Open House(45)

“Then why don’t you answer my question, Noah?” Haley snapped.

“I didn’t kill your sister,” Noah said, his words eerily calm, like he was explaining a math problem to a child, “and I didn’t try to kill my wife today.”

“You’re still not answering her question, Noah,” Dean said.

“What I’m asking you,” Haley said, her voice a whisper, “is if the baby could have been yours.”

Josie looked up at Noah, her eyes wide. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“I think he does,” Dean said. He reached out his hand and took Haley’s, and she steadied herself for whatever she was about to hear.





THIRTY-FIVE

Emma

Ten years ago

We stumble once more, and then Brad rolls off me and onto his back. His breathing is so heavy he’s almost gasping. For a second I think he’s having some kind of heart attack, but then I remind myself he’s not really that old. “What is wrong with you?” I ask, still so unsure of what just happened, trying to digest the fact that someone I was sleeping with just tried to attack me. My lungs are still burning when I ask, “Were you trying to hurt me?”

He’s just lying there with a hand over his chest. I can see the rise and fall of his parka, the zipper sticking straight up in the air. “No,” he finally says. “Obviously not.”

“Obviously not?” I glare at him. “You just pushed me down.”

“I was trying to get the pregnancy test back. I panicked, okay? Rational thought dictates that you could just take another one.” He turns onto his side with a muffled sound, and it occurs to me that maybe he hurt himself when we fell. I sit a little closer. Branches scratch at my arms, and tiny rocks and twigs poke my butt. “The baby isn’t yours,” I say, trying to get remotely comfortable in the brush.

He looks at me with bewilderment all over his face, and then pulls himself up to sit. We’re both sitting cross-legged like two campers at a campsite about to roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories. “Then why did you act like it was?” he asks.

My heart is still pulsing in my ears from the struggle, my blood too hot as it swirls through me. “I don’t know,” I say, suddenly filled with so much shame. I run my fingers over a smattering of stones between us, wanting to feel anything other than this feeling. “Probably because I wanted to hurt you back.”

When Brad reaches forward, I see dirt on his hands, and maybe blood, but it’s too dark to be sure. He almost touches me, but he must think better of it because his hand freezes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says.

“You have a fiancée—a pregnant one, no less—and you slept with me anyway,” I say.

He shakes his head, and a strand of strawberry-blond hair falls in front of his eyes. “I’m messed up,” he says.

“We’re all messed up,” I say, starting to stand, because the ground beneath us is too cold, and I need to leave this place, to find Noah and Josie. Even seeing Chris right now would be a welcome relief. My legs are aching as I straighten up, and I think about Noah and wonder if I love him. I’ve never loved anyone before except my family members. College would be easier if I’d ever had a serious boyfriend, but my parents were so strict about me dating. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong.

“Are you going to keep the baby?” Brad asks, rising, too.

It’s weird that he doesn’t ask me whose it is, but the undergrad boys are probably all the same to him. “I think so,” I say. And then, when I add, “I hope so,” I’m struck with the saddest, most lonely feeling. I think of Chris and Josie, and how they were all alone until they ended up in the same family, and I think of how they would protect each other over anyone else.

Family. The truth is that this baby is my family—and it’s maybe the only truth I know for sure, the only one that matters. I swallow down tears and manage to say, “I need to go, Brad. I need to find my friends.”

“Goodbye, Emma,” he says.

“Goodbye,” I say. We don’t touch, not even to embrace. I turn and walk carefully back to the trail.





THIRTY-SIX

Priya

What the hell was that?” Brad asked when he bounded onto the porch.

Priya didn’t answer, and a moment later Brad collapsed onto the chair across from her and let his head fall into his hands. “Did you tell the detectives about our history with Emma and Josie?” he asked before raising his eyes to look at her. “Did they ask you?”

“Our history with Emma?” Priya repeated, curling her hand around the arm of the wicker sofa, pressing hard against it with her fingertips and bitten nails.

“Yes, our history with Emma,” Brad said. “Emma as your student—Emma as my lover.”

Priya’s jaw dropped. “Your lover,” she said, tasting the word and all the things it meant. Shadows fell across the porch’s floor, mostly in the shape of foliage, and Priya’s eyes landed on her cold-weather plants, the catmint and prickly wintergreen boxwoods.

“Stop repeating my words, Priya,” Brad said. “This is serious.”

“I’m aware of how serious this is,” Priya hissed, inhaling the smell of mint. Elliot could be back any minute, and where would that leave them? “I’m also aware that the mess you made all those years ago still haunts us now. So before you start questioning me, I’d just like to ask you, once and for all: How much of a mess did you make back then?”