Lies of the Heart (15 page)

Jack barks up at her, breaks her reverie; she bends down to pet him, tries to compose a casual expression before she knocks softly, but the door is already opening. Sandy stands in the doorway, holding the baby far back on her hip, away from the cold. The little girl takes one puckered look at Katie and turns her head to howl in protest.

“Katie?” Sandy says in a voice soft with surprise. She looks down at Jack. “I thought I heard you out here, bud.”

While Sandy leans down to pat Jack, Katie peeks into the home that used to be so familiar—the expensive leather furniture littered with coloring books and cookie crumbs, the lush plants escaping their pots, the ficus tree that reaches halfway up to the cathedral ceiling. Scattered along with the blinking electronics and knickknacks from trips abroad are stuffed animals, racing cars, and tipped-over game boxes with the pieces spilling out onto the hardwood floors. A big flat-screen TV flickers in the background, muted.

Sandy rises, bumps the baby up and down on her hip, and the little girl’s crying settles into a grating whine. Sandy sneaks a look at Katie, turns back quickly to kiss her daughter’s head, and Katie thinks how tired she is of this: the way people look at her all the time now, their faces filled with hesitation or confusion about what they should say—or the way Sandy’s face is right now, filled with almost childlike guilt. Katie looks down at Jack as if to say,
Don’t worry, he’s the only reason I’m here.

Sandy smacks her forehead. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, you must be freezing out there. Come in, come in,” she says, taking the rope from Katie. Sandy points a finger at Jack. “Not you, bud.
Stay.
”

Katie watches as Sandy hooks the rope around the outside door handle and shuts the door firmly in Jack’s face.

She turns to Katie, tries a bright smile, fails. She dips her head down and picks at the baby’s yellow sock. Katie shifts from one foot to the other, waiting.

“God, you must hate me, huh?” Sandy finally says quietly, peering up at Katie through long lashes.

Instead of answering, Katie strokes the baby’s pajamaed leg with one finger. “She’s so big now.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s allergic to the dog,” Sandy says, gesturing with her chin toward the door, and now Katie can see that the blotches on the baby’s face and neck are hives. “We didn’t know what it was at first, because Jack’s a smooth-haired fox terrier, so we figured hair, not fur, you know?
But.
”

“He came to my house.”

“Oh, right,” Sandy replies, “Thanks. I put him in the garage, you know, but he hates it in there, and there’s a dog door. What can you do?”

“Not much,” Katie says, shifting her weight again. “Well, it’s late—”

“So how are you?” Sandy says, and takes a step toward her. She looks at Katie’s face, looks down at the floor, shakes her head. “Dumb question, huh?” she says.

“It’s okay.”

Sandy transfers the baby onto her other hip, raises an arm at Katie. “Well, come here already, I haven’t talked to you in ages, girl.”

Katie walks into the half hug, pats Sandy awkwardly on the back.

“You do hate me, huh?” she whispers into Katie’s ear.

“No, of course not.”

They pull back, Sandy tracking her face for a second. “Well, you should.”

“I don’t,” Katie says firmly.

Sandy nods, tugs the baby’s pajama top down. The baby makes wet, burping sounds, gearing up to cry again.

“God, Emily, you’re a mess,” Sandy says, trying to laugh. “I beeped Rick, and he’s supposed to be getting back to me after he talks to the pediatrician on call, but with this weather . . . ”

“I’m sure Rick is okay.”

“Oh, I know, it’s just that everyone pitches in in the ER,” Sandy says, “so who knows when he’ll get back to me?” Her eyes stray to the bay window, back to Katie. “So, really. How are you? The truth.”

“You have a few hours?” Katie says, trying to laugh her off.

But Sandy’s face grows serious. “Yes,” she says with such sincerity that Katie finds herself grateful and embarrassed at the same time. “Yes, I
do.
”

After Sandy ties Jack securely in the garage, it doesn’t take much time for Katie to catch her up on the trial. There isn’t much to say, after all, and she’s thankful when Sandy doesn’t ask any questions or push for more information. Katie transitions to a question about Sandy’s older son for a quick sidetrack, a short respite so she can gather her thoughts about the days and nights since she and Sandy last talked. Wishing, despite herself, that she could explain, as soon as Sandy stops talking—finished now with her son and launching seamlessly into poor Mr. Peterson across the street and two doors down—how she felt after Nick moved out, when Sandy first started to pull back, and then soon after the funeral, when Sandy stopped talking to her altogether.

“I’m pretty sure Mr. Peterson’s having problems with prescription medicine now, too,” Sandy says, rolling her eyes. “He was out raking leaves yesterday, and he was wobbling over all the place. He looks so thin, too, and I told Rick . . .”

Please,
Katie wants to say into the blur of words,
do you remember Nick? Me and Nick? Will you talk about that now?

“ . . . then I saw him at CVS yesterday,” Sandy says, “and I was actually
frightened
—”

“Shouldn’t you try Rick again?” Katie suddenly blurts out.

Sandy leans back, startled. “Oh. Oh, maybe I will,” she says, and gazes down at Emily, who is snoring softly on her shoulder now. The hives are better, faded pink. “Let me put her down first.”

After Sandy leaves the room, Katie wants to flee, to run out the front door and sprint home, but the nightly news is flashing right in front of her on the silent TV. A young male newscaster stands in front of the Providence courthouse, bundled into a long beige overcoat, microphone raised and lips moving. Katie picks up a huge remote with dozens of colored buttons, pushes “off.” Nothing. Picks up another one, pressing buttons, and watches the scene shift back to the studio.

“Thank you, Andrew,” comes the female newscaster’s voice, loud and grave.

In a box at the top right corner of the screen is that same black-and-white photograph that was taken in New Hampshire, Katie’s favorite, and this time it isn’t just Nick there: Katie stares back into her own smiling face in the photo, traces the contours of her body and the way it rests against Nick’s as they recline on the huge, sand-colored rock.

“. . . Nicolas Burrelli’s wife, Katie, seen here as she rushes from the courthouse this morning,” the newscaster says, and then the picture shifts again and the screen fills with Katie in front of the courthouse, ashen-faced, pushing through the extended microphones and cameras, “after the first day of testimony ends almost before it begins.”

The walls jump in, out. Her legs drain, chest ballooning as if she’s been underwater for too long and needs to surface for air. Her fingers roam over the remote, searching for the “off ” button.

The picture shifts again—there is the somber newscaster behind the desk, and there is Jerry’s grinning face, at the corner of the screen in a box.

“. . . Jerry LaPlante, the mentally handicapped man who is charged with the murder of the speech pathologist this past spring. LaPlante is being held at the Adult Correctional Institution in solitary confinement, at the request of his lawyer.”

The newscaster turns to her male coanchor.

“Where he’ll remain, I understand, until a verdict is reached,” the male coanchor says. “You know, Carol, it isn’t a secret that the Burrellis were like surrogate parents to LaPlante, so sources are now questioning if Mrs. Burrelli is actually cooperating with the district attorney at all. Whether or not her personal relationship with the mentally handicapped defendant is interfering with her ability to seek justice for her estranged husband—”

The TV finally snaps off. Katie stares at the blank screen, the remote still pointed at it.

“Oh, God,” Sandy says, and Katie turns, sees her standing with the phone in one hand, the other one covering her mouth.

“It’s a lie,” Katie says. She barely recognizes her own voice. “They’re lying.”

“Who would tell them that?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know who—” Katie begins, but it’s too much.

“What can I do?” Sandy says.
“Anything.”

“I want him convicted. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I believe you,” Sandy says. “You know how reporters are—”

“He would have come back,” Katie says. She places the remote on the coffee table, carefully lines it up with the others.

“Who?”

“Nick. If Jerry didn’t kill him, we would be together now.”

“Of course you would.”

“I should have told Richard about Carly today, but that doesn’t mean I’m not cooperating.”

Sandy’s face fills with confusion. “It’s probably just a misunderstanding—”

“I have to go, Sandy.”

The conversation at the door is short and perfunctory. Yes, Katie says, she will take Jack temporarily, until Sandy and Rick can figure out if Emily is allergic to him. No, she won’t let Jack have any dairy, because it makes him vomit. Yes, she understands that she should call if she needs anything, anything at all.

There’s a crate at Katie’s feet, filled with dog food, bowls, things that squeak.

“He’ll be good company right now,” Sandy says, handing her Jack’s leash.

“Okay, right.”

Before she can escape, Sandy gets her in a death-grip hug.

“You call me if you want to talk, girl,” she says. “I mean it.”

“Right.”

Minutes later Katie is back in the basement on her knees, adrenaline pumping as she tears through the metal canisters of film on the bottom shelf. On some of the lids there is a strip of masking tape with a name written on it in faded marker: HOUSING CRISIS. ANIMAL RESCUE. SAVE THE BAY. The lids come loose as she tosses them like Frisbees across the tiled floor; the canisters clang and crash into each other, the lids skidding across them, the films unraveling and wobbling up to tangle into one another and the ones already on the floor from earlier. Jack watches nervously, shifts his weight back and forth on his front paws and snaps at the canisters halfheartedly as they pass by. Finally Katie finds what she’s looking for, the first one—a green canister with a long piece of masking tape across the lid. JERRY AT THE WARWICK CENTER. And then another. JERRY/GROUP HOME. And another. JERRY/MISC.

No, she didn’t forget them, of course not. And the question—why she didn’t tell Richard about them before—isn’t important anymore. Only this: they exist.

Katie presses the curling masking tape down on the top canister. Nick
would
have come back, it is the only thing she is certain of at this point.

And then there is finally that pulse of excitement she’s been waiting for since the trial began, a frigid, stone-size feeling of satisfaction that starts to grow in the center of her heart, replacing everything else.