Lies of the Heart (13 page)

“The tacking is
still
too slippery on this one,” her mother says.

Katie looks past her mother toward her father, who is up to his elbow in the bag of salt. So different from all of them, Katie thinks, a sweet man with too much time on his hands, who loves to alter little everyday events with his wife into grand tales full of peril.

“Jimmy, please,” her mother had said just last week, waving him off. “We did
not
almost die at the Citizens Bank drive-through yesterday.”

It amazes Katie that while her father enjoys nothing better than to tell his stories to an audience now—a simple trip to the grocery store will stretch out to a half hour—he still can’t understand Katie’s need to listen to other people’s stories. To hear the inflections or the wavering in their voices, to watch the way they move or sigh or keep their eyes lowered, to witness how their bodies shift when their words won’t come out the way they want.

She’s nothing like either of her parents, Katie thinks now, fanning herself with one hand against the heat. So who, then, is she like?

“Two things,” her mother says, flipping up the visor. “One, Michael and Dana are coming to Thanksgiving this year, because his parents are going on a cruise, even though it’s their turn to have all their kids for the holiday.” Her mother lowers her voice, face clenching up with annoyance. “You just know they’re going to expect Michael and Dana at Christmas now, but I won’t give in on this one, Katie, and I’ve already warned your sister. I won’t go two Christmases in a row without them, just because his parents have decided to be spontaneous for the first time in their lives.”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem, Mom.”

“It better not be,” she says, shifting in her seat to regard Katie for a few seconds. Her face loses its harsh edges. “And I know things are stressful right now with this court business, and it certainly isn’t going to get any easier, but we want you there, too, hon. Your Aunt Ginny will be there this year, and she misses you. She said so just a few days ago. We all do.”

“Maybe for a little while,” Katie says, running her sleeve across her forehead.

“Good,” her mother says, nodding. “And two,” she says, and here her voice becomes gentle, almost hesitant. Her hand travels up and rests on Katie’s upper arm and stays there—never a good sign. “I know it’s going to be difficult to get through this trial, but I want you to consider something.”

Uh-oh.
Katie pinches the front of her shirt, makes a tent, and pushes the fabric in and out.

“It’s about these films,” her mother says.

“What about them?” Katie asks, ready for the brief peace to crash down around them again.

“Now, I know we don’t talk a lot about your work, because it’s private and yours and we had
that
discussion years ago. But you just spend so much time watching these people,” her mother says. “And I just think that they take away from what should be essential right now.”

Katie can see from the look on her mother’s face that this is supposed to be a Big Moment between them, a Mother-Daughter Event of Great Importance, the real reason her parents are here tonight and why her father is still salting the walkway, even though the snow has finally tapered off completely.

“Is this about the Nick thing, Mom? Why you don’t want me to mention his name anymore?” Katie hates that she can’t let it go, hates how her voice sounds, filled with childish defensiveness.

Her mother rolls her eyes, waves at the air with her free hand. “No, not exactly, Kate.”

“Then what?”

Her mother’s brow furrows momentarily, and she casts her eyes to her lap, struggling for words, it seems, a vulnerable, foreign look on her face that instantly reminds Katie of childhood. Katie sits very still, watching her mother’s internal battle, and suddenly remembers, with bizarre but startling clarity, a school project in the fifth grade where students made small holes in the bottoms of eggs. They emptied the contents, leaving the fragile skins of the empty eggs thin and brittle. When Katie was halfway through painting her shell, she saw the long crack snaking up one side. Her mother’s face looks just like that fragile egg now—delicate, as if it could split open at any minute.

“Okay, well, I’m trying, Katie, give me a break.” Her mother pulls the collar on her coat together, lets out a small sigh. “Well, it’s almost like—it’s almost like you become
consumed
with these people, Kate. And I think, especially now during the trial, that it takes away from what matters the most.”

“I told you already, I thought it would help me avoid reliving the emotions of the trial every night. A way to work and also escape—”

“Exactly,”
her mother almost shouts, slapping the dashboard. “
Exactly,
Kate.”

Katie shakes her head. “Exactly what? You want me to spend my nights replaying everything that happens in court?”

“No, not replay the days,” her mother says. “But now that Nick is gone, now that another chapter is beginning in your life, just try to pay attention to what really matters.”

“Which is what, Mom?”

Her mother leans back to stare at Katie. “Well,
you,
Katie,” she finally says in a surprised tone. She reaches over, pokes Katie twice in the chest. “Just
you.
”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Katie says, frustration making the words thick.

“Yes, that’s my point
exactly.
”

“I’m fine, Mom, if that’s what you’re getting at. Everything is just fine.”

“You’re always ‘just fine,’ Katie.”

“Shouldn’t that make you feel better?”

“I don’t need to feel better. This isn’t about
me.
”

They both turn when they hear Katie’s father clear his throat outside the car. He stands in front of the hood, hands locked behind his back.

“Well, that ought to do it,” he says loudly, surveying the walkway and the stairs with approval.

Katie leans over and plants a quick kiss on her mother’s cheek. “We can finish this tomorrow, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, pops open the car door.

She steps out into the freezing night too fast—her left heel skids forward on the slick rocks, but her father is there in a second, his hand underneath one elbow.

“Steady there,” he says.

She stares at the lumpy salt winking up at her from the walk, at the wet, patchy drifts of snow on her front lawn. The dog is still barking somewhere, a mournful sound in the distance. Katie steps back from the car, watches her father put one leg inside.

“I hooked your purse and grocery bag on the doorknob,” he says.

He looks like he’s about to fold his tall frame into the Chevy, but instead he leans toward Katie. She starts to offer him her cheek, but her father just looks at her, his hazel eyes full of concern.

“Ice cream, Katie?” he whispers. “I thought you went to the market for bread?”

The house is completely dark inside. Katie keeps her back against the door, watches the headlights of her parents’ car crawl up the wall and zip away. She has needed this silence all day, has craved it ever since she stumbled out of court this morning, and yet now that she’s by herself, the full weight of it settles down around her. And then Dottie’s words come again, puncturing the thick quiet. Jerry saved Nick? What happened in that month of her and Nick’s trial separation? And then a familiar darkness sweeps through her body: What if Katie hadn’t asked Nick to leave?
Would he still be alive?

In the kitchen she pulls a serving spoon out of the silverware drawer, tears off the cardboard zipper on the ice-cream carton, picks at the extra cardboard that never comes off. Carton in one hand, spoon in the other, Katie walks to the blinking answering machine, shoveling a towering spoonful of mint chocolate chip into her mouth. With the handle of the spoon, she pokes the red message button, then digs into the ice cream again.

There is a long beep, and then six messages: a reporter from the
Providence Journal,
wondering if she can “chat” with Katie for a few minutes; Dana, reminding her to call if Katie wants her in court tomorrow; Todd, a grad student from RISD who helped Katie years ago with lighting, hoping to pick up some extra work; a perky woman from Whirlpool who enunciates her words with a sinuousness that makes every
S
snake out a few seconds too long (Nick would have loved her); and her friend Jill, her voice way too casual, asking when they can grab lunch and catch up. Katie deletes each message as soon as she gets the gist of what they want from her, and she’s about to delete the last one—the telling air space and a bit of static must mean a telemarketer—but freezer head hits her full blast. She drops the spoon and the ice cream into the sink, sandwiches her head between her palms. A man’s tentative, feminine voice fills the kitchen.

“Hi, this is Paul Minsky from Oceanside Realty? Not sure if I have the right number, but if this is the same Nick Burrelli that visited last spring, I have great news about that cottage on Topsail Island? North Carolina? It’s up for sale again, and the owner asked if you might be interested. If you are, give me a call at the office at 9:10—”

Katie fumbles in the junk drawer for a marker, one hand still glued to her temple. She scribbles the names and number on a yellow Post-it with the word “cottage” beside it. She presses the sticky part of the paper across the top of the answering machine and slowly draws a big question mark beside “Topsail Island.” Last spring? She stares at the Post-it, the questions rising, until she hears the metallic sound of garbage cans clanging into each other in her backyard.

Out on the deck, she peers into the night, suddenly bright with moonlight. Her two metal cans are lined up neatly by the shed, the sides wet and glistening. She crosses her arms against the cold, walks to the edge of the deck. The moonlight pushes through the barren branches of the trees, casting striped blocks of light and shadow onto her lawn and shed. There is a fine mist on everything outside, a hazy fog that settles onto the grass and the dead leaves and the branches above her head. Katie leans over and rests her elbows on the railing, feeling sleepy finally, grateful that the day is at last winding down, but then Nick joins her once again.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault,
she hears him say, and suddenly the moonlight loses its soft edges, makes the beads of water everywhere look like tiny drops of glass, like one good wind could shatter it all, splintering her backyard into a million pieces.

T
hey had been lovers for only four months, but Katie could already sense when Nick wasn’t beside her at night; sometimes his absence pulled her up from her dreams, arms paddling wildly as if from a great depth, until she surfaced and called out to him.

She felt it now, just before she took in a deep breath and opened her eyes. He was by the window that looked out on the hospital’s expansive parking lot, sitting in a boxy chair with his long legs dangling over the arm. Half his body in the moonlight that shone into the darkened room, the other in shadow. Her chest stretched with tenderness.

—Hey, she whispered.

He turned to her.—Hey, he said, hopping up. He moved to her side.—How do you feel?

—Sleepy, she said, motioning to the bag of Demerol hanging by the side of her hospital bed.

—No more cramps?

—Almost gone, she said. And then, taking another deep breath:—I guess—I guess we didn’t have to get married after all, huh?

Nick squinted down at her.—Dana and your parents just left, he said.—They’ll be back in the morning.

Katie nodded, concentrated on the bumps her knees made from underneath the scratchy white sheet.

—The doctor came in earlier, too, Nick said, his voice softer.

—It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It’s called a spontaneous abortion. Probably meant there was something really wrong with the baby.

Katie nodded. She wasn’t brave enough to look at Nick—the loss felt like a punishment for her infinite craving for him to be close, to have his hands stealing over her body.

—Do you regret it? she asked.

Nick shrugged.—It was too soon to be thinking about kids—

—No, Katie interrupted, finally looking at him.—I mean the wedding. Do you regret getting married?

—It was the right thing to do, Nick said with conviction.

She laced her fingers into his, watched their hands become one. —But now? she asked.

There was the briefest pause, the briefest hesitation—so brief, in fact, that she could almost ignore it, could almost pretend that it didn’t happen. She could almost fool herself that his fingers didn’t loosen inside hers for a quick, barely perceptible beat.

He looked up, smiled in that shy way that always pulled at her. —Of course not.

Katie lay back and closed her eyes. Stopped herself from tearing the hospital sheet off and pulling him closer, from pulling him down on the bed with her and saying,
It would have worked better if you said it right away. If you moved your eyes to mine, and pulled our hands up to your chest, it would have been perfect.