Chapter 16
Summer woke to a knock and caught Jonah’s shirt in her fist. His eyes opened at once; for a second they stared at each other, neither moving, while someone tried the handle. Then her mother spoke through the door, asking whether they wanted the food left in the oven.
“Don’t open it,” Summer called. Her voice was so sharp that Jonah sat up beside her. She found the edge of the blanket and pulled it over her knees, although she was dressed and had been dressed when they lay down.
“It’s only me,” her mother said. She stayed outside. “I’ll be downstairs.”
The steps went away. Summer released the shirt, leaving a damp wrinkle across Jonah’s chest, and checked the bedside clock. Nearly five, still Sunday. She had slept through the afternoon without meaning to.
“Did you ask her to wake us?” Jonah asked. He was rubbing the side of his face, where the pillow seam had left a mark.
“No.” Summer took her feet out of the bed and waited for the floor to settle. “I’m going to wash. Will you go down?”
He hesitated, and she nearly asked him to stay. Then she remembered the sound she’d made when her mother touched the door and wanted two minutes in which nobody would hear her do anything. He found his shoes beside the bed, carried them out, and left the door as she’d asked.
In the bathroom, she ran water over her hands.
A little silver glitter remained beside one nail, caught beneath a place where the skin had split at work.
She rubbed it with the corner of a towel, stopped when it hurt, and put the towel down.
Her face in the mirror was swollen from crying; below her eyes were dark smears she had missed when she washed at the hospital.
Her mother had brought makeup remover. Summer found it in the bag on the landing and went back into the bathroom, leaving the door open a few inches. She took off the last trace of the evening carefully, using a fresh pad for each eye. Then she leaned toward the mirror and examined her mouth.
There was no mark. She had done this at the hospital too, looking at herself while her mother held the gown away from the floor, as though the missing time might have left something she could find if she looked closely enough.
She put down the cleaning pad. Downstairs, Jonah asked where the rice was, and she listened until her mother answered.
They’d set two places at the table. Her mother had bought a magazine and carried it into the sitting room with her tea, promising she was quite happy there. Summer sat down opposite Jonah and put rice on his plate before remembering he could reach it himself.
“You want any of that left?” he asked. She looked at the spoon in her hand, then at the mound she’d made.
“Sorry,” she said, returning some to the dish. “I’ve been awake about ten minutes. I should probably wait before handling equipment.”
He smiled, and she could eat a little. The chicken was dry along one edge, where her mother must have reheated it when they failed to wake.
Jonah tried cutting around that part until Summer pushed the sauce toward him, and for a few minutes they managed the meal without talking about anything beyond what was within reach.
Her phone lit up beside the salt. Macy had sent a photograph of Monday’s orders, with circles around the collections she’d already rearranged. Summer enlarged it, checking the names; then another message arrived, and her hand stopped moving.
It was from a woman whose cake she had made in August. Heard you weren’t well last night. Hope you’re recovering. The woman hadn’t been at the party. Summer knew because she’d mentioned taking her children away for the weekend.
“What’s happened?” Jonah asked. He put down his fork before she’d decided whether to show him.
Summer passed him the phone. “She wasn’t even at the party. Gossip travels fast.”
Jonah read the message twice, then left the phone beside her plate. He hadn’t finished his chicken, but he made no move to pick up his fork again.
“I want to ask where she heard it,” Summer said. She began typing the first word, then stopped. “I also don’t want to hear her tell me.”
“Don’t answer tonight,” he said. “You’ve been awake half an hour. Give yourself until tomorrow.”
She set the phone on the counter. By the time she came back, he had pushed his plate away. Her own hunger was gone too; she took the dishes to the sink and began scraping them, grateful for the noise until she realized Jonah had stood behind her.
“Give me the plates,” Jonah said. He reached for the tap, then left his hand on the counter when she didn’t move. “Unless you’ve got a system. I can dry.”
Summer gave him the plates and found the dish towel. He rinsed them while she dried, stopping her as she tried to put one away with rice stuck to the edge. She rubbed at it with the towel instead of handing it back. “I don’t want to answer anyone,” she said. “I don’t even want to say thank you.”
“Leave the phone here,” Jonah said. “Come and watch something.” Her mother called from the other room to ask whether they’d left any rice, and Summer went to fetch the dish before it could be scraped into the trash.
Afterward her mother admitted she’d ruined the chicken.
Jonah said he had eaten worse, then couldn’t think of an example when she asked him, which made Summer laugh hard enough to cough.
Her mother poured water and put it beside her without a word; Summer drank half the glass before noticing where she’d set it.
It was at her right hand. The wine had been at her right hand too, cold against her fingers when Kylie gave it to her.
She remembered raising it to Jonah, his father smiling, somebody looking for Lorraine.
There must have been a moment when whatever was in it began to affect her, while she stood there enjoying herself.
“Summer?” Her mother touched the back of a chair. “Do you want more?”
She shook her head. Jonah had gone to the sitting room to find the television remote, and she was glad he couldn’t see the water left in her glass. She took it to the sink before her mother could offer again.
“I can’t remember going to sleep,” she said. The words came out too loudly in the kitchen. “On the sofa. I remember sitting down.”
Her mother put the pitcher away. Summer kept rinsing the clean glass, watching the water flow over the rim. Her mother reached toward the faucet, then left it running.
“You were exhausted,” her mother began. She rested her hand on the table. “Even before?—”
“It wasn’t that.” Summer shut off the tap. “I know what tired feels like.”
“I meant you must have been frightened.” Her mother picked up a cloth and put it down again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say any of this.”
The television came on, too loud, then dropped to a murmur. Summer waited for Jonah to call her, but he seemed to have found something to watch. She tightened her grip on the glass.
“I don’t know whether anyone came into that room,” she said. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to remember a door opening. Even if I couldn’t get up.”
Her mother’s face changed. She had been trying to look composed all day; now she sat at the table without being asked, and Summer put the glass down before she dropped it.
“Did you tell them that?” her mother asked. “At the hospital?”
“Yes. They asked me.” Summer sat too. “I said I didn’t know. I said it so many times I thought they must be sick of hearing it.”
“They weren’t,” her mother said. She reached across the table, leaving her hand there when Summer didn’t take it. “You answered what you could.”
Summer looked at the wet ring beneath the pitcher.
She wanted to ask her mother to tell her that nothing else had happened, to promise it in the voice she’d used when Summer was a child and frightened of a noise downstairs.
Her mother couldn’t know. Summer put both hands beneath her thighs to keep from reaching for the phone and checking the message times again.
Jonah appeared at the door. “What’s happened?” he asked, looking from one of them to the other. “Summer?”
She went to him before she could tell him not to worry. Her foot caught the chair leg, and he caught her shoulders as she stumbled. “While I was asleep,” she said. “I don’t know who was in that room. What might have happened. I can’t remember any of it.”
He looked over her head toward her mother. Summer felt him stiffen and drew back far enough to see his face. His mouth opened, but he said nothing. Summer tightened her hands on his shirt.
“I don’t want to go back there,” she said. “Not to see if it helps. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Who asked you to?” he said. His voice had sharpened. “Did somebody call?”
“No.” Summer pressed her forehead against his shirt. “Nobody. I’ve been thinking I should.”
He held her against him, one hand flat between her shoulder blades. She could hear how fast he was breathing and wished she’d waited until he’d had more sleep, until she could say it without crying, until one of the times that never seemed to arrive.
“We’re not going back tonight,” he said. He looked toward her mother. “Are they expecting us to collect anything? Because somebody else will have to do it.”
“Lorraine’s arranged it,” her mother said. “You don’t need to collect anything.”
Summer hadn’t known there were things left to collect. Her coat, perhaps, and the numbered ticket still in her bag; she couldn’t remember seeing either since the hospital. She asked her mother to keep the coat somewhere else when it came, and her mother said she would.
Jonah took her into the sitting room. They sat close, with the television playing in front of them, but Summer couldn’t settle beneath his arm. She kept hearing her own voice, the way she’d spoken about being asleep, and the knock upstairs returned with each small sound from the kitchen.
“Turn it off a minute,” Summer said, taking the hospital papers from her mother’s bag. Jonah found the remote while she spread the pages across her lap. She kept putting the same ones underneath, unable to find the number she remembered being given.
She found the number she’d been given and saved it in her phone. It was Sunday evening; she didn’t intend to call for an appointment now. Still, when Jonah offered to put the papers back, she kept the page beside her and asked him to remind her in the morning.
Her mother wanted to know whether she should stay that night.
This time Summer answered before she could begin listing the inconvenience: yes, please, and could someone bring what she needed?
Jonah asked her to leave the landing light on when she went upstairs.
Her mother agreed to both, then complained that her phone had been ringing all afternoon with people she had no intention of speaking to.
“Give me yours,” Summer said. She held out her hand. “I’ll show you how to quiet it.”
Her mother sat on the arm of the chair while Summer found the setting. She made Summer show her twice, then tried it herself. Jonah began to explain, and Summer made him wait while her mother finished. The phone stayed quiet while they worked it out.