The Clairvoyants(64)

He ruffled his short hair, almost in frustration. “We’d need to leave now, before it gets too late.”

I again tried to lift myself from the bed, but exhaustion seemed to have settled in my limbs. “Why am I so tired?” I said.

I had so many questions I wanted to ask him. I wanted to move forward, past the lies we’d told each other. If we’d had sex, was everything forgiven between us? But his half of the bed was cold, the sheets like ice. My thinking was muddled. Some part of me understood that his persistence in seeking the portfolio only meant he wanted no one to see the images, and that he had something to do with Mary Rae’s death. He placed a roll of film in his camera.

“I have to dress,” I said, closing my eyes.

“You’re already dressed,” he said. “Just get up.”

It was true I was still in my clothing from the night before, though my jeans were undone. “Why don’t we go later?” I said. “Or tomorrow?”

But he was already out the door. His boots on the stairs echoed back at me. He was loading the car. And then below in the foyer, Del asked him what he was doing, and I knew she would call everyone, and the flasks would be filled, and the picnic lunch packed, and I would be the one left behind. I forced myself from the bed and gathered my camera, my cell phone. I put on my coat. In the mirror by the door my mouth and chin looked raw. I no longer had any interest in going to the asylum. I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. I thought of him touching me in my sleep—when I was most vulnerable, stripped of all of my masks. Could I still love him despite everything? I wasn’t going to let Del take away my chance to decide.

I made it down the stairs and out to the curb where Geoff’s car was parked. I crawled into the backseat, leaned my head against the door. I awoke lying at a slant, an awkward position. The tires on the road made a humming sound. Telephone poles passed against a bright blue backdrop spotted with clouds, one after the other in a kind of loop. The car radio was tuned to a classical station. On the floor near my feet was William’s camera bag. I felt a surge of panic, and William looked over at me from the front passenger seat.

“She’s awake,” he said.

I struggled to sit up. Mary Rae’s pendant slid cold against my neck. “I fell asleep,” I said.

“Again,” Del said. She took one hand off the steering wheel and flipped the radio off.

I looked through the back window. “Where’s Randy?” The road ribboned out behind us, dark and empty.

“They couldn’t come,” Del said. “It was too last minute.”

“Alice was all excited about it,” I said.

“Randy couldn’t drive—his car broke down. Alice’s mother, Erika, is back in town. Then the others changed their minds. They got drunk last night and they’re too hungover.”

“The trip should have been canceled if no one wanted to go,” I said.

“That’s what I said.” Del slowed the car for a stop light. She flicked on the turn signal. “William said you told him we had to go in honor of Great-aunt Rose.”

I wasn’t going to admit I had only a vague memory of ever getting into the car, but it felt like a betrayal to have told him about Great-aunt Rose. Something wasn’t right.

“I changed my mind,” I said.

I thought Del exchanged a look with William. “We’re almost there,” he said. Up in the front seat they seemed like a conspiring couple.

Del kept both hands on the wheel as if fearful of letting go.

One afternoon when we were teenagers, I’d begged my father for a driving lesson, and Del had insisted on coming along. She’d driven his car at the time, a little MG, into a split-rail fence at the end of the road, denting the fender and scratching the hood. Our father had been furious and had refused to give either of us lessons after that. I’d resented Del for all the things she’d ruined for me, as if she’d ruined them purposely. But had she, as she’d admitted, simply pushed on the wrong pedal?

The plows had been out in force, and the sun shone on the banks of snow. I had a terrible headache, and everything seemed overbright. Even the recent past seemed strange, a place of events I could not accurately recall.

“You don’t have your license,” I said. And then, “Don’t push on the wrong pedal.”

In the rearview mirror, Del glanced back at me with a small smile.

William rattled off details about the old asylum. It had been designed by Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. The idea was to have separate wings, so that the insane could be grouped by level of madness. Metal doors would block the wings from each other. Each wing would have its own sitting room.

“Why separate them?” I lowered myself back onto the seat and lay down, so I wouldn’t have to look at the two of them.

“These places were built to help people get better,” he said, “not to make them worse.” I sensed he might have essentially called me stupid. He didn’t seem to have an abundance of patience. I wondered how the three of us might be separated, into which wings we might be housed. And how was it that William appeared not to know anything about the necklace? Lying in the backseat of Geoff’s car, like a transported body, my suspicions of William’s connection to Mary Rae’s death were jumbled. What confused me was her calm—the look on her face as she’d stood listening to him at the porch party that first night, her quiet plea at the encampment. Could victims still feel that sort of longing for their murderers?