Open House(11)

Rappaport looked surprised, but nodded and excused himself. The door shut, and Liv whipped around in her chair to face Haley. Her auburn hair was newly cut, and the tendrils that framed her face made her look younger than fifty-six. Her round brown eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but still smart as ever. “This is going to kill Dad,” she said.

“It is,” Haley managed, but then she stopped knowing what to say. Her dad’s grief was too much. It was different when she was working with the doctors in the hospital and it was a patient’s sadness. This was her family.

“Will you tell him with me?” Liv asked. She gripped the arm of the chair, her thin fingers going white. “Your dad will be more under control with you there. He won’t want to scare you.”

“Of course,” Haley said.

Liv blinked a few times, looking like she was turning something over in her mind. “The detective didn’t seem very surprised when you said the bracelet was Emma’s,” she eventually said. “Do you think Josie’s the one who identified it first?”

Usually Liv never mentioned Josie by name, and whenever they ran into her, Liv barely spoke. Only once did she say anything about it, a muttered It just isn’t fair that she goes on living a life right in front of us, and Emma doesn’t.

“It had to be her, because who else?” Haley replied, tapping her thighs again. One, two, three, four, five . . .

She wasn’t sure whether her mom didn’t notice the tapping anymore or she just chose not to say anything. Six, seven, eight, nine . . .

The walls of Rappaport’s office seemed to come closer. “I gotta get out of here,” Haley said, thinking about how she couldn’t wait to call Dean and tell him everything. “But I’ll meet you tonight whenever you want to tell Dad.”

Liv nodded slowly, and Haley let her head fall against her mom’s chest, desperate for her comfort. Liv’s arms were strong and warm, and Haley breathed in her familiar vanilla scent before pulling away and zipping her coat, preparing for the Waverly chill and the afternoon ahead.





SIX

Priya

That evening Brad shuffled his feet as he walked across the kitchen to greet Priya. It was a habit that irritated her, because he was only thirty-eight, a few years younger than she was, but the shuffling made him seem much older. He hadn’t been athletic as a child or young adult, but right after Elliot was born he began working out so vigorously it gave his body the appearance of a lifetime spent as a well-muscled athlete. Only the shuffling gave him away.

“Hey,” Priya said as she set out a steaming plate of stir-fry.

“Hi, sweetie,” Brad said in return, and Priya forced herself to meet his eyes. Is this what other women did, the ones who knew their husbands had been unfaithful and decided to stay? She knew several women who stayed for financial reasons, but Priya had a modest amount set aside from her days selling her paintings, so it wasn’t that. She stayed because Brad made her feel safe, or at least safer than she’d ever felt before. There was no way someone who’d never experienced an anxiety disorder could understand, but Priya didn’t believe she could be okay all by herself without his care. It wasn’t just that he medicated her—she could find a psychiatrist for that—it was the day-to-day monitoring of her behavior, her moods, and her fears. Who else would do that with such care? Priya was terrified of her own mental state, because what if she missed the subtle signs and then plunged into a downward spiral? What if she went off the deep end again with no one there to save her? What if that happened, and she lost Elliot?

Brad set down his bag, his green eyes searching hers as they always did, asking: Are you all right today?

It was a harder question to answer without Elliot here.

“How was teaching?” she asked, praying she could get through the whole evening without anything tipping him off that tomorrow she was going to meet Josie, whom he’d expressly asked her to stay away from.

“My day was terrific,” he said, upbeat as usual after his anatomy lab. He loved being listened to, respected, and adored, and teaching gave him that.

“Great,” Priya said as he hugged and kissed her. She knew she should press for details but couldn’t come up with a good question. She uncurled from his hug and went to get water.

“The food smells delicious,” Brad said, which was kind because they both knew it probably wouldn’t taste that way. Priya had tried for years to get better at cooking; she couldn’t stand being mediocre at something. She’d always chased the things she was wildly good at, mostly school and art, but there were so many regular-life things she sucked at, like organizing Elliot’s closet or remembering to sign him up on time for Little League.

“Let me help you,” Brad said, grabbing two napkins from the center stack and folding them. “Where’s Elliot?”

“He’s next door with Robby,” Priya said, wondering what took him so long to notice. “I told him to be back by eight.”

“Isn’t that late?” Brad asked, and Priya was momentarily thrown. He usually let her make those kinds of decisions. Not for a ten-year-old, she wanted to say.

“Maybe,” she said instead, not wanting an argument.

“We’ll address it with him later,” Brad said, looking satisfied for uttering something fatherly. Priya was sure he’d have been a better dad to a girl. He didn’t get along that well with members of his own sex. There were always arguments at work he was telling her about, and they almost never involved a female colleague.