The only thing Michelle had ever known she wanted was a family. Cliff had used her disclosure as ammunition, insisting they should get married when she graduated from high school, that he made enough money working part-time selling suits at Famous Men’s to support them until he got his business degree. He told her he was going to make tons of money, he was sure of it. “How can I marry you?” she’d said. “My parents are still paying for my braces.”
The recollection vanished when Cliff reached out and pulled her close. He touched her breast, put his lips to hers and was soon inside her. She inhaled the salty wetness of his skin. Cassie’s voice echoed in her head, the voice of a four-year-old screaming out in the darkness from a nightmare, the fifth grader who won her first swim meet, the worried teenager with her first period. There was no way to paste these memories together, no way to parse the reality she knew was real with the one Cliff believed. He lifted himself up to look at her. She turned away, her hair shifting across her face like a curtain.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
Michelle pushed Cliff off and left the bed, closing the bathroom door behind her. Her heart was a machine in her chest, her lungs straining as if she were trying to breathe water. She swept her hair back with her hands and leaned against the sink. Everything looked the same, yet nothing was right.
Michelle opened the door. “Who are you?” she asked, pulling her robe closed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What is this? What is all this?”
“I’m confused, Michelle,” Cliff said. “Ever since the weekend at the cabin you’ve seemed different. Not completely, but something’s different about you. Like now, making love. You haven’t let me touch you in over a year. One minute I think you’re getting better, then the next you throw a fit. Then at the cemetery, you handled it all calmly. The last time I took you . . . you went crazy. And then Glenda.”
“What about Glenda?”
“You really don’t remember?” he said.
Michelle pictured Glenda, her eyes glossy with satisfaction, her smile tuned somewhere between business-pleasant and mistress-smug, as though she knew everything about Michelle—what she was like in bed, how she spent her afternoons, maybe even the kind of underwear she preferred—while Michelle knew nothing of Glenda except for her business card from the bank. Cliff hadn’t bothered trying to hide it. Michelle looked at Cliff, amazed and sick once more how stupid she’d been about his affair.
“So what happened?” Michelle asked.
Cliff fiddled with the bottom button of his shirt. “A month after the accident, I drove over to her place to end it. You followed me and burst into her place. You started breaking shit, throwing her stuff at me. You messed her place up pretty bad. Luckily you never actually hurt anyone. The police came. She didn’t press charges, I guess because of Cassie and all, but she got a restraining order.” He leaned forward and placed his palms on his knees. “Don’t you remember any of this?”
She didn’t. And Cliff’s suggestion of Glenda’s altruism over not pressing charges irritated Michelle, as if Cliff thought Glenda had taken the “high road” in the matter. An unfamiliar brand of anger rose inside her, not the smothering, damp-wool feeling she was used to, but a vibrant aggression that burned along her skin like a new sun. But was it really anger? Maybe she didn’t care anymore, about Glenda or Cliff or his lies. Maybe it was some extreme brand of proactive indifference.
Chapter 7
Darcy was sitting in her car reading a book when Michelle came out of the pharmacy. Michelle thought her older sister looked gorgeous in her peach tank top, sunlight splashing off her bare shoulders. Darcy knew some of the details about what had happened at the cabin, but not everything. Michelle didn’t want to alienate her—Darcy was open-minded, but Michelle’s story would stretch even her boundaries.
“Want to come to the store?” Darcy asked. “I’ve got a shipment of supplements coming in. I could really use the help stocking them.”
Michelle had been helping Darcy cut boxes, stock shelves, and work the register all afternoon when she suddenly realized she hadn’t thought about Cliff or the cabin for several hours. Working at Darcy’s store had focused her attention elsewhere, made her feel normal, as if nothing were wrong, as if Cassie were at school.
When Michelle finished bagging a customer’s groceries, she squatted down and rummaged through the boxes underneath the counter. Darcy was in the stockroom. It took less than a minute for Michelle to find Darcy’s revolver. A gun for protection at a health food store. It seemed ironic to Michelle. The pistol was smaller than she had remembered. She looked at the cylinder and thought she saw bullets. Of course it was loaded. It had to be. What would be the point in keeping an unloaded gun behind the counter?
“Michelle?” Darcy called
“Yeah, what is it?” Michelle bolted up, wondering if Darcy had seen her with the gun.
“Can you give me a hand here?” Darcy said.
Darcy had cut the lid off a box and was arranging plastic containers on the shelf.
“Maybe I should start taking some of these,” Michelle said, twirling one of the bottles in her hand.
“You don’t need supplements, Michelle,” Darcy said. “You need real food. You’ve turned into a stick figure.”
Michelle knew she’d lost weight since returning from the cabin, but she had no appetite.
When Anna, Darcy’s assistant, came in, Darcy showed her the stock that still needed to be put away. Michelle grabbed her shoulder bag from behind the front counter and walked to the back to wash her hands and brush her hair. The phone on Darcy’s desk rang as Michelle was coming out of the bathroom.
“Nature’s Plan,” Michelle said, answering the phone.
“Is Michelle there?” the voice said.
“Cliff?”
He let out a breath. “I’ve been calling you all morning. Are you okay?”
“Fine. I’ve been helping Darcy at the store. I told you that. What’s wrong?”
The long silence on the other end of the phone bothered Michelle.
“Cliff?” she said. She sat down in Darcy’s desk chair, sliding her purse closer, feeling the hardness of the gun through the soft leather. Her eyes darted around Darcy’s desk in search of extra cartridges, quickly realizing how irrational her thinking was. After all, how many times could she shoot herself?
“Are you okay,” Cliff said. “Did you get your prescription refilled?”
“Yes, Darcy took me. But I need a car, Cliff.” She still wasn’t sure why they only had one.