I knew I had to tell Erik what I’d told Annabelle. But not that night. He was too elated, barely finishing his sentences as we rehashed the evening: Who said what and what did I think of the fellows, of Kelly, of her speech—could it have been any more perfect? And woven into every word was his stunned disbelief that after four months of worry, the night had been…
“Successful?” I teased. “No, no, no. That was not success; that was magic!”
“Jesus, it was, wasn’t it?”
As soon as we got in the car, I told him about the look Kelly and I had exchanged across the room. “It was so strange, but for that moment—not even a few seconds—it was like the old Kelly again, and the old me, and…” I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe I did need to see her.”
“So, her therapist was right?”
“Maybe.” Except seeing her wasn’t going to help me close any doors. I wanted to fling them open even wider, ask a thousand questions: Is living in New York as great as you imagined? And How is Nick? And Do you visit Rehoboth much? Do you ever go by my parents’ restaurant? But mostly, I wanted to ask about Lucy. Was she happy? Was she healthy? And—if I dared—did she know about me?
At home, while Erik heated the pizza—we never ate at these events—I sat in our living room and phoned my mom. “You were right,” I said as soon as she picked up. “I’m glad I went.”
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Start at the beginning.”
I settled against the couch, my dress hitched up so that I could sit with my knees tucked to my side. “Well, for one thing, she’s beautiful, Mom, which I didn’t remember.” I pried off my earrings as I spoke, switching the phone from one ear to the other.
“Beautiful no, but definitely striking.” She paused. “So how was it? Seeing her?”
“Strange, sad, surreal. She was so…she was just her; she was Kelly.” I smiled into the darkened room. I could hear Erik moving up the stairs: the squeak of the floorboards, and then the sudden blast of voices from the TV in our bedroom before he muted the volume.
“Oh, Claire, I’ve been hoping…. Did you talk to her?”
“There wasn’t a chance.”
“No, I guess there wouldn’t be.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice.
“Wait. Why aren’t you at the restaurant?” It was only ten her time. She was never home this early.
“I didn’t go in tonight.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t go in? Is everything okay?” I couldn’t recall her ever missing a Saturday night at the height of summer.
“Oh, everything’s fine. I just…I didn’t want to miss this call.”
Something slipped in me then. “I would have phoned the restaurant, Mom! I’m not sure why I called you at home to begin with. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. Really. I just wanted to make sure I could talk to you.”
But it made me ache to think of her waiting for my call.
Upstairs, a cop drama was on TV. Erik was snoring. Every light in the room was on, and his paper plate with two pizza crusts sat on the night table. I stood in the doorway watching him. Even in sleep he looked exhausted, and I felt the weight of all he’d borne these last few months because of my past. His worry about Kelly, his inability to be honest with her, that she thought him unprofessional—he deserved none of this. And I’d been too consumed with my own fears to be there for him. Even tonight, we should have been celebrating. I hated that he’d fallen asleep alone. That I’d let him. I’m sorry, I apologized silently.
I moved my uneaten pizza to the bureau, put on a T-shirt, then turned out the lights and climbed into bed. For a long time, I stared at the ceiling, trying to quiet my spinning thoughts, but I couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling, something tugging at me that I didn’t want to know.
Images from the night kept swirling past: Kelly walking onto that stage, regal and beautiful, hands upraised, and then the look we’d exchanged, and Annabelle promising me I didn’t have to be alone, and how fierce she was, how protective of me. I heard myself mentioning the accident, and I felt again how much I wanted to tell her about Lucy, how much I needed to. It terrified me, and yet I knew it was the only way I’d ever be whole, the only way I’d ever stop feeling so split in two.
Finally, I gave up on sleep. Downstairs, I heated water for hot chocolate, then drank it slowly, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. The small light over the stove glinted off the faucet and the handle of the refrigerator. On the door was a postcard from my show the week before: Reassembly: The Art of Collage. My whole life, I thought—and again, felt such unease wash over me—my whole life was about reassembly. My whole life was a collage.
Outside, I stretched my T-shirt over my knees and sat on the porch steps. It was the kind of night I imagined you’d see from an observatory, staring up through the lens of a telescope into a shimmering black galaxy. Beneath the full moon, the yard had taken on a pale blue sheen, making the world seem upside down, so that I felt as if I were sitting in a frozen sky with a lake of darkness overhead. Suddenly, the grief rose up in me so strongly I felt dizzy with it. Grief for Lucy and Nick and Kelly, grief for all their pain, pain I had brought into their lives. And grief for my mom, for her terrible loneliness, and for Erik, for all the hurt I had caused him, or maybe—and I can only say this in retrospect—for all the hurt I must have sensed I was about to cause.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, my heart feeling like an empty cradle as I stared up at the dark sky, the stars winking overhead. I tried to drum up the sense of elation I’d felt driving home, the possibility that maybe I would have a chance to talk to Kelly, maybe I could ask her about Lucy. But what I felt instead was bereft.
“Why?” I spoke the word out loud, needing to hear my own voice. I had been silent for so long.
Later, I would insist that I told Annabelle about Lucy because I had no choice, and because I wanted to be honest, and because I was tired of hiding. Because I trusted her. All of this was true. But mostly, mostly, I told her because to not say my daughter’s name felt like yet another relinquishing of the most important truth in my life.
I had loved my child. I had loved her. I had loved her. I had loved her.
I still did.