Ink and Bone(26)

The lighter rested on top of the pile of bills that had started the fight in the first place. His cell phone bill, his American Express, the Mercedes payment, whatever else. Abigail just looked at it, and Finley found herself looking at the lighter.

Abigail didn’t make her do it. Finley wanted to do it. In fact, just minutes before she’d been looking at the offending paper, the pile of which her mother had been waving at her father in anger, and wished she could just set them on fire. Abigail just gave her permission to do what she already wanted to do.

Little Finley got up from the couch and picked up the papers. Then she took the lighter and after a few tries managed to get the small blue flame to flicker out. Then she held it to the curled corners of the bills.

First, they just turned a little brown, the metal flint of the lighter growing hot against her thumb. Then there was a twist of gray smoke. Soon a dancing orange flame began to eat away at the papers in her hand. She let the lighter drop and stared. It was mesmerizing, hypnotic to watch the flames grow, the papers disappear into ash. It wasn’t until she felt the heat on her face that she snapped out of it, realizing what she’d done. She dropped the papers in fear, where they scattered on the coffee table, still burning, quickly setting the magazines beneath them on fire, too. She watched as the flames spread. The Three Sisters were gone.

Finley started to scream for her parents, and they came racing down the stairs just as the smoke detectors began to wail. Her father quickly put out the flames with a towel from the kitchen, while Amanda shuttled Finley from the house, then held on to her tight, weeping in the front yard.

I’m sorry, she just kept whispering. I’m sorry, Finley.

Though Finley was frightened and sorry for what she had done, she also acknowledged that she had, in fact, shut them up. There wasn’t another harsh word spoken between Phil and Amanda for the rest of the afternoon. They behaved like two chastened children, tiptoeing around each other, being extra gentle with Finley. She didn’t even quite get why they were being so nice.

That night while Amanda lay next to Finley in bed, stories read, lights low, she asked: “Why, Finley? Why did you do that, honey? Didn’t you know how dangerous it was? You could have been burned, or worse.”

Finley told her mother about The Three Sisters. Amanda already knew what Finley was, of course.

“Don’t worry, baby,” her mother whispered that night in bed. She was quietly crying again, holding on to Finley. “We’re going to get you the help that you need.”

And Finley felt deeply relieved. But that was before she knew what her mother meant—which was that she’d spend the next year seeing a kid shrink.


*

Now, in her grandmother’s house, Finley held on to the little change purse and closed her eyes to see what she could see.





SEVEN


Kristi was so easy. It was, by far, the thing Wolf Gleason had liked best about her. And he, even now, liked a good many things about her: those wide, always surprised blue eyes; her round, bouncy ass; her teardrop breasts. Not necessarily in that order. He’d never seen Kristi without her nails done—a perfect French manicure and pedicure. Not just a bikini wax, a Brazilian—now that took guts.

Her hair was a perfect white-blonde frame around her heart-shaped face. She wasn’t beautiful precisely—her nose was just the tiniest bit crooked. Her face, in fact, was weak—one of those faces that is pretty only in youth, plump and dewy with health. Once time and gravity got to work, there was no strong scaffolding underneath to fight the sag, the inevitable lines and wrinkles. Her body was nice, soft—muscles not too ripped by countless desperate hours at the gym. But she wasn’t hot—not like boyhood fantasy hot. Few women were, off the pages of a magazine; there were always physical flaws in real life. But Kristi was the kind of girl who knew how to take care of and maximize the gifts nature had bestowed on her, however fleeting they may be.

The other thing he’d liked about her (at first) was that she was perfectly sunny all the time. Merri (contrary to her name) could give Sartre a run for his money—hell is other people and all of that. But Kristi was always bright-eyed, continually looking for the silver lining, the best in people and situations. She relaxed Wolf. She rolled his joint for him and held it to his lips—literally and figuratively. She got on top and rode him until he quivered beneath her, spent and gorgeously exhausted. She giggled when she laughed, light and mellifluous. She liked Hello Kitty. She didn’t mind that he was into porn. In fact, she watched it with him. To his delight, it turned her on.

“Be careful,” his buddy Blake had warned. “Those are the girls who always turn.”

Wolf figured Blake—always the straight arrow all through Regis, at Columbia, now partner at a big law firm, faithful husband, perfect dad to two girls—was maybe just a little jealous. Blake and his wife Claire had been together since high school (she was a Chapin girl whose daddy had founded Blake’s firm), so he had to be at least a little curious, especially since Claire didn’t exactly impress Wolf as the kind of girl that would get wild at all in the bedroom. (Of course, Blake would never talk about anything like that, got all prudish when the topic even came up.)

Though Wolf had to admit that Blake didn’t exactly seem jealous. Pitying would be a better description of his attitude. Anyway, Blake had been right. Wolf should have listened. His lifelong friend was an uncanny judge of character.