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Stella had bought him underwear.
It was the first gift she’d given him. How funny. Had she thought his were getting worn out? Maybe they were. He tossed the package into his sports bag and zipped it up. They weren’t very expensive, and she certainly wasn’t going to use them herself. She’d bought them for him, and he was going to keep them.
On his way out of her room, he slipped his billfold from his pocket, fished out a folded slip of paper, and set it on her nightstand. There, proof that he wasn’t his dad.
But maybe that wasn’t why it felt so right to do this. Maybe it felt right because he was in love.
He strode through the empty house, turning o
ff lights as he went. After he locked the front door, he tucked his key under the welcome mat, said a quiet good-bye, and left.
{ CHAP+ER }
25
When Stella reached for her glasses the next morning, her fingers encountered a piece of paper. Frowning, she picked it up and held it close to her bleary, tear-swollen eyes. A check. Her check. For fifty thousand dollars.
She sat up in bed and ran trembling fingers over the surface of the check. What did this mean? Why hadn’t he kept it and cashed it?
His words from last night whispered through her head.
I accepted your proposal because I wanted to help you.
Not because he wanted to be with her, not even for money, but because he pitied her.
Because she was autistic.
Awful emotion spread through her like poison, and she covered her mouth to muffle the sounds coming from her throat. She’d thought she was rubbing off on him. She’d thought she was special. She’d thought he could love her back. But every time they’d been together, it had been nothing but charity. All those kisses, all those moments, all charity. And now that he’d done his good deed, he was moving on.
The pain crushed and tore, destroying her from the inside. She wasn’t a good deed. She was a person. If she had known how he felt, she never would have issued that proposal. She was not a charity case. Her money was just as good as anyone else’s. Why couldn’t he have just taken it?
Swiping at her face angrily, she told herself she was tougher than this. She wasn’t going to fall apart over a man who didn’t want her.
She made the bed with angry jerks of her arms and stomped into the bathroom to floss her teeth. She worked the mint string so forcefully her gums bled. When she closed her hand around her toothbrush, something reckless made her let go and hop in the shower instead. Very deliberately, she reversed her shower routine, scrubbing herself from bottom to top. She wasn’t a robot or a disabled autistic girl. She was herself. She was enough. She could be anything. She could make herself into anything. She could prove everyone wrong.
By the time she left the shower, she was breathing heavily. She was going to do this and do it well. When she was done, she’d be new and fresh and fantastic. She deserved to be those things.
She dried herself off with brisk rubs of her towel, purposefully walked past her waiting toothbrush, and went into the closet, where she pulled on the black dress Michael loved. She didn’t bother with a cardigan. Let people look.
Gazing in the mirror over her sink as she finally allowed herself to brush her teeth, she found her eyes ablaze with determination. Her hair was a wild mess, but she didn’t plan to tame it. She wasn’t in a tame mood. Other women let their moods dictate their actions, change their routines. Stella was going to be the same.
After she choked down a slice of dry toast, she stared at her empty house. What now? Her body raged with the need for action, for change, for violence. There would be no working today. People didn’t work on Sundays. Once the shops opened, they went out. They ran errands. They did things together.
There was no more together for Stella.
She sat down before her glossy black Steinway and lifted the fallboard away from the keys. She automatically played the opening chords for “Clair de Lune,” but the song was too slow and too romantic, and it reminded her of Michael. She broke from the melody after the first crescendo. Instead of letting the music ebb back into gentleness, she took it higher, poured melodic anguish into it. Her throat swelled, and her heart bled into the notes.
That wasn’t enough. She gave the piano her rage. She pounded chords onto the keys in quick succession like storm waves crashing on cliffs. Wave after wave after angry wave. Still not enough.
She did something she’d never done before. Stella had always been gentle. She spoke softly. She didn’t hurt anyone intentionally. She loved music and order and patterns.
She slammed her hands on the keyboard, producing clashing off-key jumbles of notes. A mess of chaos. Loud, loud, louder. Over and over again until her palms hurt, and her teeth were gnashing, and her body shook from sound overload. At that point, she hit harder, warring against the noise and herself.
A snapping deep within the piano traveled up her fingers and into her arms. Only then did she let her shaking hands fall away from the keys. She lifted her foot from the sustain pedal, dampening the residual ringing of the strings. The pained stuttering of her heart filled her ears.
The piano needed to be tuned.
She’d worry about it later. The stores were opening soon, and she wanted to go shopping. For perfume.
