It was fast, and she could feel the blood from her ankle running down her leg, flung in the air.
His face pressed so hard against her, teeth clicking, heads knocking each other, the sound that came from him only sometimes, once in a great while, a pressure so overwhelming and a relief so immense that his body racked and fevered, and she felt herself in the center of something ugly and breathtaking.
Even as it was happening, she knew that in the morning she wouldn’t remember what they had done and if it had been different than ever before. All she’d remember was that she felt a shiver, a cold hush all through. And later, an unbearable heat that shamed her.
Married a long time, you think there will never be any surprises again, at least not those kinds. But you are wrong.
She pulled the sheets up over herself. Her chest was making a funny noise, and she couldn’t get anything in her lungs.
Inhaling, exhaling, her palm on her chest.
She hadn’t even felt him pull away, sit up.
Turning her head, her neck still throbbing, her legs still shaking, she saw he was already sitting up on the edge of the bed. Looking out the window into the pitch-black backyard, the garage’s graying gable.
“I’m just trying to protect her from all this,” he said. “From all these distractions.”
“A boy died,” she started, her voice almost like a chant, “a boy died.”
“Ryan,” he said, not turning around. “Ryan. I know you love to talk about Ryan.”
“What?” Rubbing her face, trying to think. “Love to talk about—”
“That kid,” he said. “That kid, the way everyone looked at him.”
He turned around and faced her, leaning toward her.
“The way you looked at him,” he said.
“What?” Katie said, wondering if this was really happening, the whiskey soaking through her.
“Fuck that kid,” he said. “Fuck that kid and his beautiful face. That’s Teddy’s problem. And that psychotic niece of his, that’s his problem too. Fuck that kid. Who cares about that kid?”
A coldness dropped through her.
“You know who cares?” She took a breath and said it. “Your daughter.” It excited her to say it. “Your daughter loved that boy. Your daughter was sleeping with that boy.”
“What?” he said, so quiet she barely heard him. “What did you say?”
“I said they were sleeping together. Hailey must have found out. They were sleeping together and that started all this.”
He wouldn’t look at her, turning back to the window, to the yard’s depths, the open maw of the garage. The excitement in her chest twisted into something else.
“Eric,” she said, “did you know about them?”
He spun around slowly and looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, Katie. I swear.”
That’s when she knew he was lying.
And she said, “You either tell me everything or you leave now.”
And then he was gone.
“Katie, why are you calling me? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”
But Gwen sounded awake. She probably never slept at all, like a bullfrog or a shark.
“Go wake up my daughter, Gwen. She’s not answering her phone. Wake her up and tell her I’m coming to get her.”
“You need to settle down, Katie. There’s no reason—”
“Get her up. She’s coming home now.”
Grabbing for her sneakers, one eye on Drew’s open bedroom door. Katie could hear him breathing deeply, his hanging solar system tilting above him. Styrofoam planets, Saturn’s rings coated in dust.
“Katie,” Gwen was saying, “have you been drinking?”
“I know what you’ve been up to. I know what you’ve been doing with my daughter. Have her waiting on your front steps.”
There was a brief pause.
“Five minutes,” Gwen said, and hung up.
The lights at the Weaver house all seemed to come on at once, the instant Katie’s car touched the foot of the long drive.
At the glowing rectangle of the front door, Devon stood, poised.
“Mom,” she called out, duffel bag in one hand and backpack in the other, both swinging, whipping around her as she skidded down the long slope, hair flying, flip-flops and her sleep shorts, a sweatshirt yanked over her bolt-tight frame, Thoroughbred legs gripping the blue carpet of the lawn.
“Mom!”
“I can’t talk about anything now.”
They were still in the car, in the garage, and Katie’s voice was louder than she’d ever known it, louder than Coach T.’s, her own clamorous mother’s, anyone’s.
“We are going to talk about it right now. You will tell me. About you and Ryan Beck.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Stop it. I know. His mother told me, Devon. Ryan’s mother told me.”
“She’s lying,” Devon said. “I don’t even know her. She’s lying.”
Oh, to see her daughter look at her, her face so composed, and lie so easily.
“I saw your leotard, Devon.”