But she’d barely eaten. Had gone back tobed in Beth’s small guest bedroom, pulled the blanket up around her, and lainand thought. For hours, lying still, she’d let her mind float free. Tried to,anyway.
Sasha’s faces, all of them, kept comingback to her. Alive, smiling and happy online. Then weeping in the mist beforethe plants, and in the shower stall; then the eyes, most of all, mournful andbegging to her with Help me scrawled beneath.
Had Paul seen the painting? Gone into thestudio? Oh God…
Liddy switched on the lamp by the door, thenthe Victorian glass lamp by the couch, glancing down, for a moment, at the DVDof Vampire Island, remembering the night they had watched it. Rather, thenight she had watched it. Paul had gotten almost immediately antsy and jumpedup, walked away. Couldn’t bear watching someone dying and begging for help, evenif just on film.
Remembering that night was one of thethings she’d kept coming back to, lying in Beth’s bed. It should have seemedlike a small thing…but it wasn’t.
A sound from the bedroom. The mattresscreaked, then footsteps approached, and there he was.
Paul, standing uncertainly in the dimnessof the hall, looking suddenly thin, very thin, unshaven with dark circles underhis eyes. He was dressed in a wrinkled oxford shirt and dark pants; shoes, too.So he’d gone to work, come back to bed but never took off his shoes? Or had hejust put them back on?
“Liddy.” His voice was a croak.
She said nothing; went to turn on thesecond lamp on the side of the couch near him. This close, his appearance scaredher, started her heart thudding. His eyes were lost dark wells, darker still inthe hall where he still stood, fixed on her.
Absurdly, having no words, she said thefirst thing she would have normally said. “Have you eaten?”
Vague nod. “At work. Came home early.”
“Did you sleep?”
“No.”
He went to her, his arms out to embraceher. She let him. He hadn’t showered. He was trembling, squeezing her, mumblingabout his relief, his sorrow. “Never again,” he kept saying. “…don’t know wheremy mind was. The stress, the research, the flattery from some kid when I wasscared of failure.”
Some kid. Hehad toyed with her and she was just some kid…
Liddy’s heart pounded harder. After longseconds she pulled away; made herself look at him dead on. “Before anything,”she said shakily, “I need to know. Did you have anything to do with Sasha’sdisappearance?”
“God, no.” He turned away, headed back upthe hall. “It was a mistake, an insane mistake. I beg you, can we put it in ourpast?”
Nothing about the painting. He hadn’t beenin the studio.
There was more Liddy had to ask him. Thingsthat had come to her at Beth’s.
She followed him into the dark, mustybedroom that smelled of sweat. Not the old sweat of gyms, but new sweat – lotsof it. She bent and felt Paul’s pillow. Damp. Ditto his sheets. He was pacing, adark silhouette on the other side of the bed. Liddy straightened; faced himacross the bed that seemed as dark and wide as a battlefield at night. Shedidn’t turn on the lamp.
“So you ended it,” she said unsteadily.
“Yes.” His silhouette turned; paced theother way. There were maybe four feet between that side of the bed and thewindow. His body was hunched, as if wanting to run, but he was stuck in hislittle alley over there.
Another question rose that had nagged thewhole afternoon at Beth’s. Liddy looked across their dark battlefield, and inhaled.“We spent four years in the old apartment, didn’t we?”
The silhouette looked briefly toward her;looked away, paced. “Yes,” he answered again, but in a tone that said, What ofit?
“It was actually four and a halfyears, during which I always wanted to move, and you didn’t.”
“The recession. It was a big place for agood price. A good deal.”
“It didn’t stop being a good deal. Yet aftermy accident, why were you suddenly in such a rush to move - you even wentlooking with Beth before I could walk, see places for myself. Why wasthat?”
The silhouette stopped, spread its hands, tooka ragged breath. “Because I loved you. Wanted you to be happy.”
“And not remember the night ofthe accident? I’d lost my memory – a stroke of luck for you-”
“No.” He came toward her again. She wheeledback out to the dark hall, crossed to her studio, felt around frantically forher tensor lamp. He was on her heels in the dimness, pleading that he’d knownshe’d always wanted Soho. “Frankly I felt guilty for being a tightwad.”
“Although you kept the boat, the reallyexpensive boat.”
“It was my father’s, it was all he had.”Shakily she got the lamp on as he tripped over her tall stool, righted it and himselfand just stood there, breathing hard, looking desperate. “Lids, for God’s sake…”
She backed away. Her heart whammed and herleg ached. “You got worried when you saw my memory starting to return – then,oh didn’t you work fast! You thought this glorious move with all its” – herhands flew up – “busyness would take my mind permanently off seeing youand Sasha-”
“No....” He stepped pleadingly toward heras she backed away further, close to her shelves. Peripherally she saw her boxcutter, inches away.
“I want you,” she said bitterly, “to tellme what happened that night. I have to know,” she cried, her fingerjabbing like a crazy person’s to her chair before her work table. “Sit. Tellme,” she ordered.
He gave up. Fell to the chair like amarionette whose strings have been cut; dropped his sweaty brow to his hand. Behindhim, glowing, the painting he hadn’t seen. The face was different; the eyes glareddown at him.
“I…” Paul’s voice was thin, desperate. “…couldn’tlet you know, because if you did…”
“I’d what? Turn you in? Wreck your life andyour prestigious research?” Liddy inched closer to her box cutter; noticed – ohGod - that her long scissors were still on her work table behind Paul. Shefeared him seeing them so she pointed jerkily to the door. “That bedroom youspent hours in smells of guilt. You
