Chapter 18 #3
“I thought you were Summer.” He pressed his free palm against the wood. “You knew that. You had her dress on.”
“You knew it was me.” Kylie struck the door with the flat of her hand. “You knew. It was only when she came in that you started acting like?—”
“Get the hell away from us!” He hadn’t meant to shout, and for a moment afterward he could hear nothing else. Summer gripped his fingers. “I never want to see you again. Is that what you want to hear?”
There was no answer. Then Kylie tried his name again, softly, the way she’d said it when he used to get angry with her.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said. “You don’t get to come here and do that, act like you’re the one who was hurt.”
“Then come outside.” She knocked again, two small taps. “Come outside and tell me without her standing there.”
Summer moved closer to the door. “He told you at the society,” she said. “He told you on the phone. How many times does he have to say it before you stop blaming me for hearing him?”
“This is between me and Jonah.” Kylie’s voice sharpened. “You’ve never understood that.”
“You left me upstairs.” Summer had gone very still beside him. “I asked you to get him. You said you would, and you left me there.”
Kylie began to answer, but Summer spoke over her. Jonah could feel her hand trembling inside his.
“Don’t tell me I was tired,” she said. “I couldn’t stay awake. You watched me.”
“I came to speak to Jonah.” Kylie sounded farther from the door. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”
Jonah heard a car stop outside. Summer lifted the phone again, listened, and said she could hear it too. Footsteps came along the path. A man’s voice asked Kylie to step back from the house.
She began explaining before he finished. Through the door Jonah heard his own name, then the word misunderstanding, then Kylie insisting that he’d been talking to her a moment ago.
The second officer came to the door while the first stayed with her. Summer opened it only far enough to pass out their copy of the order. The officer checked their names and the service information, then had them remain inside while he went back to his colleague.
Jonah could see Kylie through the front window.
She had worn the camel coat she’d bought before Italy.
One of its pockets sagged where she used to put her phone, and her scarf was caught beneath her bag strap.
He’d spent a year remembering her in that coat outside the airport.
Now an officer was telling her to turn around.
She pulled her arm away at first. The officer repeated the instruction, and she looked toward the house.
“Jonah.” Her voice was frightened now. “Tell them. Please.”
Summer started to close the door, but he stopped her with a hand against its edge. One officer stood between Kylie and the step; Jonah stayed inside, beside Summer.
“Tell them what?” he asked. He could see the metal cuff against Kylie’s wrist.
She looked at the officer, then back at him. “You know me,” she said. “You know what this will do to me.”
For years that would have been enough to make him begin looking for a way to help. He felt the old impulse now, sickening and immediate, followed by a picture of Summer on the floor outside that bedroom, trying to reach him.
“I asked you to stay away.” He had to stop because his voice wouldn’t hold. “I’m asking them to take you.”
Kylie stared at him. Then her eyes went past his shoulder to Summer, and her face tightened.
“You must be pleased,” she hissed at Summer. She tried to straighten with her hands behind her. “You finally got what you wanted.”
Summer came level with him. “I wanted my husband,” she said. “That’s what I wanted that night.”
The officer moved Kylie toward the path. She resisted just enough to look back, her shoes scraping on the step.
“You were happy with me,” she said to Jonah. “You can’t pretend you weren’t.”
He had been. At seventeen, at twenty, on an ordinary Sunday when he’d gone to buy coffee and brought her some because she’d still been in bed. The memories crowded in, and for the first time that afternoon he didn’t try to put them in an order that would prove anything.
“I didn’t want you back.” He held the door because his knees felt weak. “I wanted to marry Summer. You knew that before you came home.”
Kylie shook her head. “You married her because you thought you had to,” she said. “I know you.”
“You hurt me.” Jonah’s voice carried down the path, and the officer paused beside the car. “I loved you once, and you hurt me. Stop asking me to help you get away with it.”
Kylie tried to speak again. Summer took the edge of the door from him and closed it before he heard the words.
He stood staring at the wood. Outside there was the sound of a car door, then voices, then another door shutting. Summer still had the phone in her hand, its screen dark against her palm.
“I didn’t want to hear any more,” she said. She watched his face. “Did you?”
He shook his head. When she reached for him, he folded around her so abruptly that she had to catch his weight against the wall. They sank down together beside the radiator. Her hand went behind his head, keeping it from striking the pipe.
He cried harder than he had in the hospital. Summer’s cheek was wet against his, and she kept trying to kiss him, missing his mouth until he lifted his head.
“I wanted you,” he said. His chest hurt with the effort of getting it out. “I only want you.”
“I know.” She kissed him again, her fingers in his hair. “I’ve got you now. You’re coming upstairs with me.”
They stayed on the floor until the officer knocked. Summer got up first and helped Jonah stand. He didn’t try to make her let go when the man saw them.
Kylie had been arrested for violating the order.
The officer recorded what had happened at the door and what each of them had heard; the call, his colleague’s observations, and the service record would go with the report.
He also explained that an arrest didn’t mean she would stay in custody and went over what they should do if she tried to contact them again.
Summer wrote down the incident number. Jonah checked the date of the next hearing and asked the officer to repeat it.
After he left, they called the lawyer. Jonah had to put the phone down partway through and let Summer finish, but he stayed beside her while she spoke. When his father called, he answered that too.
“She’s been arrested,” he said. He heard his father put something down. “For coming here. The order.”
His father wanted to come over. Jonah almost said no, then asked him to give them an hour and bring something they wouldn’t have to cook.
Upstairs, Jonah sat on the bed where he’d woken. Summer came around to his side instead of climbing onto hers. The printout of his timeline was still on the dresser; he could read the time at the top without getting up.
“I thought I’d feel different,” he said. Summer sat beside him. “When they took her.”
“I thought I’d want to watch.” She looked toward the window. “I couldn’t.”
He laid his head against her shoulder. Below them, a car passed slowly enough that they both stopped breathing until it went on.
Summer turned her face into his hair. He stayed there, listening to the cars, until he could ask her to lie down with him.
They got under the bedspread without changing. Summer’s feet were cold, and when she tucked them between his legs he pulled her closer, then had to ease his arm because he was holding her too tightly.
“Your appointment card’s still in the car,” she said. Her voice was thick against his shirt. “I’ll get it later.”
“Leave it.” He reached behind him for his phone. “I’ll put it in now.”
He entered the next Thursday in the calendar and set a reminder. Then he put the phone out of reach, turned back to Summer, and asked her to move closer.