“He could have waited until I got here.” She glances at her phone again to make sure she’s not late. Noon, just like she said.
“We’re fine, Cal. He just left like ten minutes ago.”
Callie bends to pick up a container of hummus from the ground, searches around for the lid, finds it in the living room of Opal’s dollhouse.
Jane sighs. “Opal can open the fridge on her own now. As you can see.”
“Opes, can I clean your face?”
“I’m a dog! Woof woof!”
“Okay, can you be a good doggy and come here for your doggybath?” Opal runs to her on all fours and lets Callie swipe a wet paper towel around her mouth, over the hummus-streaked strands of hair that have fallen out of her ponytail, as Opal wriggles and pretends to wag her tail.
“He can’t leave you alone with a three-year-old, Jane. Jesus. What if something happened to her? What if something happened to you? One of you could get hurt and then what?”
“Come on Cal, I don’t need a lecture. He had to run out. It’s quick.”
“What couldn’t wait until I showed up? What was the errand? You could have had me do it on the way.”
They both turn at the sound of Damien pulling in the driveway.
“I can handle it,” Jane says to Callie, a fierce glow to her eyes. Callie can’t help but think of the hospital voicemail again.I was going to leave him. I had a plan.
Damien comes through the door empty-handed. So it wasn’t a grocery run, a pharmacy trip. From where Callie’s sitting she can’t tell what about it was so urgent. He aims for nonchalance—“Hey Cal, good to see you”—but he can only meet her eye for a beat before looking away. “Janie, you almost ready?”
“I just want to put some makeup on. God knows physical therapy is the most I get out into the world these days. Gotta make it count.”
“You’ve got to be the hottest patient they’ve got,” Callie says. Now’s not the time to push either of them. And not in front of Opal.
“I don’t know, I think they’ve got some young athletes who’ve torn their ACLs, that kind of thing. I’m just a middle-aged lady hobbling through for an hour.” Callie winces at the termmiddle-aged.They’re both thirty.
“Jane, stop. You’re still a babe and you know it.”
“Second that,” Damien calls from the kitchen.
Callie helps Jane to the bedroom, Jane’s grip firm on her arm. Her friend, the former cross-country athlete, cowed by a walk down the hall. It makes her skin sizzle with rage and Jane must feel it, feel something, because she drums her fingertips lightly along Callie’s forearm as she eases herself down on the end of the bed, telegraphingto Callie to stay calm. Callie gets Jane’s makeup bag from the bathroom counter, among the clusters of bright-orange pharmacy bottles. One has Damien’s name on it. Lexapro. She wonders if Frank knows, if that’s what his question was about down at the station.How’s Damien seem to you?Fuck Damien, Callie had thought, but realizes how ungenerous that is. How he’s going through something too.
“Did you see that video I sent you?” Jane asks, as Callie steps back into the bedroom and hands the makeup bag to Jane, who swipes mascara over her eyelashes and frowns into a compact. “The cops didn’t even investigate the half brother even though he was super shady.”
“I did watch it. My money was he was involved but he didn’t actually do it. Hired someone, probably. Hold on, you’ve got a smudge.”
She licks the end of her finger and rubs the delicate skin under Jane’s eye, wiping away a feather of mascara.
“Thanks. You should bring me to therapy one day. One of the trainers is a total babe.”
“No setups, please, Janie.”
“Not a setup. Just a chance for you to talk to a hot guy and see where it goes. I’m not asking you to wait for him at a caféwith a red rose on the table. Just come and hang around.”
“I’m not really in a dating frame of mind right now.” She doesn’t tell Jane that she downloaded Tinder the other night, a little tipsy after her shift, swiped until she came across Collins’s profile, then deleted the app. Or about the guy she met on the bank of the creek. Adrian, to whom she has written and deleted five texts already.
“If you’re going to transplant your life to the sticks to help take care of us, you might as well get something out of it.”
“I am getting something out of it. I get to hang with you guys all the time. So long as I’m not wearing out my welcome. If you ever need a little space, I hope you’ll let me know.”
Jane shifts her hands, winces, picks up a plastic pony that had been buried in the comforter. “You are the space, Callie.” She holds the horse out like evidence. “I was drowning before. But this…well, shit. Being here all the time. Everything a mess, not being able to do anything. This is something else.”
Callie doesn’t know what to say. She can’t crutch along the same old platitudes about Jane needing to focus on herself, needing to recover. This feeling Jane is talking about is raw, deep. Despair.
