The Queen of Hearts(94)

“Who are you?” I said. I slid down the wall to the floor, landing on my bottom with a little clunk. “Who are you?”





Chapter Forty


SOME THINGS ARE UNAVOIDABLE





Emma, Present Day


I see them in my sleep: a parade of ghostly accusers. Graham, dark-eyed and prescient, fixed in some posture of eternal yearning; the little girl, Eleanor, her bright baby face and her rosebud mouth, all her shiny newness crumbling into dust. I see the realization of betrayal cross my best friend’s face in a swift, irreparable flash.

There is no more debilitating emotion than shame. Even grief has a redeeming clarity and purity to it: you know there is a terrible beauty in loving something so much that its loss nearly ends you. But there is no redeeming quality to shame. It’s ugly.

I think of myself as a good person. But maybe everyone does? Regardless of what I think of myself, the undeniable truth is that I’ve done some very shameful things.

—

Saturday evening, the day of my meeting with the Packards, closed with lingering stickiness, the crackly leaves blowing off the oaks in my front yard on a gust of humid wind. Thanksgiving still lurked two weeks in the future, but already my next-door neighbors had erected a giant blow-up Santa Claus, leering like a deranged Peeping Tom at the level of my second-story windows.

I stepped briskly into my detached garage, practicing the correct facial expressions: empathy and concern and honesty. Contrition, but not at a level suggesting culpability. Human warmth, as my lawyer would say: You want them to like you. People are much less likely to sue if they have a relationship with you.

The problem was my face: it doesn’t reflect my feelings. My face was as enigmatic and inscrutable as the moon, even when inside all I could hear was whimpering. Somehow I’d have to cast off my outer awkwardness and connect with these people.

It was a task made infinitely harder by Zadie’s absence. Not only would she have been a buffer between me and the child’s parents, able to leap into the fray without any of my hesitation, but she’d also have served as my emotional proxy. In her case, I’d say it’s largely unthinking, but people respond to all her wild emotions as if she’s got a control button lodged in their prefrontal cortexes. They love her.

I would have to rely on my own strengths. Zadie and I hadn’t spoken in the days since the restaurant when I’d confessed. I missed her even more than if she’d died. At least the dead cannot hate you.

—

Before I could back out of the garage, the door opened and a pajama-clad Wyatt hustled through. If we weren’t going out, Wyatt conducted a cherished Saturday night routine of ordering takeout, cracking a giant bottle of wine, and watching movies under a blanket on our most comfortable sofa once we’d put Henry down for the night, generally providing an unsought stream of commentary on the movie’s plot as it unfolded. I’d never been able to break him of the habit of talking back to the actors, but I’d acclimated to his interruptions. Now it would seem sterile to view a film without Wyatt’s murmured commendations and belches of outrage.

The sight of his bare feet poking out of the rolled-up gray pajamas I’d bought for him in London nearly undid me. He held up a decorative carrier bag, the fancy kind you’d use for liquor or a bottle of wine, and thrust it through my car window. I tried to wave him off.

“I’m not taking the Packards a bottle of bourbon,” I said. “This isn’t a hostess-gift situation.”

“Not for the Packards,” puffed Wyatt. “For Zadie.”

“Zadie?” I said, surprised. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Wyatt about what had happened with Zadie, although until the other day, he alone, of all the people on earth, had known the truth about what I’d done to her in medical school. The day after the Arts Ball I’d spent the day in bed, not speaking, but the next day I’d done what I always did: I soldiered on. I went to work. I came home.

“This can be your night to mend fences,” said Wyatt. Optimism shone from behind his smudgy reading glasses.

“I— How did you know something happened with Zadie?”

Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “I’m smarter than I look,” he said. “Do you even need to ask?”

“But—”

“Muffin, you have to fix it.” He waved his hands in front of him for emphasis. “You don’t have to tell me how it went down—I can guess—but you can’t let it go. You need your friend.”

“I don’t think she’s coming,” I said, feeling a familiar weight level me. “I can’t control how she feels at this point.” If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s this: the past is never really gone. It’s one long chain linking the present and also the future, and sometimes it doubles back on itself, exposing the things you thought were buried. “I told her the truth, and I haven’t heard from her once.”

Wyatt trotted around to the passenger side of the car and let himself in. “I can’t be late, Wy,” I said, beginning to fret about the time even though I’d allotted myself thirty minutes for a five-block drive. “Let’s talk about it when I get home.”

“This will only take a second,” he said, leaning across the seat. “Look at me.”