And it hates me, Lisa wanted to add, but knew she could not say that. She didn’t want this conversation to suddenly be about her. It was about Will acting like a lunatic, chopping up the floor and keeping secrets. Will was lying about something. He needed to remain in the center of this conversation. Not her, not the clown. Just dreams. Stupid, bad dreams.
Then why the hell was she so afraid to continue this line of discussion? Because to admit anything strange, more than the behavior of the two most important men in her life, would be to feed whatever delusions they’d fallen under. Billy’s problems were to be expected. He was just a kid. But Will was an adult, older than her by two years. She shouldn’t have to worry about his sanity.
She folded her arms under her breasts and forced herself to stare directly at him. “What the hell are you doing down there, Will?”
She expected him to avoid the question by jumping on her remark about the clown, but he didn’t. Instead, Will turned on the couch to face her, as if this was a prerequisite tonight for speaking. His expression was set, hard but not angry, only serious. They faced each other like two people hunkered over a long-running chess game. He reached up, freed one of her hands and held it between both of his own with a gentleness that belied his current expression.
“Lisa, I’m going to ask you for one thing, one promise you have no reason to give me, considering how I’ve been acting. But I’m going to ask you to promise it to me anyway. In return, I’ll make a promise too. An oath, if that’ll help. I’ll even swear to God if we can find Mom’s old family Bible.”
He smiled. It helped. This gave her enough assurance to nod once and say, “What?”
He scooted sideways a little more. “There’s something I need to do, something so important that I’m going to tell you right now, with no disrespect intended, that I’m going to do it no matter what you say. Tomorrow. And I’d like the two of you to go out and do more fun things while I do. Give me one day alone to finish.”
She stiffened, felt her hand reflexively begin to pull away. His grip, though still soft, tightened enough in a silent plea: Wait, let me finish.
“Then, tomorrow night, once everything is done without either you or Billy taking any part, I’ll tell you everything.” The intensity of his gaze softened, nearly went out as he looked away, stared at the floor. “You may decide it’s too much when you hear what I…what I have to say. You may ask me to leave and never come back. I’ll accept that.” He gazed into her eyes. His own had flecks of brown in otherwise blue pools. “I won’t like it, don’t want that at all, I swear. But I’ll accept it.”
She almost said, Unless there’s a body in the basement, Will, I can’t imagine what would make me leave you… Those exact words had come to her and just as quickly she bit down on her lip before they could escape. She shivered and mentally tossed the words away because they were absurd. Impossible.
All of a sudden she did not want to know the truth. All of a sudden Lisa wanted nothing except for time to stop in this moment, or maybe two seconds earlier, before the errant words had flitted into her brain, before she had to bite them back for reasons she did not understand.
She was being stupid.
Will was silent, searching her face for a reaction. She hadn’t moved, probably hadn’t blinked in these past few seconds. She closed her eyes, let a new thought creep its way through the blanket of cold dread which covered her head and shoulders. Whatever he is up to, it can’t be as bad as that. So you can wait one more day, and realize your imagination is far worse than reality. Life will be good again. Life will be good forever…
The thought brought comfort, enough to allow her to move at last, nod her head.
The cold remained, however, even as Will slid forward and swallowed her in a long, silent hug. One more day, Lisa thought. Then it’ll all be over.