The Liar

Four and a half years before, on a simmering October evening out West, she bought a pretty blue dress—Richard had liked her in blue—spent an hour blowing out her hair because he liked it smooth, and walked down the aisle of the silly little chapel carrying a single white rose.

She’d thought it the happiest day of her life, but it hadn’t been her life at all. Just an illusion, and worse, just a lie.

And every day after that, she’d done her very best to be a good wife, to learn to cook the way Richard liked, to pack up and move when Richard had the whim, to dress the way he liked. To make sure Callie was washed and fed and dressed pretty when he came home.

All that’s done, she thought.

“All that’s done,” she murmured. “So why are we still here?”

She went into her old dressing area, where she’d started some halfhearted packing in the Louis Vuitton luggage Richard had bought her in New York to replace the duffel bag she’d stuffed with clothes when she’d run off with him.

She packed in earnest now, then breaking a hard-and-fast rule, she set Callie up with Shrek and cereal in the kitchen while she packed her daughter’s things. Following one of her mother’s hard-and-fast rules—never call anybody but the police, the fire department or a plumber before nine in the morning—she waited until nine on the dot to call Donna.

“Hi, Shelby, how are you?”

“It’s snowing again.”

“It’s the winter that won’t die. They’re saying we’ll get about eight inches, but it’s supposed to go up to about fifty by Saturday. Let’s hope this is the last gasp.”

“I’m not counting on it. Donna, there’s not much left in the house here but me and Callie. I want to take the TV in the kitchen, the under-the-counter one, home for my grandmother. She’d just love that. And the big flat-screen—any of them. There’s nine in this house, I counted. I just want to take one home for my daddy. I don’t know if maybe the buyers want the others? I know the deal’s not final, but we could make the sale of the TVs contingent on it. Honestly, I don’t care what they want to pay me for them.”

“I can propose that to them, of course. Let them make you an offer.”

“That would be just fine. If they don’t want them, or only want some of them, I’ll take care of it.”

Somehow, she thought, rubbing at her aching temple.

“But . . . when I get off the phone with you, I’m calling a moving company. I can’t get Callie’s furniture in the van, not with the boxes I’m taking, and the suitcases and her toys. And, Donna, I’m going to ask you for an awful big favor.”

“Of course, what can I do?”

“I need you to put one of those lockbox things on the house, and for us to do whatever the paperwork is that’s coming if this goes through, by mail or e-mail or whatever it is. I need to go home, Donna.”

Saying it, just saying it, eased the knots in her shoulders.

“I need to take Callie home. She hasn’t had a chance with all that’s going on to make a single friend her age. This house is empty. I think it always was, but now you can’t pretend it isn’t. I can’t stay here anymore. If I can get everything arranged, we’re leaving tomorrow. Saturday at the latest.”

“That’s no favor and no problem. I’ll take care of the house, don’t worry about that. You’re going to drive all that way, alone?”

“I have Callie. I’m going to cancel this landline, but I’ll have my cell if you need to reach me. And my laptop, so I’ll have e-mail. If the sale doesn’t go through, you’ll just show it to somebody else. But I hope it does, I hope those people who want it get it, and make a home out of it. But we have to go.”

“Will you shoot me an e-mail when you get there? I’m going to worry about you a little.”

“I will, and we’ll be fine. I wish I’d known how nice you are sooner. That sounded stupid.”

“It didn’t,” Donna said with a laugh. “I wish the same about you. Don’t worry about anything here. If you need something done after you’re home, you just let me know. You’ve got a friend in Philadelphia, Shelby.”

“You’ve got one in Tennessee.”

After she hung up, Shelby took a deep breath. And she made a list, a careful one, of everything that needed doing. Once she’d crossed the last thing off, she was going home.

She was taking Callie back to Rendezvous Ridge.

4

It took most of the day, and some creative bribery, to keep Callie from interrupting her. Accounts to be closed, others to be transferred, the change of address, the forwarding. The cost of the moving company to break down Callie’s furniture, ship it and set it up again made her wince. And she considered renting a U-Haul and doing it herself.

But she’d need help getting the bed and dresser downstairs and into a trailer anyway.

So she swallowed hard and went for it.

It paid off, to her way of thinking, as the next day, for a twenty-dollar tip, the movers took the big TV off the wall in the living room, wrapped it and carted it out to the van for her.

Donna, as good as her word, had the lockbox installed.

She packed what was left, stowed whatever she might need on the road in a big tote.