Pictures of You (7 page)

She called her other friends, Lindy, Jane, Ellen, and asked immediately what they knew about the crash, and though they all knew Isabelle was in the hospital, the rest of the details were fuzzy. “So there was nothing in the papers?” Isabelle asked. “No one told you anything?”

“I didn’t see a paper,” Jane said, and Isabelle felt something snaking up along her spine.

“Can you turn on the news now?” Isabelle said.

There was that funny clip of silence again. “Doorbell,” Jane said. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” Isabelle cried, but Jane was gone.

Isabelle pressed the phone against her cheek. She managed to make her way back to her room and sank into the bed, suddenly exhausted. She rolled onto her side, her lids drifting shut. Maybe she’d wake up and, just like the bad TV movies she sometimes watched, it would all turn out to be a dream.

“Hey.”

She rolled over and opened her eyes. Luke. Blurry Luke. She could make out a stuffed bear with a polka dot bow in his arms.

“I am so sorry,” he said, his voice pained, and she averted her face. She didn’t know if he was talking about the accident or about them, but really, what did it matter? She thought of all the times he had been nice to her after she had found earrings in the house or sworn she smelled perfume. How he had taken her out to a fancy dinner, how he reeled her back in so tenderly that she didn’t notice the sharpness of the hook. She hated herself for the sudden sharp pang of yearning she felt, the way she wanted him closer.
Go away
.

“The cops called me.” He set the bear on the bed. “A detective wanted to talk to you, but the doctor nixed that, and good for him. There’s time for that later.”

“A detective?” Isabelle said. She tried to sit up more.

“Routine. Lay back down, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby. What was the detective’s name?”

Luke shrugged. He made the bear’s head swivel. “Izzy, feel better soon,” he made the bear say in a high, squeaky voice. He lifted both the bear’s paws so it seemed as though the bear were waving at her. “Do you want me to call anyone for you?” he asked, and Isabelle shook her head. “Do you want me to call your mother?”

Isabelle shook her head. Her mother would think this was God showing Isabelle the error of her ways. Her mother would take one look at the situation and say I told you so, and Isabelle wouldn’t really be able to argue with her.

“What happened to the other people?” Isabelle asked. “What did the cops tell you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t ask?” She looked at him, astonished, and tried to sit up. “Why didn’t you ask? I need to know if they’re hurt, if they’re
alive
—” As soon as she said it, she felt an electric current of panic. He took her hand and she yanked it from him. “What do you know?” she accused.

“I read your letter,” he said quietly. “That’s what I know.”

“I don’t want to go home with you,” she said. “I know what you did. I know who you are now. I didn’t know before, but I know now.” She shifted so that the bear tumbled to the floor. Luke picked it up, hesitated, and then tucked it under one arm. “You’re a liar and a philanderer and a cheat,” she said. “You’re a
father
.”

Luke looked away but he didn’t say anything. He sat in the chair beside the bed. “Of course you’ll come home with me,” he said. “We can work this out.”

“No we can’t. Not this time.” She looked away from him. And then she couldn’t help it. She looked back. “How could you do this, Luke?” she said.

“Let me make it up to you,” he said. He tried to take her hand again, and she made a fist and slid it under the sheet away from him.

“Your car’s totaled,” he said. “The doctor said you’re lucky to be alive, that it’s a miracle you got out of the car.” He leaned toward her. She looked at him, then shut her eyes and tried to sniff his neck to see if he had the other woman’s scent on him. “Come here,” she ordered, and he did. She could smell his aftershave. Pine and musk. She had always loved it, but now all she could think about was someone else’s nose pressed up against Luke’s neck. “You wear too much aftershave,” she said, and he frowned.

“I went crazy. I was so worried. So scared … it all made me realize—” Luke said.

“Don’t. Please don’t.” She waved her hand at him. “I’ll rent a room. I can get my job back until I have a place to go.”

“Isabelle, please listen to me.” He reached over and grabbed her foot under the sheet. “Stay with me until you find another place. I’ll stay in the spare room. I’ll stay in the kitchen if that’s what you want. Please. Just come home. Let me take care of you.”

“I know how you take care of me,” she said bitterly. “I’m staying with friends.”

“But
I’m
your friend. I’m more than your friend, I’m your husband. I’m the one you need to stay with.” He leaned closer. “I’m not seeing her anymore, I swear,” he said. “There’s no one in my life but you.”

“You’re not seeing the mother of your child?” She gave him a stony stare and he stood up from the chair. “Okay, then. You stay in the house and I’ll be the one to leave,” he said. “I’ll find a place. I can stay in the back room at the bar if I have to. Look at you. You’ve been in a terrible accident. You can’t look for an apartment now. The only thing that makes sense is for you to come back to the house.”

“I don’t want you there,” she said. “Can you do that?”

He lifted his palms. “Anything. Anything you want.”

“Fine. Now will you please leave?”

“I’m not leaving you,” he said. “I’m staying right outside. You need me, you tell the nurse to come get me. I’ll be right here.”

With whom? Isabelle thought, but she kept her mouth shut.

He set the bear on the bed again, settling him so it looked as if the bear were watching over Isabelle. “He’s not leaving, either,” Luke said.

That afternoon, while she was pouring herself some water, she noticed her vision had cleared. There was just one pitcher now. Startled, she looked around the room, at the orange chair, the
door, the window. Everything was singular again. One hospital bed. One pitcher. One glass. One Isabelle.

She could see. She could get up and look for the woman and the boy. She started to gently swing her leg over the bed, when a resident came in.

“Leaving so soon? Was it something I said?”

Defeated, she lay back against the bed. “I see only one of you,” she announced.

He smiled and took blood. He made her touch her fingers again and follow his tiny flashlight with her eyes. “I have good news,” he said. “Your husband can take you home tomorrow morning.”

No way was she going to let Luke take her home. Instead, she called Michelle, who came that Monday morning with a light summer dress, underwear, and bright green flip flops for Isabelle to change into. She also brought her new baby, Andi, held against her in a Baby Björn. “I’m glad I didn’t see Luke here. I’d have had to slug him,” Michelle said.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Isabelle said, but she couldn’t help wondering where he was. “I’ll be here,” he had said, and then he had left her alone in the hospital.

“Oh, isn’t this adorable!” Michelle picked up the stuffed animal.

“Andi can have it.”

“Let’s get you home,” Michelle said, handing the bear to Andi, who gummed its ear.

Isabelle couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital, but as soon as she was in Michelle’s car, panic set in. Her skin felt clammy. She couldn’t catch her breath, and her arms and legs had turned to rubber. A car zipped past them and she flinched. The road seemed crazily curved, and she felt tiny cracks opening up throughout her body. It was all she could do not to jump out of the car and keep running. She’d do anything to feel safe again. She looked around the car. This is how lives are ruined, she thought. This is how people die.

She felt Michelle watching her and dipped her head, biting down on her lip. “It’s okay,” Michelle said. Her friend reached across and took Isabelle’s hand for a moment and squeezed it. “I’ll go really slow,” she said quietly. “We can stop anytime you need.”

Michelle drove as carefully as she could. She stopped every half hour at the rest stops, and as soon as she parked, Isabelle leaped out of the car, panting, rubbing her arms as if to make sure they were still there, intact. “We’re almost there,” Michelle promised. “Just a bit more.”

By the time Michelle pulled up at Isabelle’s, Isabelle could have crouched down and kissed the pavement.

I
SABELLE DIDN’T KNOW
what she expected, but not that everything would look and feel so different. She thought the house would be as she had left it three days ago. Luke’s casual mess, a dish or two still in the sink, maybe all her things neatly boxed up. She hadn’t thought what it would be like to come back to the house without Luke in it.

The sharp tang of citrus cleaner permeated the air. Luke had cleaned for her. She tried to imagine him paying attention, swiping at grime, and shook her head. Maybe he hired someone. Maybe his girlfriend did it. The floors were gleaming, even the rugs had been vacuumed, and there was a pot of daisies, the flower he had courted her with, on the table. She hobbled into the room. There was a card with a picture of Saturn on it—her favorite planet, the rings lit as if by moonlight. Inside, it read,
Call me if you need anything. Love, Luke
. She dropped it into the wastebasket.

On the kitchen table were more cards from friends who had heard, from the studio. The answering machine light was glowing. Fifteen calls.

Slumping on the couch, Isabelle looked around her. The first time she had walked into this house with Luke, she had been barely sixteen. Oakrose. Luke loved having a baseball field right in the town and that every summer there were concerts right on
the beach. “Look at this great house!” he said, but it was really only a tiny one-bedroom, all the rooms cramped together, the lawn nothing but pine needles. She loved it only because she was there with Luke.

The two of them had walked into this living room holding hands, spiffed up for the realtor. Luke was in a sports jacket and tie and he had slicked his hair back so it looked shorter. She was wearing a long yellow summer dress and had pinned her hair up so that she might look older. She had worn a cheap rhinestone ring they had bought at a Rite-Aid, and though they had both laughed at it, Isabelle had felt different the moment she’d slid the ring on. The house! God, she had thought it was a palace. She’d stood in the center of the empty living room and shut her eyes, dizzy with joy. She could go into any room she wanted and no one could tell her not to! She didn’t have to shut a door and push a heavy dresser up against it to have privacy! Imagine, sixteen years old and getting to live in her own house, all courtesy of Luke’s savings account. “Who are your parents?” a new neighbor asked and Isabelle laughed out loud and showed off her wedding ring, while the neighbor looked at her in surprise. “You look so young,” the neighbor murmured.

“I’m twenty,” Isabelle lied. Neighbors could be won over. Friends could be made. Marriages could happen when both parties were old enough and bigger houses could be bought when enough money was saved.
Who are your parents?
What kind of a question was that? She should have quipped back, “Well, who are yours?”

“You aren’t going to have any wild parties, are you?” one neighbor asked.

“My husband manages a restaurant,” she said, though the truth was Luke had just got a job at a local pub, “and I’m a photographer,” as if that explained everything.

She would walk into the small room in the back and picture a baby crawling on the floor toward her. In the kitchen, she imagined the clink of forks at a dinner party. And one day they’d build her a
darkroom. Her own darkroom! She’d get her GED and take some courses, or maybe she’d just start working. What did it matter? All of life was spread out in front of her like a picnic blanket and all she had to do now was pick out the refreshments.

Luke retiled the crumbling bathroom and kitchen in a bright ocean blue. He patched the drywall and repaired the hole in the stairway. Before he did, she had slipped in a brown paper packet of photos of the two of them, a time capsule someone might find years later. Imagine, they might think, such a nice young couple and so in love! Look at them holding hands! Look at the way he looks at her.

They lived in the house for two years and when she was finally eighteen, old enough to get married for real, she put her rhinestone ring in a drawer and exchanged it for a thin gold band they bought at a jeweler. She had called her mother, telling her they’d gone to a justice of the peace. “Married,” Nora finally said. “God help us all,” and then she had hung up. The only thing Isabelle kept from her past was her last name.

She and Luke had come back here to the house, the two of them as dressed up as they could afford, and he had lifted her up and carried her across the threshold and everything had felt new for a very long time. Every time she walked through the front door, she smiled.

Now, though, the house felt broken. Her sorrow must have gotten into the floorboards, because now they creaked when she walked on them. Her disappointment made the cupboards sag. The neighbors had changed so many times she no longer knew some of them, and no one would consider them a young couple anymore, nice or otherwise. Luke was just a guy who had worked his way up in a local pub until he owned it. He spiffed it up and got a decent menu of food, a chef who could whip up four different kinds of pastas, some soups and sandwiches, but no matter how fancy the tablecloths, how pretty the menu, everyone in the area knew it was still really a bar, a place with dark lighting where you could sit
for hours and not get kicked out, or kiss a complete stranger, and that’s what they came for.

Well, she should have known better. She should have seen what was coming. Isabelle got herself a bottled water from the refrigerator and sat in the kitchen, sipping, trying to think what to do next, when the doorbell rang.

A
MAN IN A DARK SUIT
was at the door, and for a moment, Isabelle thought he had the wrong address, until he flashed a badge, a glint of silver in the chilly air. Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t speak. She had felt better since she was home, but now her leg began to throb. “Detective Harry Burns. I’d like to talk to you about the accident, if I may,” he said. He glanced at her. “Is this a good time, ma’am? You feel up to it? I tried to talk with you in the hospital but the nurses were pretty persuasive that I wait.”