Page 112 of Devil

She stares. “What?”

“And the money in the trust of yours. And the truck, of course.”

She goes to speak and then stops again. Looks down at the cat in her lap. “Why make yourself seem less generous? What point did that serve?”

“It was a calculated risk, but I decided it was the easiest way. If I came into your life and tried to sweep you off your feet, tried to take away all your money woes, give you a truck and clothes and a studio, you would have been suspicious. You would have eventually pushed me away if you hadn’t outright refused me. And if I’d offeredyouthe money instead and said here’s a lovely trust fund for you if you’ll fuck me for a year, but it’s only for you, you can’t use it for anyone else, you would have said absolutely not and run into the farmhouse and locked the door.”

“But if it was for Busy…” She stops herself. Sighs. “You guessed that I wouldn’t say no if it was for her.”

“I’d pieced together your penchant for martyrdom between what I saw at Evelyn and your sister’s robust paper trail. You would never help yourself, even if it means starving to death while your leg rots off. But for your sister…what wouldn’t you do for her?”

Pain flits across her face. “Nothing.”

“I didn’t mind making myself your worst thing. I never will. I only hoped I could slowly convince you that I could be your best thing too.”

“You didn’t have to go slow,” she says a little sadly. “I fell all too fast.”

I haven’t been her best thing, though. It turns out that I could keep her in clothes and trucks and basswood, and I still couldn’t help that loneliness inside her, that timid, terrified orphan. She’d been taught to offer up her suffering and then taught nothing else after that, nothing about how to find hope and take joy. Nothing about offering up love again.

“I fell even faster,” I tell her seriously. “I promise. This has stuck around, Birdie. It’s not going anywhere. It is lifelong and irreversible.”

Her eyes are so, so sad when she looks at me, but they’re alive, and that’s enough of a start. And she leans in to kiss me, saying, “I believe you believe it. Crucified with it, you said.”

Yes, actually.

I did say that.

45

BELL

I give her a few days.

We spend the time on the couch watching TV, her tucked against me with her head pillowed on my bicep, my hand splayed on her stomach, or playing with Lilith on the floor or lying in bed while Birdie is almost entirely on my chest, like some kind of reverse weighted blanket. She holds me tight, making small sounds of unhappiness whenever I shift or move like I’m about to get up. We doze like this and sometimes we listen to an audiobook, and sometimes we listen to the full-size motor someone’s hidden inside our cat, and sometimes we talk. Not about the last week but about our childhoods, about what we thought we’d grow up to be, how many babies we’d wanted to have and what we’d name them.

Sometimes she presses a kiss to my chest, and I roll us over and kiss her until breathing is a thing of the past. It hurts like muscle being pulled from bone to stop us from going further, especially when she’s reaching for me, wrapping her hand around me, pleading quietly in my ear.

But it’s too soon, too much like we’re just going to pretend the last week didn’t happen. That we’re going to bury the memory of her leaving and why she left and the day of the storm, and together we’ll jump right into make-believe.

I understand the temptation, because I also miss the domestic idyll we had before, flavored as it was with obsession and lust and creation. I just want her to know that this is real too.

So I’m scheming, just like I’ve done for the last nine years, with one difference—I’m trapping myself now. I’m not dragging her to the underworld; I’m crawling around behind her on the surface.

But what do you do when someone doesn’t believe that you love them? When telling them isn’t enough? When making an entire world of peace and comfort isn’t enough?

When they’re so used to fear that the fear has become a load-bearing, unmovable girder stretching the length of their soul?

For the first time since I was a child, I consider seriously that I might have something in common with God.

On Monday, she takes her rental car to pick up Busy and take her home.

“Do you want me to come with?” I ask.

“Yes.” She closes her eyes and leans against my chest. I hug her tight, somehow always feeling starved for her, hungry for her in my arms, even if she’s just spent hours there. “But I think I need to go alone. In case she wants to talk about anything. Also she hates you.”

I laugh a little. “She’s a good sister then. Text me when you start coming home or if you want me to meet you somewhere and drive you home. Helping you makes me happy. Spending time with you makes me happy. Don’t feel like you need to push yourself because you feel shy about asking. Okay?”

She nods into my chest.