The Stranger(45)
“But you remember her pregnancy?”
“Of course. Why?”
“How did she tell you?”
“About being pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t remember.” But she did. He could tell. Kristin was lying to him. “What’s the difference how she told me?”
“I need you to think. Do you remember anything odd about it?”
“No.”
“Nothing unusual about the pregnancy at all?”
Kristin put her hands on her hips. Her skin glistened from a fine sheen of perspiration or maybe something left over from a bronzer. “What are you trying to get at?”
“How about when she miscarried?” Adam tried. “How was she acting then?”
Oddly enough, those two questions seemed to center her somehow. Kristin took her time now, breathing slowly as though meditating, the prominent clavicle rising and falling. “Funny.”
“Yes?”
“I thought her reaction was low-key.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, I was thinking about it. She was so good about getting over it. So after you left school today, I started thinking—I mean, at first—that maybe Corinne had been too good after the miscarriage.”
“I’m not following.”
“A person needs to grieve, Adam. A person needs to express and feel. If you don’t express and feel, toxins develop in your bloodstream.”
Adam tried not to frown at the new age babble.
“It seemed to me like maybe Corinne had bottled up her pain,” she continued. “And when you do that, you create not only toxins but internal pressure. Eventually, something has to give. So after you left, I started wondering. Maybe Corinne had submerged the pain of losing the baby. Maybe she pushed it down and tried to keep it down, but now, two years later, whatever walls she had built suddenly gave way.”
Adam just looked at her. “At first.”
“What?”
“You said you started thinking this ‘at first.’ So somewhere along the line you changed your mind.”
She didn’t reply.
“Why?”
“She’s my friend, Adam.”
“I know that.”
“You’re the husband she’s trying to get away from, right? I mean, if you’re telling the truth and nothing bad happened to her.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.” Kristin swallowed hard. “You walk down the streets where we all live. You see the nice neighborhoods and the manicured lawns and the nice patio furniture in the backyard. But none of us knows what really goes on behind those facades, do we?”
He stood there.
“For all I know, Adam, you abuse her.”
“Oh, come on—”
Kristin held up her hand. “I’m not saying you do. I’m just giving you an example. We just don’t know.” There were tears in her eyes, and now he wondered about her husband, Hank, and why, with this physique, she sometimes wore those long sleeves and cover-ups. He had thought that maybe she had wanted to be modest. But that might not be it.
She had a point, though. They might live in a seemingly friendly community or a close-knit neighborhood, but every home is its own island with its own secrets.
“You know something about this,” Adam said to her.
“I don’t. And I really have to get back to the girls now.”
Kristin turned away from him. Adam almost reached out and grabbed her arm. Instead, he said, “I don’t think Corinne was really pregnant.”
Kristin stopped.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
With her back still turned, she shook her head. “Corinne never said anything to me.”
“But you knew.”
“I knew nothing,” Kristin said in a low voice. “You need to go now.”
Chapter 19
Ryan was at the back door waiting for him.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s away,” Adam said.
“What do you mean, away?”
“She’s traveling.”
“Where?”
“It’s a teacher’s thing. She’ll be home soon.”
Ryan’s voice was a panicked whine. “I need my uniform, remember?”
“Did you check your drawer?”
“Yes!” The panicked whine had upgraded itself to a shout. “You asked me that yesterday! I checked the drawer and the laundry basket!”
“How about the washer and dryer?”
“I checked both of those too! I checked everywhere!”
“Okay,” Adam said, “calm down.”
“But I need my uniform! If you don’t have your uniform, Coach Jauss makes you run extra laps and miss a game.”
“No problem. Let’s look for it.”