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.” Diane took off her jacket and her blouse.“I’m going to put some Betadine on the wound.” Susan frowned at Diane.“Are you telling me that this didn’t hurt when it happened?”“I felt something like a pulled muscle.It was crowded, and my attention was focused elsewhere.”Susan left for a couple of minutes and came back with a bottle of Betadine and some cotton pads.“I still can’t believe Alan grabbed you like that,” Susan said as she sat down next to Diane on the bed.“Diane, when you were married to Alan, did he.was he.”“Abusive? No.He tried to be controlling.”“Mother and Dad should have told him that wouldn’t work.”Diane smiled at her.“Alan’s main deal was pouting when he didn’t get his way.That didn’t work either.I was happiest when he wasn’t talking to me.He also liked to try to wear me down until I agreed with him.He was like a dog with a bone trying to get me to drop out of graduate school.I could dig my heels in when I’d a mind to, so we argued constantly.He locked me out of the bedroom once for some reason, thinking that would be a deterrent to my disagreeing with him.I was very happy on the couch,” Diane said with a laugh as she swiveled her body sideways slightly so that Susan could reach her arm.“Why did you marry him?” Susan asked.Diane felt her sister blot the incision with a cotton pad soaked with Betadine.It was cool on the hot wound.“Alan proposed.It was Mother and Dad’s wish that I accept.I wanted them to approve of something I did, so I accepted.It was a big mistake, and I regretted it immediately.”Susan taped a fresh sterile pad on Diane’s arm.Diane turned back toward her and noticed how worn-out her sister suddenly looked.“Diane, I need a favor,” she said after a long, awkward moment.“I know we haven’t gotten along.ever, I guess.But you’ve always been good to my kids.You remember their birthdays and Christmas.You write them letters.Kayla loves getting letters from you.”“What’s the matter, Susan? Has something happened?”“Something.Yes.Something happened.I made a terrible mistake, and I don’t know what to do.I need you to speak to Gerald.He respects you.”“I didn’t think anyone in the family respected me.”“Do you think that, really?” Susan looked at the painting of a moose at the edge of the woods that hung on the wall opposite the bed.“You’re the smart one.Everyone respects that.”Yes, the smart one.and Susan’s the pretty one, Diane thought.That was how Diane’s mother described her children.Diane guessed her mother was trying to tell people that each had her own special qualities, but what it had always sounded like to her—and she guessed to Susan too—was that Diane was the ugly one and Susan was the dumb one.Susan must have been thinking the same thing.“Prettiness fades with time,” she said.“I didn’t realize that when I was young, and if that’s all you have.” Susan looked down at her hands and twisted her wedding ring on her finger.“Would it do any good for me to tell you that is not all you have and that you are plenty smart.and still pretty? What’s this about, Susan?”“Last New Year’s Eve, Alan and I kissed.It was nothing.I don’t know why I even did it.But that’s all it was.Honest.We never went beyond that one rather silly kiss.”“Did Gerald see it or something?”“No.Alan”—she spit his name out like it tasted bitter—“Alan told Gerald this morning.”“Why?”“I know you think Alan is a good financial lawyer, but he isn’t.Dad had to find him a job because he was fired from the firm where he worked before.”Actually, Diane didn’t think Alan was a good lawyer.She had just been trying to soften her remark about Alan’s not being a criminal lawyer.“Fired? I thought he would have been a partner,” she said.“No.We all thought it was a raw deal.jealousy, infighting.Mother and Dad think the world of him, so Dad got him a job with the firm that Fallon and Abernathy use.Alan’s made some mistakes with their accounts.He told the partners that Gerald is the one who gave him the information and told him how he wanted things handled.Gerald found out this morning and called him.They had a row, and that’s when Alan told him.Now Gerald thinks we.that we had an affair.I swear we didn’t.That’s why we sent the children to his sister’s.We didn’t want them to witness us sorting this out.”“I’ll tell Gerald that I believe you, if you think that will help.”“Do you?”“Believe you? Yes.”“Why?”“I have experience with people who lie.” Diane didn’t say that one of the people she had experience with was Susan herself when they were children, and that Diane knew exactly when Susan lied and when she was telling the truth.“Gerald is a good man, and I don’t want a divorce [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]