David pushed the door open, and arm in arm he and Olivia stepped out into the blinding sunlight, into their future.
Alone in her shop, Olivia stared at the pieces of felt and ribbon and trim. But she had no plans, no ideas. Her mind was blank. Like snow, she thought. Like blinding sun. Without David, she could not think of what to do next. Their apartment with the view of the Hudson River out the small kitchen window—and the Eames furniture that David had collected, and Olivia’s own flea-market finds and castoffs from interior-design shoots at You!—seemed foreign, the way airports feel when you emerge from an all-night transatlantic flight.
She had no refuge. Over their months together, she and David had fought and made up and planned a future; they had become each other’s refuge. The beach house they’d bought sat empty now, unfinished, untended. Olivia could not even think of going there, of driving past the spot where David had been killed, of returning to the bed where she had slept so foolishly while he died.
And then there was this: the morning he died, he had come out of the bathroom and gotten back into bed. He had kissed her, not even minding her morning breath. He had slipped his hand under the T-shirt she wore and found her breasts, sighing as he rubbed the nipples.
“Go away,” she’d said. She had rolled away from him then. “I’m tired.”
He hadn’t gone easily. He had pressed himself against her. He had moved his erection between her thighs. He had lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck.
“Why don’t you go jogging?” she said.
This time, his sigh was one of defeat rather than pleasure. “Good idea,” he’d said, leaving the bed. “Better than a cold shower.”
He had not even seen her grinning at that. From her half sleep, Olivia heard him walk down the creaky steps and out the door. She heard him move toward his death a quarter of a mile away.
Now, sitting alone in the Rose Tattoo, she once again thought about how making love that morning would have kept him safe. He would not have been on that curve, in that bright sun, at that very moment that Amanda drove her Honda Civic around it.
Dear Amanda, she thought. But if she told the girl that it wasn’t her fault, Olivia would have to admit that she was the one who had sent her husband out that morning. No, she thought, the smell of falafels turning her stomach, it was better this way. Better to share the blame than to carry it all alone.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s, as the city took on a sad holiday look—dirty snow, abandoned trees with tinsel still clinging to their branches, lights blinking foolishly—Amanda showed up at the Rose Tattoo. She came with two other girls, friends or sisters—Olivia did not know or care to know.
“I’m in bad shape,” the girl said. “I don’t know what it is I want from you, but all week I’ve been thinking about you all alone. With the holidays and stuff.”
She was so plain, a medium-sized girl with medium-brown hair. She wore painter’s pants and a pink ski jacket with lift tickets dangling from the zipper. Olivia saw a bright blue turtleneck, the top of the yoke of a blue-and-white Fair Isle sweater. An ordinary girl who had happened to kill David.
One of the other girls, dressed similarly—green ski jacket, pink turtleneck, dark green sweater beneath—nudged Amanda.
“I’m taking next semester off,” Amanda said. Olivia could see that the girl was trying to fight back tears. But still they spilled out, streaking her cheeks. “I’m going to stay with my aunt in Seattle. Maybe it will help to get away. I don’t know what to do.”
Olivia wished she could find some words, but the only ones that bounced around her brain were: Why don’t you go jogging?
“Amanda,” she said, her voice like a croak.
The three girls in front of her seemed to hold their collective breath.
“I don’t know, either,” Olivia said finally.
They waited, but she had nothing to say. She did not forgive the girl. Or herself.
“I brought you this,” Amanda said.
She placed a small loaf of bread, wrapped in plastic and tied with red-and-green ribbon, on the counter.
“It’s cranberry,” she added.
“Thank you,” Olivia said. They both stared down at the bread until one of the girls took Amanda’s elbow.
“I’ve got to go,” Amanda said.
Olivia nodded.
But Amanda didn’t go. She just stood there, still.
“I keep thinking about you,” she said again.