Such a Quiet Place: A Novel(32)

I hadn’t noticed. But Ruby was facing the window, and I wondered if that was on purpose. Whether she’d grown accustomed to keeping an eye on her surroundings. Whether she was watching for something now.

Her gaze trailed after something out the window; for the first time, I could see the signs of fatigue on her: the thin skin under her eyes, dulled and discolored; the slightly sunken cheeks, like she was ravenous for something to drink.

“Probably,” I said. It was dusk.

“Or maybe not,” she said with a wry grin. And for a second I thought her look was for me—that she’d caught me watching her too closely.

I didn’t respond; didn’t know whether Ruby’s throwaway lines meant anything at all or if I was reading too much into every word, every gesture.

“Well, anyway. What about you? What have you been up to?” she asked.

I thought of Mac last night, Charlotte this morning. “Hmm?”

“Fourteen months,” she said. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Nothing I could tell her, the mundane things I’d taken for granted with the freedom she’d lacked. She already seemed to know about my new job somehow. But now I was really thinking about it—how maybe I, too, had been in a holding pattern for the last fourteen months. That I’d somehow understood—or believed, or feared—that someday she’d be back, and I had lost trajectory of my own life in the process. That I was only waiting for her return.

Fourteen months, and what did I have to show for it?

“I know one thing,” she said, fork resting in her hand. She stared at me, and I held my breath, and then she smiled, teeth first, before it reached her eyes. “You turned thirty, and I missed it. I hope you celebrated.”

Though I was stuffed, I made myself eat the last bite just to have something to do with my body. “We did a work thing,” I said. It was February, solidly winter, and Mac and I had cooled with the season. I’d gone out to dinner with my group of friends from the office; it had been nice and fun, but I had also become their boss, which altered the dynamic.

My friendships in the neighborhood had drifted since the trial. Maybe even before that. What I’d lost after Aidan—the couple friendships, the joint activities that were no longer possible—what I’d gained with Ruby. The easy way she could say, Your ex is a moron or You’re really pretty in the way girls used to in college, the type of simple compliment that we no longer gave or received outside that close confinement.

“Well, let’s do it now,” she said. “There’s no rule against that.” She left for the kitchen and returned with a second bottle of wine—I couldn’t remember when we finished the first, didn’t notice how much she’d kept pouring. How close some things were to the surface.

“How do you want to celebrate?” she asked. “We can do anything, really.”

The way she said it then, like I hadn’t looked far enough or close enough—like I’d taken my options for granted and had no perspective on the things that were possible, because they had never been taken from me.

I wondered then what I really wanted—maybe, for the first time in a long time, I really considered it. I’d gone to my father’s alma mater, and moved to a new part of the country with Aidan, and taken over Brandon’s job on an interim basis because I was the one with the most seniority left behind—then I’d worked so hard that no one could find a reason to take it from me. I’d learned to hold tight to the things I had earned. But sitting with Ruby, every path I’d taken seemed so narrow, so preordained.

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was her, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the things that were suddenly possible beyond the walls of this house; beyond the borders of this town.

But I thought of Javier on shift, patrolling, keeping watch and reporting back to a community who believed they were keeping themselves safe. The note I’d found last night. The picture left inside. The dangers out there.

“This,” I said. “This is how I want to celebrate.”

She raised her glass to mine, nearly empty. Insisted on doing the dishes after, even though she’d cooked, while I found an old movie we both liked.

I gave over to it, to this, to her. Drunk on the wine and the freedom she’d just unveiled. With her face close to mine as she bent over laughing on the couch, her legs hanging over the end, everyone else seemed so far away. Another life, another world.

That morning with Charlotte, I’d lied, of course.

Of course I wouldn’t tell Ruby to go.





WEDNESDAY, JULY 3





HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE

Subject: Watch last night Posted: 5:35 a.m.

Javier Cora: Just finished up my shift, and yeah, there were definitely some kids hanging out down by the lake. Heard them in the woods but couldn’t get a good look. Didn’t call the police because they left fast. Think they had a boat on the other side of the inlet.

Margo Wellman: Didn’t some local kid drown out there a few years ago at night??



* * *



Subject: July Fourth party rules Posted: 10:52 a.m.

Charlotte Brock: Due to the fact that this is being partially sanctioned by our HOA fees, we are unable to accommodate any nonresidents.

Preston Seaver: That’s some bullshit. We’re bringing the food.