His hands on hers, sticky and hot.
“Mom,” he said, “you can’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, hand to his face.
“You’ll miss everything,” he said. “Mom, you’ll miss what’s happening.”
Just after five, she felt Eric’s body lift from the mattress. For a second, she forgot about everything that had happened in recent days and just watched him in the blue morning light.
Watched that familiar span of shoulders, the way his hair curled up his neck, his hand there, that early-morning piano-key dance he did with his fingers, prodding at kinks from days spent leaning over the soundboard or toward the glaring computer screens.
Watched him walk across the room, rolling his shoulders, yawning.
Watched him emerge from the bathroom, the shower’s fog, the smell of soap and shaving cream shuddering from him as he moved.
Watched as he took his phone from the dresser. The steady thrum of texts, e-mails rippling from it, his head curled down, reading them, all of them under his fingertips.
There were furtive thoughts she tried never to linger over. Like maybe Eric never would have married her if she hadn’t gotten pregnant (the night it happened, drunk on a softball victory, the company team, and three jubilant hours at Rizzo’s Tavern with everyone toasting his grand slam, Eric had been the one sweet-talking her into the back of the SoundMasters van. The one who promised her it would be okay, promised her everything). Or the other thought: that he never would have stayed married to her if it weren’t for Devon.
It’s just, he’d said once, that shaky first year, Devon swaddled to Katie’s chest, I don’t need you the same way.
But, thank God, everything was different later, and had been ever since.
Before he left, that kiss on her cheek, his breath tanged with mouthwash, she loved him so much.
Then the last week sharp-kneed its way back into her brain.
The shower still warm, she stood under the water a long time.
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
The sentence came to her, dizzy from the steam. Wasn’t it that thing Teddy always said during practice? Don’t let me see it hurt. Everything’s beautiful, nothing hurts.
Dreams and waking mingling all night, purple cars and whey-faced strangers, and poor Ryan slipping into her half-conscious state, she felt like she hadn’t slept at all.
He would always find the lonely person in every room…
That’s when the memory came. A few months ago, Ryan in the gym’s lobby—he’d caught her as she tried to change the bottle in the watercooler, the cold, wet thing slipping perilously from her arms, like a wriggling child.
That’s bigger than you are, Ryan had said, reaching out for her, saving her.
Rubbing her wrists, she watched him, forearms clamping the bottle, the cuts, scars, and puckered burns of a line cook.
As he leaned over, turning the water bottle, she spotted a worn paperback gaping from his back pocket.
It tumbled to the floor, resting on Katie’s shoe.
Picking it up, she touched the book’s fading red cover, soft as felt.
I missed a lot in high school, he said, screwing the glistening bottle into the stand. I’m taking classes at JCC. Making up for lost time.
She didn’t know the book.
You shouldn’t be lifting things like that, he said, shaking his head.
The bottle left his shirtfront damp.
Maybe not, she said, her face warm and her hands still slippery.
Now, your daughter’s another story, Ryan said. Small as a peanut, strong as a tiger.
Oh, Katie said. Her shoulders slumped a little. Yes. Yes, she is.
He smiled, filling a cup of water for her, and it felt—
Of all the moms, he said, winking, you’re the nicest.
Stepping from the shower, she heard the trill of her ringtone.
The opening thumps of “Assassin’s Tango.”
A number she didn’t know.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Knox.” The voice was brittle and low and she didn’t recognize it. She wasn’t even sure if it was male or female. “Why won’t your daughter talk to me?”
“Who is this?”
“You can tell her for me that I know everything.”
“Hailey,” Katie said, just realizing it. “Hailey, what are you—”
“You can tell her I’m watching her. I know all about her. She can’t hide from me.”
“Hey, calm down,” Katie said, trying to keep in mind what Tina had said about her niece, all the medication.
“I won’t calm down,” she said, that surly tone, clenched jaw. “People have been telling me my whole life to calm down.”
“Hailey, you’re going through a lot right now.”
“I am, Mrs. Knox. I’m going through a lot, and thanks to that stunted freak daughter of yours, that little monkey—”
A lurch in her chest, her voice rising. “Don’t you dare talk about—”
“I thought you were my friend.” Her voice hard, hammering. “I thought you were a nice lady. Maybe you are. But I’m telling you this: you have no clue about that thing under your roof.”