Lydia wanted her daughter. She wanted to hold her in her arms and kiss her head the way Dee only let her do when she was sick or feeling sad. When Dee was a baby, she had loved being held. Lydia’s back constantly ached from carrying her around the kitchen while she cooked or resting her on her hip while she did laundry. When Rick came along, Dee would drape herself across them like a blanket, her feet in Rick’s lap and her head in Lydia’s. Rick and Lydia would look at each other and smile because they had such a perfect little girl between them. And Lydia would feel such relief because the only time she truly knew that Dee was safe was when she was close enough to count her daughter’s breaths.
She put her head in her hands. She closed her eyes. She gave in to the images of Eleanor Kilpatrick that were burned into every fold of her brain. The way the mother had screamed with such damaged intensity. Her haunted expression. The X she had drawn over the left side of her abdomen.
Eleanor was obviously right-handed. She had to reach across her belly to draw the X. She hadn’t chosen that exact spot by coincidence.
Lydia looked across Broad Street. Claire was sitting outside the Starbucks where she’d left her. Her posture was ramrod straight as she stared into empty space. She had the dazed look of a catatonic. There was an unnerving stillness about her. She had always been so hard to read, but right now, she was impenetrable.
Lydia stood up. The thirty yards between them wasn’t going to help her magically divine Claire’s thoughts. She walked back across Broad, lingering at the median though there was no traffic. Georgia had beaten Auburn last night. The town was sleeping off the win. The sidewalks were sticky from spilled beer. Trash littered the streets.
Claire didn’t look up when Lydia sat down at the table, but she asked, “Does it look different?”
“It looks like an outdoor shopping mall,” she said, because the campus had turned from that of a quaint southern university into a sprawling corporate behemoth. “It’s almost suburban.”
“The only thing that’s really changed is the length of the khaki shorts.”
“Didn’t the Taco Stand used to be here?”
“We parked right in front of it.” Claire indicated the direction with a tilt of her head.
Lydia craned her neck. She saw more tables and chairs crisscrossing the sidewalk. No one was sitting outside because it was too cold. There was a woman standing with a broom and dustpan, but instead of sweeping up the debris left over from the night before, she was checking her phone.
Claire said, “He never asked me for anything weird.”
Lydia turned back to her sister.
“I remember when I first saw the movie on his computer—just the beginning of it with the girl chained up—I had this strange feeling, almost like a betrayal, because I wanted to know why he didn’t bring it to me.” She watched a jogger slowly cross the street. “I thought, If that’s what he’s into, chaining people up and leather and blindfolds and that kind of thing, even though I’m not particularly into it, why didn’t he ask me to give it a try?” She looked at Lydia like she expected an answer.
Lydia could only shrug.
“I probably would’ve said yes.” Claire shook her head as if to contradict herself. “I mean, if that’s what he really wanted, then I would’ve tried it, right? Because that’s what you do. And Paul knew that. He knew that I would’ve tried.”
Lydia shrugged again, but she had no idea.
“He never asked me to dress up like a maid or pretend to be a schoolgirl or whatever else it is you hear about. He never even asked for anal, and every man asks for anal eventually.”
Lydia glanced around, hoping no one could hear.
“She was younger than me,” Claire continued. “The first woman—when I saw her, I had this split-second thought that she was younger than me, and that hurt, because I’m not young anymore. That’s the one thing I couldn’t give him.”
Lydia sat back in her chair. There was nothing she could do but let Claire talk.
“I wasn’t in love with him when I married him. I mean, I loved him, but it wasn’t …” She waved the emotions away with her hand. “We were married for less than a year, and Christmas was coming up. Paul was working on his masters and I was answering phones for a law office and I just thought, I’m out of here. Being married felt so pointless. So tedious. Mom and Dad were so full of life before Julia. They were such passionate, interesting people. Do you remember that? How they were before?”
Lydia smiled, because Claire had somehow unlocked the memories with that one question. Even twenty-two years into their marriage, Sam and Helen Carroll had acted like teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Claire said, “They went dancing and to parties and out to dinner and they had their own interests and they loved talking to each other all the time. Remember how we weren’t allowed to interrupt them? And we didn’t want to interrupt them, because they were so fascinating.” Claire smiled, too. “They read everything. They saw everything. People vied to spend time with them. They’d have a party and strangers would show up at the door because they’d heard the Carrolls were so much fun.”
Lydia felt it all come rushing back—Helen spraying cheese on celery stalks and Sam singeing his eyebrows off at the grill. Games of charades. Heated political debates. Lively discussions about books and art and movies.
Claire continued, “They were always kissing each other. Like, real kissing. And we’d say it was gross but wasn’t it nice, Pepper? Didn’t you see them and think that’s what love was all about?”
Lydia nodded. She felt intoxicated by the long-forgotten memories.
“That first year with Paul, that’s what we didn’t have. At least, I didn’t think we had it.” Claire swallowed so hard that her throat moved. “So I rode my bike home from work that night thinking that I was just going to be honest and tell him it was over. Rip off the Band-Aid. Don’t wait for all the Christmas parties and New Years to come and go. Just say it.” She paused. Tears rolled down her face. “But I got home, and Paul was in bed. I thought he was taking a nap, but he was covered in sweat. I could hear him wheezing. His eyelids fluttered every time he blinked. I made him get up and I took him to the hospital. He’d had a cold for weeks, but it turned into walking pneumonia. He could’ve died. He almost did.” She wiped away her tears. “But here’s the thing: I was terrified. I couldn’t think about my life without him. Hours before, I was ready to leave him, but then I realized that I couldn’t.” She shook her head vehemently, as if someone had asked her to. “He was in the hospital for almost three weeks, and I never left his side. I read to him. I slept in the bed with him. I bathed him. I had always known that Paul needed me, but I never realized until I almost lost him that I really, really needed him.”
Claire stopped to take a shallow breath. “That’s when you fall in love with somebody. The lust and fucking like rabbits and letting your life fall to shit so you can be around him—that’s passion. It’s borderline obsession. And it always burns itself out. You know that, Liddie. That high never, ever lasts. But being in that hospital, taking care of him, I started to realize that what I had with Paul, what I thought I had, that was more than love. That was being in love. It was so tangible I could almost touch it with my hands. I could bite it with my teeth.”