Chương 13
"Did you find out anything else?"
"Claire asked Caroline about someone named Abigail."
"Who's Abigail?"
"No idea."
"And?"
Kevin rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper.
"She also asked about an old safe at my family's lake house."
Annie's eyebrows drew together.
"That seems less random."
"Thank you."
"I didn't say sinister."
"Everyone keeps assuming that's what I'm thinking."
"Are you?"
He looked down.
"Maybe."
Annie turned back to the clothes.
"Because you want there to be something?"
Kevin's eyes lifted.
"What does that mean?"
She folded a shirt with deliberate care.
"Sometimes unanswered things are easier than answered ones."
He stared at her.
"That's either insightful or irritating."
"It can be both."
"Why would I want a mystery involving my dead wife?"
Annie's hands stopped.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she placed the shirt down.
"Because if there's something you don't know, you can still ask questions."
Kevin's face went still.
Annie's expression changed immediately.
"I shouldn't have said that."
"No."
He looked toward the humming dryer.
"It's fine."
"It wasn't."
He swallowed.
"It's still true."
Neither of them spoke.
Kevin became aware of the heat in the room.
The dryer thumped again.
A loose button clicked against metal.
Annie folded another shirt.
Kevin looked at her hands.
"You've done this before."
"Folded laundry?"
"Lived with someone dying."
She froze.
The silence answered before she did.
Kevin regretted the question.
"You don't have to tell me."
Annie looked down at the shirt she was holding.
"My sister."
Kevin waited.
"Older?"
"Younger."
Annie's voice remained controlled.
"Emily."
Kevin said nothing.
That seemed safer.
Annie folded the shirt twice, unfolded it, then started again.
"She was twenty-four."
Kevin's chest tightened.
"What happened?"
"Leukemia."
The word landed with no decoration.
Annie kept her eyes on the table.
"She got sick in college."
"How long?"
"Almost three years."
Kevin watched her.
"And you were teaching then."
"At first."
She placed the shirt into Noah's pile.
"I quit when she relapsed."
"To take care of her?"
"Partly."
Kevin heard the evasiveness.
He did not press.
Annie reached for another garment.
"I told myself I'd go back after."
"But you didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
Her mouth tightened.
"Because after is a word people use when they think life resumes in the same place."
Kevin felt something inside him recoil from the accuracy.
Annie looked at him then.
"It doesn't."
"No."
She nodded once.
The agreement seemed to cost both of them something.
Kevin glanced at the clock on the wall.
Twelve twenty.
He had a call at one.
The gallery at two.
The boys home at three thirty.
His usual day would have been arranged around those obligations until he barely noticed the spaces between them.
Today, the spaces felt occupied.
He folded the restoration record and put it into his pocket.
"Did you leave teaching because being around children was hard?"
Annie's face shifted.
"At first."
"Then housekeeping."
"It was supposed to be temporary."
"You said."
"My aunt knew someone at the agency."
Kevin nodded.
"And now?"
Annie picked up Noah's dinosaur shirt.
"Now I'm not sure whether I left because teaching was hard or because going back meant admitting Emily was really gone."
Kevin looked at the shirt in her hands.
He thought of the bourbon he had poured away.
The library.
The company.
The guest room.
How many routines could a person build before avoidance became indistinguishable from a life?
Annie placed the shirt down.
"That's more than I usually tell employers."
"I'm beginning to think employer is not the most useful word in our conversations."
Her eyes flicked toward him.
"Don't make that complicated."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
Kevin smiled faintly.
"Probably."
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Mrs. Bell appeared with a clipboard.
She stopped when she saw them.
"There you are."
Kevin glanced at Annie.
"Which one of us?"
"Unfortunately, both."
Mrs. Bell handed Kevin the clipboard.
"The caterer needs final numbers for Sunday."
"Why do I have the caterer's numbers?"
"Because your mother asked to hold the dinner here."
Kevin stared at her.
"Since when?"
"Since eleven fifteen."
"Did anyone plan to tell me?"
"I am literally telling you."
Annie turned away, but Kevin saw her shoulders move.
He looked at Mrs. Bell.
"Why here?"
"Your mother says the dining room at her house is being painted."
"Is it?"
"No."
Kevin closed his eyes.
"Of course not."
Mrs. Bell continued.
"She also requested the blue china."
"No."
"I assumed."
"No blue china."
"Why?"
"Because Claire hated the blue china."
The answer came too quickly.
Mrs. Bell's expression softened.
Annie looked down at the table.
Kevin felt the sudden embarrassment of having defended a preference belonging to someone who would not attend.
He rubbed his forehead.
"Use the white."
"Your mother prefers blue."
"Then she can have her birthday somewhere else."
Mrs. Bell lifted one eyebrow.
Kevin sighed.
"Fine."
Mrs. Bell waited.
"Half blue."
"That would look absurd."
"Good."
Mrs. Bell took back the clipboard.
"Thank you."
She left.
Kevin looked at Annie.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"No."
"You have that face."
"What face?"
"The one where you're deciding whether I'm being unreasonable."
Annie picked up a sock.
"You are being unreasonable."
Kevin nodded.
"Thank you."
"But I also think the white china is better."
He stared at her.
"Why?"
"The blue is ugly."
Kevin laughed.
It came out louder than he intended.
Annie smiled.
For a brief moment the laundry room felt ordinary.
Then his phone vibrated.
Martin again.
Kevin checked the screen.
CALL ME NOW.
His smile disappeared.
He answered.
"What happened?"
Martin did not bother with greeting.
"How close are you to a computer?"
"Very."
"Open your email."
Kevin moved to the small desk in the corner of the laundry room where Mrs. Bell kept household invoices.
Annie stepped away to give him privacy.
He opened his phone instead.
Martin continued.
"We lost the Whitmore vote."
Kevin frowned.
"That's tomorrow."
"It was tomorrow."
May you like
"What does that mean?"
"They moved it up."
