Okay, but call us when you’re ready to leave. It’ll be dark.
And Eric, most of his sleep lost that week getting Devon to practice by six a.m., was hunched over his laptop, headphones on, dark pouches under his eyes, old coffee on one side of him and a warming liter of diet soda on the other.
Katie had taken Drew to the mall for rock salt, right? And run into Kirsten Siefert in the parking lot, on her way to Lacey’s.
In the backseat, barely visible behind the raffia and cellophane, her daughter Jordan held a colossal spa birthday basket suited for a Beverly Hills grand dame.
I hope the party goes long. Greg’s taking me to Randello’s for dinner, Kirsten had whispered in Katie’s ear, her hair stiff with spray, an energy on her. But you’ve seen the way he eats. We’ll be home by nine. Eight if he starts ordering Jack and Coke.
At home, she’d lost an hour or two helping Drew with his science project, the shrimp eggs and the salt, salvaging a two-liter from a neighbor’s recycling bin, slicing the top off to serve as a hatchery, filling it with salt water. Standing on a kitchen chair, Drew sprinkled the shrimp eggs—glossy little beads the size of pinheads—inside.
Did Devon call? Eric had asked, vague tang of beer on his breath.
Right. He’d had a beer at dinner, and another while he watched, standing at the kitchen counter, the Junior Olympics National Invitational on one of the ESPNs. He’d drunk it guiltily, greedily, looking tired, all the adrenaline from the meet, from Devon’s win, from everything.
Or was he thinking of Devon and Ryan? Was he thinking of them constantly since he’d found out?
I thought she’d want me to pick her up by now, he’d said, watching Katie mop the briny water from the counter, the kitchen floor, the dining-room table, even the back of Drew’s neck.
They have to sit for three days, Mom, Drew had said. To see how many die.
She told him to put the hatchery in the basement or the garage, or it’d get knocked over and she’d be cleaning up salt water for days.
Then she began gathering laundry, handwashing Devon’s competition leotard in the sink. The TV was on downstairs, somewhere.
But where was Eric? The TV on, everyone’s computer humming. The blip of cell phones. Everyone in a different corner. He must have put Drew to bed. She didn’t remember that.
There was a whole pocket of the evening she couldn’t be sure Eric had been there at all.
The next time she looked at her watch it was nearly eleven, and she ran down the basement stairs to throw a clot of crusted dishrags in the washer, the final load.
And she’d finally heard the door from the garage slam, heard Devon pounding up the stairs, the shower turn on. She’d knocked on her bedroom door at one point. Said good night.
Night, Mom. Night.
She and Eric often didn’t go to bed at the same time. They almost never did.
Then, the part she remembered, two a.m., a tunnel of sleep and Eric reaching over, pressing against the small of her back, his fingers digging into the base of her spine, then climbing under her T-shirt, urgent and insistent.
Her demon lover.
What had he just done?
She felt her stomach turn.
I promise im ok. Really, mom.
Katie sat on the edge of her bed, phone in hand. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock in the morning and she was already so tired she couldn’t imagine standing, or putting on clothes.
I’ll get you after last period. DO NOT leave with anyone else.
Ok.
“This is Mrs. Knox. I’m calling to make a special request. Devon’s father—he’s on medication. Back pain.” It was so easy to lie. “He’s not supposed to be driving, but he’s very stubborn.”
“Sounds like my husband,” the school secretary said with a sigh.
“If he shows up, I don’t want him to leave with Devon.”
“Mr. Knox? Really?”
“He just doesn’t seem to be able to take it easy,” Katie said, forcing a wry tone. “It’s strong stuff he’s on. And he just can’t be trusted right now.”
“Of course, Mrs. Knox.”
“He’s not himself.”
IV
But I sometimes wonder, to this day, if courage is just another word for desperation.
—Nadia Comaneci, Letters to a Young Gymnast
Chapter Seventeen
She didn’t hear the car pull up the driveway.
She was on her hands and knees in the garage, looking for more paint chips, for glass.
All she could see was the long trail of rock salt from Drew’s first, failed science project.
The garage door was open only a foot when she spotted the cuffs of a man’s suit pants. A pair of scuffed wingtips.
The shoes paused a second, then kept walking.
A second later, the doorbell rang.
Katie looked down at herself, the T-shirt she’d slept in, her bare legs, knees covered in garage-floor grime. Dirt-and dust-flecked.
Through the frosted panel on one side of the front door, she saw the car in the driveway. A black Dodge.