The Guilty One (24 page)

And she understood too that if things had been reversed—if it was Calla who had killed someone else's child—she would do everything in her power to try to lessen the price she would pay. She merely wished that this could all play itself out somewhere else, so that she wouldn't have to know about it, wouldn't have to face the public's insatiable hunger for the evidence of her pain all over again.

Maris stared at the stainless-steel sink. She had scoured it with her own hands and it now gleamed dully. On the windowsill were bottles of her favorite Caldrea soap and lotion, and she set down the empty water glass and squirted some lotion on her hands, taking her time, rubbing it into her skin and inhaling the smell.

It was interesting, the return of her ability to appreciate her senses. Or rather: her sensuality had returned. The pleasure of the lotion's tart scent was as unexpected as her body's response to George's touch had been. Or perhaps they were two pieces cut from the same cloth.

A woman, after a year of mourning, emerges into a world that—to her great surprise—has trundled along without her, with all of its noisy, colorful, fecund energy. The world she has thought to be indifferent to her and her loss—it beckons to her now.

A man, holding himself ultimately responsible for his son's crime, puzzles for a year about how to make amends and comes up with no better offering than his own life—a deal no mother, no matter how much she had lost, could possibly take.

One has held her breath and finds she cannot help gasping, in the end, for air. The other flays bits from himself, telling no one, not even acknowledging it in his own mind, until he decides to sacrifice himself and finds that even that can't change the balance.

And outside either orbit . . . this. Maris knew instinctively that Ron was not behind the appeal. It had to be Deb, the architect of this new development, the mother who would leave no stone unturned to save her child.

It had been a mistake to try to make friends, to get to know people. Far better to be a loner, an eccentric, bothering no one, asking only to be left alone. Maris breathed the lotion's scent and wondered if it might still work, if there still might be a way to salvage her refuge a little longer. She had to talk to Pet, and find out what she really knew. Maybe it wasn't what she feared. Or maybe Maris could convince her to keep it to herself . . . she threw on clothes and went around the house to Pet's door and knocked, but she was already gone.

Maris stood on the porch, turning slowly to look out at the diner across the street, the meter maid making her way down the parked cars, the little pile of broken glass that still glittered along the curb. It was naïve to think that Pet wouldn't have figured out the whole truth—that she was Maris Vacanti, mother of the murdered girl, victim of the Academy Killer. If Maris left now, she could make a clean break. Pet would be left with the memory of a stranger's side trip through her life. Norris might still be angry at her over her handling of his mother's things, but he would get to keep his cash. Hell, he wouldn't have to pay a cleaning service now; he could hardly complain. Maris could just leave the keys on the kitchen table.

A surprising realization: she wasn't ready to leave this place. The last year had scoured from Maris every extraneous trait—generosity and empathy and humor and curiosity and the capacity for love—and now that she was thinking about leaving this humble apartment behind, she realized that she'd stumbled on a place of rest, where she could just . . . be. Where there were no choices, no television channels to flip through, no neatly labeled casseroles in the freezer, no stacks of sweaters in the closet. Where there were no birthdays to keep track of or dinner invitations to return, no neighbors to keep up with or clubs to aspire to join.

She would have to find a way to fill her days. What had she done, back in Linden Creek, for the last year? A lot of sitting and trying not to think . . . a lot of drinking coffee. Cleaning: she'd let the housekeepers go, and still the place had never been so clean. Reading the news, often the same story over and over and over again. Weeding the garden, walking the hills in the dark, before anyone else was awake or after they had gone to bed. Going through her photo albums, over and over, every picture of Calla committed to memory, cherished, longed for.

It had seemed like enough then. Why didn't it anymore? Even today, as she stood here regretting the loss of the refuge she'd never been sure she wanted in the first place, she did not have enough to do to get her to bedtime. She could shower, and read, and shop for groceries, and still, hours would remain. It was ridiculous to think that she could do this, day after day, week after week. The work she was doing for Norris was a distraction, but it would be over soon. Then what?

Maris returned to her overheated, echoing little apartment, knowing that she wouldn't be able to stand the nothing for very long. She could leave here tomorrow and throw herself into what came next. Maybe she'd stop for a fancy lunch in San Jose, somewhere with valet parking, and tomorrow night she'd lie down in the gray-and-ecru guest room in Santa Luisa, breathing the chilled air and listening to Alana's jazz recordings seeping under the door.

Maris stood in the doorway to her tiny bedroom, looking at the narrow bed, the stiff synthetic comforter that refused to lie flat. The Target bags were under the bed where she'd stashed them, and she could fill them up with her folded clothes, the new underwear. She would leave the toiletries, the kitchen staples—Maris didn't feel like explaining any of that to Alana. Let her sister think she'd simply become bored after a few days in the yoga friend's posh house.

Someone knocked at the door.

Pet stood outside, cheeks flushed from the heat, wearing a pink tank top that read Nobody Likes Misogynists and another pair of baggy men's shorts, her backpack over her shoulder. She nodded at Maris as if nothing had happened, and slipped past her into the kitchen, dropping the backpack on the sofa.

“Wow,” she said. “I can't get used to it being so clean in here.”

“Would you like something cold to drink?” Maris stood awkwardly in the center of the room. “I have seltzer, grapefruit juice, Diet Sprite . . .”

“Diet Sprite, I guess. Hey, look, I'm kind of hiding. Do you mind if I stay here for a few hours?” A self-conscious grin. “It's only until tonight, and then I can get out of your hair.”

“Of course,” Maris said, both relieved and confused. “What's going on? If you don't mind telling.”

“My mom and her asshole boyfriend might be coming by.” Pet rolled her eyes, but misery radiated from her tough exterior. “And his fucked-up kid.”

“Well . . . that sounds like a story. Do they live near here?”

Pet popped the soda open and ignored the glass Maris set on the table, taking a sip straight from the can. “Brentwood. Not far.”

“But you don't want to see them because . . .”

“It's just, you know. A lot of drama.” She set down the can carefully. “My mom got a lot of money in the divorce so she doesn't have to work, and she didn't really have much to keep her busy, except for her
politics
—” She made air quotes with her fingers. “She used to take the bus up to Sacramento and demonstrate for marriage equality and shit, but now
that's
over. And then she met John and now they both like to play more-PC-than-thou, because he's an immigration lawyer and he got custody of his kid, who's, like, autistic or something, so it's, like, he thinks he deserves a fucking gold medal. But all that kid did last time they were here was fart and ask me if I have
tits,
over and over.” Pet sighed and slid down in her chair. “So I just don't think I have it in me, you know? To put up with that today.”

“Where are they now?” Maris asked cautiously.

“Um . . . I'm not really sure. I didn't actually pick up when Mom called, and all she said was she might be coming over. She does that sometimes. They'll just show up on Sundays, because they know I don't have to work, and they expect me to drop everything.”

Maris had the feeling there was more to the story, something Pet wasn't telling her. The uneven grin, the pink cheeks, seemed like signs that the girl was trying not to cry. Maris went and retrieved the box of Kleenex from the bathroom. “I'm sorry,” she said, setting the box in front of Pet.

“No, no,
I'm
sorry,” she said, grabbing a few tissues and swiping savagely at her eyes. “I mean, fuck. It's nothing. I mean, my mom's just being my mom, doing what she always does, and I should be able to . . . to . . . and, I mean, especially.” She wadded up the tissues and threw them at the trash can, landing the shot perfectly. “With, you know,
you
. Everything you've been through.”

Maris's hands, folded on the table, clutched tighter, but she kept her expression neutral. “Well,” she said.

“God, I'm such a dick. I mean about that note, I just wanted you to know I knew, so . . . you know, so it wouldn't be weird. Ha. Right?”

She managed a weak grin through the tears that had finally spilled over.

“Well,” Maris said gently, “I'm not really sure how you would have managed that. I mean, it
is
a little . . . weird.” A laugh bubbled out, surprising her. Where had that come from?

“I really am sorry, though,” Pet said. “Last night, after I got home? I was watching the late news, and they were talking about how there's probably going to be an appeal or whatever, and it clicked—the name, from when I heard that girl say it in the store. And then they showed your picture.” She shrugged. “You and your husband, outside the courtroom, from when the guy got sentenced. And, shit. I mean . . . shit.”

“Ah.” Maris felt curiously numb. She put her fingers to her cheek, to make sure she was still there.

“And look, I'm not trying to make you talk about it or anything. I mean, I guess I should just shut up about it myself.
Shit
.”

Maris sighed and reached across the table, covering Pet's hand with her own. “It's not your fault, lord knows. And it was wrong of me to deceive you. It was just one of those things that sort of happened. I didn't plan it . . .”

“No, I totally get how that can happen.” Pet squeezed her hand back. “I grew up in a town of seven hundred people, I'm totally used to wishing everyone didn't know everything about me.”

“I guess there's no such thing as anonymity anymore, is there? I mean, with social media and everyone you've ever known finding you on Facebook.” Not that Maris had looked at her Facebook account for months. “Makes me wish I could just hide here forever, you know?”

“Yeah, that would be tough, but . . . you could hide for a
while
, couldn't you? I mean, not that it matters or anything, but George is, like, totally crazy about you. He texted me twice today asking if I'd talked to you, tried to act like it was because he wanted to return your sweater or some shit. Did you leave it at the party last night?”

Oh . . . right, Maris had brought the cheap acrylic cardigan in case it got cold, and left it in his truck when he drove her home. Last night seemed like it had happened ages ago. “I . . . I must have.”

“Well.” A small look of triumph on Pet's face. “Don't worry, I won't tell him about, you know, or anything. But, still. Can I ask you something?”

Maris didn't want to say yes, didn't want to risk the thousands of directions curiosity could take. But she owed Pet, didn't she? “Sure, anything.”

“Why here? Why did you end up here? I mean, you could have gone anywhere.”

“Well . . .” How to answer that question, when Maris wasn't entirely sure herself? “I know the media made it sound like our family was wealthy, Pet—”

“You aren't?”

“No, I mean, we're very
comfortable
, especially compared to lots of people. We have . . . we
had
a nice house.”

“Yeah, they showed it on the news.”

Maris looked down at her hands. They looked old in the harsh afternoon light—veiny and hairless, like her mother's had been. “I know. They were . . . it was a better story to them if they made it sound like we were all rich. But my husband, my ex, Jeff, he was laid off quite a bit over the last few years. Things were, well, I didn't even know how bad they'd gotten. We're going to have to sell the house. I'm going to have to get a job. Things—things are going to be different for me.”

“But there's lots of places you could have gone that aren't . . .” Pet swept her hand around the kitchen: the peeling linoleum, the dented walls, the paint flaking off the window shaft. “Dangerous,” she finally settled on.

“You know that little girl we saw the other night? Well, I
did
know her—I'm sorry I lied. Before Calla died, I volunteered down at Morgandale Elementary, in the literacy program. I used to take surface streets, driving through the neighborhoods, wondering what it would be like to live here. Wondering . . . I don't know, I guess how I was born who I was and all these people were born who they were, and none of us having any say in it. I used to see these moms, African American and Mexican and Indian and I don't even know where else they came from, and they'd have babies in strollers, walking to the school to pick up the rest of their kids. Lita—the student I used to work with—she had four siblings and they all lived in a two-bedroom apartment. And there we were, me and Jeff and Calla, in a four-bedroom house.”

“Liberal guilt,” Pet suggested, not unsympathetically.

“Yes, I suppose, but it was more than that. Oh, I know how this is going to sound, but I was a grade school teacher when I got married, and then when Calla started school I worked as a tutor, doing SAT prep. All these kids, these wealthy kids whose parents had such high hopes for them. Don't get me wrong, I loved them—”