CLAIRE BACKED AWAY FROM THE phone, staring at it as if it were a snake ready to strike. Already she could hear Nina coming down the steps.
“Claire! You weasel, were you listening in?”
Claire backed through the living room into the dining room just as Nina reached the bottom of the stairs and burst into the living room.
“I guess not,” she heard Nina say.
Claire ducked quickly out the sliding glass doors that led from the dining room onto the patio.
It was a lot to digest all at once. Too much. Zoey falling for Lucas, that was bad.
Not that Claire could deny Lucas’s attraction. Yes, she remembered that about him, the way he could make your insides melt with a look or a touch. And now he had broken the solid wall of resistance. Now it would be infinitely harder to get rid of him.
And then there was Benjamin’s little theory. What was that all about? Some question about who was driving the car? What did Benjamin suspect, that Wade had been driving? Could that be? Was Lucas truly innocent?
No. Lucas wasn’t the martyr type. He would never have confessed. Why would he? To protect Wade’s reputation? Hardly. Jake might have turned Wade into some larger-than-life hero in his mind, but Claire knew better. Wade McRoyan was a selfish, even cruel person, well on his way to becoming a serious drunk.
“I have to think,” Claire said aloud, squeezing her head with both hands.
She followed the path around the side of the house, through the rosebushes and flowery shrubs in the front yard. She glanced at her watch. Six twenty-five. Zoey would be on the six-thirty ferry, arriving at ten till seven. She needed to see Benjamin before that. Find out just what was going on in his head.
And then, Jake.
She walked quickly through the center of town, just five minutes to Benjamin’s house. She rapped at his window, letting him know she was there. Mr. Passmore often took a nap in the early evening.
She waited by the front door until Benjamin came and let her in. She followed him to his room. Here in his own home he moved with all the ease and assurance of a sighted person.
She gave him a little kiss, just brushing his lips.
“I didn’t expect you,” Benjamin said, sitting down on his bed.
“I didn’t know I had to make an appointment,” Claire said, trying to sound pleasant and unhurried. Inside she was boiling with impatience. It was strange. She wasn’t an impatient person.
“Of course you don’t,” Benjamin said. “Why don’t you come here and give me a real kiss?”
She felt anger flare. He was so smug, so sure he was smarter than everyone else around him, with his so clever upside-down posters, his eerie impersonation of a sighted person, his terrible concentration on everything and everyone around him. What a relief it was to be with someone like Jake. Jake was so easy to be with, so straightforward.
“You know, Benjamin,” Claire began, hearing the false notes in her own voice, “lately, with Lucas coming back and all, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened. The accident, I mean.”
There it was: the hint of a smug grin, quickly repressed but not quickly enough.
“Uh-huh,” he said, drawing out the last syllable to ironic extreme.
“You know I’ve never been able to remember that whole thing.”
He waited for her, silent. She fidgeted, sticking her fingers into the pot of aromatic herbs hanging in front of his window, and looking down the street, half-expecting to see Zoey come walking up. “I mean, Lucas pleaded guilty, didn’t he?” She yanked her hands back to her sides. Amazing. She was trembling. Her voice was shaky. He couldn’t help but hear it.
“Yes, he did,” Benjamin agreed.
“So he must have been driving, right?” Claire demanded.
Now Benjamin let his slow, infuriating grin spread across his face. “Ah. So. It’s always interesting to watch how long it takes for information to travel across this island. But I was sure you’d already heard about my speculations.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Claire snapped, not really expecting him to believe her. “What bull are you spreading around? That’s all I want to know.”
“You’re ready to climb a wall,” he said wonderingly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before.”
“I don’t like lies and rumors, that’s all,” Claire said. “If Lucas confessed, why are you going around trying to get everyone to believe Wade was driving that car? Why are you trying to help Lucas?”
To her amazement, Benjamin actually laughed. “I’ll be damned, Claire. You really don’t remember, do you?” He shook his head. In a low, kind voice he said, “Poor Claire. I was too cynical; I’m sorry. I assumed from the way you were acting, the frantic way you were attacking Lucas, that weird offer from your dad . . . But you actually don’t remember.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Benjamin? Why don’t you just wipe that smug look off your face and spit it out?”
Benjamin stood up and crossed to her. He fumbled for and found her, holding her by the shoulders, his face now sincerely sad. “I’ll always stand by you, Claire. I want you to know that. Whatever you decide. Not because your dad tried to bribe me.”
Claire pushed him away violently. He fell back onto his bed. “You’re scaring me!” she shouted.
You’re scaring me!
She felt as if a bolt of electricity had shot up her spine. She reached for the wall, pressing her palm against it, trying to regain her balance in a spinning room.
Stop it. Pull over. You’re scaring me.
“It’s coming back, isn’t it?” Benjamin asked softly.
“No!” Claire cried.
“It wasn’t Lucas driving,” Benjamin said, the words tumbling out at top speed. “He was the only one who was uninjured. He was in the backseat, wasn’t he?”
“I have to get out of here,” Claire said. “I—I have to . . . I—” She reeled toward the door.
“Claire, wait!” Benjamin cried.
Claire ran.
I had wondered from the start, from the first few moments after the initial shock of the news had worn off.
Maybe it’s because I can’t see. Sight is very convincing. When you see something, you don’t doubt that it’s true. You see something, instnalty instantly you know what it is, and you know it to be real, absolutely, with utter confidence. It doesn’t take a lot of interpretation. You don’t spend much time guessing.
Hearing, smell, tuoch touch are all so much less certain. And when you have to rely on those uncertain senses, when you have to rely on senses that you are trained to believe are unreliable, you find certainty very much harder to achieve.
I won’t say being blind has made me suspicious; that would be the wrong word. But where sighted people are in the habit of simply accepting what seems obvious, I’m in the habit of guessing, reasoning, imagining.
So when all my sighted friends learned that Wade McRoyan had sied died in a car with Lucas and Claire, and when they had seen the body, and seen Claire’s injuries, and seen the car crumpled around that tree trunk, those sights became all-important.
Whereas I could only imagine. I had to imagine a car. And imagine three people sitting in it. You see, I had to place them there in my imagination, and at that point the question arose: Who was in the backseat?
One dead. One injured. One uninjured.
Wade. Claire. Lucas.
I couldn’t be sure at that point who was driving the car, but I was pretty certain who was not.
And then, Lucas confessed. And Claire couldn’t remember.
I figured I was wrong. I didn’t guess the full truth until Lucas came back and I saw how Claire reacted.
I don’t know how much she rememmbared remembered over time, or half-remembered, or suspected. She’s a person who will act on intuition, and I guess that’s what she did. I like to think if she had known the truth two years ago, she’d have told it. Claire is a decent person underneath all her compulsive manipulation. If she’d remembered the truth back then, she never would have let Lucas pay the price he did.
I have to beleive believe that. It’s the only way I can keep on loving her.