Page 2 of Rooke
I say nothing.
“What else? What else could you have done to save Christopher?”
“I could have taken a different route to drop him at school.”
“Christopher’s elementary school was in Brooklyn, wasn’t it? You had to cross the bridge to get him there. There was no other way.”
Again, I say nothing.
“What else?”
There are thousands of ways in which I could have altered the events of that day five years ago, but I know how ridiculous they sound to a reasonable person. They’re happenstance, what-ifs only divine premonition could have brought about: I should have had some sense that something terrible was going to happen. If I had, I could have left later to drop Christopher off at school. I could have kept him home altogether. I could have called and said he was sick, and we could have stayed in the house all day, reading, tucked up under a blanket, pretending to be space warriors or robots.
Hathaway sighs, tapping the end of his pen against his desk. “You know you weren’t responsible for your son’s death. You know deep down in your heart that it was just an awful accident. Both the police and the fire department said there was nothing you could have done.”
“How many times do we have to do this?” I ask, finally looking back at him. “How many times are you going to say that before we can move on to something else?” I’m rude. My tone is sharp and angry, but Hathaway merely shakes his head.
“As many times as we need to, I suppose. As many times as it takes for you to realize that it’s the truth. Tofeelthat it’s the truth.”
I blink at him, pressing my thumbnail into the fine skin over my index finger knuckle, holding my breath. “I’m never going to feel that way.”
Hathaway places his pen down on his desk in front of him, followed by his notebook. He doesn’t seem annoyed by my words. He doesn’t appear to be affected by them one way or another. “Then I guess we’re going to be doing this for a very long time.”
TWO
BLEEDING HEARTS
SASHA
“Why don’t you just sell? It’s so big. It must be costing you a fortune just to heat the damn place. You’re here on your own. You do not need four bedrooms.”
“I’m not selling the house, Ali.” Today seems to be a day for repetitive conversations. I can’t remember how many times my best friend has tried to convince me to part with my brownstone, and I can’t remember how many times I’ve sighed and told her it’s not going to happen. “I grew up here,” I say, throwing a tea bag into the chipped mug I’ve just taken down from the cupboard. I have my back to Ali, so she can’t see the strained look on my face, or how furrowed my brow is. I don’t need this today. I can’t handle arguing over whether I do or don’t need four bedrooms. Of course I could easily downsize to a two or even one-bedroom place, and yes, it would mean I could buy something else and still have close to a million dollars left over to do whatever the hell I wanted with, but she’ll never understand. This place is full of memories for me. I gave birth to Christopher in the damn hallway, for crying out loud. I’d gone into accelerated labor before Andrew had been able to get home, and I’d been alone. I’d been the first person to see him, to take him into my arms, to hold him to my body. His room is just as he left it—toy trucks and decapitated Lego Stormtroopers all over the floor, his sheets mussed and pushed back where he bounced out of bed on the morning of his death.
I won’t leave this place. I willneverleave it.
I make Ali her cup of tea and I hand it to her, hurrying from the kitchen through to the formal dining room.
“Are you sure you’re in the mood for book club today?” She gingerly takes a sip from her drink. She has no patience, she knows the hot liquid is going to burn her mouth, and yet she can never seem to wait for her tea to cool before she drinks. I get a bottle opener down from the shelf behind me, placing it next to the three bottles of Malbec I bought earlier from the liquor store.
“It’s okay. The distraction will do me good.”
Ali pulls a face. “I don’t even understand why we’re reading this book. It categorically makes no sense.”
“Of course the book makes sense, Al.”
My friend sticks out her tongue. She’s thirty-three, the same age as me, but she acts like a twelve-year-old sometimes. She looks younger than her years. Her thick red hair is always wild and crazy, like she just stuck her finger in a power outlet, and for the most part her makeup looks like a teenager applied it—bright pink blushes, and shiny, glossy lip balm probably called bubble gum or cotton candy. She’s always giving me hell about my makeup, or the lack thereof. She thinks I should dye my long dark hair blonde. If she had her way, I’d lose my jeans and sweaters and I’d wear skirts and low cut tops an awful lot more. We met in college, back when we were still teenagers and still very much alike. We used to misbehave together on a daily basis, getting ourselves into trouble with boys and with our workload until I met Andrew, a business major, and I buckled down. I think she’s spent the last eleven years trying to get her old friend back.
“What about this makes any sense?” She tosses a dog-eared paperback onto the table I’m trying to prepare for the other members of our book club, who will be arriving in less than half an hour. She nearly hits a bowl filled with assorted crackers and I scowl at her. Picking up the book, I set it to one side, rearranging the cheese plate.
“It’s a romance story. You know. Boy meets girl. Boy does something monumental to fuck up their relationship. They fight and go their separate ways. Boy works hard to regain her trust and her love, and they live happily ever after.”
“Real life isn’t like that. Well, apart from the boy doing something to fuck up the relationship. That’s actually pretty close to real life. But what kind of guy sells everything he owns to prove a point to his spoiled-ass rich bitch girlfriend?Gabriel’s Waywas just too far-fetched. I wish I’d never read it.”
“Save it for book club,” I tell her. “If you start complaining about it now, you won’t have anything to complain about once the other girls get here.”
“Oh, I’ll still have plenty to complain about, trust me. That book was garbage. I don’t get why we even let Kika pick books anymore. They’re always so saccharine.”
“We’re a romance book club. These books are meant to whisk us away from our lives, to make us swoon and feel that flush of love for the first time again. What do you expect but saccharine?”
