Full Dark, No Stars(119)

Darcy leaned forward until her nose was touching the glass. She held her breath and cupped her hands to the sides of her face just as she had when she was a girl dressed in grass-stained shorts and falling-down white socks. She looked until she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, then exhaled in a huff that fogged the mirror. She wiped it clean with a towel, and then went downstairs to face her first day as the monster’s wife.

He had left a note for her under the sugarbowl.

Darce—

I will take care of those documents, as you asked. I love you, honey.

Bob

He had drawn a little Valentine heart around his name, a thing he hadn’t done in years. She felt a wave of love for him, as thick and cloying as the scent of dying flowers. She wanted to wail like some woman in an Old Testament story, and stifled the sound with a napkin. The refrigerator kicked on and began its heartless whir. Water dripped in the sink, plinking away the seconds on the porcelain. Her tongue was a sour sponge crammed into her mouth. She felt time—all the time to come, as his wife in this house—close around her like a straitjacket. Or a coffin. This was the world she had believed in as a child. It had been here all the time. Waiting for her.

The refrigerator whirred, the water dripped in the sink, and the raw seconds passed. This was the Darker Life, where every truth was written backward.

- 12 -

Her husband had coached Little League (also with Vinnie Eschler, that master of Polish jokes and big enveloping manhugs) during the years when Donnie had played shortstop for the Cavendish Hardware team, and Darcy still remembered what Bob said to the boys—many of them weeping—after they’d lost the final game of the District 19 tourney. Back in 1997 that would have been, probably only a month or so before Bob had murdered Stacey Moore and stuffed her into her cornbin. The talk he’d given to that bunch of drooping, sniffling boys had been short, wise, and (she’d thought so then and still did thirteen years later) incredibly kind.

I know how bad you boys feel, but the sun will still come up tomorrow. And when it does, you’ll feel better. When the sun comes up the day after tomorrow, a little better still. This is just a part of your life, and it’s over. It would have been better to win, but either way, it’s over. Life will go on.

As hers did, following her ill-starred trip out to the garage for batteries. When Bob came home from work after her first long day at home (she couldn’t bear the thought of going out herself, afraid her knowledge must be written on her face in capital letters), he said: “Honey, about last night—”

“Nothing happened last night. You came home early, that’s all.”

He ducked his head in that boyish way he had, and when he raised it again, his face was lit with a large and grateful smile. “That’s fine, then,” he said. “Case closed?”

“Closed book.”

He opened his arms. “Give us a kiss, beautiful.”

She did, wondering if he had kissed them.

Do a good job, really use that educated tongue of yours, and I won’t cut you, she could imagine him saying. Put your snooty little heart into it.

He held her away from him, his hands on her shoulders. “Still friends?”

“Still friends.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. I didn’t cook anything, and I don’t want to go out. Why don’t you change into some grubbies and go grab us a pizza.”

“All right.”

“And don’t forget to take your Prilosec.”

He beamed at her. “You bet.”

She watched him go bounding up the stairs, thought of saying Don’t do that, Bobby, don’t test your heart like that.

But no.

No.

Let him test it all he wanted.

- 13 -

The sun came up the next day. And the next. A week went by, then two, then a month. They resumed their old ways, the small habits of a long marriage. She brushed her teeth while he was in the shower (usually singing some hit from the eighties in a voice that was on-key but not particularly melodious), although she no longer did it naked, meaning to step into the shower as soon as he’d vacated it; now she showered after he’d left for B, B & A. If he noticed this little change in her modus operandi, he didn’t mention it. She resumed her book club, telling the other ladies and the two retired gentlemen who took part that she had been feeling under the weather and didn’t want to pass on a virus along with her opinion of the new Barbara Kingsolver, and everyone chuckled politely. A week after that, she resumed the knitting circle, Knuts for Knitting. Sometimes she caught herself singing along with the radio when she came back from the post office or the grocery store. She and Bob watched TV at night—always comedies, never the forensic crime shows. He came home early now; there had been no more road trips since the one to Montpelier. He got something called Skype for his computer, saying he could look at coin collections just as easily that way and save on gas. He didn’t say it would also save on temptation, but he didn’t have to. She watched the papers to see if Marjorie Duvall’s ID showed up, knowing if he had lied about that, he would lie about everything. But it didn’t. Once a week they went out to dinner at one of Yarmouth’s two inexpensive restaurants. He ordered steak and she ordered fish. He drank iced tea and she had a Cranberry Breeze. Old habits died hard. Often, she thought, they don’t die until we do.