Eddie knew that I needed the money. My children need things from me that I haven’t been able to afford to give them.”
Mrs. McLaughlin and I regard each other for a full minute, dueling dead husbands and children and brothers and sisters waiting in the background. Her gaze is full of belief, unbreakable.
I back down first. I look away. This is ridiculous. This woman is senile and I have to be the reasonable adult here. I need to hold on to the facts. “I haven’t seen my family for years,” I say. “We gave each other up.”
Mrs. McLaughlin shrugs at that. She dismisses the restraints of practicality and time and distance as flimsy obstacles. Without me, she heads back toward the building. She centers her walker carefully in front of her with each step. I wait a moment, then hurry to meet her stride.
KELLY
I cannot believe the speed at which change is happening. Life whipped around again when my husband pulled into the driveway with my younger brother and his wheelchair in the backseat of his truck and the news that Ryan’s home had burned down. Louis had saved Ryan’s life. He carried my brother out of the burning building in his arms. I can’t really express what this means to me. It is the image I am left with now when I fall asleep at night.
I was not home the afternoon that Louis and Ryan pulled into the driveway. I was at the motel, with Vince.
While Ryan’s home burned, Vince and I were talking. We are usually talking. In the same way that when I met Louis as a young woman I was almost mute, since I got to know Vincent Carrelli I have hardly shut up. I tell him about my memory. I tell him about my daughters. I tell him the strangest things about myself, things I have never told anyone, like the fact that I love circuses. That I am drawn to them, reading books on the subject, watching documentaries, dragging my small daughters to Barnum & Bailey in New York every year despite the fact that Gracie cried over the caged animals and Lila asked endless questions concerning the safety of the acrobats. The circus seemed to bring out worry and dread in my daughters, while the sight of women flying through the air and men sticking their heads inside lions’ mouths made me feel exhilarated and free.
I say to Vince, “I think Louis is having an affair with my mother’s nurse.”
We are in the motel room, which I now think of as our room. The curtains are drawn and only the lamp beside the bed is lit. I am wearing a long dress with buttons down the front. Most of the buttons are unfastened, and I am lying in Vince’s arms. His hand is cupping my bare left breast.
I feel Vince’s arm stiffen beneath me, and realize that I have probably said too much. For all our talking, we rarely mention Louis. We talk about Cynthia often, but then, Cynthia is dead.
“You should leave him. He doesn’t deserve you.” Vince speaks quickly, as if relieved to say the words he has been holding in for weeks.
“You said to me months ago that it was inconceivable for Louis to have an affair, that he was too good a man.”
“I have a different viewpoint now.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to talk about the future with you,” I say, and roll away from him on the bed. I button up my dress. That is my rule: We don’t talk or think about the future while in this room. We live only in the moment.
He looks after me in dismay. “Come back here, sweetheart.”
He calls me that, sweetheart. He also calls me darling. I have never liked these kinds of endearments. I broke Louis from using them early in our relationship. I never called my children by pet names, either. Those terms seem demeaning and belittling. I think a person should be allowed the dignity of being known by his or her proper name. But somehow, oddly, I don’t mind sweetheart and darling coming from Vincent’s mouth.
“We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” he says. “What I mean is that Louis is a good man, but I have a better sense of the gray areas now. Not everything is so black and white, morally speaking.”
“Isn’t that convenient for us,” I say.
There is a muffled bark from the bathroom, where Chastity is sleeping. Vince