Lies of the Heart Read Online Free PDF

death as well with our presence in their home.”
    The silence stretches across the years, weighs down Arthur’s shoulders until his back bows.
    “What else could we do but send her?” he finally asks, but his body, his eyes—now even bigger because Katie stands only a few feet away—say that maybe there were other answers.
    Katie steps into the stream of light and places her hand flat on the shed, in the space that is now like a chasm between Arthur and Sarah. She watches the dusty light twinkle and move on her hand, on her arm, then closes her eyes as another wind pushes through her backyard, her hair. Above her the leaves rustle loudly, a pair of wings flutter past, and then the night quiets completely.
    When she opens her eyes, she sees the shadows moving on her hand—the space between her friends closing, their bodies moving back together again.

    Later, Katie sits in the dark, staring at the side of the shed where her friends were only moments ago. She’s thinking of possibilities, of what life pretends to offer—of what it bestows instead. How she was sitting in this very chair that afternoon, though it was pushed to the edge of the deck to catch the last rays of the late spring afternoon on her bare legs. She remembers that she was strangely happy that day, for no particular reason except that Nick might call—he might be thinking of her at that very moment, too. And then the phone rang, and she smiled, suddenly filled with hope; she jumped up, hurried into the house. Answered the phone, almost breathless, still smiling.
    Less than an hour later, she waited on the other side of the window, willing herself to stand—to keep standing.
    — Just a few seconds, the woman beside her had said, to confirm the identity.
    In just a few seconds Nick would grant another part of his life to Katie, irrevocable: an image that would permanently inscribe itself into her brain, fusing with every memory they ever created together. Every time she recalled something specific between them—a casual conversation over dinner, an early spring morning in bed and inside each other’s arms, a fiery argument about his mother—this new picture of him would forge its way to the surface, superimposing itself over the passionate, the ordinary. Katie couldn’t shake the almost cinematic feeling of the moment, the blurred, dreamlike quality of what was about to happen; she imagined the blinds opening, her breath compromised, her eyes roaming over Nick’s ashen face as the blood drained from her own. This last picture of him carving deep spaces inside her, pushing aside everything that existed before. She saw the curt nod she would give the woman who insisted on standing too close, like she was waiting to catch Katie’s inevitable crumble to the floor.
    Around her, sounds were filtered through cotton: a door opening, the approach of clicking footsteps—muffled and distanced, but somehow still so loud they felt like sharp fingernails jabbing into Katie’s ribs. And then a voice, right behind her, icy and clear:
    —I’m here to identify the body.
    Candice. Nick’s mother.
    Katie looked straight ahead. Placed her hands on the ledge of the window. The woman beside her uttered some confused words—Katie heard only “wife” and “kin,” and then Candice’s reply.
    —My son left her a month ago. I’m his next of kin .
    Katie sensed the woman looking at her, but she kept her eyes trained on the window. As if on cue, the blinds opened and a man in a white coat nodded at her, walked around the metal gurney. Gently pulled down the sheet from Nick’s face. Waited patiently for Katie’s affirmation, because she was staring at him, at this attendant, instead of at her dead husband. Trying to assemble a response for Candice before she saw Nick for the last time. I asked him to leave. Temporarily. He was still mine. But before the words would come, Candice’s cold voice again:
    —That’s my son. That’s my Nicky.
    Finally Katie turned