Chapter 28
Night Ten
Sybil
At least the night was salvaged, Sybil thought, when she, Simone and Lani were doing the dishes.
Julian and Zeke were on the couch with Zeke’s parents, Mark was upstairs in their bedroom, packing a suitcase since Sybil had told him she was planning on changing the locks tomorrow.
Betty was at the table scowling at her phone, then abruptly stood up, still scowling, and started pacing.
Sybil dried the serving plate, placed it back in the china cabinet, then moved to the dining room.
“You didn’t like dinner?” she said to Betty.
“What?” Betty dropped her phone, then flipped it over so the screen faced down. “Oh, oh no, it was wonderful. Thank you so much for including me. Really.”
“You just looked…unhappy.”
“Oh, that’s my face in general,” Betty said, though Sybil knew this wasn’t true.
“You’d tell me if something were wrong?”
“I would tell you if something were wrong,” Betty said.
They locked eyes, and Sybil waited for her to pick up her phone, flip it over, but she didn’t.
And Sybil was well aware that she had watched too many shows, listened to too many podcasts, but also, she felt certain that Betty didn’t want her to see what she had been reading or typing.
Based on nothing. Nothing! Sybil reminded herself.
She had no reason to be suspicious of Betty or think she was in trouble.
She just, she told herself, needed someone to mother, and Betty was someone who needed to be mothered.
“Okay, well, here if you change your mind,” Sybil said, and retreated to the kitchen.
She felt Betty’s gaze as she went, then pretended she’d forgotten something in the pantry and noticed Betty still staring, her phone still down, as if she was waiting to be sure that Sybil really was intending to leave her alone.
Or maybe Sybil was just seeing what she wanted.
Maybe Sybil was tired of the mundanity of this house, of washing the dishes, of making the green beans, of worrying about her children, of all of it.
Maybe this whole thing, The Insomniacs, her crush on Zeke, her suspicious curiosity of Betty, was all just a midlife crisis of boredom.
She wandered to the back patio, where the late fall air smelled like damp leaves and woodburning stoves.
Eloise’s and Charlie’s heads were dipped together on a shared lounger by the far side of the pool, excavating the candy basket Julian had brought.
“Can I join you?” she asked, then pulled up a chair before they answered.
“Charlie ate all the gummy bears,” Eloise said, because those had always been Sybil’s favorites.
“I probably deserve that after I dropped a bombshell last night—about divorcing,” Sybil said. “And I’m sorry that your dad punched Zeke.”
“I wouldn’t say our first twenty-four hours at home have been uneventful,” Charlie said.
“I’m not sleeping with Zeke,” she said.
“I mean, obviously,” Eloise said.
Sybil winced.
“Mom, he’s Zeke Rodriguez,” Charlie said.
“Well, anyway. I’m also sorry that you had to come home to this.
To Dad and me. I think…” She felt both of them staring at her, undivided attention, like they were toddlers again, and it was story time.
And her heart so acutely seized, for how much she loved them, despite the simultaneous fact that their arrival upended everything.
“I think that Dad and I were a good match for some things and a less good match for other things, and we did a really good job parenting you. But it shouldn’t have exploded at Thanksgiving. ”
“If we’re saying truthful things, I should probably tell you that I went to the registrar and dropped premed,” Eloise said.
“You what?” Sybil jumped to her feet.
“Oh shit, El,” Charlie said.
“You knew about this?” Sybil turned to Charlie.
“Well, yeah. But so did Dad.” He was unwrapping a Tootsie Roll and at least had the humility to stop and rest it in his lap while Sybil nearly detonated.
“Your father knew about this?”
“Mom, calm down,” Eloise said. “I have a plan. You don’t get to control my life. Or my choices. Or like, yeah, any of that.”
Sybil wanted to scream that if she could just, like, calm down, then she would.
About everything. But she couldn’t. She hadn’t been calm for forty-six years.
How exactly was she expected to act calm now?
Did Eloise think that pointing out that Sybil couldn’t control her own children at this stage actually calmed her down at all?
Before she could say any of this—threaten Eloise with withholding her college tuition or guilt her over lost potential—Betty slipped out the back door and glanced around. Then she held her phone to her ear and disappeared around the side of the house.
“One second,” Sybil said as she stood. “And, Eloise, we’re not done with this conversation.”
“I mean, we are, but okay. You’re not in charge of me anymore.”
Sybil huffed and trailed the rim of the pool toward where Betty had gone.
She didn’t want to be a snoop, but there was something so furtive in Betty’s body language that Sybil told herself that she was just…
curious. If Betty was weathering a crisis that Sybil could help with, well.
She slowed and tiptoed as she got closer.
“Levi, hey, it’s me. I’m know I’m not supposed to use this number, that I’m breaking a rule, but I haven’t heard back in a while. Did you get my message a few weeks ago? I don’t even…I don’t even know where you are.”
Sybil could see Betty in the half-light of the side lantern. She was pacing and chewing on a fingernail, and she looked so young but also so hardened. It wasn’t fair, Sybil thought, that both parents had died before Betty had a chance to rely on them as a young adult.
“I had my first Thanksgiving tonight. At my friend Sybil’s. I guess I was wondering if you had Thanksgiving too,” Betty was saying. “If you get this, please call. Anytime. I don’t sleep, so even if it’s late your time. I’ll pick it up. I just…”
Sybil stepped on one of Pluto’s squeaky toys, and Betty paused.
Sybil panicked and raced toward the twins, arriving at the back of the pool just in time to sink into a chair and see Julian pop his head out of the back door.
He scanned the yard slowly, cocking his head like Pluto when he was really trying to decipher what Sybil was saying.
When he heard whatever he was listening for, he straightened out, then headed toward the side of the house where Betty had absconded to.
Sybil watched him in the muted patio lights stand exactly where she had just moments ago, clearly eavesdropping.
Why would Julian eavesdrop on Betty? Maybe Sybil had been pointing her suspicions at the wrong person.
Maybe Betty was just Betty; maybe Julian was the one hiding something.
She could almost hear the narrator’s voiceover leading into the commercial break.
Julian turned around quickly and scurried back inside, and not a moment later, Betty emerged.
She took a deep breath and stared up toward the black November sky.
Then she composed herself and dipped back into Sybil’s house, while Sybil tried to convince herself that she wasn’t witnessing her friends trying to prevent their secrets from spilling over.