“Oh, honey. That’s awful. I can’t even guess what she was thinking. You’re sure about all this?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Did you confront her about it?”
“She’d just say she was trying to help. She wouldn’t have the decency to be sorry.”
Val imagined that was true. “She probably does think she’s being helpful.”
“Don’t excuse her, please. It wasn’t right to deceive me, no matter what the reason.”
Val nodded.
Sophie continued. “I know you love her, and I love her, too, but she’s lying about a bunch of stuff, and I’m sick of it. She’s a hypocrite. She’s hiding other stuff, too.”
An icy heat flooded Val’s veins. “Hiding what?”
“You should ask her.” Sophie looked away. “I’m staying here until it all gets sorted out.”
“What else is she hiding, Soph? I don’t like being in the dark.”
“Tell her that.”
“I will, but can you give me a hint? Please.”
“When was the last time you saw David? Or spoke with him?”
Val had known that was the other thing. It was so obvious. All the times she’d said it was strange he wasn’t calling home, where had he been? Of course Julie knew something, or she would have been as concerned as Val. Val was naive, oblivious, had missed something everyone else knew. She felt like a fool.
“Okay,” she said. “Stay here and do your thing, because you’re obviously good at it, and you don’t need anybody checking on you. I love you. I’ll only ask you not to shut me out just because you’re mad at her. I’ll talk to her. I’ll figure it out.”
She was afraid Sophie would make her choose, and nearly broke when the girl leaned over and gave her a hug. “Okay, but you really do need to talk to her. For all of us.”
Sophie took the empty chili bowl from Val and walked it to the kitchen. When she emerged, she went over to where the remaining people had gathered, without looking back over. Val understood she’d been dismissed.
She drove home numb, angry, sad, angry, confused, working out one thing after another that she wanted to say to Julie, to ask Julie, to demand answers about. They were supposed to be a team.
All the lights were off at the house except in the kitchen. Julie was drinking coffee with her tablet on the table in front of her. “Hey! I was wondering where you were!”
Val didn’t need a Pilot to notice that as Julie said hello, she’d blacked her tablet screen. “Whatcha doing?”
“Puttering. Waiting for you. It’s late.” There was a question in that, which Val recognized but refused to answer. She’d said she was going to be late and wouldn’t have time to make dinner. Normally they didn’t make each other explain more than that. They trusted each other, or they had.
She sat opposite her wife. Direct or indirect? She’d had enough of indirect. “Where’s David?”
“I told you. He said he had to go out of town for BNL.”
“Bullshit.”
Julie flinched. Val continued. “I call bullshit, and I call you’re hiding something, and I call you really, really need to tell me what’s going on.”
Julie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, then nodded. “I . . . I don’t know where he is.”
“Why would you lie to me about that? What’s the point?”
“I was embarrassed.”
“About what?”
“I think it’s my fault he left.”
Julie looked miserable, which almost made Val feel bad about pressing her. Almost. “Your fault how?”
“My fault for pushing him.”
“You’re making me ask each next question, Jules, and I’m not sure I’m asking the right things. What if you tell me the whole thing and I listen?”
Julie nodded. “There’s a lot, though.”
How did words hurt so much? “There’s a lot” meant she had been hiding things for a while. Lying, obscuring, gathering information or whatever this was and keeping it to herself instead of sharing it the way they’d promised to do. “Though” meant she knew it was a problem.
“He lost his job,” Julie began. “I don’t know when, and I don’t know why, because he wouldn’t tell me even after I figured it out. I figured out he had his Pilot shut off, too, even though the light was still on. I ended up driving behind him one day and he stopped at a stop sign and then he just sat there, for ages, and I waited for him to go, but he didn’t. And a while later I asked him about it, and told him I knew he didn’t have a job, and I knew about his Pilot, and then he left and didn’t come back.”
David had an even temper. He’d never been one to stomp or storm. Not like Sophie, whose blood ran drama. “That was all you said?”
“Well, no. I—I was mad he’d been lying to us. He said it was none of my business, and I said it was my business while he lived under our roof, and that’s when he tossed his keys on the floor and left.”
It still didn’t seem like enough. Val waited, and Julie corrected herself. “No, I guess that’s the version that makes me feel better, like I didn’t do anything wrong, but he was trying to tell me something, and I don’t think I handled it well. I think I told him it was shortsighted to get his Pilot turned off, and he said that thing about noise again, and I said he should see a shrink about it.”
“Oh, Jules. You didn’t.” They were both fighting back tears.
“I know I shouldn’t have. I know whatever that noise he talks about must be real, but he’s coped with it before. I was trying to suggest that he figure out how to cope with it again. It came out badly. But he was talking about reenlisting, too, and saying all these things that didn’t sound like him, and I tried to say he should get some help dealing with whatever he’s going through.”
Val had been forming another question about why he’d kept all that stuff from
