“What about me? Don’t I count anymore? I need you, too.”
He almost smiled. “It’s funny that you’ve never said that before.”
“Did I have to? Is that what you need? Someone to feed your ego? Someone to go all helpless and cling to you, and worship you?”
Her fear of loss had come spilling out, sounding like anger, and Brian had turned her own bitter words against her: proof that she didn’t really need him, didn’t need anyone.
Oh, yes, Sarah thought. She had dug her own grave. She had opened the door and shown him the way out. It had been her own insistence on independence, her fear of showing any weakness that had led to this. If she had been able to give more, to let go a little—but, no, that wasn’t right, either. Did she really want a man who needed constant reassurance, who could only see his strength reflected in someone else’s weakness? If Brian couldn’t love her without pretense, for who she really was—
But Brian did love her—Sarah felt certain of that. Melanie was just a distraction. In time, Brian was bound to recognize his true feelings and come back to her. He had to. He couldn’t have loved her for so long, so intensely and then simply stopped. He had to come back to her, because she needed him. Despite all her precautions and her carefully developed other interests—she needed him. She couldn’t go on forever with this emptiness inside, this aching, lonely feeling as if some vital piece of her had been amputated. Sometimes she imagined that, when she thought about it hard enough, her need must be tugging at Brian physically, reminding him that they were still in some way attached, pulling him inexorably back to her . . .
Sarah tensed and her eyes snapped open, her wishful thoughts vanished like spray. She was not alone.
What had alerted her? What small sound? Sarah held very still and strained her ears to hear the echo of a footstep, the creak of a hinge, the heavy wooden slide of a window being opened, but there was nothing. Her imagination offered her the image of Valerie, returned for some insane, unknowable purpose, sneaking around outside the house, peering in at the windows. Sarah pushed herself away from the wall and went through the house, room by room, but found it as empty as ever.
She looked through each window as she passed, seeking some sign of a visitor, but saw nothing unusual. Her car still waited for her in the sunlight, parked alone on the flat, sandy ground. The doors were all still shut. Still Sarah could not relax. She could not shake off the feeling that someone was nearby, spying on her.
Back in the dining room, Sarah’s attention was drawn to the built-in cabinet in the east wall. Above were three shelves behind glass-fronted doors; below, two drawers and a second cabinet with plain wooden doors. Sarah opened one of the glass doors and looked inside at the deep shelves, wondering what they had been used for. A display of the best china? Idly curious, she pulled at one of the drawers. It moved sluggishly, and she pulled more firmly until it came open. Inside she found a few playing cards: Three of Spades, Queen of Hearts, Jack of Diamonds, Two of Clubs . . . and something, probably just another playing card, was stuck at the back of the drawer. Sarah could see a protruding white corner. Her fingers scrabbled at it uselessly until she realized that even if she did manage to catch hold and pull, it would probably tear. Finally she took the drawer out, struggling fiercely with it, shifting and tugging until it came free. The fragment she had been curious about proved to belong to a photograph stuck to the back of the drawer.
Carefully, Sarah peeled it away from the wood and examined it. It was an old snapshot, torn jaggedly in half. One figure remained: a dark, suited, unsmiling man in a hat. His features were shaded by the hat brim, and the photograph was not very clear, but Sarah had the impression of an extremely attractive man. That impression might have come from the figure’s stance, or the symmetry of his features, or merely the mystery and romance of an old photograph.
The blacks and whites of the snapshot were fading towards shades of brown. Sarah had no idea how old it might be—forty years, fifty, sixty? The man’s suit told her little—to her unpracticed eye it might have been fashionable in almost any decade before the Sixties. The stiff, high, white collar he wore suggested an era long past. She turned the photograph over, looking for some clue, but there was nothing written on the back, and so she turned it back again, looking at the picture. In the background was a tree, and the edge of a building. A hand—a woman’s?—rested on the man’s arm, but the rest of the person belonging to that hand had been ripped away. The man was alone now, paying no attention to the hand, staring into the camera, his face impassive and self-assured, giving away nothing.
Sarah stared back, wanting to question him, wondering who had torn the picture and why. A woman hopelessly in love with him? He would accept that as his due, she thought: he would be a man used to inspiring passion and devotion, always remaining aloof himself, always in control. As she stared at the small image it seemed to her that she could see his eyes gleaming in shadow, and that the thin, straight line of his lips was on the verge of moving; that he looked into her eyes and in a moment would smile at her.
Sarah looked up, frowning, blinking, feeling odd. The hand holding the photograph dropped to her side. How long had she been standing there, lost in featureless daydream? It was late in the day—the light from the leaf-shrouded windows seemed different, thinner, than it had when she had last noticed. She saw by her watch that it was nearly five o’clock.
She tucked the photograph away in her purse. Time to get moving: Pete and Beverly were expecting her for dinner. She walked slowly towards the back door, feeling as slow and confused as if she had been asleep all afternoon. On the back porch she paused, frowning. What was she forgetting? Was there something else she had to do? The house, around her, was silent, yet Sarah had the uncanny feeling that she was not alone. Someone was waiting for her, waiting for her to speak. She shrugged off the feeling as best she could, annoyed with herself for her befuddlement, and went out to her car.
Chapter Two
After the break-up, Sarah had gone to stay with Peter and Beverly Marchant, her closest friends. They were supportive and undemanding, and it was a comfortable place to stay, but nevertheless Sarah was anxious to find a place of her own. Until she did, she knew she would feel displaced and uneasy, in limbo. Once she was settled, she could start to work out the details of her new life. Maybe she would find she didn’t miss Brian quite so desperately, in a room of her own.
Going back to the Marchants’ apartment, Sarah drove down Speedway—and swore at her subconscious for being so predictable. There were other routes, just as simple and just as fast, for getting to 45th Street, but every day Sarah found herself making the same turn and driving down Speedway as if the route were pre-programmed and she could not deviate from it. In her mind it was “the way home.” Even though it was not her home anymore.
Driving down Speedway, Sarah had only to glance to the right as she passed East 33rd Street, to catch a glimpse of the building at the corner of Helms and 33rd and the driveway there. One look was enough to tell her if Brian’s beat-up old blue pickup truck was parked there—and if it was parked alone or with Melanie’s brown Datsun.
No matter what she saw—if the truck was there alone, or with the car, or absent altogether—Sarah felt the same dull despair, followed by a flush of shame. Why did she put herself through this silly ordeal, day after day? It was better not to know if Brian was in or out, with Melanie or alone. It was nothing to do with her.
Her hands tightened on the wheel and her foot pressed harder on the gas as she glimpsed the blue and the brown together in the driveway. “I hope they drive each other crazy in that little rat-hole,” she muttered, a hot, murderous wave of jealousy passing through her.