“Is that something you get off on? With other women? Is that a thing for you?”
Dean looks offended. “Hurting them? No.”
“I meant anal.”
His eyebrows raise. “Not particularly.”
“But you’ve done it.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I know where you stand on the subject now.”
I swallow a hysterical laugh. How great that Dean knows where I stand when I no longer have any clue. Five days ago we’d had a civil conversation, sex that didn’t feel like hate sex and he’d walked me to work, agreeing to come on this very personal outing to lend support. And today I learn that our already weak foundation was built on even shakier ground.
“I shouldn’t have invited you.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No kidding. How would you feel if I told you how I’d spent years fantasizing about humiliating and debasing you?”
A pause. “I think I’d get over it if you realized you couldn’t go through with it.”
“You really feel that way?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant that you wouldn’t go through with it.”
Dean’s look is patronizing. “I’m not a complete asshole, Rachel. I know what you meant.”
“If you say so.” I dig a compact and tissue out of my purse and mop up my smudged mascara.
He exhales heavily. “You still want to talk about prison?”
I crumple the tissue in my fist and lean back against the door so I can watch him. The additional distance between us makes me feel better, helps regain my composure. “Do you feel like that was someplace you deserved to be?”
I see his biceps flex and relax.
“I didn’t, for a while. But now I do.”
“What changed?”
That damn shrug. “I got older, I guess.”
“Do you know the security guard is deaf in one ear because of that beating?”
Dean nods tersely. “Yeah.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Nicky hit him, not me.”
“Why’d you rob the store?”
I think some part of me had always figured the timing of the robbery was too coincidental to be unrelated to my departure, that maybe Dean had pictured himself fencing the jewelry and using the money to find me to start a new life.
“It was something to do.”
I gape at him. “Seriously? You’ve got ten years’ perspective on the thing and that’s your answer? You were bored?”
“If you found Riverside so fucking stimulating, why’d you leave?”
“Stop answering questions with questions, Dean.”
He purses his lips and checks the mirrors as though he’s going to change lanes, but then doesn’t. He’s just buying time. “We’d been talking about it for months.”
My breath catches, but I don’t interrupt. I’d known he’d been stealing for a while, but I didn’t know how much it had escalated until it was too late. Even when I thought I knew him, I hadn’t. Not really.
“We’d done little things, here and there, but never when the places were open, when we’d have to deal with people.” He glances over. “It was addicting, Rachel. Suddenly having money, being able to afford things we never would otherwise. It was nice, having something that was out of our reach. We’d feel good about ourselves for a few weeks, then we’d need more. And the jewelry store seemed like the answer.”
He risks a look at me, trying to gauge whether or not he’s said enough, then sighs when my expression makes it clear that he hasn’t.
“We didn’t think it through,” he continues eventually. “I was angry in general back then, and I was extra pissed because you’d taken off. Everyone thought I was such a fucking pussy, Rachel, waking up and asking where my girlfriend was. I acted like I didn’t care, and soon enough I’d convinced myself that I didn’t care about anything. And when Nicky chose that day to rob the store, I said okay. Why not? I couldn’t think of a single reason not to. They had something I wanted, so I took it.”
I raise an eyebrow and look away, recognizing the alarming theme in his thinking.
“Nicky was high,” he continues, remembering. “I should have known he was worse off than usual, but I didn’t care about anything that day. And when he started hitting that security guard, I still didn’t care. And I didn’t care when I went to prison, either. It wasn’t like Riverside was a fucking dream, and I was big enough and angry enough that I didn’t get too much trouble.” He takes a breath. “So that’s that. Satisfied?”
“Is it behind you?”
“Prison?”
“Committing crimes that would send you there.”
He laughs roughly. “Yeah.”
“What were your prison friends like?” I don’t know anything about Dean’s life outside of our twisted relationship. He boxes, he likes Reginald, he dreams of humiliating me. I want to know that there’s something human about him. Something he cares about.
Dean glances at me tiredly. “Nobody special. I spent the first three years in medium security lockup, and met a couple of guys. They were in for more serious things—one was in the cell next to me, the other two were his friends. I stuck with them until I got transferred out to minimum security for good behavior.”
“Are they still in there?”
“Oh yeah. Look, we’re not pen pals or anything. The guys I knew, some came, some went, some stayed gone and some came back. When I got out I walked away and never looked back. My parole officer got me the position in the warehouse and I moved up to Camden. Now I’m living the life.” His lips twitch with a wry smile.
I nod and watch the cars flowing past us in the opposite direction. Ironically, my anxiety seems to have abated in the face of some of the meanest information I have ever received. But still I’d give anything to be in one of those other cars, with any other person.
Dean touches my arm, just the slightest nudge with the side of his hand before returning it to the armrest. I glance over to find him watching me.
“I’ve never lied to you, Rachel.”
“I believe your story, Dean.”
“It’s not all pretty, but it’s true.” His cheeks are flushed, as though the explanation still shames him, even after all these years.
“Fine.”
“How long do you think your feelings are going to stay hurt?”
“How long have you held this grudge against me? Ten years? Let’s start there.”
“So I shouldn’t expect to get laid tonight?”
I refuse to smile. “You shouldn’t expect a ride home, asshole.”
Dean does laugh. “That’s an interesting choice of insults.”
“Don’t.”
He ruffles my hair. “I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cranston is two hours south of Chicago, and we ride the remaining thirty minutes in relative silence. Dean’s confession bothers me, but the closer we get to our destination the further it falls down the list of things I wish I could ignore. The smell of the flowers in the backseat becomes cloying, the air conditioner is alternately too cold and not cold enough, and it feels as though my seat belt is too tight, crushing my lungs so it’s hard to breathe. I see Dean look over at me occasionally, recognizing my struggle, but he wisely chooses to remain silent.
I feel sweat drip down my back when we take the first Cranston exit, the one marked with a green sign promising a cemetery. Dean knows the way and navigates the periphery of the town easily, soon steering us into the small parking lot.
The day is hot and sunny and there are a handful of cars parked alongside us. On one side of the lot is the cemetery, the other hosts a playground with picnic tables on top of a low hill. Children play while a teenage girl smokes and looks on.
“God,” I shudder. “Who would put a playground here? And who would come?”
Dean doesn’t answer, just climbs out and shuts his door, leaning against the side of the car and waiting for me. When I’d gotten the call about my mother’s death they gave me the name of the cemetery and the plot number where she’d be buried; I hadn’t written the details down, but I’d never forgotten them, no matter how much I swore I didn’t care.
Before coming out today I’d searched online to find a cemetery map and located the area for Renee’s grave at the edge of the property, a few minutes’ walk from the parking lot. What I’d really like to do is steal the keys from Dean, jump in the car and drive back to Chicago, leaving him and Renee and this entire town in the rearview. Since I know how that battle is likely to end, I snatch up the flowers from the backseat and get out, fighting the urge to wilt against the car and blame the heat, not my nerves.
“I won’t be long,” I say, not looking at Dean as I put on sunglasses and steady myself.
“You don’t want me to come with you?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
I take a deep breath and cross the parking lot to the small stone archway that marks the entrance. The Cranston cemetery is neat and orderly, the various tombstones arranged in straight lines on carefully trimmed grass. I pass the occasional bouquet of fresh flowers resting next to random stones, and avoid making eye contact with other mourners.
I find Renee’s headstone exactly where I’d expected to. It’s a flat piece of concrete approximately the same height as the grass, with an engraved plaque on the top bearing her name and the years of her birth and death. No pithy quotes, no names of surviving family. Just the most basic of information for a woman who hadn’t cared about anything or anyone.
I drop the flowers on the ground and sit next to them, stretching out my legs and waiting to feel something. It’s hotter than hell out today and I’m sweating again, but it has nothing to do with nerves. I’m sitting six feet above my mother’s body and I can’t even muster up a tear.
Closure
, I remind myself. I’m here for closure, not recriminations.
But what do I want from Renee? Or for myself?
I glance around to make sure no one is watching or listening, but I’m completely alone. I can’t see Dean or the parking lot from this position. I tug a daisy from the bouquet and pluck off the petals one by one, piling them neatly next to my knee. I wait for something clever to occur to me, some perfect string of words to provide that ever-elusive closure, but nothing comes. She sent me away for a reason; it’s the same reason I never came back. Finally I give up, and stand. “Take care, Renee. I hope you’re in a better place.”
I wipe grass from my legs and stretch, feeling vaguely disappointed. I’d come all the way out here for nothing. Spent all that time with Dean just to get to the end—the undefined
something
he’d been making me feel turning out to be a mirage, just another angry brick wall where I’d hoped to find a door.
I’m about ten paces from Renee’s tombstone when I see someone approaching from the parking lot. From here all I can really determine is that it’s a woman, though as we draw closer I see that she’s slight and wiry with long dishwater-blond hair. She’s wearing a denim shirtdress and white sandals and carrying a bouquet of flowers.
I move to the side of the path and keep my head down, focused on surviving the return trip with Dean and getting back to my life. The one that may not have been entirely satisfying six weeks ago, but didn’t hurt like hell, either.
“Didn’t expect to see you.”
My steps falter and I look up in surprise at the woman stopped a few feet away. The sun beams down from just over her shoulder, and I have to squint to make out her face. Her forehead is lined and there are grooves on either side of her mouth, making her look older than she is. The outdated clothing and unkempt hair doesn’t help, either, but I recognize her. Ally Shaw, my old best friend. Kurt Cafferty’s wife. Sabrina’s mother.
“Ally.” I make myself smile. “Wow.”
She nods, unsmiling, taking me in. “About time you came back.”
I look at the carnations gripped in her tiny hand. “Are those for Renee?”
“Of course they are.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Somebody had to do it.”
Renee hadn’t been cruel in life, but she hadn’t been kind, either. And she hadn’t treated anybody better than she’d treated me, which makes Ally’s sudden defense of her more than a little strange. But I’m not going to stand here debating it.
“It’s still a nice gesture.”
Ally scoffs. “Kurt said he saw you. Didn’t think you’d be back though.”
“Congratulations on getting married, having kids. I met Sabrina.”
She ignores the compliments. “So you’re an
attorney
now, huh?” She says the word like it’s an epithet.
“Yes. What do you do?”
Her mouth twists in what might be a smile. She’d been cute when we were teenagers; now she’s just bitter. “I’m head cashier at the grocery store in the plaza where you met Kurt.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah. It’s a real fucking dream.”
I raise my eyebrows, unwilling to fight with her. “Well, it was nice to see you. Take care.” I stride past, alarmed when she starts to follow.
“Did you really think people were going to forget what you did?”
I don’t turn around. I don’t care if they forget, do I? Avoiding this kind of life is exactly why I did it.
“You stole everything that woman had and you took off and you built some fancy life for yourself and you never even had the decency to come back and look after her when she got sick.”
I freeze, three steps from the parking lot. I turn slowly to look at Ally, her face angry and indignant. “What are you talking about?”
“The money, you thief. You took Renee’s life savings and she nearly starved to death because of it. And when she got sick and needed to go to the doctor, needed pills, she didn’t have money for it. She just had to suffer. She had to take whatever she could for the pain.”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“You took three thousand dollars! She told everyone!”
“She gave me that money and told me to go. I didn’t even know she had it.” I think back to that night, how Renee had sounded so much more lucid and awake than normal. Did I make that up? Did I somehow imagine it? No, I know what happened. My memory is fine. Ally is that one that’s confused.
“Sure. Because that woman could afford to give up all her money and her car—”
“That was my car. I saved my money from the truck stop and bought a car. You used yours for cigarettes and self-tanner. That’s your own fault.”
I turn to go.
“You’re using him again, aren’t you?”
I step through the arch into the parking lot and immediately spot Dean sitting at a picnic table on the far side, talking to Kurt. Sabrina is next to them, watching two other children play on the swing set.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And I can’t be bothered to turn around and clarify. All I want at the moment is to get the hell out of this place—again.
“Of course you don’t. You’ve got a fancy degree and a big-shot job and you don’t know a single thing.”
I know Dean sees me because he straightens, but he doesn’t get up. He’s got the car keys and I can’t get in without him. Ally seems to know this, because she follows me all the way to the car.
“What does he have that you need?”
I watch Dean’s lips move as he exchanges a few words with Kurt, who glances over at us and waves. I force myself to wave back, trying my best to telepathically communicate with Dean:
get your ass back here.
“Nothing,” I say without thinking about it.
“Because you think he’s trash. You thought that about everybody. I always knew it.”
“Great. You’re a mind reader.” I check the doors but they’re locked. I give up on waiting and move toward the playground just as Dean stands up and shakes hands with Kurt, saying goodbye.
“I took care of your mother that whole last year. You should have heard the stuff she had to say about you.”
“I’m sure it was poetic.”
Dean’s about twenty yards away; why the hell isn’t he hurrying?
“You think one visit is going to make up for ten years?”
“I’m not trying to make up for anything,” I lie, going to the passenger side of the car. “Believe it or not, I don’t owe you anything and I don’t care what you think.”
“This whole town went to shit, and you were the one who got out. You never thought about anybody but yourself.”
Dean’s ten feet away.
“Leave, if you hate it so much,” I tell her. “There are grocery stores in every city.”
Ally looks as though this is the cruelest thing she has ever heard. “You bitch.”
“So I’m told.”
I hear a beep as the car unlocks. Dean comes to my side and pulls open the door, nudging me in with a hand on my hip. “Rachel, get in the car,” he says as though it’s been my decision to stand outside.
“Don’t come back,” Ally calls. “Your mother hated you, I hated you and you should have heard what this guy had to say about you.”
Dean slams my door and strides around to his side. I can hear him clearly through the glass. “That’s enough, Al. You said your piece.”
“I’m glad you brought her here, Dean. No way she would have come on her own. Coldhearted bitch.”
“Go be with your family.” Dean drops into the driver’s seat, shuts his door and starts the car. It’s stifling hot and I feel sick and claustrophobic.
“Drive,” I order when he lingers, waiting for the air-conditioning to kick in.
“You okay?”
Ally’s still talking but I can’t hear her over the rush of the lukewarm air spilling from the vents. “Just drive, Dean.”
He hesitates as if he wants to say something, but puts the car in gear and pulls out of the spot, avoiding Ally’s ranting form.
I run a hand over my mouth, trying not to be sick.
It’s just the heat
, I tell myself. It’s the air stuck in the vents that’s blowing in your face. It’ll pass. You’re sweating because it’s hot. You’re dizzy because you’re hot. It’s the heat. All of it.
“You told them I was coming?” I hear myself ask the question before I even know I’m thinking it.
Dean pauses and it’s answer enough. Then, “Yes.”
“So she could do that?”
“I didn’t know what she would do.”
I bury my face in my hands, indescribably sad. I hate the fact that I’m crying, that what Ally said got to me, that Dean’s admission hurts my feelings. In seconds I’m sobbing so hard it’s almost impossible to breathe. My chest aches, my throat is hot and tight, my sinuses sting and my hands are soaked with tears.
“Rachel...”
I feel his heavy hand on my shoulder and I jerk away. “Don’t touch me,” I snap through my fingers. “Just drive home. Is there anyone you need to call to tell I’m coming? Anyone else you think needs
closure
?”
Dean doesn’t answer, just takes the exit back onto the highway and accelerates. I press my forehead against the window and close my eyes, letting the tears roll down my cheeks. I’m just hot. And tired. It’s been a long week. This was just bad timing. I should have come to Cranston another time. And I should have come alone.
“What she said...”
I whip my head around with a renewed burst of energy. “You brought me here for that. And you stayed up in the playground when you knew what she was doing. You made me stand there and listen to her.” My breath rattles out in a painful sob.
“Yes.”
I feel my shoulders shake. “It’s not up to you, Dean!”
He rolls his lips over his teeth as though trying to figure out what to say, then says nothing at all, glancing out the driver’s side window, away from me.
“You didn’t get your ass-fucking revenge so you decided that she should have hers? Did it get you off? Do you have closure now?”
That muscle in his jaw ticks.
“Do you remember what closure means?” I sneer. “Or should I remind you?”
Dean jerks the wheel hard to the right and I grip the door, whipping my head around to see that he’s steering us down the next exit ramp to a rest stop.
“Get back on the highway!” I tell him. “Don’t stop this car. And if you do, get the hell out because there is no way—”
The rest stop is abandoned, just another low, forgotten structure promising bathrooms and garbage cans. Dean speeds into the parking lot, straddling the yellow line dividing two spots and stomps on the brakes, making me jerk against the seat belt, teeth clacking together. He shuts off the car and has both our belts unbuckled before I can figure out his intentions.
But even as he yanks me over the armrest and into his lap, holding me against his chest, my wet face pressed into his neck, I cannot understand. He’s trying to comfort me, like an attacker suddenly trying to staunch the blood flowing from a wound they had inflicted. A wound they dreamed of inflicting for ten long years.
“Let go!” The words are muffled by his skin, the thin flesh of his neck hot against my lips. I feel his pulse beneath my mouth, his very life just millimeters away. I want to bite him, I want to tear a hole in his skin, feel him bleed, taste it, make him hurt the way I hurt.