This is not the first time Ken has asked me this. In the beginning, before a ring and a baby, we’d face each other in bed as he’d touch my skin, and he’d ask me the same question. I liked it then.

“I’m real. All of me is real.”

He nods and leaves the kitchen through the sliding glass doors. My answer seemed to satisfy him. At least, it was the answer he was asking for.

But it’s a lie.

I am not real. I am a doll, a puppet dancing ferociously from the pull of its strings. I am an empty space contained within the shape of a woman, sealed up with an ever-present smile.

CHAPTER
9

“AND YOU DIDN’T answer? Not even to say screw off?” Lisa leans across the coffee shop table to say this in a hissing whisper.

She’d been fifteen minutes late. Not a surprise. She’s disheveled, as though she got ready in a hurry, but she’s overdressed for a midmorning coffee date with a friend from high school. Heavy makeup. Elaborately styled hair. Jewelry. I feel dowdy in comparison, although I’d dressed as carefully for this coffee date as I had for the reunion. I haven’t met a friend for coffee since Eli was in kindergarten.

“No. I blocked him.”

This is a lie. I’d hovered between blocking and not, back and forth, but I want to know if he’s still trying. I finally simply silenced all notifications from his number and deleted the texts. He hadn’t left a voice mail.

“Nothing happened after me and Beth left?”

“Nothing,” I tell her.

She grins. “Well, that’s why he’s trying so hard now.”

I’d ordered a mug of plain black coffee, endlessly refillable, and now I spin the mug around and around. “I shouldn’t have gone up there with him in the first place.”

“Probably not, but … I mean …” She trails off with a frown. She shrugs. “Everyone does stupid shit sometimes, Jewelann. I totally get it.”

She can only think she does.

Lisa looks at my hand. My wedding band is of plain gold, but my engagement ring is a solitaire diamond big enough to weigh down my hand. It had been Ken’s mother’s ring, one of the few things salvaged from the fire. Selling it could pay off quite a bit of my credit card debt, but of course I can’t sell it. Next, she tilts herself to look at my feet. My kitten-heel slides are Prada. My bag is a cute Kate Spade with some damage inside you can’t see without looking for it.

“Does your husband buy you all those pretty things?”

Technically, yes, since I spend the money he earns. “Sometimes.”

“My boyfriend likes to give me presents.” She waves a hand in front of me to show off her bangle bracelets. I recognize the style of the charms. Each is worth about forty dollars. I have a few, but I don’t like the way they clink against my arm, so I never wear them.