Testimony by Paula Martinac

Author:Paula Martinac [Martinac, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612941806
Publisher: Bywater Books
Published: 2020-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

✥ ✥ ✥

As the light drained from the day, Gen pulled up to the curb in front of her bungalow but remained in the driver’s seat, hands fastened on the steering wheel. Beside her on the passenger’s side was a stack of papers she’d grabbed from her desk before racing from her office to the safety of her car. She wasn’t even sure what was in the messy pile, some of which had pitched forward onto the floorboard when she jammed on her brakes at a stop sign. She decided to abandon it all and get inside the house as quickly as she could.

Gen glanced at the liquor cabinet but bypassed it. She had too much to do, too much to think about, too many people to call to allow herself the luxury of getting drunk. Instead, she forced herself to enter the kitchen and down two glasses of water from the tap in rapid succession. Her throat scratched like sandpaper. She let her eyes wander across the yard, where the light was on in the Carrs’ kitchen. At almost dinner time, Mrs. Carr was sure to be home.

Gen continued to watch out the window, her heart tapping out a frenzied beat. After some time passed—five minutes? ten?—she spotted what she’d been waiting for: Irene Carr’s outline in her own window. Gen straightened her spine and willed Mrs. Carr to look back at her. As if she could sense Gen’s stare, Mrs. Carr’s eyes remained cast down, fixed on something in front of her, likely in the kitchen sink.

“Yes, wash those hands,” Gen muttered. “Get them nice and clean.”

And then Mrs. Carr glanced up—so fleetingly, Gen wondered if she imagined it. Within seconds, her neighbor had closed her flouncy cafe curtains.

Gen’s legs turned to rubber. If she called Ruby, if she related the situation to Darrell, he would likely tell her not to engage her neighbor in any way. Her better judgment agreed with his imagined advice, but her heart also weighed in. Without donning her coat again, Gen left her house through the kitchen door, crossed her backyard, and found herself standing on the Carrs’ porch.

She jabbed the doorbell once, twice. She crossed her arms to keep herself from shivering in the evening air, then punched the bell again. The fixture wasn’t broken—she could hear the melodic chime from where she stood—but no one came to answer it. Mr. Carr’s Lincoln wasn’t in the driveway, so his wife must be alone. The woman had bemoaned to Gen, more than once, her empty nest since Susanna had enrolled in Baines.

“I know you’re in there,” Gen said loudly, not caring who else heard. She switched to the door knocker, a polished brass lion’s head, and rapped it in a forceful rat-a-tat-tat.

Still, nothing. Gen trudged down the walkway and back to her house, letting the door slam behind her. Inside, she rested her forehead against its heavy wood.

She needed to warn Juliet and Fenton, but the pain of having to tell her gay friends that she’d let them down was intolerable.

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