“I went for a drive.”
I scooted around her into the living room, noticing how it had been tidied up. I’d let my housekeeping slide with my depression. There were no clothing and magazines strewn on the wicker couch or kilim-covered floor. The take-out food cartons had been cleared from the pine dining table. The aroma of fresh coffee wafted through the rooms.
Grace followed me inside and shut the door. All this domestic handiwork was hers. In college, she managed to make staying in and doing laundry on a Saturday night seem like a party. Of course, smoking pot always helped.
“You went for a drive? Really?” She evaluated me skeptically. “That explains why you look like you’ve crawled through a sewer.”
I averted my gaze.
“And how you got that nasty scratch under your eye.”
I heard my cell phone—my only phone—ring in the kitchen. Saved by the bell.
“You’ve had about ten calls since I got here,” Grace said, trailing me as I went to fetch it. “One was from Lada, but I didn’t answer because I couldn’t tell her where you were. I’m sure she’s upset.”
The phone sat on the butcher-block kitchen counter next to a pile of mail. Its face read “Unknown Caller.” I silenced the ringer.
“You should call her,” Grace said.
My back was to Grace, blocking her view of Hugh’s letter. It still sat on top of the mail stack. I’d reread it a dozen times but couldn’t make a decision about how to respond. Grace obviously hadn’t noticed the return address or she would have said something. This was not the moment to show her a maddening letter from Hugh. There was no point in letting her know he’d hurt me again, or in stirring up anger at him. I picked the envelope up discreetly and stuffed it in the pocket of my trench coat.
“Nora?”
“What?”
I pivoted and walked back to the living room with Grace still on my tail.
“You should let her know you’re okay.”
“Who?”
“Lada! If, in fact, you are okay. Have you heard one word I said?”
I flopped onto the couch and began the struggle to take off my Wellingtons, twisting and yanking first one, then the other to no avail.
“Talk to me, Nor.”
“Fuck!” I yelled as a boot finally gave way and I pitched it across the room. The toe grazed the framed photograph of my father that sat on my desk and toppled it, filling me with regret. Grace came and stood over me, her brow furrowed.
“Give me that,” she said, pointing to my remaining booted leg.
I lifted my leg and she calmly eased the boot off.
“I want to know everything,” she said.
Grace makes the most delicious fried eggs. Mine always cook up rubbery, but she gets perfect, crispy whites and syrupy yolks. Eating them in my oversize, claw-legged bathtub between sips of strong coffee makes them taste even better. The tub sits next to a window that looks out over a small garden and across an open field ending in dense cedar woods—a welcome change from the bleak views in my post-divorce city apartment.
Pink roses bloomed just under the window the first spring I spent here. But the deer munched the petals like candy and left only thorny stumps. I’ve been meaning to clear out the dead rosebushes and plant daffodil bulbs before the frost hits. The man from the garden center said the deer have zero interest in daffodils. But I haven’t gotten around to taking the bulbs out of the shed yet. Sometimes I think I’m like those bulbs. Dormant. Sitting around in dull, protective wrapping.
Instead of working in my garden, I spend a lot of time soaking in this tub. I watch squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays and cardinals. I daydream about the usual topics: money, worldly recognition. Love. I imagine having enough money to buy a house of my own, writing a great piece of journalism and winning a Pulitzer, meeting a man. This would be a romantic place to make love if I ever met the right one. I tried dating last spring. A photographer Grace knew from the city who was doing a book on Pequod’s historic houses. A smart, funny guy. After three dates, I invented a reason to withdraw. I told him a long-distance relationship wouldn’t work.
Aside from the excellent tub, my pale blue bathroom has wall sconces, a side table and a Shabby Chic armchair in the corner—my version of a Jane Austen sitting room. Hugh would not have tolerated this decor. I’ve discovered that one of the benefits of living alone is you can have as much chintz as you like.
After serving me, Grace returned to the bathroom with a cup of coffee for herself and curled up in the rose-patterned armchair.
“So, out with it. How did you get so filthy? Where did you go?”
Despite her questions, I had to admit hanging out like this with Grace was comforting. We’d spent about a zillion hours talking to each other in our dorm bathroom back in the day.
“I drove to the beach and took a long walk. I was trying to wrap my head around what happened.” I set the empty plate on the floor, leaned back against the porcelain wall of the tub and sank further into the water. I hated lying to Grace.
“And the mud?”
I swallowed hard and said the only thing I could think of.
“When the storm hit, I ran for the car. I tripped and fell into a puddle near where I parked.”
Somehow lying to Grace while I was naked made me feel more sinful—like Eve in the Garden after the apple. She came over, picked the plate up and looked me right in the eye.
“You must have been so upset,” she said, softening. “You were in shock.”
Shock. Yes. Lizzie and Grace had both come to the same, logical conclusion. That would explain my irrational thinking.
“I wasn’t in my right mind,” I said.
Grace went back to her chair and put the plate on the side table.
“I just wish you’d called me before you went off like that.”
“I did. I couldn’t reach you,” I said, relieved to be honest for a moment. “So you spoke to Ben? Does he know anything besides what they said on the news?”
“He’s tried his contacts at the county police but hasn’t heard back yet. He’s thinking it was a home invasion or a robbery gone bad. It’s just so insane.”
A home invasion. A robbery gone bad. I sank lower into the water and closed my eyes. Hugh’s and Helene’s faces appeared. Flesh reduced to gory masses of red-and-purple mush. The work of a shotgun blast. I gagged and sat up.
“Like the Clutters.”
“Who?”
“The Clutters. The family those robbers shot in Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood.” I covered my eyes. For the first time since I’d heard about the murders, tears poured out.
Grace rose again, came over and knelt next to the tub.
“Breathe, honey. That’s right. Just breathe,” she said, rubbing my back.
“This whole thing is so unspeakably awful.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I just feel . . . fuck. I don’t know what I feel.”
“It’s traumatic for you.” She stroked my hair. “And with all the times you must’ve wished them dead, maybe you feel, I don’t know. Guilty.”