“Eric,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to live without her.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. She’s going to make it. I know it.” He looked straight into her eyes as he said it.
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
She knew he was telling the truth. Eric had always been like this, the very definition of blind optimism. In the past, she’d found it appealing—contagious too, the belief that anything was possible ifyou just willed it that way. But then Eric started working for sleazy Shawn Labatoir and changed in ways she wouldn’t have willed if she’d had that power. He started showing less of his new self to her and more of it at the office, on social media, wherever else he went to disappear. He worked longer hours and got raises and promotions, which bought them things he, not she, wanted: new furniture for the house, a renovated kitchen, dinners at New York’s finest restaurants. Robin didn’t care about any of that, and now she was the owner of an expensive home she spent a lot of time alone in; its only real value its proximity to her parents, one of whom was dead, the other so very close to it, for reasons she might never know and that, like everything else, she had no control over.
Robin took a breath.Enough.Eric put his beer down on the counter and took her hand in his. She didn’t pull away.
“Anybody show up at the house after I left?” she said.
“A few people.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Michael from your office. Some lady who said she used to babysit you when you were a kid. A guy who said he was one of your dad’s colleagues, but seemed a lot more like a patient if you ask me—”
“A babysitter?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She didn’t stay long, but she left her card and said she’d love to catch up. It’s on the table.”
Robin spotted it and picked it up—a plain white card with black lettering. A name:Nicola Crane. A phone number. A P.O. box in Philadelphia.
Eric said, “You remember her? Nicola?”
“What does she look like?”
“Gray hair. Your mom’s age, maybe? About your height.”
“Very bright blue eyes?”
“Yeah.”
“Nikki. That’s how she introduced herself. And I got the impression she was a friend of my mom’s.”
“She is,” he said. “I think she was a friend of your mom’s who babysat you from time to time. Not a babysitter per se.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it?”
“I saw her at the funeral. I don’t remember anyone from my childhood who looked like her.”
He smiled. “She probably didn’t, back then,” he said. “Anyway, she seemed anxious to get together. She said she’s going to be in town until your mom gets out of the hospital. Said you can call her anytime.”
“See, now that’s interesting too. Who is this old friend of my mom’s who I haven’t seen since I was a kid—and who cares so much about what happens to my mom, she puts her life in Philadelphia on hold?”
Eric didn’t answer, and, when Robin looked up at him, she saw he was absorbed in his phone. Her heart dropped a little. “I’m going up to bed now.”
“Wait, what? Sorry I was just—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Good night.”
Eric said something. Robin didn’t hear him and didn’t ask him to repeat it. She went up the stairs with Nicola Crane’s card in her hand. She tried to remember her, a younger version of this sinewy, silver-haired, tough-looking woman.Nicola, Nikki. Knickknack, paddywhack...Maybe she’d gone by something else.Mrs. Crane?
Robin changed into a big T-shirt, brushed her teeth. She got into bed without taking off her makeup, because the thought of running those moist towelettes all over her face wore her out and anyway,most of her makeup was gone. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally, head to toe, her muscles like wrung-out rags.Maybe I can get to sleep tonight without any help.
