Skyped with her lately. What’s the point? She doesn’t approve of my locking things away. She says it won’t work.” I put a protective palm on the clay I had wedged. It was cool and damp, and smelled of everything I loved, but I couldn’t work it. “Maybe she’s right. I’m sure as hell not making progress here.”
“It’s not the right time.”
“What if I can’t choose a time?” I cried softly. “What if the choice is made for me? What if the past won’t stay packed away in a box with my name on it, just sitting on a shelf until I feel like taking it off and breaking the seal? This week has been brutal, Kev. I see reporters even when they’re really just tourists. Officer Gill is in his cruiser, only he’s not playing Solitaire, he’s watching me, I swear he is, and he doesn’t wave. I look in my rearview mirror as I drive. I pull over at the bottom of Pepin Hill to make sure I’m not being followed. And I keep seeing Edward. I saw him at the market yesterday. He was buying eggs. Why is he buying eggs at our market when he can raid the kitchen at the Inn any time he wants? Why is he buying eggs, when he doesn’t even know how to cook!”
“He doesn’t?”
“No.”
“Breakfast? Eggs? Any idiot can cook eggs.” When I shrugged, Kevin said, “Maybe he wants to get to know the town. Maybe he’s lonely. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. He moved here alone.”
Moved here alone? Well, there was another possible burr. How unpleasant would it be seeing Edward with someone else? “How do you know that?”
“Those women who come here to play with clay? They talk.”
“How do they know?”
“Beats me.”
“Maybe he’s licking the wounds of a bad relationship,” I said with a snort.
Kevin looked skyward. “Sounds like someone I know.” His eyes returned to mine. “Have you talked with him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Maybe he’s only here for another day or two.”
“He bought a house.”
“Maybe for someone else. I mean, why would he want to be in the same town where I am? By the end of our marriage, we couldn’t look at each other. What does he think he’ll accomplish being here?”
“Don’t ask me that. Ask him. You need to talk with him—you know, get it all out in the open.”
“Talk about pain?”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t going away by itself. It’s festering in you, sweetie. I can smell it.”
“Smell it?”
“Not literally.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then, not caring that I sounded all of three years old, glared at Kevin and whispered, “I don’t want him here. I don’t want Officer Gill watching me. I don’t want to be frightened every time I see a camera. And I don’t want people talking at the post office about how Grace could have let her son do what he did, because that’s where we’re headed. People speculate, and she’s next in their sights. Do they not have anything better to do? My eyes were on my GPS when I ran that stop sign. I admitted it. Know what the rumors were—no, you don’t, because you weren’t there, but every one of them got back to me. Either I was drunk—you know, a bored soccer mom taking shots at lunch. Or I was high on something. Or I was rushing to drop off my daughter so I could meet a lover.”
Kevin didn’t blink. “And you listened, why?”
“I thought friends were friends,” I said, feeling the betrayal like it was yesterday. “I thought loyalty mattered. I thought other mothers would understand how it had happened.” The pottery studio wasn’t the best place for this, and my voice was low enough, but the words continued to spill, which said tons about my emotional state. “Oh, they understood all right, only they needed to convince themselves that it could never happen to them, because they were better than me. They didn’t do shots at lunch or smoke weed before getting in the carpool lane, and they sure didn’t have lovers.”
“So what did you tell them?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t fight the rumors?”
“What was the point?”
“Uh, killing them?” he asked, but I was shaking my head before his mouth closed.
“Rumors take on a life of their own. Besides, my lawyer told me to ignore them.” I snorted softly. “Lot of good that did.”
“I hate it when you’re cynical.”
“So do I. It’s ugly and mean-spirited and lowering myself to their level—”