The pearl necklace snaps in Claire’s hand.
Claire blinks, looking down at her feet as pearls cascade over her shoes. She’s vaguely aware that real pearls shouldn’t scatter like this, but the idea of being hurt by something so inconsequential as Pete’s inability to buy a decent necklace is ludicrous right now.
She should feel something, shouldn’t she? A gift from her husband lies broken on the concrete. Pearls are rolling acrossJackie’s doorstep, shining and opalescent even in the rainy gloom. But no sadness manifests. No disappointment. Nothing. Just a rapid fading of all color from the world. Everything settles into a bone-deep numbness, and Claire can’t even summon tears.
She doesn’t bother to pick up the pearls. She turns on her heel and walks back home, her feet squelching in the wet grass, and when Pete gets home, he doesn’t even notice that she’s not wearing the necklace.
Jackie’s curtains stay closed.
Chapter 19
Numbness becomes a comfort in the days that follow.
To distract from the conversation that keeps playing in her head like a scratched record, Claire throws herself back into her old patterns. The house has never been more sparkling clean. She scrubs every inch of the bathroom and kitchen until her fingers are raw. She cooks, and she cleans, and she hardly eats a morsel.
Pete has seemed relieved by the change. He hasn’t noticed Claire’s weariness, or her dissatisfaction. He hasn’t noticed that she’s dropped almost a full dress size from her already thin frame, or that she’s always filling her hands with some kind of activity to keep herself from thinking too hard. He seems pleased, in fact.
Even the things Claire used to enjoy are harder than they were before. Working in the gardens to curb the summer plants and encourage autumn growth used to be one of the household tasks she didn’t dread. Now she’s elbow-deep in mulch, ignoring the soreness in her body as she tears out weeds and prunes flowers, and all she can think about is Jackie.
There’s an empty place inside her, now. She’s gotten so used to having Jackie as a break in her long days that it feels impossible to go back to a Jackie-less world.
It must have been that day in the pool that made Jackie push her away. Claire goes over and over it in her head as she resists the urge to look over the fence, dissecting every detail. They’d been having fun, hadn’t they? Jackie had been so close, and then she’d been running for the hills. Claire knows empirically that there’s no chance Jackie could have actually read thestrange thoughts Claire has been having, the dreams and the unexplainable urges, but they still fill Claire with shame.
This must be Claire’s fault. Her unnatural feelings have driven Jackie away. Unless Jackie suddenly decided Claire truly wasn’t worth all the trouble. But then why did she run away so suddenly? Wouldn’t she have—
Claire hardly feels the wasp land until she looks down to see the stinger buried in her hand.
It buzzes away, apparently satisfied with its work. Claire can see the spot starting to swell up already, but the pain feels strange. It seeps up her arm, radiating to each of her fingers, but it’s as if the sharp throbbing has sliced through the numbness she’s been suspended in. The wasp’s venom seeps into her bloodstream, casting smoky pulses of pain through her nerves, and for the first time this week it feels like Claire can breathe.
How strange.
The back door opens and closes somewhere behind her. Pete has been out this afternoon doing some kind of errand he wouldn’t explain, and Claire couldn’t start dinner until he got back, lest it get cold.
“Come on inside and get cleaned up, hon,” Pete calls. “I’ve got a surprise.”
Claire stands. She leaves the gardens in their chaotic state, following Pete inside. She turns the bathroom tap as hot as it can go, viciously scrubbing the dirt from under her fingernails with an old cleaning toothbrush. It’s only when she’s dried them on a towel that she sees the state of her hands.
They’re an alarming mix of pale skin and crimson splotches. The skin between her knuckles is dry and cracking. When she clenches her fists, she can see the fault lines filling with red. Her nail beds are chewed beyond recognition, and both of her palms are a minefield of scabbed nail-marks. The wasp sting on the back of her hand has swollen to the size of a quarter.
She’s reaching in the medicine cabinet for some ointment when Pete calls for her again.
“Are you coming?”
Claire’s arm drops. She swallows down whatever the wasp sting has released, and she joins Pete in the living room.
Pete is grinning ear to ear. There’s a box next to him on the carpet, wrapped in brown paper.
“What’s this?” Claire says.
Pete is puffing hard. The most exercise he usually gets is mowing the lawn, so carrying the box inside seems to have taxed him. “A present.”
“For who?”
“For you!” Pete slaps the top of the box—standing upright, it reaches his hip. “Call it a birthday gift. Open it, go on.”
Claire’s curiosity stirs. It might be several months late, but Pete hasn’t gotten her anything for her birthday in recent memory. This is a nice step in the right direction. Maybe he really has noticed all the work she’s been doing.
Claire reaches for the paper, but Pete is too excited—before she can open it he’s already torn the wrapping off, presenting the gift like it’s a shiny NASA rocket.
