Neighborly(71)

Katrina smiles. “You hit the nail on the head.” Then the smile dissolves. “Doug and I can’t even talk about her right now. That’s why he’s not here. He stormed off after I said something neutral. He thought I was insulting her. I wouldn’t do that. Not now.”

Huh. Not now. That means something happened recently. So it wasn’t just generic or stress-related tension I observed; there was an inciting event and a history underpinning it.

“That’s rough,” I say. “Marriages can be minefields.” Kind of like these conversations.

“I get scared sometimes, since Doug and his mom are so close.”

“Scared of what?”

She hesitates, but just for a second. She’s dying to tell someone. “I was so stupid. I trusted them, and now they’ve got all the power.”

“In what way?”

“My credit’s bad, so Scott, Melody, and Doug are the only names on the deed.”

I’ll have to file away that little nugget, see if it could be useful. It certainly won’t hurt to feed her paranoia and get her to dig her own grave with the in-laws. It also gives me a backup angle: maybe I can get Doug to kick her out, if that’s his house, not hers. Or let something slip to the in-laws . . . ?

“Just watch your back,” I say, “that’s all.”

If she’s busy watching her back, she won’t even see me coming.





CHAPTER 25

KAT

I’m alone the next time she shows up. I’m alone a lot. Doug has made it very clear he doesn’t want to be with me right now. What’s unclear is why. Did he see that photo before I deleted it? Did he hear a rumor? Is this still about what I said to Sadie about Melody while I was in the shower? Or is it that he thinks another mother would have taken better care of Sadie? All of the above?

I’m afraid to ask. I don’t even want to know.

But it means I’m left with my own terrified thoughts. I don’t sleep. I can barely think. And I know I should stop telling her things, but a part of me feels like I’m already in so deep, and I can’t just be in my head all the time. And for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I trust her. Layton made it hard for me to trust myself, but Dr. Morrison always said I’m supposed to go with my instincts. My instincts say that this woman in front of me is a good person who wants to be here for me. Just because she happens to live in the AV, alongside a certain nasty note writer, shouldn’t automatically disqualify her.

Sadie’s still attached to all her machines, but I’m cradling her.

“I didn’t know you were allowed to take her out,” she says.

“Didn’t you hold your baby sometimes?”

“The rules must have changed.”

“Wow, that would be awful, to never be able to pick her up.” But even so, I don’t take Sadie out much. I don’t want to disturb her. She needs her sleep so she can fight the infection, whatever it is.

She looks like she’s sleeping right now. I don’t know if it’s sleep or some other loss of consciousness. I just know that I’m desperate for her to come back, for good. She doesn’t have the energy to be her feisty self.

There’s been no diarrhea today, but her iron count is even lower. It’s like one thing gets better and something else gets worse. They still don’t know what’s wrong. And she won’t drink my milk; it’s still all intravenous fluids. I pump out rivers, and the nurses label the bottles and put them away for me like we might need them later.

She’ll never catch up with all that milk. I should just dump it, but I can’t. It would be like saying she’s not going to get better.

“Sadie’s going to get better,” she says. It’s jarring, as if she could read my thoughts. Maybe it’s that they’re such obvious thoughts. Any mother would have them.

“In the night, she had chills along with her fever. It was so terrible. She was just lying there, vibrating, and it took a while for the medicine to work. All I could do was watch. I was afraid to touch her, afraid I’d make it worse.” I pull Sadie closer to me, but gently. “She’ll be here a few more days at least.” I carefully put Sadie back inside the cube, realizing she hasn’t stirred during this entire conversation. Would someone tell me if she were comatose? Would a mother know? Maybe not this mother.

I let my hands hang, limp and useless, at my sides. “I smell! I haven’t changed my clothes! I’ve been pretending we’re going home any hour now, any day. Doug’s gone home to shower.”

“Is he bringing you some clothes back? They probably have a shower you can use here at the hospital—”

“I don’t care! I don’t care how I look or how I smell! I deserve to stink!”

Before Doug, I didn’t think I had what it took to be a mother. Maybe I was right. Another mother would have gotten her help sooner. Another mother wouldn’t have engendered such bad will in her new neighborhood that . . .

I wanted so much to have a community, and look what happened.

I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore.

I crumple into the chair.

A nurse comes in at just that moment. She’s young and perky, pretty but for an astonishing overbite. “Hi,” she says with a slight Southern twang. “I’m Kendall.”