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I licked your wife’s cunt. Up against this truck. While Caroline watched.

“It could be good for your sister, too,” he says. “I heard she’s living with you now. You could take her along. Give her a fresh start.”

I watch the white line on the highway, willing my mind to go blank.

I can’t think about what he said, because when I start thinking about shit like whether I could take Frankie and leave, just go, I pore over every angle of it. I work through every possible way it could go down, and then I shut them off, one after another.

I don’t have to reach for impossibilities because they’re all right there in front of me—the impossibility of tearing Frankie away from everything she knows.

The impossibility of juggling work and child care and classes all at the same time.

The impossibility of taking one more favor from a man I’ve screwed over in every conceivable way.

I can’t tell myself I deserve to, not when I can conjure up the smell of Rita Tomlinson’s perfume and the blank white horror in Caroline’s expression.

Wanting things makes me miserable.

Wanting things makes me look at trees and guardrails when I’m driving, makes me ponder whether I should buy a bottle of whiskey and take it out to Bo’s, drink it in the driveway until I’m ready to unlock his gun cabinet, load up his .48, and put an end to this.

“I can’t,” I say.

“You can,” Dr. T insists.

“No. I can’t. I just fucking can’t.”

After that, he’s quiet. Too quiet.

His hands are folded in his lap, his gaze on the middle distance. It takes him another mile to speak. “I had another question I wanted to ask you.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s about Rita.”

My arms are made of lead. My foot’s a block on the gas pedal.

“I noticed at the funeral,” he says, “and after the funeral when I tried to speak with her … but I’m not being honest if I say it’s the first time I wondered.” He pauses. Flashes me a quick, uncomfortable smile. “I’m concerned she might be somewhat obsessed, I guess. With you.”

Obsessed with me.

Is that what you call it?

“She talks about you a lot. We talk about you, of course, in the usual way, but since you’ve been back in town, her interest seems like … too much.”

He wipes his hand over his mouth.

“I know this is an awkward question, but has she behaved in any way that’s inappropriate? That might cause concern?”

He wants me to reassure him.

He’s scared, because he’s figured something out, but he won’t let himself see the real shape of it. He doesn’t want to add one and one and get two, so he’s looking at me to tell him, Hey, no worries, it’s three. Look. I’ll show you the math.

I flip the signal and turn the wheel. The truck bounces into the middle school parking lot.

“No,” I say. “Nothing to be concerned about.” And then I manage a smile. It takes everything I’ve got to make it look real, but I give it everything, because I don’t want Dr. Tomlinson to know what his wife is like.

It’s bad enough that I do.

“Nothing at all.”

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