Chapter 9: Pencil Marks

Winslow did not leave the hospital for two days.

He slept in the chair.

He ate what Dorinda put in his hand.

On the third morning, he drove home alone to shower and change.

I rode in the coat.

I had learned that I could not stay near my own body without something of mine to hold me to the world, and the coat was the only thing I had.

He parked in the drive and walked past the front door.

He went to the garden entrance, the one the housekeeper used, so he would not meet his mother.

In his study he knelt by the safe.

His hand was steady on the dial.

He took out the Lie Book.

It was smaller than I remembered.

A black leather notebook, soft at the corners, held shut with a rubber band.

He put it on the desk and looked at it a long time.

Then he put it in his briefcase and drove back to the hospital.

At the bedside, he sat down, took the book out, and opened it on his knee.

Dorinda had gone home to sleep.

The room was empty except for the machine, my body and my husband.

I floated beside his shoulder and read with him.

Each page had one entry.

The date, the words I had said, and the word LIE, in his square capitals.

Entry two, in his writing: Said Wesley is using her card.

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