The Night Before - Wendy Walker Page 0,8

the door jam as it twisted on rusty metal. There was no getting in the room without waking the person inside. But Rosie was too far gone to care, and the memory kept playing.

* * *

They’d run to the road, scattering through the woods to find the quickest path. There was no trail. It had been so dark. Someone had a flashlight and they’d turned it on. Someone else had gotten into a car and turned on the headlights. The screams had become sobs. Down the road were two figures. One standing and one on the gravel road, lying still …

Rosie pushed the attic door open, slowly, already talking herself down. They were not in the woods. Whatever she found in this room wouldn’t mean anything. Laura was a grown woman. Maybe she got too drunk to drive and stayed at his place. Maybe she stayed to sleep with him. She’d promised to be home with the car, but people break promises like that all the time. Especially Laura. Especially when it came to men. Her good intentions were always overcome by the desire and longing that were never satisfied. And so what if she did sleep with him? Joe was right: the guy was older. Forty and divorced. Safe to the point of boring.

But all of this reasoning came and went without effect. The past, the scream in the woods. And that boy lying at her sister’s feet. The memory played.

Running to her sister, breathless from screaming her name. Laura! Coming to her, that look on her face. Terror. Disbelief. And that boy on the ground. The blood pooling around his head. Laura’s first love. The one who’d broken her heart. Dead.

This memory always played until the end. Always. Rosie blinked away the last image and looked for her sister.

Laura had been gone for ten years, but it didn’t matter. Rosie was always waiting for the next tragedy to unfold.

The door open now, she flipped on the light.

And all she found was an empty bed.

FOUR

Laura. Session Number Six. Three Months Ago. New York City.

Laura: Rosie thinks I bring this on myself. She says I’m the one breaking hearts.

Dr. Brody: What about that? What about the ones who did love you?

Laura: They didn’t love me. They just thought they did.

Dr. Brody: Because they didn’t know you?

Laura: Maybe. Rosie says I choose men who won’t love me. I choose them because they won’t love me. But why would I do that?

Dr. Brody: To prove a point.

Laura: What point?

Dr. Brody: It will be more helpful if you find the answer yourself.

Laura: Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hate you a little right now.

FIVE

Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Branston, CT.

Jonathan. John. Johnny. Jack. As I drive downtown, I wonder what people call him.

There’s traffic and I’m running late. Construction. One-lane road. Shit. It’s good to be late. Keep him waiting! I tell this to myself. I can be one of those women who pull this off. Hide the eagerness. Hide the desire.

I think about texting him, but he said he doesn’t like to text. I don’t want to call, because that’s a little extreme. And, of course, my phone is on low battery because I forgot the charger from my room. God forbid Rosie should leave one in the car.

He’ll wait ten minutes. Won’t he?

The minivan smells like Goldfish and apple juice. Rosie cleans it every week, but it makes no difference. I don’t think she smells it anymore, she’s so used to it, like the stale coffee that pervades the kitchen until Joe comes home from work and empties the pot.

The kitchen is Rosie’s domain until then, and I usually find her there staring at nothing while Mason watches cartoons. She pours me the stale coffee (to chase away the bourbon hangovers from late nights with Joe and Gabe) and recites mantras from her days as a feminist, with the same breath that she gives me advice on how to be attractive.

You don’t need a man, Laura. Not for anything.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s easy to say you don’t need something when you’re holding it in your hands. She might as well tell me she doesn’t need her coffee as she inhales her second cup.

Still, I consider her advice now as I feel the panic that he might leave because I’m ten minutes late.

I don’t need a man.

The only trouble is that after years of wondering why it was so hard for me to find