Life After Life A Novel - By Jill McCorkle Page 0,128

he stopped it all other than a handful of ancients from next door and whatever kids he can coax in to watch things like Jerry Lewis movies and stupid westerns. She will go take a nice long hot shower, relieved that Ben left and went wherever it is he goes with his loser self. She has just turned the water on when her cell phone starts ringing and she races to pick it up. It was him so she hits dial back. It’s his house phone, but she is feeling brave; if something screws up and Liz answers, she will act like she was calling her.

Liz’s voice is cool, suspicious. She knows something. Then without any waiting or beating around the bush she says it: she knows he’s been having an affair.

Is it a trick? Kendra doesn’t know what to say so she opts for nothing. She says, Oh, and then nothing, but Liz keeps talking. She says it’s all over and they are going away to figure it all out. Going away. A day, a week, forever?

“Do you hear me?” Liz asks.

“Yes.” Kendra stands there in a towel, aware of the water running in the shower and of how dark it is outside the window, no moon and the streetlight on their corner burned out.

“And?” Liz asks.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I.” Liz hangs up and Kendra is left in silence with no idea what to do. She almost dials his cell phone but then stops. It is so rare for her not to know what to do, but she has no idea and something in the stillness of the house completely unnerves her. The little white sticker she had put under the table on Ben’s side of the bed is visible and she rushes over to remove it. She’s not used to the silence. She’s not used to being alone. It’s not supposed to happen this way. She’s not supposed to be alone. She’s afraid to be alone.

Joanna

AT FIRST IT SOUNDS like a shutter has blown loose again and is whining against the wind, a creaking strain, open and closed, but then it is too rhythmic for the wind, too measured. It’s the hammock. Someone is on her porch. She looks out the kitchen window to see Ben’s car parked in her driveway. It has been his car these recent nights, circling, stopping. She goes and cracks open the front door.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Who’s there?”

“Guess.”

“What are you doing here?” She still stands behind the screen door, latch in place.

“I come here a lot. Sometimes I fish, sometimes I sit.” He tilts a bottle up to his mouth, then offers it out. “C’mon, join me.” He sits, legs hanging off the side and pushing against the floorboards. “It’s like old times.”

“You come here? To my house?”

“Yeah, amazed you haven’t noticed before. Come on.” She goes and brings Kurt’s carrier closer. He’ll be waking soon and she likes to reach him as close to that first cry as she can make it. “Are you there?”

“Yes. I’m here.” She shushes him, tells him she’s babysitting and to keep his voice down, and then he immediately starts talking about his kid. “You’ve met her,” he says, and Joanna nods yes, says she sees her often over at Pine Haven. “Well, it would suck to be her right about now,” he says. He reaches for Joanna’s arm and pulls her there beside him then drops his arm around her shoulders and squeezes. “Been a long time since we sat this close, hasn’t it?” he asks, and she nods, aware of his thumb circling her bare arm, the smell of him exactly the same though she never could have described it in a million years except it was his smell; it was his childhood home, any jacket or shirt or magic show prop he had ever tossed her way.

“I know Abby’s dog is missing,” she says, and takes a deep breath, uncertain of where any of this might go and afraid to even wonder.

“Not just missing. Dead.” He says the word in a low whisper, dragging out its hard ugly sound. “And a dead dog is just the beginning.”

She turns, waiting for him to continue and there in the dark of the porch, he looks very much the way he always did, the night erasing just enough years that he could be that boy; it could be that time.

“I mean it all sucks. Marriage is like a job and some people love what they do