The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [88]
“Then one day I opened the purse while we were on our way to the car, and Mother saw my stash. She walked me back into the store and made me return the candy. I had to apologize to the manager. It was horrible. I had to tell him I’d never do it again. And I never did.”
“You almost did today.”
“Yes.” Paisley tried another laugh, equally unconvincing. “I could see you didn’t believe me when I said being afraid of what we’re thinking is different from actually doing it. But I knew you wouldn’t shoplift anything. For me, it’s scary after all these years, but I thought it would also be kind of a rush. For you, it’s as if thinking about the crime is the crime. Even imagining you’d take that blouse. Even imagining you’d hurt your child. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. I wanted you to see that.”
Julianne said nothing.
“And you didn’t take that blouse, did you? Even when I dared you,” Paisley pressed on. “Even when I made it sound like fun. Even when I did it myself. You wouldn’t steal a blouse from the store, and you wouldn’t hurt Toby. Think of it, Julianne. That night you couldn’t even picture what that witchy self in your mind would do to him. It was too horrible for you. You never lost sight of the bridges you didn’t want to cross. Not once. Not then, and not today.”
“So the shoplifting was a deliberate, preplanned act of crisis intervention, and not a spur-of-the-moment impulse?”
“No, of course not. I thought of it when I saw how upset you were. I wanted to help you.” But Paisley’s face went the color of chalk, and her voice was a thread. “I didn’t take the tags off the blouse. I didn’t think they could do anything. But when I saw that saleslady . . .”
“She would have liked to skewer you. Us,” Julianne corrected.
“Yes.” A heavy silence, and then Paisley took a long breath that made her stand two inches taller, revived. “It got you out of yourself, didn’t it?”
Well, it had. Julianne’s spiky anger melted into something that felt more like gratitude. Not once, not for a millisecond during that danger-filled episode, had Julianne recalled the terrible night she’d imagined hurting her son.
By the time they reached the car, Paisley’s shivering had stopped and color had returned to her face. “Do you have a plan?” she demanded the moment they were on the road.
“What?”
“A plan for leaving Bill. At my party you said you were leaving him. Was that for real? Or was it just . . . I don’t know. Songs of a summer night?”
“A very drunken summer night.”
“See? That’s why you’re drinking too much and imagining you’re going crazy,” Paisley said. “Because you feel helpless. You feel helpless because you don’t have a plan.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Paisley shook her head, impatient. “It is. You’re despondent. You’re depressed. You’re not psychotic.”
“Or so one hopes.”
“Well, I thought we proved that.”
It still seemed slim proof to Julianne, but she didn’t object.
“What do you want to do with yourself?” Paisley asked.
Julianne wanted to be . . . not evil. Not scared. Not . . . things too ephemeral to discuss. She didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
When her voice finally came, the cool surety of it surprised her. “I used to think that if I could go back to school and get another degree, I could get a job that paid a decent living wage,” she admitted. “Then I could leave Bill and be independent. But when you have three kids and the oldest is only eleven, you realize that it’s too long a haul. You’re in a cage. There’s no way out. The whole idea of leaving him was stupid.”
“I don’t think so,” Paisley said. “If Bill is so rich, and if you really want to be rid of him, get a good divorce lawyer. Get a settlement. Make him pay alimony and child support. Make him give you the house. Then you can go back to school and pay for whatever you need.”
“That sounds so brutal.”
“Better than being brutal to your own body parts. I’ll find you a lawyer, if you want.”
Julianne hesitated.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Paisley said. “And I’ll find you a therapist.”
“A therapist!”
“Julianne,