Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

Author:Elizabeth Strout [Strout, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Chapter

14

SO FOR AMY and Isabelle—their lives had changed completely. When they spoke to one another, their words seemed pushed through the air like blocks of wood. If by chance their eyes should meet—while stepping out of the car, or leaving the lunchroom—they glanced away as quickly as they could. In the small house they moved past each other carefully, as though being near one another was a dangerous thing. But this only made them more aware of each other, joining them in a perverse intimacy of watchfulness, so that they learned more accurately the sounds of the other’s quiet chewing, noticed more astutely the moist smell of the bathroom after use, were aware even of when the other was or wasn’t sleeping by the quiet turning over in their beds at night, separated only by the thin Sheetrock wall.

Isabelle was not sure how long this could go on. It seemed ludicrous that they should eat a meal across from each other every night, should live together, work together, arrive at church together on Sundays, sitting in a pew so close that when they rose and sang the Doxology they could smell each other’s breath. It had crossed Isabelle’s mind to send the girl up the river to live with Isabelle’s cousin, Cindy Rae, but such an act would require an explanation to others that Isabelle was not prepared to give, and, more important, she was not prepared, even now, to release her daughter from her.

So they were stuck with each other. Each felt her suffering was greater than the other’s. In fact, each felt at times that perhaps her suffering was greater than the suffering of anyone, and so when it was reported on the news one night that a kneesock belonging to Debby Kay Dorne had been recovered in a field by a farm dog, and that the girl was now officially presumed to be dead, both Amy and Isabelle—not looking at each other, watching the television silently—actually allowed themselves the indulgence of thinking their own situation was somehow worse.

Amy thought: At least Debby’s mother loved her. At least everyone feels sorry. At least the girl is dead and doesn’t feel things anymore. (And everyone felt sorry.)

Isabelle, who was old enough to know better, to know, really, that what the mother was feeling must be the worst feeling of all, could nevertheless not stop herself from thinking: At least the girl was sweet. At least the girl hadn’t been cold-bloodedly lying to her mother for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Isabelle got up and turned off the television. “I’m going to bed,” she said.

Amy stretched her feet out in front of her, putting her hands behind her head. “Night,” she answered, staring straight ahead.

I SABELLE, LYING ON her bed in the summer darkness, a darkness that seemed porous and soft and something you could almost put your hand into, found it necessary, as she did on some of these nights, to go over it all once more in her head,

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