I grabbed my keys. But—no—they were her keys. She’d put her keys in my spot. I tried again. Your keys, Nancy, your keys.
I crashed through the door, jogged across the lanai. Her voice behind me, following me. She screamed it at the top of her lungs.
“This secret binds you to me forever!”
36
“Chuck’s in the staff meeting,” the woman at the desk said. “It’s over in half an hour.”
“Shit.” I scratched my head. I tried to think. I felt insane. The woman looked at me like she felt sorry for me, and I felt more insane. “Where’s the meeting?”
She pointed down the hall with her pencil. “Third door on the left.”
I burst through the door because I had to. Chuck was standing in front of a room full of people in the red Costco shirt he wore to boost morale. He was saying, “And the go-backs at the end of the day”—and then he saw me. I motioned for him to come here now and I backed out of the door so these people would stop looking at me. I heard him say, “Brad, would you mind taking over for a sec?” Low voices in the room, a chair squeaking on the floor, footsteps, and then there he was. He closed the door lightly behind him. He folded his arms across his chest. “What’s going on?”
“Chuck, I can’t. Ana, I—”
Why had I come here? I couldn’t tell him.
“Nancy.” His hands on my arms. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” I felt calmer with him touching me. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
We killed someone. No, she killed someone. There was an accident.
“Will you come home, please?”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, I just—Ana, I can’t be—I think we should—I don’t know what to do. I think we should ask her to leave. But I can’t. I need you to do it.”
He sighed. He was disappointed in me.
“Please,” I begged.
He took his hands off my arms. “Nancy, if you want her to leave, ask her to leave.” Voices in the meeting room. He looked at the door. “I really need to get back in there.”
“Chuck,” I pleaded.
He put his hand on the doorknob. He wasn’t even going to hug me good-bye.
“Chuck. Please. Help me.”
He said it nicely, which made it worse. “I think you need to help yourself.” He turned the knob. In a way that sounded too final, he said, “I’ll see you later.”
?
Spinning. It was too hot outside. Someone in the parking lot called my name. “Hi, Mrs. Murphy!” I pretended not to hear.
The thud, the flashlight rolling, rolling. Bound to her. Forever. And Gersh? Gersh? What the fuck, I didn’t even know her fucking name! And Gersh—there was something about that name. Had I heard it before?
My eyes bugged open. My hand covered my mouth.
I had heard it before.
From her.
That quote she’d written down for me.
I stopped right there in the parking lot. I sat on the curb. I knew it was still in my purse. Where is it, where is it? I said, out loud or in my head, and I was boiling and dizzy, and where was that fucking piece of paper? and then here it was, here it was, and I unfolded it.
Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.
—ANA GERSH
I was already typing it into my phone.
Search.
I clicked the first link.
Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.
—BUDDHA
37
Like a good person, or like a person who knew she’d be more likely to leave if she had a place to go, I booked Ana a room at Holiday Inn Express. “Ana Gersh,” I told the person behind the desk. “Yes, I will pay in full now.”
On the way back to the car, a homeless woman approached me. “Hey, nice lady,” she said, her voice hoarse. Leathery skin hung off her bones and she was barely wearing any clothes. “You got a few bucks? I’m hungry.”
Relief washed over me like something pure and purifying. “Yes, of course.” I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to her.
Her worn face lit up. She was imagining what she would do with the money. “God bless you,” she said, and I thanked her. I needed a blessing. I would take anything.
?
The boys’ car in the driveway. Why? It was only one in the afternoon; they should be at school.
“Ana?” I called, slipping my shoes off. “Boys?”
I would say it with kindness.
Ana, I booked you a room, and I would appreciate it if you left. Yes, tonight.
Ana, I would appreciate it if you left tonight. I booked you a room at the Holiday Inn.
“Boys?” I called again. “Ana?”
And then I heard her laughing from down the hall. A burst of laughter, and then it stopped.
“Hello?” I followed her voice. “Hello?”
The bedroom door was closed. Strange because she usually liked it open. I don’t know why I stood outside the door instead of just opening it, but that’s what I did.
I heard movement. And then she was saying something. I couldn’t make out the words. Was she on the phone?
And then—a man’s muffled voice. But it couldn’t be.
And then something fell. Something light. The box of Kleenex I’d put by the bed.
And then Ana moaned.
No.
Please God no.
Please please please please please as I opened the door.
I stopped breathing.
I covered my mouth.
I gagged.
Jed’s naked back. The twisted sheets. My bedspread on the floor.
Ana looked straight at me. Her eyes quivered and gleamed.
Everything blurred. Jed’s back, Ana’s face, her dark eyes like smudges, the neon-pink streak, the heap of white sheets.
And she didn’t stop. And she didn’t tell Jed to stop. She moaned again. Louder, she moaned. She craned her neck back and moaned.
He leaned toward her neck.
I screamed his name. “Jed!”
He gasped. He didn’t look back at me. He looked around the room, searching for a place to hide. He rolled off of her and buried himself under the sheets so it was just his feet sticking out, and then Ana was waving at me with just her pinkie. In a high-pitched voice to the rhythm of her puppet finger, she said, “Hi, Nan.”
I walked down the hall. The hall started breathing, turning black at the edges. In a second I would fall. I grabbed the side of the couch. I slumped over it. I closed my eyes tight, tighter. I tried to breathe.
In the bedroom, Jed yelled at her. “I don’t know!”
I made my way to the sink. I drank water with my hands like an animal.
Jed pulling his T-shirt over his head as he walked into the kitchen. He said, “Mom.”
“Go back to school,” I told his feet. I couldn’t look at his face. My voice was cold. “Now.”
His toes curled. “It was her dying wish, Mom.”
I still couldn’t look at him. “Tell me you wore a condom.”
His voice cracked when he said, “I did.”
“Go back to school.”
“It’s not his fault, Nan!” Ana sang from the bedroom.
“Go,” I hissed, and Jed, startled by this version of me, hurried out the door.