Silence crackles over the line. Claire knows she needs to say something, anything at all, but nothing is coming. What could she possibly say? What words are enough to sum up the last few months of her life?
“Hello?” Jackie says again, with a hint of impatience.
Claire can feel the threat of her hanging up the phone, and finally a single word crosses her lips. “Hello,” Claire murmurs.
Claire strains to hear anything besides Jackie’s sharp inhale. The phone line buzzes over the frantic beating of Claire’s heart.
“Claire?” Jackie says softly.
Claire nods, before realizing that Jackie can’t see her. She’s gripping the phone receiver so hard that her hand shakes. “It’s me.”
Jackie is breathing heavily. Claire is on the edge of a knife, and she blurts out the first thing that crosses her mind.
“I miss you,” Claire says.
“Claire…” Jackie says. It’s muffled, for some reason. Like she has her face in her hand.
“I have so much to tell you,” Claire says. “Can we talk? Please?”
“Fuck. Don’t do this to me,” Jackie whispers. “This is hard enough already.”
The sound of it snaps Claire’s heart in two. “Please just let me talk,” Claire says. She feels frantic, suddenly. Her voice cracks. “I think I know why you pushed me away. And it’s okay, I—I left—”But the line has already gone dead.
She’s not sure how to get Jackie to hear her out, if not over the phone. Would a letter work, or would Jackie just leave it unopened? Should she march to Jackie’s door, and risk being caught by Pete or Martha and forced to come back to Acacia Circle before she has her separation paperwork in order?
She calls Jackie once more, but it goes straight to her answering machine.
Chapter 24
Claire’s new apartment smells like freshly baked bread.
It’s completely bare of furniture when she gets the keys. Anita finds a mattress for her, and a trunk with a clasp for her clothes. Claire shares a phone line with the sandwich shop. There’s a hot plate and a refrigerator and a folding table with two chairs. She can hardly fit into the bathtub without folding her legs up like an accordion.
It’s perfect.
She hangs the walls with art. She has Anita over for a simple Christmas dinner—split pea soup, and some bread from the shop downstairs. Anita gives her a toaster oven, far outstripping Claire’s gift of a new set of clay sculpting tools. By Boxing Day, her new routine has become so normal that looking back on the last ten years of her life feels like she’s watching it at a drive-in. She can see the memories, can feel the echo of despair, but it feels like someone else’s story, seen through a foggy windshield.
She picks up her first set of divorce papers from the lawyer on New Years Eve.
Her steps feel light on the way home. And her new apartment does feel like home, now—calling her old phone number in Acacia Circle feels odd in comparison. Now, standing in the kitchen of the sandwich shop clutching a yellow envelope full of paperwork postdated to the first of January, she waits for Pete to pick up.
“Davis residence,” Pete says gruffly, after so many rings that Claire has almost hung up in frustration.
His voice over the phone brings none of the excitement or tension that Jackie’s did. It doesn’t even bring guilt. Claire’s onlyfeeling now is that she wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“Hello, Peter,” Claire says.
“Claire?” Pete says. He lets out a loud breath, but unsurprisingly he sounds more angry than anything. “Where thehellhave you been? How could you just run off like that? You realize it’s been almost two months since you’ve been home?”
“Yes,” Claire says simply.
“You missed your appointment at the fertility clinic,” Pete says. “They charged good money for that. And everyone’s been asking about you, and the house—”
“I told you I was leaving,” Claire interrupts. “It isn’t my fault you weren’t listening.”
Pete doesn’t address the correction. “When are you coming home?”
“I’m not.”
