The Safekeep(73)

“I’m not speaking in riddles. I truly—I truly didn’t know, Eva, I—” Her voice was thick, and Eva heard it, said:

“I apologize! Have I upset you?” Eva clucked her tongue. “So sorry.”

There was no speaking of it. Eva was wrapped in thorns. Isabel closed her eyes tightly, opened them again. Said, “Why didn’t you—” She stopped. She tried again, and the first words broke: “Why like that. Why Louis. It didn’t have to be him, you could’ve come to the house, I would’ve—we could’ve met like that. You could’ve said, explained, I would’ve—”

“You forget,” she cut in. “You forget, Isabel. I came to you as—as family and you despised me on sight. God!” She laughed. “Imagine if I would’ve come to you as a stranger!”

“I wouldn’t have sent you away.”

“Wouldn’t you? Truly, Isabel? Be truthful. Be truthful about who you were when we met. Don’t pretend.”

A gust of wind whirled itself into the nook of the basement garden. It made the dusting of snow dance up, around. Eva closed the door, locked it. The sound of the city dampened. Eva’s mouth was red and chapped. She looked unwell. Isabel recalled: Kissing Eva in the car outside the house. Biting the heel of her hand. Eva saying, Let’s go. Isabel saying, Inside? And Eva saying: Sure. Inside. Sure.

Isabel sat down at the table. Her coat was big and awkward in the small space. She said, “Did you mean it?” She said, “Any of it?”

Eva was still leaned against the door. She had her arms around herself, holding on to the scarf. “Any of what?”

“Louis,” Isabel said. “Me.”

Eva laughed, a short and cruel sound. “Isabel,” she said, as if chastising a dramatic child. Then, “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t just say yes. Think about it.”

Isabel looked up at her. She let her heart drop. She said, “Yes.”

“No,” Eva said, harsh, on purpose. Then, on a rough breath, leaving her all at once: “Yes. God, what do you ask me? You’ve read it. You know—you know what I…” Her eyes were down. “Louis liked me. I thought—perhaps this is what’s meant to happen. Perhaps this is how I get it back. All of it, all of it. Not just parts, not just crumbs, two spoons and a knife, all of it. The house would be his, and maybe… it could be…” She took a breath. Squared herself. “But that wasn’t what was meant to happen at all, was it. God, I was stupid. I ruined it all. I should’ve never…” She smiled something private and terrible.

“Should’ve never what?”

Eva looked at her. “You know what.”

“Why did you?”

Eva opened her mouth, closed it. A tremor, the dimpling of her chin. She looked like she might cry. She said louder than before: “Oh, I don’t know, Isabel. You were there, you…” She decided not to finish her sentence. She shook her head, looked at things around the room: the table, the bed, the ceiling. She was trying not to look at Isabel. She said to the lampshade covered in gauze: “You see, when you spend a very long time being—being quite invisible, really, and quiet, then… You see—” A halted word. “I thought you saw me. For a second there.”

Isabel was quiet. A hand was squeezing at her throat.

Eva said, “I was wrong about you, too. You saw nothing.”

Isabel’s voice came out like an upturned barrel: “No, I—I did, I do, Eva, I—”

“You saw me? You saw what you wanted to see. A stupid girl. And then you saw—I don’t know. Something you could have. And then you thought I was a thief and then you did what you were always going to do. What you’ve always done to people like me.” She said, “You sent me away.”

The back of Isabel’s hand was pinched red. She wanted to argue and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, was nauseous and the air did not do what it was meant to do, going in. Coming out. She wanted to leave, she never wanted to leave, she wanted to sit there and sit there and wait until something broke.

She said: “Come to the house.” She said, “Eva. There’s—something I want to—” She swallowed. “To give you.”

Eva’s expression was bewilderment. She started walking. There wasn’t much space to walk, and so the steps were halted, awkward: from the door to the foot of her bed to the wall. She said, “I won’t—I can’t, I won’t go back there, I can’t, it’s—”

Isabel stood. The chair scraped over the floor.

Eva said, “You don’t know, what it’s—To have and to lose and have and lose over and over—”

It did not take a big gesture to reach for her. She was, in the end, so close. Isabel took her in her arms and Eva pushed and sobbed and Isabel tugged and Eva pulled and then pushed and then held: twisted hands in Isabel’s shirt. She fit into Isabel’s neck. She fit perfectly. Isabel held her by the back of her head, held her by her ribs, shook and kissed what was near: her cheekbone, her ear, the dear line of her ear.

Eva breathed unevenly. Isabel said, “Eva.” Held her closer, said, “Eva, Eva.” Said, “I’m so sorry. Eva, can’t you see? Can’t you see how I—What I’d do for you. How I’d—” She swallowed, felt the bobbing of her own throat against Eva.