Charlie smoothed together her lips. “Before that.”
“Do you even know who that guy is?”
She was sick of the question. “The whole point of being with a stranger is that they’re a stranger, and in a perfect world, you never have to see them again.”
“Good to know.” He pulled out a file and paged through it.
Charlie pushed herself up on her knees so she could look him in the eye. “It’s never happened before. Not once. Not even close.”
Ben shook his head.
“I never looked at another man when I was with you.”
He put the file back into the box and pulled out another one. “Did you come with him?”
“No,” she said, but that was a lie. “Yes, but I had to use my hand, and it was nothing. Like a sneeze.”
“A sneeze,” he repeated. “Great, now every time I sneeze, I’m going to think of you coming with fucking Batman.”
“I was lonely.”
“Lonely,” he echoed.
“What do you want me to say, Ben? I want you to make me come. I want to be with you.” She tried to touch his hand but he moved it away. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this better. Just tell me.”
“You know what I want.”
The marriage counselor again. “We don’t need some frumpy licensed social worker with a bad haircut to tell me I’m the problem. I know I’m the problem. I’m trying to fix it.”
“You asked what I wanted and I told you.”
“What’s the point of picking apart something that happened thirty years ago?” Charlie sighed, exasperated. “I know I’m angry about it, Ben. I’m fucking furious. I don’t try to hide it. I don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If I was obsessed with it and wouldn’t shut up about it, she would say something was wrong with that, too.”
“You know that’s not what she said.”
“God, Ben, what’s the point of this? Do you still even want me?”
“Of course I do.” He looked anxious, like he wanted to take back his answer. “Why can’t you understand that part doesn’t matter?”
“It matters.” She moved closer to him. “I miss you, babe. Don’t you miss me?”
He shook his head again. “Charlie, that’s not going to fix things.”
“It might fix them a little.” She stroked back his hair. “I want you, Ben.”
He kept shaking his head, but he didn’t push her away.
“I’ll do whatever you want.” Charlie moved closer. Throwing herself at him was the only thing she hadn’t tried. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
“Stop,” he said, but didn’t stop her.
“I want you.” She kissed his neck. The way his skin reacted to her mouth made Charlie want to cry. She kissed along his jaw, up to his ear. “I want to feel you inside of me.”
Ben let out a low groan as her hands moved down his chest.
She kept kissing him, licking him. “Let me go down on you.”
He inhaled a shaky breath.
“You can have whatever you want, babe. My mouth. My hands. My ass.”
“Chuck.” His voice was hoarse. “We can’t—”
She kissed him on the lips, and kept kissing him until he finally kissed her back. His mouth was like silk. The feel of his tongue sent a rush between her legs. Every nerve in her body was on fire. His hand went to her breast. He was getting hard, but Charlie reached down to make him harder.
Ben covered his hand over hers. At first, she thought he was helping her but then she realized he was stopping her.
“Oh, God.” She backed away quickly, jumping off the bed, standing with her back to the wall, embarrassed, humiliated, frantic. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Charlie—”
“No!” She held up her hands like a traffic cop. “If you say something now, then it’ll be the end, and it can’t be the end of things, Ben. That can’t happen. It’s too much after—”
Charlie cut herself off, but her own words rang in her ears like a warning.
Ben stared at her. His throat moved as he swallowed. “After what?”
Charlie listened to the blood pounding in her ears. She felt jittery, like her toes were dangling over the edge of a bottomless chasm.
Ben’s phone played the opening bars of the COPS theme, the ringtone he’d set for the Pikeville Police Department.
Bad boys, bad boys, whatchu gonna do …
She said, “It’s work. You have to answer.”
“No, I don’t.” He tilted up his chin, waiting.
Bad boys, bad boys …
He said, “Tell me what happened today.”
“You were there when I gave my statement.”
“You ran toward the gunshots. Why? What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t run toward gunshots. I ran toward Mrs. Pinkman screaming for help.”
“You mean Heller?”
“That’s exactly the kind of Oprah bullshit a therapist would say.” She had to yell to be heard over his stupid phone. “That I put myself in danger because thirty years ago, when someone really needed me, I ran away.”
“And look what happened!” Ben’s sudden flash of anger reverberated through the quiet.
The ringtone had stopped.
The silence rumbled like thunder.
She said, “What the fuck does that mean?”
Ben’s jaw was clenched so tight she could practically hear his teeth grinding. He grabbed the box off the bed and threw it back into the closet.
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“What are you talking about, Ben?” Charlie felt shaky, like something irreparable had torn apart. “Do you mean, look at what happened then, or look at what happened today?”
He shoved boxes around on the shelves.
She stood in the closet doorway, trapping him. “You don’t get to throw shit around and then turn your back on me.”
He said nothing.
Charlie heard the distant ring of her cell phone buried deep in her purse downstairs. She counted out five long rings, holding her breath through the pauses until voicemail picked up.
Ben kept moving boxes around.
The silence began to fester. She was going to start crying again because crying was all that she could do today.
“Ben?” She finally broke, begging, “Please tell me what you meant.”
He took the lid off one of the boxes. He traced his finger along the labeled files. She thought he was going to keep ignoring her, but he said, “Today is the third.”
Charlie looked away. That’s why Ben had called her this morning. It’s why Rusty had hummed “Happy Birthday” while she had stood by like an imbecile asking him again and again to tell her what he knew.
She said, “I saw last week on the calendar, what day it was, but—”
Ben’s phone started ringing again. Not the police this time, but a normal ring. Once. Twice. He answered on the third ring. She heard his curt responses, “When?” then, “How bad is it?” then, his tone deeper, “Did the doctor say …”
Charlie leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb. She had heard variations on this call multiple times before. Someone in the Holler had punched his wife too hard or grabbed a knife to end a fight and someone else had grabbed a gun, and now the assistant district attorney had to go to the station and offer a deal to the first person who talked.
“Will he make it?” Ben asked. He started nodding again. “Yeah. I’ll handle it. Thanks.”
Charlie watched him end the call, slip his phone back into his pocket. She said, “Let me guess, a Culpepper got arrested?”
He didn’t turn around. He gripped the edges of the shelf like he needed something to hold onto.
“Ben?” she asked. “What is it?”
Ben sniffed. He wasn’t a complete stoic, but Charlie could count on one hand the times she had seen her husband cry. Except he wasn’t just crying now. His shoulders were shaking. He seemed racked by grief.