Her eyes squeezed shut, Felicity whispered, “I was one hundred percent wrong. What a fool. What a fucking conceited fool I am. Oh, Reeno, when I let myself go there, I feel likeI’m dying. Because would it have made a difference? What if it would have changed one person’s mind? I was trying not to make it worse.
“And afterward, I thought, what if I just said, ‘Wait, wait, oh wait, I think I’ve given you the wrong impression. Because I actually don’t know what happened. I just found him, that’s all.’ What if you were on a jury? Wouldn’t you say, ‘Well, this changes everything! All she did was stumble across this dead guy, and sure, she knew him, and sure, it was in her apartment... but gosh, Miss Wild, sorry for the mix-up’? If you were, say, a prosecutor, wouldn’t you have believed me?”
Felicity had followed her misguided trust in fair play down a one-way street straight into a brick wall.
There was nothing more to discuss. I decided to say something wise and compassionate, but in keeping with the ways of human beings, settled for something selfish.
“Okay, this is crazy. I sound like I’m in sixth grade. Ruth told me that you used to laugh at me behind my back. She said you never respected me. I was just the neighbor, there when you needed her.”
The last closed door between us slammed open. Felicity rested her forehead on her hands. For a moment, the only silence was our own. Together, we listened to a soundtrack of car alarms, barking dogs, a mother bellowing that this was the very last warning, the rumble of the ice machine, proof that so much of what happened all around us happened unobserved.
“Well, if I ever felt that way, you’d have known it.” Felicity got up and faced away from me, her hands kneading her lower back. “I’m the one who relied on you, Reenie. You were my human credential. And that thing, that night at the reservoir? I did that because...”
“You did that because you are good.”
“I did that because you are good,” she said.
And there we were, events of the world having reshuffled the deck so that my former icon was my current acolyte. What I knew about human nature could have filled an eyedropper. And speaking of stupid and conceited, what kind of nutcase would step into the house with a murderer who could be in Puerto Rico by the time anyone found my body? This long and newsy chat between friends would not end with police cars and handcuffs. Every time I thought of Ruth, my mouth dried up and my heart raced like a rabbit.
Back when I asked Ross, did people really change, I never thought of Ruth.
Was Ruth the icy executioner always there, inside the Ruth I’d grown up with? What about the rest of us? Did we put on civilized behavior like a disguise to hide our claws?
Felicity walked back inside to check on Sparrow. I heard water running and a few muffled notes of conversation. Felicity came back outside, drying her hands. “She’s readingThe Forbidden Library. She says she picks out all her own books, mostly grown-up books. I wish I had been that kind of kid who picked out my own books when I was ten.”
“You did,” I reminded her. “You picked out mine, too.”
Felicity sighed. “With the approval of Ruth and the good pastor.”
Not too many minutes later, we’d run out of talk. We fell asleep side by side on the bed.
The next morning, we decided to go to a grocery store. Felicity whispered, “We have to make sure we have truly organic food. We can’t give her frozen pizza again, I feel like I’m sinning against some sort of religious doctrine, and I don’t mean the Starbright kind.”
In the brassy dazzling light of a tropical morning, we drove a few blocks to one of those eerie grocery stores where oranges are the size of grapefruits and grapefruits are the size of melons and there are giant photos on banners of families preppingchopped pineapple and shredded coconuts for the sheer animal joy of it. Sparrow picked out hummus and carrots, all-organic mac and cheese with wheat pasta, raw almonds, and raisins, and she asked if she could have juice instead of water “just this time.”
Felicity said, “She puts me to shame,” and then told Sparrow, “You have to get chocolate-covered raisins.”
With a glance of alarm, Sparrow asked, “Why?”
“Because chocolate has good... um, good magic in it,” Felicity said. “And I like it. And it’s unnatural for a little kid to not want chocolate.” She whispered to me, “This is so weird. Here I am trying to deprogram my kid’s healthy eating.”
“I’d be grateful if I were you,” I told Felicity. “Nelia only eats macaroni and cheese, and by only macaroni and cheese, I mean only macaroni and cheese, lunch and dinner. And it can’t be homemade, it has to be from the yellow box. She counts the blueberries to make sure we don’t give her too many.”
With the slightest and fleeting upturn of her lips, Sparrow said, “Maybe yogurt on the raisins?”
Felicity said, “Nope, got to be chocolate.”
As she made her way down the aisle five or six feet in front of us, I heard her murmur, “Okay... Mom.” My breath snagged in my chest. I almost didn’t dare to look at Felicity.
“I know,” Felicity said. “She’s been doing that. Almost like an experiment. Sometimes ‘Mom,’ sometimes ‘Mommy.’” Catching up with Sparrow, Felicity took her small hand, interlacing their fingers. The translucent long-sleeved black shirt Felicity wore modestly showed only the vague outlines of her black bikini. She wore no makeup and her hair had grown, and a thick braid, the mama of Sparrow’s baby one, danced against her golden shoulders. There were probably half a dozen prettier women just in that store alone. And yet, Felicity parted the shoppers like a seaplane landing in a quiet hidden lagoon. That ideal girl Lily Landry had described, long ago at the gentleman’s club, cleanerand crisper and all-around classier than any real-life girl, the girl of special knowledge. Even if the people who could not take their eyes from her didn’t realize it, there was something extra and indefinable about Felicity. There always would be.
We left the take-home food in the car and sat on benches on the boardwalk to eat a cold-dinner picnic straight from the grocery bag (another thing you start to do in Florida without anyone giving the slightest bit of a damn. In Sheboygan, even in July, passersby would have thought you were homeless or running from the law). I remember being a kid on vacation with Ross and his family and thinking that everyone who lived in Florida must be on vacation every day.
“Could I give some raisins to the birds?” Sparrow asked.
“Yes,” Felicity said. “Wow, those birds, they do okay! Look how fat they are.” Sparrow threw raisins into the air and gulls fought each other for the morsels like fighter bombers.
“People are driven by Satan to put chocolate on perfectly good fruit, you know.”
