Hope was still seated in her rental car, but the engine was off, the lights were extinguished, and she was resting with her head against the wheel. She had pulled into the deepest part of the small parking lot at the entrance to the seaside park, farthest away from the main road, as hidden as she could manage.
She felt light-headed, but exhausted, and she wondered whether she would have the strength to complete the night. Her breathing was shallow and labored.
On the seat next to her, she had the knife that had done so much damage, a cheap ballpoint pen, and a sheet of paper. She ransacked her mind, trying to think if there was anything else that might compromise her. She saw the cell phone, told herself that she had to get rid of it, and as she reached out, it rang.
Hope knew it would be Sally.
She picked it up, lifted the phone to her ear, and shut her eyes.
“Hope?” Sally’s voice came across the line, scratchy with anxiety. “Hope?”
She did not reply.
“Are you there?”
Again, she did not answer.
“Where are you? Are you all right?”
Hope thought of many things she could say, but none would form on her tongue, pass through her lips. She breathed in heavily.
“Please, Hope, tell me where you are.”
Hope shook her head, but did not say anything.
“Are you hurt? Is it bad?”
Yes.
“Please, Hope, answer me,” Sally pleaded. “I have to know you’re all right. Are you heading home? Are you going to a hospital? Where are you? I’ll come there. I’ll help you, just tell me what to do.”
There’s nothing you can do, Hope thought. No, just keep talking. It’s wonderful to hear your voice. Do you remember when we first met? Our fingertips touched when we shook hands, and I thought we were going to catch on fire, right there, in the gallery, in front of everyone.
“Are you unable to talk? Is there someone else around?”
No. I’m alone. Except I’m not. You’re here with me now. Ashley is with me. Catherine and my father, too. I can hear Nameless barking because he wants to go to the soccer fields. My memories are surrounding me.
Sally wanted more than anything else to panic, to give in to all the fear that blew around her with hurricane force, but she managed to grip tight to something within her, containing all the winds of tension.
“Hope, I know you’re listening to me. I know it. I’ll talk. If you can say something, please do. Just tell me where to go, and I will be there. Please.”
I’m at a place you will remember. It will make you smile and cry when you understand.
“Hope, it’s done. We’re finished. We did it. It’s all past us. She’s going to be safe, I know it. Everything will go back to being how it was. She will have her life and you and I will have our lives together, and Scott will have his teaching, and it will all be as it was when we were happy. I’ve been so wrong, I know I’ve been awful, I know it has been hard on you, but please, together, we will go forward from this point on, you and I. Please don’t leave me. Not now. Not when we have a chance.”
This is our only chance.
“Please, Hope, please. Talk to me.”
If I talk to you, I won’t be able to do what I have to do. You will talk me out of it. I know you, Sally. You will be persuasive and seductive and funny, all at once, the way you used to be; it’s what I loved about you from the beginning. And if I allow myself to talk to you, I won’t be able to argue with all the reasons you will use to dissuade me.
Sally listened to the silence, racking her brain for what it was she could say. She could not put what was happening into words; it was far too black and nightmarish. She knew only that there had to be some phrase, some concoction of language, that she could utter that might change what she was afraid was happening.
“Look, Hope, love, please let me help.”
You are helping. Keep talking. It makes me stronger.
“No matter what has happened, I can get us out of it. I know I can. Trust me. It’s what I’m trained to do. It’s what I have my expertise in. There is no problem too big that we can’t extricate ourselves from, working together. Didn’t we learn that tonight?”
Hope reached over and brought the piece of paper and pen in front of her. She crooked the phone between her shoulder and her ear, so that she could continue to listen.
“Hope, we can manage. We can win. I know it. Just tell me you know it, too.”
Not this. Too many questions. We will all be in jeopardy. I need to do this. It’s the only way I can be sure we’re all safe.
Sally was quiet, and Hope wrote on the page, There is too much sadness in my life.
She shook her head. The first lie of many, she thought. She continued writing.
I have been unfairly accused at the school I love.
Sally whispered, “Hope, please, I know you’re there. Tell me what is wrong. Tell me what to do. I’m begging you.”
And the woman I love no longer loves me.
Hope shook her head slightly as she wrote these words. She bit down on her lower lip. She needed to find some way to indicate that this was all a bunch of lies, find a way to say this so that only Sally would know the truth, not the park ranger who would find the note, nor the detective who would read it.
So I have come to this place that we once loved, so that I could remember what it once was like, and what I know the future would be, if only I were stronger.
Sally, tears flowing down her face, gave in to something that went way beyond terror. It was the sensation of inevitability. She wants to protect us.
“Hope, love, please,” she coughed out the words between gasps of complete despair. “Let me come be with you. Always, since the first, we relied upon each other. We made each other right. Let me do that again, please.”
But, Sally, you are.
I tried to stab myself with a knife but that only made me bleed all over the place, and I’m sorry. I wanted to stab myself in the heart, but I missed. So, I’ve chosen another route.
There it is, Hope thought.
The only route still open to me. I love you all, and trust you will all remember me the same way.
She was exhausted.
Sally’s voice had diminished to a whisper. “Look, Hope, my love, please, no matter how badly you are hurt, we can just say that I did it to you. Scott said you were cut. Well, we’ll just tell the cops I did it. They’ll believe us, I know it. You don’t have to leave me. We can talk our way out of this, together.”
Hope smiled again. It was a most attractive offer, she thought to herself. Lie our ways out of all the questions. And maybe it would work. But probably not. This is the only way to be sure.
She wanted to say good-bye, wanted to say all the things that lovers and partners would whisper to each other in the dark, wanted to say something about her mother and Ashley and everything that had happened that night, but she did not. Instead, she merely touched the END button on her cell phone to disconnect the line.
In her car, still parked on the street outside Michael O’Connell’s apartment building, Sally gave in to all the emotions cascading within her and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt as if she were shrinking, that she had abruptly grown smaller, weaker, and was only a shadow of the person she had been at the start of the day. Whatever they had done, she wasn’t sure that it was worth the cost that had been paid. She bent over, kicked her feet, and pounded on the wheel, flailing her arms about wildly. Then she stopped and moaned as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, slinking down in her seat, in total agony, and completely oblivious that Michael O’Connell, cursing loudly, openly enraged, glowing with red anger and black bitterness, and blinded to the world around him, had passed by only a few feet away as he stomped his way toward his own front entranceway.
