The Better Liar(91)

Dave cocked his head and went back downstairs.

Eli cried for another twenty minutes until he exhausted himself into sleep. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, stretching my jaw. “I love you,” I said aloud. I wasn’t sure who the lie was for; Eli wouldn’t remember it and Dave wasn’t there. “I love you,” I repeated.

    I set him in his crib and stood over him. The nothingness I felt when I did this terrified me. It was like being a child again. I couldn’t help probing for movement in the sea of myself.

Tonight, for the first time since he was born, the numbness abated; I felt something when I looked at him. Not for Eli, exactly; more for my mother. I’d told Robin that I wasn’t like Christine, and I did believe that. But she had been dead long before Robin held her under the water, and now I knew what that was like.

It was a relief.



* * *



—

Later, after dinner, I stretched out in the bed. “Tell me about Cadence,” I said. “How is she?”

Dave rolled over. “You’re going to see her again on Sunday, you could just ask her then.”

I shrugged.

“She’s good. Nothing new since last week as far as I know. Still waiting on UAD acceptance.”

“How about Maria and Joachim?”

He made a face. “What’s up with this?”

“I don’t know. We just haven’t talked about your family all week.”

“My family is fine.” Dave kissed my eyebrow. “Want to watch a movie?”

What I wanted to do was spend all night asking him every last question that occurred to me before we never saw each other again. I said, “You pick,” and walked into the bathroom to wash my face.

When I came back, My Cousin Vinny was playing and Dave was sprawled out with his eyes closed, his feet on top of the decorative blanket at the bottom of the bed. I tugged it out from under his feet and wrapped it around me. It had the texture of a placemat. I climbed on top of him and pulled the blanket over our heads, making a little cocoon.

He blinked awake and focused on me. “Why are we in here?”

“It’s warm.”

“It’s warm outside too.”

I smiled. “I was cold.”

    “Well, let’s watch the movie.” He was annoyed with me.

“In a minute. You’re almost asleep anyway.”

“I was resting after my long day of not cooking and not putting the baby to bed,” Dave said. “Shit’s hard. Your food was good, by the way.”

“My mother taught me how to make it.” I laid my head on his shoulder.

His voice was careful. “I’ve never heard you talk about your mom without me bringing it up.”

“Robin made me think of her.”

“She’s not here tonight. Did you work out whatever it was with the lawyer? Is she out?”

“She went back to Vegas,” I said softly. “I don’t think I’ll ever hear from her again.”

Dave wrapped his arms around me, dislodging the blanket and letting a shaft of light in. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s not so bad. She really shook you up.”

“It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “I always thought it was the way she acted that kept us apart, but maybe it was me too. I wasn’t—I wasn’t good family to her. I was harsh.”

“You’re good family,” Dave insisted, pressing our chests tight together. “I have firsthand experience.”

I breathed out against his face.

“Okay, let’s watch the movie,” Dave said. “Stay under this uncomfortable blanket with me. Why did you buy this thing?”

“It goes with our room,” I told him.

Was that the last thing I’d say to him?

He was asleep in less than thirty minutes. I thought about waking him up to say something else, but what could I say that wouldn’t give me away?

I reached for my phone. Is everything ready for tomorrow? I texted Robin.

She replied right away. Ready if you are. 10 a.m., bring whatever you need. We’ll pack some boxes :)

I’m ready, I replied. Then I shut off the light and curled up against Dave’s body, his heartbeat in my ear almost as loud as my own.





55


    Robin


I went to the bank after I left Leslie that morning, staying on the east side of the city, as she’d suggested, which was where the only other branch large enough to keep fifty thousand dollars on hand was located. I gave them my real ID, as well as the nearly expired passport. They kept me there even longer than Leslie, since I wasn’t a customer. Three different bankers and a manager came by to try to convince me to open a checking account, or put the money in savings, or invest it with one of their financial advisers. I kept smiling until they finally came back with a thick white envelope.

In the car, I ripped off the tape and upended the envelope into my lap. Five bound stacks of bills fell out. I gathered them together; the money was barely thick enough to fill both hands. It wasn’t as much as I’d imagined. How long would it last me in LA?

My phone buzzed with messages from Nancy.

The first time I’d left her, I’d done it without thinking. I resented the way she had begun trying to fit me into her future, wondering to me if she should tell her family, if we would stay in Albuquerque if things went badly. I had just met a guy with a truck who had family in Texas; I thought to myself, You don’t see me at all. I’m halfway out of here already, and you don’t even see it. And when I slung my foot out the window that night in late spring—a decade ago now—it felt like I was fulfilling my own prediction. I’d put everything that mattered to me into my turquoise backpack—high-tops, iPod, star-shaped sunglasses. The guy who was waiting for me in the truck down the street wiped cheese from his fingers, truck still smelling like Wienerschnitzel drive-thru. I’d climbed out of my bedroom window thinking: I’m free, I’m free, I could eat the moon! I’d hung my head out of the car window like a dog, my fingers squeezed tightly by his oily ones, as if he could feel my future straining away from him, too big for my flesh to hold, much less his. And Nancy had faded next to the marquee-bright image of my future self.