Free Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman Page B

policeman asked some questions,” Mary said quietly. “Whether Paul had been here with the children, things like that.”
    Liz stood and pushed back her chair, its legs grinding across the wooden floor.
    “I see. That does explain things.” She paused to take a breath. “Thank you for dinner. I’ll be sure to leave first thing in the morning.”
    Upstairs her phone began to ring.
    Her in-laws looked up, their faces startled by the sound. It occurred to Liz how quiet and muted this place must be most of the time.
    When Liz finally reached the phone, Jill delivered the news as any good doctor knew to: swiftly, definitively, leaving no room for false hope.
    “They’re not here, Lizzie. It doesn’t look as if anyone has been inside since you packed up the place.”
    In the background there came a faint mew of bewilderment, one of Andy’s noises. Jill’s voice grew distant as she sought to comfort her son.
    “Andy, sweetheart, come here, no, not over there …”
    Liz’s cell phone had been plugged into the sole electrical outlet in the room; it sat in the wall beneath a window. Liz heard a smart thwack as her forehead hit the glass. Outside, night had finally fallen and everything was dark, as wide and empty a blank as all that lay before her now.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    L iz lay on top of a thin sheet, blanket puddled on the floor below, too hot to sleep although exhaustion pulled at her like weights. Whatever adrenaline had driven her here, prompting her crazed rush at Matthew in the yard and subsequent confrontation with him by the phone, was now drained. Time spent in this house had come to nothing, and the recession of hope left Liz limp and helpless.
    The cattle lowed miserably from the fields or their stalls; they were uncomfortable, too. A faint breeze stirred the curtains at the windows, but the temperature was so hot that the current of air provided no relief. Every now and then the sky lit greenly, casting an eerie glow over the room: somewhere far off, heat lightning was spiking. Liz got up and shoved the splintering frame of the window another inch or two higher. She turned around beneath the sloping eaves.
    Clues that at some point this room had been inhabited did exist, although they were hard to discern. There were a few lighter rectangles on the wall, where poster-shaped outlines hadn’t faded in lockstep with the rest of the paint. And the closet door was slightly ajar.
    Liz wondered which bands her husband had liked, the actresses he’d stared at. Why had Paul never wanted to bring her back to this place? It’d been easy for Liz to go along with her husband’s reticence,caught in the drift of his current. Paul had a charisma about him, a magnetic draw. That much knowledge was potent in a man. His students were compelled by it, too; Liz used to worry about Paul having an affair with one of his female acolytes, not that the males were any less adoring. The thought made her tremble with rage. She’d worried he would cheat on her; instead he had robbed her of their children.
    She was squeezing her hands so hard that they throbbed. Liz forced her palms to unclench. She walked across the floor, skin sticky, chafing. The backs of her knees were slick, and her upper lip tasted salty.
    Liz drew open the dresser drawers. They were empty, giving off the sharp, clean tang of pine. Liz closed her eyes and pictured herself amongst a stand of trees. Cool, shadowed. The press of desolation would be easier to bear in the forest, anywhere green and growing. She crossed to the closet, and there she finally got a hint of former life.
    The metal rod was devoid of clothes, just a few hangers, but high on a shelf sat a football helmet, its green dome visible from below. When Liz pulled it down, a jersey came with it. Eastern Agricultural College in gold letters and a gold number twelve. It was the school Paul had graduated from and now taught at. She hadn’t known that Paul had played college ball, which seemed a