The Name She Called

Clara tried Audrey again before she left work.

Voicemail.

She left a message this time. "Shelby told me. Call me when you can. I'd like to hear it from you."

That evening, Lorraine hired a car to take them to the Reed house. She carried a tin of cookies on her knees and complained about what the driver charged.

Shelby asked to borrow Clara's phone.

"Mine's almost dead. I need to call Mom's neighbor."

Clara handed it over. Then Lorraine asked her to hold the cookies while she looked for cash, and she forgot to ask for it back.

At the house, nobody greeted them.

Audrey's father-in-law opened the door. He looked at Clara, then at Lorraine, and stepped aside.

The curtains were closed. Men sat around a table under a bare bulb. A television played with the sound off.

"Where's Audrey?" Clara asked.

"Upstairs," Lorraine said.

"I'll go see her."

"Let her rest."

Clara stopped by the stairs.

On the wall was Audrey's wedding photograph. Somebody had put it facedown on the small shelf beneath the mirror.

"Is she ill?"

Nobody answered.

She turned toward Shelby.

Her cousin was looking at the floor.

The argument began after dark.

Audrey's husband wanted money. His father wanted Martin found. Lorraine shouted that she hadn't been driving the van, hadn't asked anybody to get in it, and wasn't paying for her brother's mistakes.

"You still owe for what we spent on your daughter," the husband said.

"My daughter's dead!"

Clara couldn't move.

The words seemed to remain in the room after the shouting stopped.

"What?"

Lorraine turned away from her.

Clara looked at Shelby.

"What does she mean?"

"Audrey died."

Shelby's voice was flat.

"When?"

"A few days ago."

"You said she was pregnant."

"She was."

Clara gripped the stair rail.

"What happened?"

Audrey's husband spat into a paper cup.

"Came back carrying somebody else's kid, wanting a divorce. After everything we paid for her."

Clara looked at him.

He looked back without embarrassment.

"You hit her."

"Watch your mouth."

"What happened to the baby?"

Lorraine said, "She shouldn't have run off."

The room tilted slightly.

Shelby put a hand under Clara's elbow. For an instant she leaned into it.

Then her cousin said, "You gave her the money."

Clara stared at her.

"You did too."

Shelby removed her hand.

"I didn't tell her to ruin her marriage."

Clara went to the front door.

It wouldn't open.

Behind her, Lorraine began talking quickly.

"She's educated. She's got a job. It's more than Audrey ever had. The street's gone, you know that. Martin hasn't got a cent. What do you expect me to do?"

Clara turned.

Her aunt wasn't talking to her.

"No," she said.

The husband stood.

Lorraine caught Clara by the back of her coat and shoved her toward him.

"Don't make this worse."

Clara stumbled, struck the table, and heard a glass break.

She reached for her bag.

Her phone wasn't there.

"Shelby."

Her cousin stood beside the kitchen door.

"Give me my phone."

Shelby didn't move.

The husband came closer.

Clara picked up a shard of glass from the table and held it in front of her.

That made him stop.

For a moment she could hear her own breathing.

Lorraine said, "Look at the trouble you're causing."

Clara looked at the woman who had raised her.

Then at the girl who had once pushed her out of a bedroom to keep her safe.

Neither looked away quickly enough.

***

They locked her in a room behind the kitchen.

There was no window she could reach, only a small pane near the ceiling. The first night she shouted until her throat failed. After that she saved her voice.

She counted door openings. Footsteps. The noises of people eating.

She tried the wall beside the pipe with a loose screw from the bed frame. Under the plaster was brick.

When a plate appeared, she couldn't make herself eat it.

Water came in a plastic jug. She drank because she had to.

Somebody had taken her coat.

On the third night, the husband opened the door and saw the screw in her hand.

His father caught his arm before he could come inside.

"Not another one," the old man said.

Clara heard it after they shut the door.

Not another one.

She sat on the bed with her back against the wall, holding the screw until her fingers cramped.

By morning she was shivering too hard to keep it steady.

***

Damian had paid three times what the final buyer wanted for Bennett Row.

Owen had objected on principle, then found a way to complete the transaction without giving Martin a penny.

Now the documents sat in a case at Damian's feet.

For the first time in years, a business trip had felt like something other than work.

He pictured Clara looking at the first page, trying not to smile. He pictured her saying he'd spent too much. He pictured having an answer ready.

His own riverside land adjoined the redevelopment boundary. There would be work there for years if the negotiations went well. Real work. Buildings, roads, wages paid on time.

A future she might not dismiss as a bad idea.

He called her again.

Straight to voicemail.

At Lorraine's apartment, Shelby opened the door.

"Clara?" he asked.

Her eyes moved toward the case.

"Julian's family collected her."

For a second he couldn't understand the sentence.

"When?"

"A few days ago."

Vince made an angry sound behind him.

Damian ignored it.

"Did she leave a message?"

Shelby shook her head.

Back at the hotel, the room was exactly as Clara had left it.

Her nightclothes lay across a chair. Her books were open. Beside the mirror stood two lip balms, one tinted and one plain.

She had pushed the plain one at him last week because his mouth was cracked.

He picked it up.

Citrus and mint.

He hadn't realized a room could hold this much of a person who wasn't in it.

He sat on the edge of the bed until dawn.

Owen knocked before seven.

"Julian Ashford checked in downstairs. He's asking for Clara."

Damian stood so abruptly the chair beside him fell.

"Where's Vince?"

"Downstairs."

"Get him. Now."

***

The door broke inward just after daylight.

Clara raised her head from her knees.

For a moment the light was all she could see. Then a man's shape filled it, broad shoulders blocking the doorway.

"Clara."

She knew the voice.

Her mind gave it the wrong name.

"Julian?"

Damian crossed the room and crouched beside her.

She caught his sleeve.

"I waited. I thought you forgot."

His face moved, but she couldn't understand the expression.

"Never," he said.

He opened his coat, wrapped it around her, and lifted her.

Her fingers stayed tangled in his sleeve all the way to the car.

***

There was soup in a cup. A doctor. A woman asking her to follow a small light with her eyes.

Warm water on her skin.

Clean sheets.

Clara woke several times, and every time somebody was sitting beside her.

Once she woke reaching for the screw.

A hand caught hers.

"It's me."

She stared until the room came together.

The vanity. Her books. The lamp Damian had bought because the first one hurt her eyes.

He sat in the chair with his sleeves rolled up, his jaw dark, one hand wrapped around hers.

She touched his wrist.

Not a dream.

"You," she whispered.

He leaned forward.

"What?"

She climbed awkwardly toward him and put both arms around his neck.

"It was you."

His hand spread against her back.

"Yes."

"I didn't know."

His cheek rested against her hair. Somewhere in the outer room a phone rang and stopped. He made no move to answer it. Clara listened to that silence until she could breathe properly again.

He closed his eyes and held her.

"You know now."