Susannah was stunned into silence by her sister's maliciousness.
'Now you can spend your days and nights counting your new money and laughing at Daddy in his grave.'
All of Susannah's determination to renew their relationship disappeared, replaced by her own rage. 'Don't say that. You know it's not true.'
'It's true, all right,' Paige retorted. 'You showed him, didn't you? Too bad he's not still alive so you can throw your success in his face.'
'I didn't do this because of him. I did it for myself.'
'You're so goddamned sanctimonious. So smug and self-righteous.' Paige spoke with deadly quiet, but her words struck Susannah like small bursts of venom.
She gripped the keys she still held in her hand. 'Stop right there, Paige. You're acting like a child, and I've heard enough from you.'
But Paige didn't want to stop. The poison stored inside her bubbled to the surface and burst forth in short, caustic spurts. 'You've always been perfect. Always right. So much better than everyone else.'
'That's enough! I've tried for years to establish some sort of adult relationship with you, but I'm not going to try any longer. You're spoiled and selfish, and you don't care about anyone but yourself.'
'How would you know?' Paige shouted. 'You don't know anything about me. You were too busy stealing my father to ever try to understand me.'
'Get out of here!' Susannah threw the keys at Paige. 'Take my car and get out of my sight.' Turning her back on her sister, she walked rapidly toward the door on the far side of the deck.
But Paige wasn't finished. Propelled by years of self-loathing, she came after her, running almost, ready to pummel Susannah with more hatred. Susannah couldn't bear anymore. She shoved the door open.
'Do you have any idea how much I've always hated you?' Paige shouted, rushing into the house behind her. 'I'm his real daughter! Not you. But I couldn't compete with your perfection act. Do you understand that a day doesn't go by when I don't wish that you'd never been born.'
Susannah stalked through the back hallway and down the steps. Paige was still at her side when she dashed into the living room.
'Why did you have to come live with us?' Paige cried. 'Why did you have to be so much
Susannah gasped and then the gasp turned into a soft, kittenlike mew.
On a white suede couch in the center of the room, Mindy Bradshaw was jerking her skirt down over her naked thighs, while Sam fumbled awkwardly with his trousers.
Susannah mewed again. She could feel her hands opening and closing at her sides. The world reduced itself to the scene before her and the awful mew of pain that kept rising from her throat. And then her lips began to move, to form words. They came out tinny, like the computerized voice of
'Excuse me,' she said.
The apology was idiotic, obscene. Susannah staggered blindly out of the room. She knew her legs were working because the walls were moving past her. She walked up one ramp and down another, past the massive mantelpiece of stainless steel. After every four or five steps, that awful sound kept sliding out. She tried to stop it, tried to clamp tier lips together, but it wouldn't be contained.
Someone touched her elbow. For a moment she thought it was Sam and tried to shake him off. Her arm was clasped more firmly, and she realized that Paige was at her side.
It was easier to concentrate on her sister than on the abscenity she had just witnessed. The lesser pain of Paige's hatred seemed almost a safe harbor in comparison to the starkness of Sam's betrayal.
Susannah felt her lips quivering again. Sam and Mindy. Sam was having sex with Mindy. Her husband. The man she had loved so blindly for so very long.
She realized she was in the kitchen. An awful pain traveled from her throat down through her stomach, a pain that crushed her heart and filled her breasts like bitter milk.
Paige spoke hesitantly. 'Let's get out of here.'
'Go away.' Susannah shoved the words through a narrow passageway before her throat closed on a sob.
Paige's fingers grasped her arm. They were icy cold, distracting Susannah from her desperate need to draw another breath.
'Let me take you somewhere.'
Susannah couldn't tolerate pity, especially coming from someone who hated her so much. 'Just leave me alone,' she said almost desperately. 'I don't ever want to see you again.'
Paige released her arm as if she had been burned and closed the keys Susannah had thrown at her in her fist. 'Suit yourself. I'll send your car back in the morning.'
Susannah stood at the kitchen windows and stared out into the darkness. Seconds ticked by. Paige's icy white dress whipped past. Before long, footsteps clicked on the floor behind her.
She kept her eyes on the blackness beyond the window. It was as dark as the inside of her grandmother's closet, as malevolent as a shed on the edge of the desert.
'The old silent treatment, Suzie? It's so goddamned typical of you, I don't know why I'm even surprised.'
Her breath caught on a sob. He had gone on the attack. Why hadn't she realized that was what he would do? The pain was so fierce, she didn't think she could bear it. She gathered herself together as best she could and turned slowly to face him.
His black, straight hair fell over his forehead and stuck out near his ear just the way it did when she ran her fingers through it as they made love. Except this time it had been Mindy's fingers that had rumpled that beloved hair.
'I sent Mindy away,' he said, as if that would make everything all right.
Tears were sliding over her lips. She tasted their salt and thought of how hard she had been fighting for her marriage, of the baby she had wanted so badly. 'Was Mindy the first?' The question slipped out unwanted, but the moment she heard the words, she knew she had to have an answer.
He combed one hand through his hair. She could almost see him gathering his forces for the struggle-relishing the fact that there would be a struggle. This was what he did best-charging blindly at an insurmountable obstacle and pounding away until it gave. Her chest shuddered as she tried to hold back another sob.
'It doesn't make any difference. How many doesn't matter. Infidelity. Fidelity. Those are just words. That's not what you and I are about.'
He was angry, defensive, electric with restless energy. He began to pace the kitchen, his body vibrating with tension as he dodged the black granite islands. 'We've never tried to push our marriage into someone else's mold. That's why it's worked for us. We're smarter than that. We know what we want…'
He talked and talked and talked.
'… the two of us are bigger than convention. We can do anything together. That's what's made us strong. What happened tonight is little shit, Suzie. Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but it's not important. Don't you see? It's little shit. It's not goddamned important!'
Her hands closed over a ceramic bowl on the counter in front of her. With a slash of her forearm, she sent the bowl crashing to the floor at his feet and expelled the questions that were killing her. 'I want to know if she was the first! Were there others? How many others?'
Some of his belligerence began to fade in the face of her agony. For the first time he looked frightened.
'
He was an idealist, a man dedicated to speaking the truth, and he kept to his code. 'A couple of times on the road,' he mumbled. 'A girl I used to go with. What difference does it make? Don't you understand? This doesn't have anything to do with us.'
'Yes, it does!' she screamed as she snatched up another bowl and threw it across the kitchen. 'We're married. When people are married, they don't fuck other people!' She punished him with the tough, nasty obscenity that she knew he would hate.
'Stop it!' He lurched toward her, his expression vicious. 'Stop doing this!'
She hissed with pain as he caught her shoulders and then, without warning, backhanded her across the cheek.
She slammed up against one of the counters. With a gasp of pain, she lifted her fingers to her face. Her nose was running. She dabbed at it with the back of her hand. As she drew it away, she saw a smear of blood.
