The Better Liar(93)

I got out and shut the door. My hands were shaking. It took me a long time to find the right key. I hadn’t thought about whether it would hurt until this moment. I hadn’t thought about how there would be a stranger in my house—someone who would hit me, really hit me.

I had stood in front of the mirror a dozen times while I was pregnant, imagining myself taking my stomach off, leaving it on the floor. After Eli was born, it became clear the problem had not exited with him, but remained inside me, a dead part drifting into my bloodstream. I fantasized that I could locate the poisoned organ and cut it out. I pulled at my skin in the mirror, stretching it to its limit. If it had been as easy as cutting off an arm, I would have done it.

    It was different, though, to walk toward my escape knowing that pain was waiting for me. A real man waiting to hit me. I thought about calling Robin. I moved my feet two steps.

The teal gate was open, as if somebody else had come through already.

The noise congealed into something I recognized. It was music. Somebody was playing music in there. It was drifting through the door, left an inch or two ajar.

I glanced behind me, but no one was there. Just the strange car in the drive and the empty street.

I made myself go through the gate and push open the front door. Would I see him right away, the stranger Robin had hired? Would he be like Clery, or would he be the kind of man to introduce himself, apologize before he knocked my head against the wall?

The music grew in volume.

“I was the one came running when you were lonely…”

That song Robin had loved. Was she here? She’d said she wouldn’t be, that she’d pick me up later, on the highway.

“Robin?” I called. I left my purse on the hook next to the door and went farther into the living room. “Robin?”

No one answered.

The house was nearly empty, covered in boxes. I should have felt alone, but I didn’t.

There was another person in the house.

Where was Daddy’s record player? It wasn’t in the living room. I followed the sound through the house, feeling sick.

The dream I’d had surfaced, jogged by the empty armchair. A stain on it stuck out to me as it hadn’t in the months since Daddy had no longer occupied it. I’ll have to throw the chair out, I thought, and then I remembered I wouldn’t be here to do it. Someone else would have to throw the chair out.

    “Robin?”

My room was empty except for the boxes. Dull yellow walls. I closed the door again and went farther down the hallway.

There was a noise like a step behind me. I turned.

Nothing.

At last I reached Robin’s room. The door was closed, but the music poured out from around its edges. She was playing the song as loud as it could possibly go.

I turned the knob. It felt hot in my hand.

All the lights were on in Robin’s room, bright against the pale blue wallpaper. The faces crowded my vision so that at first all I saw was the record player propped up on the white pouf chair that belonged to Robin’s vanity. She’d dragged the chair into the middle of the room for some reason. The record on it spun slowly, blaring its noise.

Then I saw why the chair was in the middle of the room.

Above it, from the fan, hung a length of rope, knotted into a noose.

My mind worked slowly. Was Robin here? Was she going to kill herself?

Then, even more ludicrous: Was it my mother?

I felt something at my back, could feel its breath. The man Robin had hired. But even as I wrenched myself around I knew that wasn’t it. The door was yanked shut behind me, forcing me to snatch my hand out of the way to keep from getting caught in the frame. I reached for the knob just as the lock clicked, rattling the wood.

I pulled at the knob. Then again. The door held.

The record player was blaring; I couldn’t think. “Robin!” I yelled over its noise. “What’s going on?”

She couldn’t hear me. I turned and hurried to lift the needle from the record. “Robin?” I called again, going back to the door and pressing myself against it. The painted wood felt sticky against my face.

In the sudden quiet, I heard a car in the driveway. Coming or going? Was she leaving me here? What for?

I looked around. The window—the window—

I pulled up the blinds and looked out into the empty backyard. The red yucca needed watering. I couldn’t see what was going on in front of the house from here, but if I could lift the window…

    My fingers couldn’t gain purchase on the sash. I pushed at the top of the window instead, locking and unlocking it futilely. At last I saw what it was. The sash was nailed to the frame.

I’d put those nails in, years ago. To keep Robin in. She’d pried them out twice to get out from under me. After she’d run away, I hadn’t bothered to put them back in again. She must have come yesterday and—and hammered them—so I couldn’t…

But why? Ten a.m. We’ll pack some boxes. I remembered holding on to her in the kitchen, the way her fingers had skated over the veins on the back of my hand.

I banged on the window, hard. “Robin!” The glass fogged at my shout. “Robin!” I said again, knocking until the windowpane shuddered. The yard remained quiet, the black pine’s needles moving in a breeze I couldn’t feel. No neighbors appeared beyond the fence.