The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [23]
A relationship. Clearly more than an affair. More than sex. A relationship, a union of emotional depth. Humiliation, Kay obviously thinks. But no—it's the utter rejection. She's always loved Ken, loved him exactly as he was, and for being everything she was not. He had brought security into her life and a lightness of being she'd never known. Before Ken she'd always felt alone. With him at her side she didn't have to be so guarded anymore. She could let down her defenses, breathe, laugh at herself He made her feel complete, but now what is she? What's left? As she drives, pressure builds in her skull. She wants to save her marriage, doesn't she? Yes. She just doesn't want to be with him. Doesn't want to go home. Doesn't want to go to Anguilla. Even thinking of him makes her skin crawl. Kay's right—she doesn't want to hate him, but she needs to do something, hurt him. Hit him. Over and over again. Not even for the pain he'd feel, but to release this ache in her chest. In her throat, her brain. Just to be able to think clearly again. Or maybe not to think. A sudden jerk of the wheel, accelerator to the floor, and this out-of-control life stops hurting. But Chloe and Drew. Her children. They haven't done anything wrong. She blinks, forces her eyes onto the narrow, winding road.
St. Paul's serves the poorer neighborhoods of Franklin. Father Grewley started Sojourn House five years ago in an abandoned tenement. At first the bulk of the work, cooking and cleaning up, was done by the young priest himself and a few parishioners. Recently, Sojourn House has been relocated in an unused school building, whose twenty-odd rooms serve as clinic, counseling rooms, offices, resource center, and temporary shelter for the abused women and their children needing to get their lives back on track. With enough publicity and the right connections, Sojourn House has become a very chic charity, supported by local businesses and industry. Among their fund-raising events are wine-tasting parties, art auctions, golf tournaments, the highlights of Franklin's social season. Because of all the media attention some people think she actually works at Sojourn House. Congressman Linzer's office has sent her a framed commendation. From the White House has come another, unframed; and everywhere she goes people take time to congratulate her.
“I think that's wonderful, feeding those poor souls,” said the supermarket checkout lady.
“Thank you.”
“There should be more people like you in this world, Mrs. Hammond,” whispered the reference librarian.
“Thank you.”
“You're all so kind. We're all so good, so kind and good. Thank you, thank you thank you, thank you! Thank you?” she shouts as the car jolts over the potholes that mark the change of neighborhoods, past crowded tenements. “For fucking what?” she yells, laughing. With the slightest acceleration the car flies along the dirty snow-banked streets, past the three-deckers and their first-floor pizza places and pawn shops, still brightly lit. Here, even the barber shops stay open late, sanctuaries where men can linger instead of going home to pain and failure. For the first time in her life, she understands. She turns up the radio until throbbing music fills the car.
“A relationship!” she cries over the drumbeat. “Oh my God, my God. Oh my God!” she moans. She's never been a good enough mother, or good enough wife, or good enough lover, or good enough daughter, or good enough sister, or good enough friend. Never good enough. No matter where she goes, what she does, always an alone-ness, that breathless, uncontainable need to flee, her flesh crawling with this same revulsion and panic. “Don't,” she warned Ken when he first laid his hand on her stomach, beneath tightly grasped sheets of her dark, dark bedroom, needing time, that was all, time to take a deep breath, to relax, to dare feel anything, with even his breath at her flesh unbearable.
“Close your eyes and make believe I'm