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pressuring her or trying to force her to do anything she wasn’t
ready for. She knew he wasn’t remotely like Kevin, but what had
she said to him?
What are you going to do? Hit me? Go ahead.
Why would she have said something like that?
She eventually dozed off sometime after two a.m., when the wind
and rain were beginning to taper off. By dawn, the sky was clear
and birdsong was drifting from the trees. From the porch, she
noticed the effects of the storm: broken branches strewn out front,
a carpet of pinecones littered across the yard and drive. The air
was already thick with humidity. It was going to be a scorcher,
maybe the hottest day of the summer yet. She made a note to
herself to remind Alex not to keep the kids out in the sun too long
before she realized that he might not want her with them. That
maybe he was still mad at her.
Not maybe, she corrected herself. He was almost certainly mad at
her. And hurt as well. He hadn’t even let the kids say good-bye
last night.
She took a seat on the steps and turned toward Jo’s, wondering if
she was up and about. It was early, probably too early to knock on
her door. She didn’t know what she would say to her or what
good it would do. She wouldn’t tell her what she’d said to Alex—
that was a memory she’d rather erase in its entirety—but maybe Jo
could help her understand the anxiety she’d been feeling. Even
after Alex left, she noted the tension in her shoulders, and last
night, for the first time in weeks, she’d wanted the light on.
Her intuition told her that something was wrong but she couldn’t
pinpoint what it was, other than that her thoughts kept returning
to the Feldmans. To Gladys. To the inevitable changes in the
house. What would happen if someone realized Katie’s
information was missing? Simply imagining it made her sick to
her stomach.