The Safekeep(51)

“Isa,” said Louis. “Isa, it’s me, Louis, how are you? Listen, Isa, listen, I’ve got a question, I’ve got something to ask of you, Isa I need to—”

She knew at the sound of his voice. Just that first syllable, and she knew—knew from the inside out. Not exactly what, only that it was coming, fast, and that it was going to settle over the night like a freeze.

“What—” She cradled the phone closer to her ear, hid it. Her heart turned over on itself, fast. “What do you want? Are you back? Have you come back?”

“Listen,” he said. He sounded harried. He sounded like he was using some kind of public phone. He, too, was cradling the phone near—a rustle, a mouth-sound. “Listen, Isabel, is ah. Is Eva still there with you?”

“Is she—What do you mean? Where else would she be? You—you left her here, if—”

“God, I don’t have time for this,” he said, not to Isabel, seemingly to himself, or someone near—someone invisible. “Hey, listen, Isa, Isa, are you listening?”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“I need you to—listen. Can you, ah.” He cleared his throat, shuffled again. “Can you get her out of there? Like, tell her I’m, I don’t know, I’ve… drowned in the channel, I’m not coming home, I’m… ha…” He wanted to be making fun of himself. He was doing it wrong—he was too serious for jokes.

A moment passed. Isabel listened to him breathe, and there—there it was. She knew now. She understood. They’d been here before. “Louis,” she said. It was an accusation—it was a threat, too.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know, okay? I know, I’m sorry, I know, I can’t help it, she—We met at the—I was staying with this family, and—it happened quickly. Mary came back with me. Isabel, I swear, I swear I’ve never felt this way. You have to believe me, Isabel. Do you believe me? I know I’ve—I know I’m asking a lot, but God, if you could feel what I feel. If you could see her. If you knew what—If you’d ever felt this way, God, Isabel, I promise you, I promise you, you wouldn’t judge me so much, you wouldn’t—”

“Do not—” Isabel started, and didn’t get to finish because Eva walked into the room with her glass of water and she saw it: something about Isabel’s stance, something about her tone of voice. How she was holding the phone.

She said, “Who is it?”

On the phone, Louis said, “Is that her?”

“No one,” Isabel said, and Louis told her, “Don’t tell her, Isabel, don’t—” and Isabel told him, “Shut up,” and Eva put down the glass and stepped forward and said:

“Is that Louis? Is that him?”

Isabel put her hand over the receiver. She said, “Eva. Please.”

“Give me the phone,” Eva said.

Isabel heard Louis say, “Don’t—don’t put her on the—” and there was a tussle: Eva trying to get the phone from Isabel’s grip and Isabel not trying hard enough, arms soft and elbows giving and then Eva pushed her aside—not roughly. Just a push. Isabel went, a single stumble of a step.

Eva said into the phone, “Hello, my darling.” Her voice was pitched. It was terrible—wrong and honeyed. She hadn’t talked like that in so long. She held the phone the same way Isabel had, cradled and hidden. Isabel couldn’t make out Louis’s words, only the timbre. Eva replied to him, saying, “When are… Mm-hmm… So when… Yes, I… Me too, darling, yes, so much, when—hm. Okay. No—sooner. Sooner. Okay. What?”

She was quiet for a while. Louis was talking. Eva was nodding. She had a hand over her chest, over her heart.

Isabel swallowed around a bulb of nausea. She found herself angry, and that the emotion took the shape of an old familiar one: how she had spent the early days and early nights sitting in Eva’s shadow; annoyed with her, obsessed with her, unable to look away from her. She’d thought it was hate. She knew better, now. Louis’s words skipped and skipped in her mind. I swear, he said, I swear I’ve never felt this way, I swear I’ve—

Eva said, “Okay.” She said, “Me too, darling.” She said, “I’ll see you then.”

She hung up. Her head dropped. She put her hands over her face and breathed several times—loud, as if she was about to cry. But she didn’t cry. She inhaled, she pushed her hair from her face. She turned to face Isabel. “He’s back,” she said. “He’s coming tomorrow. To get me.”

Isabel pressed her teeth together. She needed to swallow before answering: “On your request.”

“On my request,” Eva echoed. She looked pallid now. Her pretty skirt, her faded lipstick.

The whole thing crowded on itself. Eva stood there, a pretense of pride, chin lifted, like she was about to take on Isabel, and Isabel thought: Who are you? They were kissing in the car. They held each other. She said: “So he didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me?”

“Right,” Isabel said.

“Tell me what?”

“You want to leave me,” Isabel said. “You can’t wait to get away from me.”

“Isabel,” Eva said, an exhausted word.