She nodded and turned and ran to her room, turning once to peek back at him from behind her bedroom door.
Archie walked into the kitchen. They were frosting the cake. Ben on his knees on a stool at the island. Debbie standing. She wore a white chefs apron over her black T-shirt and jeans, but had managed to get frosting everywhere, even her hair. She looked up at Archie when he came into the room, and grinned. “You’re just in time for the marzipan flowers,” she said.
Archie walked over to the white stereo that fit under the cabinet by the fridge and turned it off.
“He has a copy of the book,” he said flatly.
The cake was on a lazy Susan cake tray and Debbie rotated it, holding the frosting knife steady across the top. “What book?”
Archie took a step forward, his hands in his pockets. “The book. Jacob Firebaugh gave him a copy.” Archie didn’t even know who Jacob Firebaugh was.
Ben stuck his finger along the edge of the glass frosting bowl. “He says you’re famous.”
“I don’t want you reading that shit,” Archie snapped at him.
Debbie lifted the knife from the cake. “Archie,” she warned in a low voice.
Archie pulled his hands out of his pockets and ran them through his hair. “It’s full of violence. Crime scene photos.” The thought of his eight-year-old son reading what she’d done to him made his stomach burn. “Graphic descriptions of torture.”
“A glimpse into your world,” Debbie said.
He walked up to her. She smelled like buttercream. “It’s completely inappropriate,” he said. He felt shaky; his body ached for the pills. “He showed it to Sara.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “She’s such a tattler.”
“Go get it,” Archie ordered him, pointing toward Ben’s room. “Right now.”
Ben looked at Debbie. It had been like that since Archie had come home. His son always looked to his mother before he did anything. She nodded and he hopped off the stool and disappeared down the hall, still licking his fingers.
Debbie laid the knife back on the cake and spun the lazy Susan. “If you don’t talk about it,” she said carefully, “they’re going to try to find answers other places.”
“Not in that book,” Archie said.
Debbie’s mouth tightened. “They know you were lost. That you were hurt. They were just babies, then.” He could hear her throat constrict, fighting the tears. “But they’re going to have to hear the whole story.”
Not the whole story. “Why?” he asked.
“What about your scars?” She set the frosting knife across the bowl and turned to face him. “How exactly do we explain that to them? All those trips to the prison. They remember that. They know you went to see her.”
“It was my job,” Archie stressed.
Debbie reached up with a sticky hand and touched his face. “Don’t bullshit me, Archie. I’ve known you too long.” She looked him in the eye. “You went there because you needed to, because you liked it.”
Archie took a step back and turned away. “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do this now,” he said, opening a cabinet to get a glass.
“I just want you to be honest with us. With me.”
He turned on the faucet and filled the glass with water. “Please, don’t,” he said.
“I want you to be honest with yourself.”
Archie slowly lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip and then poured the rest down the drain. Then he set the glass in the sink. Self-awareness wasn’t his problem. He knew exactly how fucked up he was. He would have given anything for a little denial. “I am honest with myself,” he told Debbie. God, he was so tired of this. He resented her for it. For making everything so hard. For making him feel so guilty.
She wanted the truth? Fine. Fuck it. “I went there,” he said slowly, enunciating each word as if it were a grammar lesson. “Because. I. Liked. It.” In the sink, a cake pan sat soaking next to the glass, the grit of the cake floating in soapy water. “It was the only time of the week I actually felt like I was still alive.” He looked up at Debbie. “I would still go. If I thought that I could get away with it.”
She stood hugging her arms, her freckles like dark stars. “You can’t see her. If you want to stay with us.”
Archie smiled. “There it is,” he said.
“What?” Debbie said.
“The ultimatum,” Archie said. “You know how I like those.”
He heard Ben’s voice say, “Here.” Both Debbie and Archie turned to see Ben standing at the entrance to the kitchen, the thick paperback in his hands, Gretchen’s lovely face smiling seductively on the cover.
Archie turned and walked over to him and took the book from his hands. He bent over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said into his ear. “I’m sorry I yelled.” He smoothed his son’s hair and walked past him toward the hall.
“Where are you going?” Debbie asked.
Archie spun around. “It’s Sunday afternoon,” he said. “I thought I’d go to the park.”
Debbie’s eyes were full of tears. “You shouldn’t drive.”
Archie kept walking. “I shouldn’t do a lot of things.”