as she’d once lamented, “the relics of her reality.” They were relics of … something else.
Into the bag went the journal she and Josh had kept. Never once had he asked about it, from the second he’d started seeing Penny. She made quick work of concealing it from view under a stack of her own sketchbooks from their years of wandering the woods together, and on she moved to the box of jumbled ticket stubs and park maps, admission bracelets and snapshots. She filled the bag slowly but with determination, ignoring the pangs of protest from somewhere within as she gathered every memento she’d kept from their years of friendship. For so long, it had felt like her closest one, but she had to accept that, for her part, at least, it hadn’t really been friendship at all. It had been unrequited love all along. And she couldn’t hold on to what was left of it anymore. Never had it been so obvious how unhealthy it was. She supposed she had Paul to thank for that, in some contorted fashion.
Working her way down the checklist that had formed overnight in her mind, she returned to her room and flung the closet door open wider. She tossed in that T-shirt from the concert they’d driven all the way to Indianapolis for, wired on gas station coffee. The sweater she’d bought with the remote hope that he’d notice how it matched her eyes. Her old worn hiking boots, the tread still muddied from all the trails she’d followed him down. From the jewelry box she retrieved the clover charm he’d chosen for her birthday, her favorite one on her silver Pandora chain. She knew without trying the bracelet back on that her arm would feel lighter without it.
Josh was wrong. He hadn’t gained her as a sister. He had lost her as a friend—or, at least, as a close one. It would never be that way again, between them. But that didn’t mean she had to lose Penny too. She never wanted to be like Kristin’s sister, stuck wondering how she could have handled things differently once it was too late to make amends. In a once-removed kind of way, she owed it to Kristin to take her own second chance.
She could only hope that Kristin, wherever she was, was doing the same. In the garish light that last night’s events had shined on Paul, she didn’t know whether to be more afraid for what might have become of Kristin and the twins, or more relieved for what they might have escaped. She’d decided on the optimistic outlook—where all of them were concerned.
Penny would forgive her for these months of distance. She was sure of it. Her sister would never know the real reason behind her absence, but she’d know Izzy was back, and that was the part that mattered. They had a lot to look forward to. And Izzy was going to be a damn good aunt, as a matter of fact.
When she could think of nothing else to purge, she took the bag down to the garage and heaved it into the trash bin with a thud. Pickup was first thing tomorrow, leaving little room for a lingering temptation to dig it out, for sensing its presence there like a stowaway on a ship. She topped it off with the garbage from the kitchen and pressed the button to raise the garage door so she could wheel the bin to the curb before she lost her nerve. No matter that it was only midmorning.
As her ears filled with the sound of heavy plastic rolling across pavement, it was no surprise to see Clara’s front door open and her friend bound out. Clara jogged across the street but paused at the end of Izzy’s driveway, as if it had occurred to her to wait for an invitation. They hadn’t spoken since the night Clara tried to warn her off Paul, though Izzy had seen her huddled with Natalie and Hallie on the Tiffins’ porch last night, watching Detective Bryant guide the handcuffed doctor roughly into the backseat of his patrol car as Izzy and Benny retreated inside to give their statements to another officer. Izzy had been too shocked to register Clara’s presence with anything other than embarrassment—she had every right to be thinking I told you so. The lights didn’t flash, there wasn’t much of a scene, but this wouldn’t be the end. Izzy would never back down from pressing charges—there was too much at stake.
Issuing a restraining order against your neighbor was mathematically challenging, it turned out, where yards as literal rectangles of grass made more sense than as units of measure, and there weren’t nearly enough of them in between. Detective Bryant had called first thing and told her that since Paul had already been making moves to put his house on the market, he’d been ordered to relocate back to the dingy apartment. Evidently, they expected him to cooperate fully now that his medical license could be in jeopardy. He’d warned Izzy, though, that the media weren’t as likely to keep a safe distance once they got word of his arrest. Any time now.
Oddly, for the first time in a long while, Izzy wasn’t worried. Not about Paul or anything else. It was as if the impossible sadness and fear she’d been unable to hide from in the world around her had arrived on her doorstep and she had looked it in the eye and turned it away.
Not here.
Not me.
The fact that help had arrived when she needed it, and had put its faith in her and in the truth, had restored her belief in something. The world was not against her. The right people, evidently, were on her side.