She gave one last look in the mirror. Yes, she did look good, and if she didn’t look good, she wouldn’t have Lawrence, and she wouldn’t have this house on top of Lookout Mountain instead of some prefab place in Suck Creek. But she was fading; she knew it. In the long run life wasn’t about beauty at all but learning to make do when it was gone. She was glad she had taught Katy that. She had told her, “Yes, you are beautiful, but beauty passes, so be kind, Katy. That will sustain you. The world will love you long past your prime if you remember to be thoughtful and kind.”
Livy turned toward her bedroom, looked in and saw Lawrence propped up on pillows, dozing with his paper scattered across the bed. Livy looked at the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with. You used to take me dancing, she thought. He used to smile and stand when she entered a room, as if he couldn’t bear another second away from her. He used to bend a little toward her whenever she spoke, as if to catch the very breath of her words. Did all passion fade like this? She stood there, watching him, wondering if he’d wake and want her or just keep sinking deeper into the sheets. Either way it didn’t matter.
Livy stood in the doorway, just feeling the room, listening to the soft whir of the central air, the soughing sigh of Lawrence’s soft snores. She studied her life, the furniture solid on blue carpet in a white room with a wall of windows, drapes open to the night. A long way from Suck Creek. She thought this every night and gave thanks. She had her doubts sometimes about God and his ways in the world. But she believed in giving thanks for every day.
She crossed the room, went to the window that looked out onto a lot of nothing but trees. She’d convinced Lawrence to buy that lot so she’d always be able to stand at the window and watch the birds flitting in the branches, the squirrels digging, chattering, always a little nervous and hungry, it seemed. Other people’s children played there now. She liked to watch them, hear the high, happy sounds of children playing, digging, inventing who knew what in fantasy worlds hidden in those trees. Livy loved their innocence, so rowdy and loud, pure as pups until something in the world taught them to be afraid.
She would have to warn Katy about marriage. Maybe in the end kindness is overrated. Don’t give yourself away. She felt a surge of sorrow. Tears rushed into her eyes, a queasy feeling that made her sit. It was too late to teach Katy to be selfish. Livy had seen enough bankers, lawyers, contractors to know that even though Jesus said the meek inherit the earth, the world belonged to bankers, lawyers, and investors like Lawrence. She knew that in the world of living, it is not the meek who win.
“Livy,” Lawrence called from the bed, his voice soft, curious. Livy looked up.
He squinted, leaned for a closer look at her face. “Are you all right?”
She smiled, shook her head. He was worried. This was a man who after ten years of marriage would still sometimes show up with flowers for no reason. She would have to remember that.
Livy wondered why she was feeling so selfish, so pitiful and mean. Self-pity was a sin. She’d learned that in church.
He sat up, pulled the sheets up around his waist. “Sorry I fell asleep.”
She went to him, rubbed his chest, thick and hairy. She just wanted to touch him a minute. She felt the warmth of his skin, stepped back, and said, “I think I’ll get some water. Want anything?”
He studied her. “Did something happen?” he asked. “I can see it in your face.” Lawrence was a gambler—that was what stock traders really were. It was his business to know how to read every line and shadow, expression, even on a stranger.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I just had this bad feeling. You’d think I’d be happy Katy’s finally getting married. But it’s just that she’s so far away.”
Lawrence leaned back, gave a quick glance at a headline before tossing the section of paper aside, smoothing another across his lap. “Isn’t she coming up this weekend?”
“Yeah, but I’ve just got this bad feeling.”
“Call her,” he said, his attention now locked on something in the paper.
“She’s working.”
“She doesn’t work on Mondays.” Lawrence looked back to his paper and sighed. “My wife’s thirty-year-old daughter works in a bar. She went to college, for God’s sake.”
Livy didn’t want to start the old defense of the choices of her girl. “I’m calling her,” she said. But Lawrence had already dropped out of the conversation by the time she turned away.
She went down the hallway to the kitchen. She settled with her glass of water at the counter, and just as she reached for the phone, it rang.
Billy’s voice. She had trouble letting the meaning of his words sink in. Katy wasn’t home. Katy had left a note saying, “Be back when I can,” and she’d been gone all day. He said that note was a bad sign, a sign that she was still mad over a fight they’d had.
“A fight?” Livy said.
“Just an argument. Nothing real big.” Billy sighed. There was a weakness in his voice. He was guilty or lying over something.
“Billy,” she said, “anything you’re not telling me?”
He didn’t hear or pretended not to hear the question. “When things are good between us, she writes, ‘Be back soon.’ She only writes, ‘Be back when I can’ to let me know she can keep me waiting or come home. To remind me it’s her choice. It’s always gotta be her choice.”
Livy looked at the clock on the stove: 12:14.
“She wouldn’t run off?” He said it like a question. “Katy wouldn’t run off. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, Billy,” she said. “Katy would never just run off.”
“She’s coming to see you this weekend. I just thought maybe . . .”
The kitchen shook, righted, shook again. An earthquake? The house held, but the world was slipping. Katy had said something about coming home for a visit, but nothing had seemed wrong. Livy thought it could be something with Frank, but she wouldn’t mention Frank, not to Billy. “Have you tried calling her?”
“Her phone is here. You know how she tends to forget her phone.”
Livy could feel panic rising in her chest. Stay rational, she thought. No need for fear, not fear. But the word and the feeling hummed in her head. “So check who she’s been calling.”
“She keeps her phone locked, and I don’t have the code. Funny how she forgets her phone but never forgets to put the lock on.”
“Have you called the police?”
His voice, she understood that weakness in it. He was high. Of course. “They say it’s too early to declare her a missing person yet.”
A wave of nausea rolled up. “Don’t say that. She is not a missing person, Billy. She’ll come home.” Katy had never run off. She threatened to sometimes. The only time she’d ever done anything like run off, she’d moved to Frank’s houseboat. But she’d called Livy that same day just so she wouldn’t worry. Livy checked her cell phone charging on the counter. No missed calls. “This isn’t like Katy. Tell her to call me as soon as she comes in,” Livy said. She hung up the phone, gripped the counter for balance, then walked softly down the hallway, one hand touching the wall as if she were a blind woman feeling her way down the long corridor of an unfamiliar home.
What This World Needs Is a Little More Awareness
Jesse stared into the open refrigerator at Mike’s granny’s house. “What a waste, man. What a fucking waste of a day.” He was looking for something to eat but kept