She picks up on my suspicion and brings her left arm out of its hiding place behind the door. Her wrist is in a splint, her index and middle fingers taped together inside a metal brace. Deep bruises darken the swollen skin around them.
“Brittle bone disease,” she says. “I’m lucky it’s as mild as it is. Lots of people die. I just break bones like little twigs if I’m not careful.”
For a pivotal moment, we stare at each other. Two liars in a world of fools. And I could almost believe she knows what I am. She’s challenging me, daring me to call her on her bullshit so that she can call me on mine. A game ofI won’t tell if you won’t.
But then she shifts her weight and I see how vulnerable and uneasy she is.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
“Now’s really not—”
“Dara.” My tone is soft, but it cuts through her. To her credit, she holds our stare. Chin jutted, eyes defiant. I put my hand on the door. She’ll have to crush my fingers if she wants to close it, because they’re not moving.
She peers out, looking in both directions to see if any neighbors are watching us. They aren’t. The parking lot is mostly empty, everyone at work. She purses her lips and gives me the barest nod, then moves out of my way.
I close the door behind us once I’m inside. Dara returns to her blanket on the couch and wraps herself up. The window unit AC roars by the kitchen nook. Apart from the little nest Dara has made for herself in the living room, the unit is immaculate. The kitchen is even cleaner than ours, which is impressive, given that my sisters and I are used to leaving as little trace of life as possible.
Rather than the dingy shag carpet in my unit, Dara’s living room has beige linoleum meant to look like marble tile. There’s a jar candle and a wooden bowl of apples on the counter, the only sign that anyone uses the kitchen at all. On the walls are framed montages of Dara and Tim. Some in black and white, most in color, all of them taken in isolation as though they’ve spent their marriage stranded on a deserted island. They look happy, in love, smiling as they kiss.
I sit on a leather recliner in the same spot as the ratty hideous one in my own unit. Across from me, Dara crosses her long legs and reaches for a cigarette. She flicks the lighter, coaxing out the flame. With nowhere for the smoke to go, it’s overwhelming and my eyes water.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, her voice muffled. “Everyone thinks that. But Tim wouldn’t hurt me. I can’t even go to the doctor when I sprain something because that’s the first thing they think.”
“Okay,” I say.You liar, Dara. You fucking liar.
Moody’s words come back to me now, a meditation in the frenzy that’s forming in my head.There can only be one.I could kill Tim easily. He’s taller than me, but he isn’t very solid. His muscles are far leaner than Edison’s. Dara could knock him out herself if she really wanted to, but he knows that her love for him makes her foolish and she won’t fight back. He’s captured her here, away from her family, with no car, nothing to do all day but walk in the boiling heat to buy gummy bears and Red Bull.
There’s seven hundred dollars cash hidden in the trunk of my car right now. I counted it.
That money isn’t for her parents; it’s in case she works up the nerve to leave him. It isn’t enough. It won’t even get her out of town.
Iris and Moody would say it isn’t my business. Dara is hardly the first neighbor who’s had a problem that could have been solved with a dead spouse.
Dara is smart. I’ll have to give her situation a lot of careful consideration. She’ll never let me help her, but there are ways I can make her help herself. I just need time to think.
“So,” she says. “What’s up? To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
There’s no sarcasm to her words. She gives me a sweet smile, and I wonder if she knows how powerful she is. How much she could do in this world if she got out. She could model. Put dying hospice patients at ease. With her body I bet she could dance. Serve fast food to grumpy patrons—fucking anything. Something. But she has to get out of this shitty complex once in a while first.
I don’t say any of this. Dara must trust me, and she won’t do that if I push her now. So I say, “Edison has a stepdaughter. She’s in junior high.”
She sucks a long drag of her cigarette. “He’s married?” No judgment or incredulity.
“Widowed,” I tell her. “But it’s only been a year, and I guess he’s pretty close to her kid.”
“That’s not so bad,” she says. “He’s good with kids. You want that.”
The little orange bottle of fentanyl on the coffee table is in Tim’s name, not hers. Timothy Sutton. What does he tell the doctors to get it? An old sports injury? Headaches? He hurts his wife and then he brings her splints and bandages and pain pills as penance. Pours her tea, says he’s sorry, fixes her up so that she forgets who broke her in the first place.
“I’m trying to get along with her, but I know she hates me,” I say.
“You’re not trying to impress her,” Dara says simply. “You don’t have to. She’s not his kid. She’ll go away eventually.” She points her cigarette at me and then taps the ashes into the tray. “You’re trying to impresshimby getting in her good graces. Admit it.”
I shrug. “Is it that obvious?”
“You really like this guy, don’t you?” she says.
“It’s early,” I admit, “but he’s the one.”
