Lies of the Heart (47 page)

“A little better,” Katie says. “God, I looked liked an idiot up there.”

“You were blindsided, honey.”

Katie sits up to get a better look at Dana. “But it’s all true. I
am
a failure. Nick saw it, Mom saw it—”

“You are not a failure.”

“Then why would Mom ask if I was going to finish the Cohens’ documentary last week? She
knew.
Even Nick’s mother would call, after she gave us more money for film and bulbs, and she’d ask if I had enough supplies to ‘see this one through.’ Even Candice knew, and laughed at me behind my back. Like today.”

“No one was laughing today. She bullied you up there.”

“It was Patricia. She told Donna those things about me,” she says. “That’s what they all thought of me, all those years.”

“They didn’t. They were your friends.”

Katie considers this, sees Dottie smiling at her from the stand. “He made them all look so incompetent yesterday. With my help.”

“That’s why you left?”

Katie examines her hands for a moment. “I had to. It felt like . . . like for once
I
was on the wrong side. And then today it was like I wasn’t on
any
side. You saw Richard’s reaction, Dana. He
knew
what Donna was planning. He knew what was going to happen today. He timed it that way, I’m sure of it. And after we adjourned, you saw him rush out before I could even ask why.”

“I know.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. I still can’t think of any logical reason.”

“Maybe Donna told him about me this weekend, and that’s why he’s been acting so differently toward me. But I don’t understand. Why would she? And why wouldn’t he warn me?”

Dana sits up now, too, crosses her legs underneath her. “She didn’t tell him about you not finishing your documentaries, Katie,” she says quietly. “Or about visiting the center so much. I don’t know if she unintentionally let something out this weekend, or if Richard overheard a piece of the defense’s strategy, but you’re right, something happened. And I think that’s why Richard changed his plan with you today. He wanted her to discredit you, to distance himself from you. But she wasn’t the one who told him those things.”

“Then who? I don’t understand any of this.”

“I told him,” Dana says softly, lowering her eyes. “Before the trial even began. When he interviewed me.”

“
You?
Why would you do that?”

“Katie,” she says, her eyes pleading for understanding now, “I was trying to protect you. I wanted him to understand you. What you’ve been through.”

Katie stands too fast, her head swimming. She stumbles, paces to the end of the couch, watches Dana shrink into her body.

“I was right on Sunday, wasn’t I? The
movies.
You told him about that, too, didn’t you? And he tripped up that day?”

“Yes. I wanted him . . . I needed for him to know you, so—”

“What else, Dana?” Katie demands. “What else?”

“Only that you loved Nick—that he was your world. I wanted him to know that you were fragile.”

“I can’t believe this, Dana. You’re my
sister.
”

“We wanted to protect you. Me. Mom and Dad. I told him about the documentaries and about the visits because I thought he would find a way to deal with it in court when it came up. He knew that Donna knew about it, too, because of course Patricia would have told her.”

“My own family.
Jesus.
”

“Please, Katie.
Please,
” she says, trying to hold back tears. “I thought it would help. I knew you wouldn’t tell him important things and I was afraid he’d find out too late.”

“So you told him without warning me, and you told him that I’m obsessed with watching people, right? That I’m this pathetic—”

“No, no, those are Donna’s words, not mine.”

“But you believe it.”

Dana bows her head. “Can’t you see why I wanted you to be careful with Richard? Why I was angry with him? He’s been playing you, Katie.”

“But—but we were working together.” Katie slumps down beside Dana, the fight inside her suddenly gone. “He said we were a team.”

“He wanted to keep you close, honey. He wanted your help to do his job. until it didn’t work anymore.”

Katie sinks back on the couch. “This entire time.”

They sit quietly for a long moment, Katie replaying Richard’s questions, the respectful way he treated her. How important she felt back then—how
necessary.
Again, she thinks.
Again.

Katie finally turns to her sister. “What do I do now?” she whispers. “What do I do
tomorrow
?”

Dana tries to take her hand, but Katie crosses her arms.

“Kate,” she says, wiping her eyes and sitting up straight. “We have to think. What could he know? What would make him turn on you like that?”

What
did
he know? What could possibly make Katie seem so incompetent, so unreliable, that even Richard had to distance himself so blatantly . . .

“Oh, God.” Katie buries her face in her hands. Did he know? Did Richard find out about the
shoes
? But how could he . . .

“What?”

“Nothing—nothing, Dana,” she says.

Dana pulls Katie’s hand into hers. Katie tries to pull away, but her sister hangs on. “Okay, so we don’t know what Richard knows, we don’t know anything. But tomorrow—we have to figure out how you’ll deal with his questions tomorrow. Because whatever made him turn on you will probably come out then.”

“But I have to stick to the script. If I stray from the back-and-forth he planned, he’ll tear me apart.”

“Katie,” Dana says sadly, “I don’t think there’s a script anymore.”

“God.”
She turns to Jack, whining softly at the end of the couch.

“But it’s not too late,” Dana says.

Katie turns back, meets Dana’s appraising stare.

“What if,” Dana says, choosing her words carefully, “what if we knew? I know you’re always asking yourself why Jerry did it, but we still don’t know. Maybe Richard understands more than we do at this point, and I suppose their experts will try to explain. But what if you did? Right now?”

“Richard said the
why
isn’t important anymore.”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it the one question you’ve wanted answered all along?” The answer to all of Dana’s questions is clear: If Katie knew, it might change everything tomorrow.

“I can’t go back, Dana. I can’t forgive him.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“All of this—all of it’s for Nick.”

“But is this what he’d want? Jerry in prison?”

Jack picks up the huge bone in his mouth, walks across the couch, and with a wagging tail offers it to Katie.

“I don’t know. I thought I did, but now?” Katie says, pushing the bone away. “Now I don’t know what Nick would want. Sometimes I feel like I never even knew him. I tried, but—” Donna’s words coming back now:
obsessed, fanatical.
“You were right, Dana. I didn’t want to get it, but I do now.”

“What, honey?”

“Looking at everyone else to figure out my own life,” she says, shaking her head. “And when I met Nick, he was so quiet, so unwilling to share himself with me—I went into overdrive, I guess. I thought if I kept my eyes open, I would understand him. I would understand myself.”

“And now?”

Katie draws her knees up to her chest, testing the words that are so new. “Now . . . now I can’t stop thinking about how I’ve always kept the biggest parts of what I was thinking, what I was feeling, to myself. Except with Nick,” Katie says, and looks at her sister. “Even with you, Dana, even
you
I didn’t tell everything. Big things.”

“I know.”

“And it wasn’t just to understand myself, looking all the time, keeping to myself—it was wanting people to . . . I don’t know, maybe trust me?
Like
me? Because—because I listen. I’m easy to be around, because I listen and I don’t make many demands, right? Maybe I’m not as much fun as you, not as friendly or pretty, but I think . . . I’m beginning to think,” she says, “if I didn’t ask too much, I wouldn’t give anyone a reason to walk away. Because no one ever seemed to like me as much as you, I wasn’t like
you
.”

“You never had to be like me. You only needed to be yourself. That’s all you need now.”

“But I don’t even know who I
am
anymore
.
I don’t know what my life’s supposed to be.”

Dana puts her arm around Katie. “Who you are, and what you do, is up to you, Katie,” she says gently. “People will love you for the person inside, the person I see and love right now. That’s what we were trying to say. You can have any life you choose, but you have to choose it for yourself.”

“For such a long time, Nick
was
my life.”

“I know that,” Dana says.

“I was so afraid of losing him, I couldn’t see anything else.”

“I know that, too.”

Jack wiggles his nose in between them, whines softly. They make space for him, and he lies down, his front paws in Katie’s lap.

Katie pats him absently, turns to her sister. “I don’t know what to do.” “You’ll know,” Dana says. “By the time you get up tomorrow, you’ll know.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’ll have to,” her sister says. “It’s up to you now. Despite what Richard throws at you tomorrow, the way you answer and the choices you’ll make up there will be up to you. Only you.”

Hours after Katie has left Dana on the couch with Jack, she’s still staring at the ceiling in her darkened bedroom. Thinking of choices, trying to make sense of what happened today, what will happen tomorrow. And then: what happened before there was a trial and secrets and lawyers talking behind closed doors.

Always this, no matter what the day brings—every moment always leading right back to Nick. When he was still hers, before it all started to fall apart with him. That moment in time when her own decisions and actions determined her future, her present: lying in bed alone, splicing together her story with Nick, wishing she could hit the rewind button and edit out the moments that led to the final scene with Nick in their home.

I want you to leave,
she’d told him that night. After everything, after some of the answers she had waited for were finally revealed, that’s what she said.
Just go.

—
W
ho dat? Jerry asked her, and Katie turned around in the booth at Dunkin’ Donuts, saw the woman standing beside Nick at the counter. She was digging into her purse, shaking her head and laughing ruefully.

The woman wasn’t beautiful, at least not in the traditional sense. She was one of those women who had odd, crooked features—high forehead, with a beaky nose and eyes too far apart—but the way it all came together was startling.

—
Pretty,
Jerry said.

She thought absently of the first time Jerry used that word—
Pity
—and while she should have praised his careful pronunciation, instead Katie watched Nick whisper something to the woman; she looked up and nodded cautiously, put her purse on the counter.

—One more, Nick called out to the girl making his coffee, and the woman tilted her head at him, a little coyly now.

—Nick knows her? Jerry asked, his blue eyes wide, his mouth rimmed with powdered sugar. A glob of raspberry jelly trailed down his shirt.

—He’s just being friendly, Katie told him. She handed Jerry a napkin before turning back.

The woman accepted the coffee, and Katie waited for Nick to return to the booth to explain. Instead, he stepped in front of the woman, pushed open the door for her.

—Thanks so much, she said to Nick in a loud, cheerful voice, ducking under his arm.

Nick watched her leave, his arm still holding the door open. He turned toward Katie and Jerry, who stared back at him. He shrugged at them, walked over.

—She forgot her wallet, he said, and scooted in beside Jerry, who moved closer to the wall, eyes on Katie.

In the car on the way to her parents’ house, Nick filled the silence with questions about her new documentary, about the elderly couple she’d met a few months ago at Chili’s, where she and Dana had a quick lunch between Dana’s sessions. Something about the way the man and woman had treated each other during the meal—simple gestures, the woman offering a french fry to her husband with a sweet smile, the man pushing his wife’s dish closer to her—had captured Katie’s attention as she ate her sandwich and pretended to listen to Dana. After her sister had pulled out of the parking lot, Katie found herself walking back into the restaurant, standing in front of their table. Suddenly too embarrassed to talk. They looked up at her, faces open and curious, and after Katie managed to say something—
I noticed how happy you looked
—they invited her to join them.
Sit, sit,
the man had said, and raised his hand to the seat beside his wife.
There is always room for one more.