You can say whatever you want about being done, but after you say it, you’re still a live person. And you still have to do whatever you figure you can.
Chapter Seven
Brooke: Skinless
After that breakfast, I moved into a period of time in which I felt like a person with no skin.
It’s a disgusting simile, but it fits the feeling so perfectly that I can’t help but use it. Every nerve in my body was exposed, and I was swimming through a sandpaper sea.
That sums it up as well as any words can. It’s not really something that can be contained in words anyway.
About an hour after I left the police station and Grace Beatty again, I woke up—figuratively speaking—on the front stoop of my ex-husband’s house. One hand poised to knock.
I know that sounds unlikely. I know it would be more reasonable to report that some thought or logic had entered into my decision to drive there.
I don’t know what to say. I’m reporting this horrible time as accurately as I can.
I went ahead and knocked. Having apparently come all that way.
Then I stood there for a strange length of time, waiting for him to answer the door. I knew he was there. His car was parked in the driveway.
I had one hand on my brand-new cell phone. It was in my pants pocket. I had bought it just after leaving Grace Beatty. I had stopped at one of those stores specific to my cellular provider. I’d had my stolen phone taken off the account and this new one activated.
It was cheaper and flimsier than my old phone. But I had maxed out my last credit card to get it, and I couldn’t have afforded even twenty dollars more.
I kept touching it because I didn’t trust it to ring. I didn’t believe yet that its notification settings could be reliable. I thought Grace Beatty would call and I would miss it.
David opened the door.
At first I saw only the parts of him I had fallen in love with at the start. His long jaw and his lanky body. His hooded, almost aloof-looking blue eyes. I could actually see his legs, his bare legs, because he was wearing only a short robe. Their calf muscles. Their blond hair.
“Brooke?” he asked. Like he might be wrong about that.
“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning,” I said.
“You came all the way over here to tell me what time it is?”
His voice rumbled through my gut. Smooth and familiar. Remember, I had no skin. Which made it a singularly bad time to see my ex.
“No. No, of course not. I’m just surprised that you were sleeping.”
And on that note, a new voice pierced me. It didn’t rumble. It was high. It felt discordant. It came from the back of the house.
It said, “Who is it, David?”
“Ah,” I said. “It’s like that. Got it.”
“We’ve been divorced for two years, Brooke. I have a right to be seeing somebody, you know.”
“I never said you didn’t.”
“Oh,” he said. “Right. I guess you didn’t.”
Then we stood in complete awkwardness. He did not invite me in. I didn’t entirely blame him.
I watched his face from the periphery of my vision. His eyes. He has the bluest eyes on the planet. Most people don’t have blue eyes. In the movies, in romantic novels, nearly everybody does. In real life, they’re rare.
Except at David’s house.
“What’s wrong?” he asked at last.
It felt as though a day had elapsed. It might have been ten seconds.
“Everything,” I said.
“Is Etta okay? Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“How can you not know where she is?”
“Good question. Seems life is playing a cruel joke on me.”
“You literally don’t know where she is?”
“I literally don’t.”
“How is that possible?”
“She was stolen.”
“Holy crap,” he said.
“Yes. Holy crap.” Another awkward moment. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here, David. I guess it doesn’t have much to do with you. The cop that’s investigating . . . you know, trying to find her . . . she kept asking if I’d told you. And I kept trying to explain that it didn’t have much to do with you. But I guess I walked away from that conversation seeing it her way. A little bit, anyway. Feeling like it did concern you. Maybe. Some.”
I watched his blue eyes again from the corner of my own. He was staring down at the welcome mat. Except it wasn’t a welcome mat. It said GO AWAY. I was beginning to feel as though it were speaking directly to me. Also as though it might be good advice.
When he spoke again, it startled me. Skinless me.
“You know I don’t wish any harm on either one of you, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“See, this is why.”
“This is why what?”
“This is why I never wanted kids. Because right off the bat your whole world revolves around them, and you’re so attached, and then if something happens, it’s like the end of the world. It’s too much pressure for me.”
A swirl of stunned thoughts ran through my head. This was totally news to me. I had never imagined that David didn’t want children because he was afraid he would care too much. I thought he was afraid he wouldn’t care enough.
I wanted to tell him that was a ridiculous way to live. Not having something because if you had it you might lose it. But it was a hard point to make in the moment. Because I was in the middle of the horrible loss he had just been describing. Still, I wouldn’t have traded having Etta for anything. Even if the unimaginable worst happened. Which I was incapable of even imagining.
I didn’t say any of that. It was all too overwhelming in my head.
Another painful pause. But at least it was the last. And I knew
