conversation much easier for her than if we’d been sitting across from each other at one of those cafeteria tables.
“But you knew him before my parents died, right?”
“Nope. I met him the Tuesday after that happened. I read about it in the papers and saw the story on the news. And his aura seemed in such sad disrepair that I went to see him. I went to see you.”
“After that happened,” she said, repeating the words and nodding. “Oh.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine the stories this young woman had probably heard-or, in some cases, merely overheard. It broke my heart when I thought about what she was learning about her mother and Stephen through the rumor mill.
“So, then, am I, like, the reason you’re here now?” she went on.
“You know, I think you are. Is that okay?”
She shrugged as she walked and folded her arms in front of her chest. The sun abruptly caught the stud in her nose, and for a split second it sparkled. “I guess. Do you have a place or something in Vermont?”
“This is so funny. I thought I would be asking you all the questions. But you seem to have turned the tables on me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice rising just the tiniest bit, and for the first time she actually turned to face me. She looked a little stricken.
“No, it’s okay,” I told her, and I was sure to smile. We were near enough to the gym class that we could hear the gym teacher with his whistle and occasional reprimands or shouts of encouragement. “I think it’s just fine. And to answer your question, no, I don’t have a place in Vermont. I live in an apartment in New York City.”
“Yeah, I think I knew that. From your second book.”
“You really have done your homework.”
“Not so much,” she said. A tall boy from the gym class with a great mane of yellow hair waved at her and shouted something I didn’t quite hear. She made a face at him that suggested she was disgusted and then gave him the finger, but I could tell it was meant in good fun. “Sorry about that,” she said to me sheepishly. “That was kind of awkward.”
“It’s fine.”
“Since I’m already, like, asking way more questions than I should, can I ask you one more?”
“Absolutely. You can ask me as many as you like.”
“How long… ”
“Go ahead.”
“How long does it take you to get over something like this?”
I wasn’t surprised that she would ask this particular question, because I had discovered the first time we met how frank Katie Hayward could be. But I was nonetheless impressed. “On the one hand, I don’t think you ever do,” I answered. “And I don’t think you’re meant to. It’s always going to be a part of who you are. Certainly that has been my experience. But eventually it recedes into one more of the many experiences that have shaped you. It may be the most wounding. It may be the most terrifying. But you don’t have to remain wounded and terrified. I mean, I haven’t found myself avoiding relationships or marriage because of how my parents’ lives ended. I assure you, that’s not the reason I’m single. Nor am I always thinking about how they died-what my father did to my mother and then to himself.”
“Do you dream about them? I don’t sleep well these days, and it’s not just because I miss my own house. But when I am asleep, I have these totally freakish dreams. Not exactly nightmares. But stuff that really, really creeps me out. Sometimes I can’t even go back to sleep afterward.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I see what Ginny must have seen when she got there the next morning.”
“Your parents’… bodies.”
“Yeah.”
“I used to imagine my mother’s body after my father shot her. And my father’s after he hanged himself. Even now I try to avoid those police shows on television. They always show dead bodies, and that always sends my imagination into overdrive. Sometimes when I’m channel surfing, I remain stuck on QVC-there seem to be corpses on every other station.”
“And I know what I’m seeing in my dreams isn’t quite right. Either it’s bloodier than it could have been-I mean, the blood is just everywhere-or my mom is wearing clothes. But she was in her nightgown, right?”
“So they tell me. I wasn’t there.”
“And my dad’s blood is all over her shirt and her jeans. I mean
“I don’t think there was any blood on your mother,” I told her, hoping I could put her mind at rest.
“Did they tell you which nightgown she was wearing?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Ginny said she didn’t remember, either. When I asked Stephen-”
“When did you ask Stephen?” I said, not meaning to cut her off. I was surprised, given the fact he was under investigation for murder and the story had been in the newspapers, that he was still counseling her. I was struck by the casual way she had used his name just now. “Was this in July or August or recently?”
“Yesterday,” she answered, and when I glanced over at her, she didn’t seem unduly alarmed by the seeming urgency of my interruption. She pushed her dark hair off her face. “I saw him in Bennington yesterday afternoon. Tina drove me.”
“And you asked him about the nightgown.”
“I did, and he said he didn’t quite remember, either. But the one he described was one I don’t think she even owned. He said he thought it was a plaid summer nightshirt. But all her summer nightshirts had, like, flowers on them. Or they were solid colors. One was red. One was green. But plaid? One of her winter flannel nightgowns was plaid, but there was no way she was wearing that one in July. I mean, back in April she had probably stored it with her winter clothes and sweaters in these tubs she keeps way in the back of her closet. Was it possible she had a plaid summer nightshirt and I just didn’t know?”
It was possible. But it was also conceivable that Stephen knew of Alice Hayward’s plaid flannel nightgown from their affair in the winter; perhaps she had worn it then, when they’d been sleeping together, and now, months later, he was confusing the images in his recollection. It was also possible that he honestly didn’t remember what nightgown Alice had been wearing and yesterday had described for the girl the only one he could recall. “Yes,” I said simply, “that’s possible.”
“But you don’t think so. I can tell from your voice.”
“What else did you two talk about?” I asked.
“He wanted to know if I was angry at him. He knew I’d heard about the stuff that went on between him and my mom, and he wanted to apologize.”
“That was kind of him,” I said, but something was gnawing at me. I felt far from angelic, and I was hoping that a little magnanimity would help clear my head. “So: Are you angry at him?”
“No. I really don’t see the big deal anymore. At first I didn’t believe they were sleeping together. I was totally weirded out by the whole idea. But now I realize they were having an affair, and I’m okay with it. I mean, my mom and dad were apart, and so she and Stephen hooked up. I mean, my dad was… ”
“Go on.”
“He was mean to Mom. I know you know that. He would hit her.”
“You heard their fights?”
“Didn’t you hear your parents’?”
“Yes.”
“So you know how much it all just sucks,” she said, and she wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something unpleasant. “So, like, what did it matter if my mom and Stephen had something? It didn’t hurt anyone. It’s like the two of you-who does it hurt if you two have something going on?” I considered correcting her-reminding her that
