The Safekeep(46)

“There was,” she started. Finished it with a “Once,” which wasn’t much at all.

“Who?”

“What, you expect you know her?” Eva gave her a look. Her sunglasses had come off. More freckles with every sunny day—a wild smattering under her eye. “Just a girl. We were… young.” She was thoughtful about it.

Isabel’s hold went soft. She imagined: if she and Eva had met when they were younger. Her heart kicked, hard and hungry.

Eva said, “I met her at a boardinghouse. I was looking for a place to stay, somewhere else, and she had… relatives, and said I could stay with them. With her.” It was as vague as any story could get. Isabel let her talk. She sounded—far. “Her aunt and uncle. They had an attic room for us. One bed. It was a cold winter. So…”

“So?”

“So. So it was a cold winter.”

It was hard to remember the chill of winter in the heat. It was hard to shift away from the clamping hand at the throat at the notion: someone else’s hand on Eva. Someone else’s mouth. It wasn’t this girl Isabel was imagining—was jealous of. Louis was due in a few days—they weren’t sure how many. He was meant to send word, and no word had come as of yet. When the phone rang, on the occasion that it rang, Eva would go stiff and Isabel would rush to it with a lump in her throat. It hadn’t been Louis, so far. Once, Uncle Karel. Once, a wrong number. Isabel did not know what would happen on the day it would be Louis—Eva would not speak of it, would only say, Let’s not think about it! and Isabel swung daily between hope and terror, though she hardly knew what hope would look like; what the worst of terror would look like, either. Hendrik and Sebastian lived in the city, in an apartment. Isabel would not leave the house, would never leave the house. But Eva seemed to like it here. Eva cared for the way the light filled the rooms, cared for the neat order of the kitchen, had watched Isabel work the garden and called it nice to see, she could—she might—

Isabel asked, “What was she like?”

“Funny,” Eva said. “A habitual liar.” Eva smiled. “Lied about everything, even when she didn’t have to. Ha.”

Isabel went quiet. Went still enough that Eva’s attention was called back to her, that Eva turned to her, searched for something between the one eye and the other. “Do you miss her?”

Eva cupped Isabel’s face. She said, “Sometimes. Yes.” Then, “Sweetheart. Oh—” She kissed her. The sweat was salty between them. Isabel took her inside the house, took her by the hand, wet a cloth under the tap and cooled Eva’s hot face with it. The bridge of her nose had been pinched red by the sun.

“That’s nice.” Eva swayed into her. Isabel turned her face this way, that. Eva let her. Isabel kept her with a hand to the small of her back. She put the wet towel to Eva’s throat.

“Yeah,” Eva sighed, and shivered. Isabel held her there. A hand over cloth over throat—held her there like that. Held her by her throat.

That night Eva didn’t want to sleep in her own bed, wanted them both to sleep in Isabel’s. “It’s cooler in your room,” was her explanation, pulling on Isabel’s arm, back-walking them the other direction. “Come on,” she said. “Come on, a change of scenery. Come on.”

Isabel’s room was cooler. The sheets crisper, tightly made. The bed a narrow one, not made for two people. Eva would have her night terrors, and Isabel would have to keep her from hurting herself—from hurting Isabel: constrain her arms, hush, tell her, It’s a dream you’re okay it’s a dream shhh it’s a—

But first, Eva walked around the bed and touched things. The mirror’s frame, the picture on the vanity, the bristles of Isabel’s hairbrush. On the shelf: fingers along the spines of the books.

She asked, “Has this always been your room?”

“Yes.”

“Have you always kept it so neat?”

“Yes,” Isabel said. She was watching her intently. Eva took the old tattered stuffed animal of a hare from its perch and inspected it, its worn fur, the spot where its nose had worn down to fibers.

“Sweet,” she said. “Yours?”

“Yes.” Explained, unnecessarily: “I was a child.”

Eva smiled at the hare. Pet it between the eyes. “You must have loved it. To have kept it.”

Isabel didn’t answer. It wasn’t a question, wasn’t much else but a statement. She did not want to say yes, did not want to agree to something so indulgent. She wanted Eva to put the doll back. She wanted Eva to come to bed. She did not want to talk about the past.

“What’s her name?”

“Whose?”

Eva gave her a look. “The animal’s.”

“Haas,” Isabel said: hare. Eva’s petting hand stilled. She was looking at Isabel, a steady look, a blank one.

“It’s what it is,” Isabel continued. She thought perhaps she had said something wrong, and could not think what. “Isn’t it? A hare.”

Eva put the doll back on the shelf. She was breathing lighter now. “Call it what it is. Ha,” she said, a little laugh.

“I’m not,” Isabel said, stopped. “I did not have the imagination, as a child, to…”

Eva had come close as Isabel spoke, had come close quickly, was moving all fast and blearily and put her hands to Isabel’s and her face to her face and said, “Let’s not talk let’s not talk,” and pushed into Isabel. Let Isabel push back into her.