Chapter 10
Cherry had woken up to more than a hundred messages from her sisters—on six different threads. If she’d tried to ignore them
any longer, Honny might have called the police. (Or had Joy do it.) Cherry was very rarely the focus of her sisters’ attention,
but she was still expected to show up and play her part.
Cherry was the middle child. The third of five girls. In Pride and Prejudice, that would have made her Mary—the most forgettable Bennet sister.
Cherry was not forgettable. No one would ever call her mild-mannered or receding . . .
Unless they’d met her sisters.
Her sisters were just a lot. They were all loud, all confident. All bossy. Honny was so bossy, she’d practically usurped Hope as the oldest child. Sometimes it felt like someone had accidentally
sent five eldest daughters to the same family.
First came Hope, who was forty-two. She was the sharpest of them. And the biggest goody two-shoes. The most pulled together.
(It figured that Hope would be the one to lose weight.)
Honny came next at thirty-nine. Her name was actually Honor, but everybody called her Honny, like “Honey.” (Hope, Honor, Cherish, Joy, Faith—their names were a whole thing.)
Honny was the pushiest and the funniest. And the most dangerous. As a kid, she’d talk everybody else into doing something
naughty and then be the one to tell on them.
Cherry came along three years after Honny.
And then Joy came a year after that. Joy was thirty-five and the most beautiful—she looked like a fat Sophia Loren. She was also the most excitable and the easiest to influence. Joy took Honny’s side in all things.
Faith was the baby at thirty-two. She was the most like their mom—which meant she was sweet and sort of humorless, but still
very bossy. Faith got her way by making you feel guilty about even questioning her.
Cherry could have been a real Lucy Van Pelt in someone else’s family—the Beyoncé, or even the Meg March. But in her own family, she was always relegated to the back seat. Usually the third row.
Part of it was that her sisters had bigger, busier lives than she did. They were all married with kids, and all active in
their big evangelical church. (Only Cherry had ventured off the path to righteousness.) With children depending on them and
God watching over them, her sisters had a lot more at stake.
And part of it was just that Cherry got tired of shouting over the four of them. She’d learned at an early age to save her
voice.
Cherry set her phone on the nightstand and crawled back under the covers, feeling the sheets slide over her bare skin. She’d
have to get up soon, to feed Stevie.
That was the best and worst thing about having a dog . . . You couldn’t stay in bed all day. Cherry had been a zombie for months after Tom left. (After Tom hadn’t come home.) She’d just been going
through the motions. But she had work, and she had Stevie—so there was motion. There were weeks when she fed Stevie more consistently than she fed herself.
It was already a half hour past Stevie’s usual breakfast time, but Cherry really, really didn’t want to get up. Or get dressed. Her nakedness was the only proof that something almost inconceivable had happened
in this room last night . . .
Cherry had slept with Russell Sutton.
Cherry. And Russ.
She shook her head every time she thought about it.
(She’d been covering her eyes and shaking her head since she woke up.) She wanted to call someone and shout about it—maybe that would make it feel more real—but the only person who would truly grasp the significance was Stacia, and Cherry was never telling Stacia.
She couldn’t tell her churchy sisters, either. (Much as she’d like to drop it in the group chat.) They didn’t believe in premarital
sex, let alone not-quite-divorced sex.
Cherry knew that her sisters blamed her divorce on her lack of churchiness. If she’d married a good Christian man, he’d still be here. And Cherry would have babies. She’d be fat and
happy like the rest of them—instead of slightly less fat and alone.
Cherry pulled the covers up over her head. The bed creaked.
Stevie instantly started whimpering downstairs. She’d slept in her kennel. She must have been listening for signs of life.
“Right,” Cherry said, hauling herself up. She felt self-conscious now, walking through her bedroom stark naked. Thank god
she hadn’t turned on any lights last night, and that Russ had snuck out before daybreak—Cherry hadn’t done anything to change
this room when Tom left. (When Tom left, they’d both been expecting him to come home.) His spare change was still sitting
on his bedside table . . . His lip balm. A few receipts. A book of puzzles that he liked to work on when he couldn’t sleep.
All of Tom’s clothes were still in his dresser—he hadn’t asked for her to send them anywhere. His Kansas City Royals cap was
still hanging off the lamp by their bed.
Downstairs was worse: Tom’s books. Tom’s movies. Tom’s Nintendo Switch. Tom’s boots by the door. Framed photos of Tom and
his mom that Cherry had hung up in the dining room. (Tom’s fifth birthday party. Tom riding an elephant at the Henry Doorly
Zoo.)
Whenever Cherry tried to address this situation—to consider making a plan to start clearing some of his things away—she could
feel gravity increasing around her. Just thinking about it made Cherry feel so heavy and tired, she’d have to sit down immediately, and sometimes she wouldn’t get up again for hours.
It was better for her productivity and state of mind if she didn’t think about it. That was doable. Cherry could move through her house without making eye contact with any of Tom’s things.
Or any of the things that were too much theirs together . . . Disney World souvenirs. An afghan Cherry had crocheted for him.
A Jonathan Adler vase he’d given her on their anniversary. Cherry just didn’t let her eyes focus in certain directions.
It was a good thing no one in her family ever came over to visit. Her sisters had kids, so Cherry went to them. Same deal
with Stacia. Nobody came to Cherry’s house. No one knew how she was living.
Cherry put on yoga pants and a T-shirt—she’d meant to buy a Goldenrod T-shirt at the concert—and went downstairs to feed Stevie.
To make some oatmeal.
To start some laundry and vacuum.
There was no sign anywhere that anything out of the ordinary had happened last night.
Russ hadn’t left a note. He hadn’t left his jacket. Or a business card. Or a trace.
And Cherry didn’t have his number.