The Guest Room(95)

“Hi,” said the girl, and with one hand she gave me a very small wave. I think she was a little scared of me—of what I was.

“Hi,” I said back. “I like your stockings.”

“They’re tights,” said Richard’s wife. “Not stockings. They’re tights.”

“Thank you,” said the girl.

“Richard told me a little about you two. He loved you lots. I know that. He loved you so much.”

“Why don’t you both sit down,” suggested Eve, and she pointed at the empty bed and then at this ugly orange chair. “Want me to bring you some coffee or a juice?”

“No, we’re just going to be here a minute,” Richard’s wife said. I was glad she didn’t want any coffee or a juice. I didn’t want Eve to leave us alone. But Kristin sat in the chair, and Melissa put her hands on the mattress of the other bed and hopped onto it. She unzipped her coat but didn’t take it off. For what felt like very long minute, but probably wasn’t all that long really, we sat in silence. I wanted to tell little girl it is overrated thing to be pretty. It is overrated thing to be fetching. It is overrated thing to bathe in the light like a star. But I didn’t know where to begin.

“Are you in a lot of pain?” Richard’s wife asked me finally.

“No.” Then I added, “Not like you.”

“It’s different.”

It was, but I didn’t say anything. Biggest difference? I would get better. She wouldn’t. Little girl wouldn’t. Hopefully, little girl wouldn’t become whore like me. I didn’t see why she would. She still had her mother. She still had a nice house. But I guess you never know. Maybe they would leave that house. Maybe they should leave that house.

Kristin took a big breath and sighed. Then: “After the funeral, Richard’s brother, Philip—the bachelor—told me I should steer clear of somebody named Spencer. Just ignore him, no matter what. I have a feeling you know why.”

I shook my head. “He hired us. He was guy at party. He—” and I stopped myself. He was the guy who’d been upstairs with Sonja in the little girl’s bedroom. But I didn’t want to say anything about that in front of Melissa.

“Well, according to my brother-in-law, Spencer has pictures of you and my husband. The kind that might,” and here she paused, looking once at her daughter before looking back at me, “make me sad. He told Philip about them before the funeral. He thought my brother-in-law might…negotiate…with me. But instead Philip went right to the police. My brother-in-law is a jerk, but he loved my husband. Anyway, I thought you should know. Those pictures can’t hurt me. Not now. But someday, if Spencer ever does share them, they might hurt you. I felt I should warn you.”

“Nothing like that can hurt me either.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay then,” I repeated.

She looked around the room. “I should have brought you some flowers. God. I have nothing but flowers at my house.”

“No one’s ever brought me flowers. I wouldn’t have known what to do with them.”

“You’d figure it out. Mostly you just put them in water.”

“Thank you.”

“The strangest thing is this. When I came here—when Eve called—I thought I was coming to forgive you. I was quite literally going to tell you that,” she said. I waited. Eve waited. She was trying to find the right words—the perfect words. I know the feeling. “But that’s not correct. Because you don’t need my forgiveness. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did many wrong things,” I corrected her.

“Maybe. But you didn’t kill my husband.”

“I shouldn’t have come to your house. I didn’t think cue-ball-head babies would be so smart.”

She raised her eyebrows into pyramid. Eve explained what I meant. “The traffickers,” she said. “This particular group of Russians. Anahit calls them that because they shave their heads.”

“I see. But you couldn’t have known. And you had to go somewhere.”

I shook my head and started to say again how many big mistakes I had made, and to tell her about the piece of paper with the Georgian’s phone number. But the words got lost in my mouth because suddenly I was crying again. I put my face in my hands and swatted Eve’s fingers when she went to touch me, because I didn’t want to be touched and I didn’t want to be forgiven, and I wished to God I could stop crying. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t, and the way I was shaking made my side hurt, which made me cry even harder, I guess. Somewhere, and it seemed so far away, I heard the girl’s feet hit the floor as she jumped off the bed, and I heard Eve leading her and her mother from the hospital room. I heard the door shut.

Then I lay there all alone until it was dark. I lay there until I fell into deep sleep, and this time I dreamed. I dreamed of the cottage, but all of us girls were princesses and the only men we saw were our fathers. We all had our mothers, and they fed us bird’s milk cake and sugary pastila, and even though we all slept in one big room, every night our mothers would come tuck us in and kiss us good night.

And in the morning? In the morning I woke up. I looked out the window at the moon, setting against a deep blue bedspread of sky. There it was. Full and round and incredibly white. I thought of dancer girl from Kiev. Her show. Down the corridor I heard two nurses laughing. He got you that? For your birthday? Seriously? I pulled my arms from beneath the sheet and rolled over. Don’t judge him! More laughter. Well, then, don’t judge me!