Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(49)

He silenced the engine and slipped a CD into the player. Norah Jones sang to him about darkness and shady corners, sang, “Hot like to burn my lips. I know I can’t win.”

A light from Laraine’s living room shone pale blue through the curtains. He told himself, She’s probably reading, maybe listening to music. She was a teacher of English at an Erie prep school, taught literature and creative writing. She used to read to him in bed. Now she reads to herself, he thought. Reads to herself and picks up strangers in bars.

Sooner or later, she would lift her head and glance out the window. She seemed to always know, always intuit when he was out there. He told himself he didn’t want it to happen tonight. He told himself he would listen to Norah sing four songs—only four—and then he would start the engine and drive home again. He told himself that was what he wanted to happen.

In the middle of the third song, the porch light snapped on. He drew in his breath, winced as the old ache deepened, felt the disturbance in his chest that was like a stone dropped into a very deep well. So, she had looked out and seen his car. And now the front door would be unlocked. Next she would turn out the living room light… There, the window went dark. She’s going upstairs now, he thought. She’s waiting there at the top but I won’t go in this time. This time I’m not going in.

Norah sang, “Truth spoke in whispers will tear you apart…”

When he eased the front door open and stepped inside, she was standing in profile at the top of the stairs, facing the bedroom, her hand on the banister post. She was a shadow in a darkened house, and he felt heavy with the darkness that had brought them both to this place, always brought them here, kept them always in this darkness. She went into the bedroom then without looking down at him. He leaned against the door. Go home, he told himself.

But he knew he would not. He would not have come into the house if he intended to go home. He pried off his shoes and locked the door. First he went into the kitchen, washed his hands with dish soap. Then he went up the stairs.

In the darkened bedroom, with the curtains drawn, as always, and with even the radio turned to face the wall so that its dim blue glow cast no light upon the bed, he eased himself down beside her, smelled her scent in the darkness, felt the hollowness engulf him. “How are you?” he asked. His voice was a whisper and whiskey hoarse.

She said nothing. After a minute or two, she rolled onto her side and faced him. He could not see her body yet, but he felt its heat and knew that she was naked, and he wanted to fall against her, wanted to pull her close and drive this ache from them forever. But all he did was to raise a finger to her face, trace the softness beneath her jaw.

She moved her hand against him, slid her hand between his legs, cupped her hand around him through his khakis. He told her, “We don’t have to do this.”

She said nothing. She always said nothing.

He told himself he wished they could throw away the script for once, but he also knew he had come here counting on the script to be followed. With her hand moving against him and her scent filling the darkness, he suddenly wanted only that the script be played out as written. She would not kiss him but he could touch her, so he laid one hand between her breasts and slipped his other between her legs. He was always surprised by how wet she was when he touched her, always wondered what it was about these infrequent nights that excited her. Was it the thought of how much he needed her? The thought of the grief he would feel afterward when he drove home alone?

She touched him without words until touching was not enough for him. Then he rolled away and stood and removed all of his clothing. When he eased onto the bed again, she rolled onto her side and presented her back to him, and when he entered her and gripped her waist, she sucked in a quick breath but otherwise remained silent.

Because of her passivity he always tried to go slowly. Now and then a nearly inaudible moan would escape from her, but she would give him nothing more, would never lay her hand atop his or say a word to him. He concentrated on being gentle and slow and hoped he would feel the muscle on the inside of her right leg begin to quiver, hoped that her back would arch toward him and that she would let herself go the way she used to before the accident, back when she would cry out so loudly that they had to close the windows in the summer, and after Ryan was born had to press her mouth to the pillow so as not to wake him.

But of course it did not happen that way anymore. As per the script she had written a long time ago, all that happened now was that her breath quickened and her stomach muscles went rigid and she held herself hard against the mattress. Then he came too, and he tried to be as quiet and controlled as her, but he felt himself falling and falling and disappearing into blackness.

Half a minute later, he opened his eyes and felt her stillness beside him. He ran a hand up her stomach and felt her arms crossed at the wrist atop her breasts, both hands clenched.

Finally he pulled away and lay there looking at her. When he touched her spine between the shoulders, she jerked and went stiff.

He knew he should not talk, but he hoped it might be different this time. He hoped that maybe she was ready now and that this woman who loved words and who taught the beauty of words to eleventh-grade boys might permit him a few words to attack the circles of sadness rippling through him.

“Laraine,” he said.

She pulled away and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Laraine, wait.”