Mercy (56 page)

On her wedding night, she'd picked a fight with Cam. He had done something eminently forgivable--he'd torn her stocking while trying to get it down he r leg--and she'd started crying. She yelled that he hadn't been thinking, h e hadn't been careful, and what kind of omen was that? And Cam, always leve lheaded, always a hero, had held her until she stopped trying to get free a nd had kissed her until she believed that if you only concentrated on the h ere and now, tomorrow didn't so much matter.

Now Allie's hands were shaking again as she turned the key in the side door that led into the kitchen. She fixed her attention on a glass of juice that Cam had left sitting out on the counter. Grape juice. Allie walked into the kitchen with Cam behind her. She picked up the glass. On the white Formica, there was a deep purple stain.

She reached for a sponge and began to scrub the stain. "I can't believe you d id this," she said. She could hear Cam unzipping his jacket and hanging it ov er the back of a chair. She was still wearing her coat, her hat, her scarf. She lifted the sponge. The ring was a little fainter, but it was still there

, clear as day. Everyone knew that grape juice stained. Cam knew. How many t imes had she told him?

"This is never going to come out," she said, bending to the counter and scr ubbing with the scouring side of the sponge. Her hand became raw and her kn uckles scraped red.

She was working so hard to remove the evidence that she didn't hear Cam com ing up behind her. He covered her hand, flattening the sponge. Soap oozed b etween their fingers like a fixative. "Allie," he said calmly, "take it eas y. Give me your coat."

But she couldn't take it easy. She knew she was acting crazy and felt as if she were watching the whole scene from one of the exposed beams overhead. She knew it was not about a grape juice stain, either. And still, there wer e a hundred questions running through her mind: What if they wanted to sell the house one day? What if she tried Clorox, straight? Why didn't he see t hat every time she walked into the kitchen her eyes would be drawn to this mark?

"Allie." Cam pulled her toward him and unzipped her coat and tugged the hat from her hair. He unwound the scarf from her throat. Then he covered her h and with his again. "See?" he said, smiling in a way that reminded her of h ow, when they were first dating, she had felt a physical loss at not having known him as a child. "There. It's gone."

She looked down. Somewhere, under their spread hands, was a stain. But as things stood, Cam was right. From this angle it could not be seen. She felt the familiar heat of his skin. Yet now she was also Jodi Picoult

aware of how rough Cam's fingertips were against hers, how mismatched the size of their palms.

Cam turned Allie around to face him. "So," he said, and it was a question. But to Allie, the word sounded like a beginning. "So," she answered slowly, and she set them free.