The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [64]
“I wish you could've heard this guy. He makes a lot of sense.” Ken climbs into bed and turns off the light. He is usually the more accommodating one during these discussions, while she will push and jab, keeping the scuffle going to make her point. But now with so much passion dulled, it's hard to get inflamed over world events. Even this brief exchange drains her. There are two Noras, the one who reacted deeply to injustice and cruelty, and this new one with barely enough energy to face her own problems. Now, everything seems fragile. Superficial. So different from what she once believed. And took for granted. She hardly knows who she is most days, much less who lies beside her in bed, this man, husband and stranger. It's like discovering that the tranquil path she has traveled for years has been, and always will be, loaded with land mines. But she has to keep moving. She wants her husband back. Even if it can never be the same. Seeing Oliver tonight makes her realize how uncertain the future is. For all of them.
“Poor Ollie,” she says, gropingly through the dark, a poking cane in search of familiar terrain. “It broke my heart seeing him like that, trying to talk.”
“I know, but let's not overreact,” Ken sighs. “It's probably only temporary. You'll see. These things always seem worse in the beginning.”
She's not so sure, but his boyish optimism floods her with warmth. More than anything, she needs to hope again. She wants to be held. She slides her hand close, fingertips aching for his. He yawns, turns on his side, curling away from her. She doesn't blame him. So far, she has rejected his every plea for forgiveness.
“Stephen was beside himself,” she says through the darkness, needing to talk, at least. Even more than physical intimacy she feels the loss of this, their emotional intimacy. The easy rhythm that is the closeness of best friends, together almost twenty years.
“Just more of Stephen watching out for Stephen,” Ken says, and she turns her head on the pillow.
“That's an odd thing to say. Stephen and Ollie, they're almost as close as you two are.”
“He doesn't know his place, that's all.” Face against the pillow, his voice is drowsily muffled.
“What do you mean?” she asks too quickly, recalling Stephen's chiding him.
“Nothing really. I don't know, I'm just tired, I guess.”
So here it comes, 'round again, with the button pushed, this cycle of racing thoughts. Suspicion. Every word and detail probed for meaning. He resents her distrust, but it's not her fault. He did this, foisted this paranoia on her, destroyed her peace of mind. Robbed her of trust. Biting her lip, she stares up at the half circle of light reflected on the ceiling from the floodlight mounted in the peak of the eave above their window. On timers, this first of the four will go off at twelve, another at twelve thirty, the next at one, then one thirty, an orchestration of vigilance to convince intruders that, inside, someone is up, awake, and very methodically on the half hour dousing each light on a long trek to bed. They only arm the security system when they go away on vacation. Installing it was Ken's idea. He'd grown up with one at Fair-Winds. As children, his parents had themselves been traumatized by reports of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, then years later, in the fifties, by the abduction and murder of little Bobby Greenlease. And look, Nora thinks, the very worst thing that can happen to a family has come from within.
“Long day, huh?”
He yawns again. “Long meeting. And Bailey, he never shuts up.”
“Maybe you can sleep a little later in the morning.” Saying it primes the old tenderness and concern.
“Not with Ollie's list, I can't.”
“Anything I can help with?” She squeezes the back of his neck, the rigid muscle in his shoulder, and suddenly remembers a day last summer: she and Robin at the club, stretched out on the bright yellow chaise lounges by the kiddy pool, laughing as Lyra splashed them, then Ken joining