Wednesday, November 11
Beth asked her to bring tape.
Willa bought two rolls, the thick kind with the strip you could fold over to start the next piece. She stood in the shop comparing them for too long. Beth had not asked her to choose the best tape in Philadelphia.
At the house, Beth opened the door and said, “Good,” when she saw the bag.
There were three boxes in the hall, all empty. Simon's shoes stood beside them, toes under the little bench. Willa took off her own shoes.
“Where is he?”
“School.”
“He went in?”
“Yes.”
Beth wore yesterday's trousers and a gray shirt Willa had seen her sleep in before. Her hair was clipped back without being combed. She took the tape out of the bag and tested the edge with her thumb.
“Kitchen or bedroom?”
“Which is worse?”
“Kitchen.”
“Then kitchen.”
Willa followed her in. The table was clear. Somebody had washed all the dishes, put the chairs straight, folded the tablecloth over the back of one chair to be dealt with later. The green sauce was gone.
Beth opened a cupboard and stared into it.
“Those,” she said, pointing to two bowls.
Willa took them down.
“Just those?”
“For now.”
She wrapped them in newspaper. One was chipped underneath, where you wouldn't know until you were washing it. Willa had used it for cereal at some point, staying here after a late night. She hadn't known it belonged to Beth rather than both of them.
“Did you buy these?”
“College.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Willa set the wrapped bowls in the box. Beth opened the next cupboard, closed it, and went to the drawer beside the sink.
There was a little wooden spoon in there, the kind you used for making a sauce in a small pan. Beth held it, then put it on the counter, separate from the box.
“You can take it.”
“I know.”
Willa kept wrapping the things she was given. Beth had brought a towel for the bottom of the box. They fitted a saucepan into one corner and filled the space beside it with two tea towels. It was hard to make the move large enough to be real and small enough not to be a theft.
“He said take what I want,” Beth said.
“Okay.”
“He doesn't mean it. Or he does now. He won't when he wants a thing.”
Willa pulled the tape across the bottom of another box.
“I can come back.”
“No.”
“I mean for more things. If you don't want to—”
“I know what you mean.”
Beth went to the refrigerator and took down a photograph held there by a magnet. Willa caught a glimpse of the two of them at a beach, Simon squinting in bright light, Beth's face turned toward him. She slid it into the pocket of her bag without wrapping it.
Willa looked at her hands.
“I let her go on,” she said.
Beth didn't turn around.
“At dinner.”
“I was there.”
“I could have stopped her.”
Beth closed the cupboard slowly.
“Yes.”
“I thought I could let her finish saying—”
She stopped. Beth waited.
“That I was good,” Willa said.
Beth's face changed, but not toward kindness.
“I heard.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying you know. Then you tell me the thing I was standing next to you for.”
Willa pressed the tape end onto the box. Her fingers stuck to it and left a pale print.
“I don't want to lie about it.”
“Then don't.”
They stood in the kitchen. Outside, somebody was rolling a trash bin down the sidewalk. It bumped over every crack.
“I didn't think she'd say it to him,” Willa said.
“Until she did.”
“Until before she did.”
Beth looked at her.
“Yes,” Willa said. “I heard her starting.”
Her sister turned back to the drawer. She picked up the wooden spoon and dropped it into the box.
“That's all I can do in here.”
They carried the half-full box into the hall. In the bedroom, Beth had laid a suitcase flat on the bed. Several hangers waited on top of it. There were empty spaces in the closet, not enough of them for a person to be missing yet.
Willa took a shirt off a hanger and folded it the way Beth liked. The first fold was wrong; Beth reached to fix it, then stopped herself.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me.”
Beth showed her. Willa did the next one better.
They worked quietly. In a drawer under the bed Beth found a pair of winter gloves, tried them on, and laughed without pleasure.
“I thought I'd lost these.”
Willa held out her hand for the gloves. Beth gave them to her to put in the bag.
“Mom called,” Beth said.
“What did she say?”
“I didn't answer.”
“Okay.”
“I've sent the replacement everything. The travel stuff, the theater contacts. There's nothing left she needs from me.”
“You're still here till the twentieth.”
“I'm not doing ten more days of this.”
“Of the work?”
Beth pulled a shirt from the bottom of a stack.
“Yes. The work. She's got somebody. They can start asking each other what time things are.”
Willa thought of the black dress, the soft shoes, her mother on the step waiting to be collected. She kept folding.
“You don't need to do it either,” Beth said.
“I'm doing the show.”
“I know.”
Willa smoothed the folded shirt against her leg.
“Can you hand me the bag?”
Willa handed it over.
They took the first load downstairs. Beth had parked half a block away in a space Willa would never have tried. The car was small; Willa had expected a van, helpers, an operation. Beth opened the trunk and began moving things around to make room.
“Let me.”
“I have to take the case out first.”
“I can hold it.”
“Then hold it.”
Willa held the case while Beth found a place for the box. They had to turn the box on its side, and one pan lid shifted inside. Beth stopped, opened it, fixed the lid, and closed it again.
Willa didn't offer an easier way. She stood with the case against her leg and waited until she was asked to put it in.
When it was done, Beth leaned against the side of the car. She looked tired enough to be ill, but when a parking officer came into view at the end of the block, she straightened at once.
“Can I have the key?” she asked.
Willa's hand moved toward her coat pocket. Not this coat. The other coat hung by her own front door, key still in the little pocket.
“It's in the other one.”
“Bring it back.”
“I will.”
“I've changed the delivery. You don't need to do the shelf.”
“Okay.”
“And don't go over.”
“I haven't.”
“I didn't say you had.”
Willa looked at the car, at the three small bags in the back. Beth had put the photograph in one of them, somewhere Willa couldn't see.
“Could I come help you carry—”
“No.”
“Just to get it upstairs.”
“No, Will.”
The parking officer passed them without stopping. Beth unlocked the driver's door.
“What can I do?”
Her sister put a hand on the roof.
“Take the rest of the boxes inside so they're not in the hall.”
Willa nodded.
“Thank you for coming,” Beth said.
The words hurt because they were not sarcastic. Willa watched her get into the car, watched her find her sunglasses on the dashboard and put them on. She moved out of the space neatly, one reverse, one forward turn, and drove away.
Willa carried the empty boxes back upstairs. In the kitchen she found the second roll of tape, unopened, and put it with the newspaper. She looked into the hall cupboard for somewhere to put the boxes. Simon's winter coat hung beside Beth's raincoat. Neither seemed to belong to a different life.
She stacked the boxes against the wall where Beth had asked and went out.
At home she took the apartment key from her other coat. The little burr caught on the lining. She could have put it in an envelope. Beth's address was in their messages. She held the key in her palm, then put it on the table by her bag.
Her phone rang. Jo.
Willa let it ring twice before answering.
“Have you heard from her?” her mother asked.
“I've been with her.”
“Is she all right?”
“She's moving things.”
“Yes, but is she all right?”
Willa sat down.
“I don't think that's a different question today.”
Jo was quiet for a moment. Then, “I didn't know.”
“I know you didn't.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Willa looked at the key.
“I should have.”
“Yes.”
The blunt agreement almost made her angry. She let it stand.
“She's not doing the show work now,” Willa said. “She says you've got somebody.”
“I've got somebody. That wasn't—”
Jo stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing. Can you come tomorrow? There's the dress and the things from the back room. I don't know what to take.”
Willa closed her hand over the key, making the edge press into her palm.
“What time?”
“After your lessons.”
“I can come about four.”
“Thank you, honey.”
Afterward Willa put the key in a small dish with her own spare change. She hadn't returned it. She could take it over later. Tomorrow, perhaps, before she went to Jo's.
She went to wash the newsprint off her fingers. In the sink the water ran gray for a moment, then clear.