Part 7 (1/2)

It was better than nothing.

To resolve the guilt she tried to be frank with herself. She was a murderer when she got up, a murderer when she walked, a murderer whenever she was moving. It was only during the quiet times that she tried not to think of the new t.i.tle. With momentum behind her she could embrace her status: a murderer without a prison sentence, without a trial or a defense attorney, a secret and sure-footed murderer ranging beyond the confines of the penal colony. But when she was trying to get to sleep it was more difficult to reconcile. Doubts intruded. At first, before she knew she was a murderer, they had been doubts about her innocence. Now that those doubts were answered with the certainty of her guilt she thought she should be sure of everything. She should be past equivocation and bargains, now that she had embraced the murdering. Yet tensions still arose. It wasn't enough, in the dark, to know your own sin. It wasn't enough to admit it. There was still the silence that followed the admission.

When she felt restless in the night she got up from her bed, pulled on a fleece sweater and went down the hall, touching a switch to bring on the dim lights of the sconces. She went to the carnivore rooms usually; she found their open mouths in the dim light, their dark maws studded with the white teeth, and rubbed the points of canines with a finger. She slung her arms around the musty fur of their necks. There was something she should be learning from them, but she didn't know what. The hawk was no more to blame than the rabbit, right? She'd done her own killing in the pa.s.sage of daily life, not because she wished to inflict pain. The cats and the wolves only did it for food: they looked cruel but they weren't, she told herself. By contrast she looked innocuous and that was equally deceptive. She'd been greedy, she'd been selfish: maybe greed was her sin, or the variant of it that was l.u.s.t. She was irreligious but sin was a neat description: l.u.s.t, gluttony, avarice and pride. In the end all of the sins seemed the same to her, softer and harder forms of the same murder.

Once she accepted her own judgment, there was also the question of whether more sinning would make for still more murder. If she kept being a s.l.u.t, would someone die again? It was foolish to think so, but after all, she thought, she was a fool. If any sin was murder, she might have to start behaving.

They did their best to ignore Christmas. Casey went to a movie in a mall somewhere, maybe the Westside Pavilion-with a guy, Susan a.s.sumed, though it was left unsaid. Jim the lawyer had gone to Tahoe to be with his wife's relatives and everyone else she knew was occupied celebrating, so Susan rented a couple of videos and picked up Indian food.

On New Year's she made a resolution to be different, though she was still unsure. She had murdered once, so she would always be guilty. But that didn't mean she had to be a serial killer.

She decided to tell Jim.

”So listen,” she said, in bed.

”No.”

”No what?”

”No, we're not breaking up.”

She propped herself up on an elbow, curious.

He'd grown on her. At first she'd thought he was average, and then, slipping sideways somehow, the fact arrived that she almost loved him. At any rate she liked him far too much. She saw him only once every few days, but she'd come to depend on it-the pleasant welcome of his face. She wondered in pa.s.sing if it was all about his skin and its sweet smell: his skin that reminded her of Hal's, smooth and flawless.

He lay on his back now, eyes closed. Curiously at ease. There was a crescent scar near one eyebrow, a shallow nick.

”And how is that your call, Jim?”

He shrugged lightly, his shoulders barely moving.

”We're not, is all.”

Despite herself she was impressed.

”What if I said I don't like you?”

”But you do.”

”What if I said it was-I mean, better late than never-the fact that you're married?”

”I'd say that fact was none of your business.”

She turned and lay on her back beside him, gazing at the rings of light on the ceiling. One, two, three, the yellow circles intersecting with their invisible overlaps like a Venn diagram, the lamps on the nightstands, the floor lamp in the corner. They were on the ground floor for a change, in the small guest bedroom with the green Tiffany lamps. There were waterfowl around them. The waterfowl were an exception to her usual rule against s.e.x with stuffed animals watching. The ducks, the geese, the pink flamingo on its single leg bothered no one. They had beady little eyes but clearly no interest in looking.

”Of course it's my business. Motherf.u.c.ker.”

”Come on, sweetie,” said Jim, and touched her briefly on the side of her leg with fingertips, not moving his arm. She liked how he expended no energy unless forced to. Male lions were like that, according to her uncle's old encyclopedia. They slept all day in the sun and let the females do the hunting. ”Let's not argue.”

”I want to be better,” she said after a while.

”You're good enough for me,” said Jim, and turned his head slightly to rest his face against her shoulder.

”Obviously you set the bar low.”

”Don't jump to conclusions,” he said quietly.

”There's a third party,” she said. ”My new plan is not to be selfish.”

”That part is my life. Let me worry.”

A car pa.s.sed somewhere outside, light glancing. Of course it was his life, but if she let herself off this easy her resolution was meaningless.

”I don't want those boundaries,” she said abruptly, and sat up. Her robe was puddled on the floor beside the bed-she was still damp from the shower beforehand, she realized-and she leaned down to get it. ”You don't want to tell me, fine. It's your business, I agree. But then I get to say if you stay or go.”

She stood and threw the robe over her shoulders. She felt glad of its lightness, its s.h.i.+ne in the lamplight. She could make a smooth exit.

But also her slippers were somewhere lost in the dark of the floor. In the big house she almost never went barefoot. Sharp things were lodged in the elaborate tilework of the hallways, old, permanent dirt blackened the soles of her feet even after the women came to clean. She widened her eyes, tried to look harder. There, on the mirror lake with the long yellow reeds like Easter-basket stuffing, a flip-flop lay between a duck's feet, the other tumbled beside it.

He mumbled something. She couldn't quite hear and turned back to him as she pulled the robe's belt tight.

”Sorry?”

”No love,” he said.

”No love?”

”She doesn't love me.”

His eyes were still closed. She saw his chest in the light, hairless and lightly muscled. She'd even come to like his stomach, even its small roll. In the quiet she thought of asking him if he was sure, if he was just saying that, if he was rationalizing. But something in the tone of his voice stopped her.

”No love at all. Not for years. Really, I promise you. She doesn't give a s.h.i.+t.”

”Then why are you still together?”

”Susan,” he said slowly, almost growling, and this pleased her. She remembered Fantasy Baseball and the way he'd said Susie, and how she had disliked him for it. She almost s.h.i.+vered. ”Let's not.”

She considered for a few moments and lay down.

In the morning she woke up and found he was still there, for once. He seemed unworried by the novelty of the infraction. He got up and shuffled around the kitchen in a T-s.h.i.+rt, boxers and his unlaced dress shoes without socks.

”Those shoes look ridiculous,” she said fondly.

”Next time I'll bring the slippers and pipe,” he said, but didn't glance up at her. He was breaking eggs for an omelet.

They shared it on a single plate, sitting on either side of a wrought-iron table at the end of the pool. Above them were the branches of a weeping willow. Then they smoked two of his cigarettes and drank their black coffee. Their faces were in the willow's shade, and she s.h.i.+vered and felt good.