Chapter 4 - I Followed Her Out Before Anyone Could Stop Me
I didn't stand up so much as I got out from under them. The chair legs dragged loud against the floor and my left cuff caught on the edge of the table. The gold rim of my plate clinked when I bumped it. I kept my wrist turned in so nobody else could see the red line where she'd lifted the strap.
My sister was already talking again. She had her hand half-raised toward one of the men behind the table, not looking at me, telling him to have the kitchen hold dessert. Her pearls caught the candlelight when she turned her head. That was the window. She cared more in that second about the evening looking normal than about where I went.
I said I needed air. Nobody answered, which was answer enough.
The nurse was already out of the dining room. I saw the white of her scrubs past the doorway, near where the hall narrowed toward the restrooms. Her stethoscope swung once when she walked. I went after her fast enough that my dress shoes sounded too loud on the wood. My heart was doing something stupid in my chest, like I'd been caught doing something wrong when I hadn't done anything.
She heard me. She stopped but she didn't turn all the way around. The hallway was dimmer than the dining room, one wall sconce throwing warm light down over framed photos I never looked at. Ice clinked from somewhere back in the kitchen. Someone laughed too loud at the table behind us.
"You can't do that in there," she said, low. She glanced past my shoulder toward the doorway. "Not in front of them."
I stopped a couple feet from her. My left hand was fisted without me meaning it. The watch felt heavier than it should have, the leather warm and tight against the skin.
"You grabbed my wrist in front of my family," I said. "You tell me what you saw."
She shook her head once, quick. "I didn't grab it. I held it so it would stop moving. There's a difference."
"Don't play with words with me."
"I'm not." Her eyes went to my left wrist, then back to my face. "Lower your voice. Please."
That please did something to me. Nobody in that house said please unless they wanted something. She said it like she was trying to keep me out of trouble, not get me into it.
I held my arm out between us, palm up. The tattoos on my forearm looked black in the hallway light. The watch face caught a glare. Under the edge of the strap I could see the skin was raised, irritated in a way that hadn't been there that morning when I showered. At least I didn't think it had been there. That doubt had been eating at me since I'd sat back down.
"When was this touched?" I asked. "Today. At dinner. Before. When did anybody touch this?"
She didn't answer right away. She looked at the watch, not me. Her breathing was steady, but her fingers flexed at her sides like she wanted to reach for my wrist again and knew she shouldn't do it here where anyone could walk by.
"I don't know when," she said. "That's why I asked who put it on you."
"You think I wouldn't remember someone putting a watch on me?"
"I think sometimes people don't," she said. "If they were asleep. If they weren't paying attention. If they trusted who did it."
The hall felt narrower. I could hear my sister's voice from the dining room, sharper now, telling someone to sit down. One of the background men shifted in my peripheral vision, still by the wall, watching the table, not us. Yet.
"You saw something under it," I said.
She nodded, just barely. "Skin that shouldn't look like that. I need better light than candles. I need thirty seconds where nobody's performing for each other."
I laughed, short and wrong. "Good luck finding that in this house."
"Then the hallway bathroom. Around the corner. Door locks." She said it fast, like she'd already mapped it. "You go first. I'll come after. If she asks, you went to wash your hands."
My throat went dry. I didn't like being told what to do in my own home, but I liked less the idea of walking back to that table and pretending my wrist wasn't burning under leather.
"Thirty seconds?" I asked.
"To look properly. That's all I'm asking."
May you like
Behind us a chair scraped. My sister called my name, not loud, but with that pull she had, expecting me to turn around and come back.
I didn't turn. I looked at the nurse and gave one short nod. She understood. She started walking toward the corner without waiting, her shoes quiet, and left me standing in the hallway with my pulse loud in the watch arm, deciding to follow.
