Chapter 12: The Car

Joan did not try to take the phone.

She stood at the top of the stairs with her hands folded in front of her coat.

She watched me carry the blue tin down.

"Clara," she called after me, in her kindest voice. "Darling. Think about the baby."

I did not turn around.

Outside, a gray car was idling at the curb with its engine running.

Simon was behind the wheel.

He leaned across and pushed the passenger door open.

"I told you not to go in alone," he said.

"I know."

"I was going to count to ten minutes and come in after you. I got to nine."

I got in and shut the door.

Then my hands began to shake, all at once, and they would not stop.

Simon did not touch them.

He pulled away from the curb and drove two blocks to an empty lot behind a hardware store.

He parked facing a brick wall.

He turned off the engine.

I put the tin on the dashboard and played him the last four minutes of my phone.

He listened with his eyes shut.

When Joan said, "I carried you out of that garden, yes," his hand closed on the steering wheel until the knuckles went white.

When she said, "He had Simon," he made a small sound in his throat.

I stopped the recording.

"She says she'll tell my father I've been sleeping with you," I said. "She'll go to the hospital this afternoon."

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