Traduci in italiano "The ringing of the phone startles her so much she jumps. She’s standing next to her bed, and
the phone is on the bedside table. The second ring is like a scream in the silent house. She
reaches for it at once, on instinct. It could be Fred. It could be Harge. Carol doesn’t dare
awake suspicion by letting it ring a third time.
But when she brings the phone to her ear, the obligatory hello catches in her throat, as she
remembers: Harge is at a dinner with clients; Fred is away in the Poconos with his wife for
the weekend. Abby is on a date with her redhead.
Which means the only possible person who could be calling her is—
“Hello?”
That voice, soft, almost a whisper, goes through her like a javelin. Carol’s eyes flutter shut.
What she feels is the most terrible, heartbreaking, exquisite rush. The sound of Therese is like
water poured down a parched throat, and like nails driven into a coffin—
“Carol?”
Carol’s other hand comes up, cupping the receiver as if it were Therese’s face, as if she could
draw her close to her. Her heart beats a frenetic rhythm of yes and don’t and please—
Her thoughts fly to last week, when Abby came out to see her for the first time. They weren’t
supposed to have contact, and for all Carol knew there was still a detective watching her. But
Abby had been back for over a week and Carol was starved for the sight of her, for any news
she might carry. Abby came in a cab. She entered the house through the backdoor. The first
thing she did was walk to the living room telephone and show Carol how to unscrew the cap
on the receiver. Carol had watched in mounting confusion as Abby looked into the network
of wires and breathed a sigh.
“Good,” she’d said. “There’s no recording device.”
Carol had thought she was past being horrified by what Harge might do, but as Abby
explained to her what to look for, and that she should look for it every time she came home,
fresh despair woke in her. How Abby knew about such things was just another of the
inexplicable talents her friend wielded—and an insight not to be ignored.
“What if I find it—the—device?” Carol asked, her voice weak.
Abby pursed her lips in serious thought, and said, “If you remove it, and Harge finds out,
he’ll think you’re trying to hide something from him. You’ll have to just leave it there, and
know. But for now, you can call me whenever you need. Keep your eyes open for things out
of place. Funny looking wires, holes in the walls. I don’t think he’d go beyond something in
the phone, since really, he only wants to make sure you’re not talking to anyone but him.
Still. It’s worth being cautious.”
And Carol, though it makes her sick every time, has followed Abby’s directive. So far, no
recording device in the phone. Which means that right now, no one but her can hear
Therese’s voice, the achingly beautiful way that she says Carol’s name, the depth of the
silence that rises between them.
Still—
‘Not safe,’ her thoughts hiss. ‘You can’t,’ and ‘Hang up!’
She tries to do just that. But it’s like her fingers and the switch hook on the telephone are
each the northern poll of a magnet, pushing against each other, resisting. Her heart hammers
and her lungs seize, and she has to, she has to hang up—
“Are you there?” Therese asks.
‘Hang up. Hang up!’
“If it’s not you, please just tell me…”
The words send fresh agony through her, because she knows what Therese must be thinking,
wondering, dreading: who is on the line? Who is listening in? What fresh violation has she
laid herself open to? It’s too cruel. She can’t let her think—
“It’s me,” Carol whispers.
She can’t say anything else. Even if she wanted to, her throat closes in a sudden wash of
terror. What is she doing? ‘Hang up!’ But she can’t.
The answering silence is so complete, she could almost think that she imagined Therese was
ever there. Or that the ringing in her own ears has prevented her hearing the sound of a lost
call. She strains for something, anything, even the whisper of Therese’s breath. She imagines
Therese’s face; pictures her standing in the hallway of her building. What wouldn’t Carol
give, to have her in front of her right now, to look into her beautiful eyes, to touch her?
But that thought makes fresh misery well up. She knows exactly what she wouldn’t give.
What she’s choosing not to give. And what she’s giving up instead.
“Are you all right?” asks Therese.
Carol nearly weeps at the question. ‘All right? No, Angel. No, I’m not all right. I am wretched
without you. I am miserable with my choice—and I can’t unchoose it.’
“I—” she tries to speak, but breaks off.
Therese sounds hoarse, exhausted. Who knows what the past three weeks have been like for
her? As bad as Carol’s? Worse? Abby was… tactful, when Carol asked about their drive back
from Illinois. She clearly didn’t want Carol to feel worse than she already did (though Carol
suspects that Abby is angry at her, for what she involved her in—the heartlessness and
cowardice of her flight from the Drake), but Carol read easily between the lines. Therese did
not take her disappearance well.
Therese seems to realize that she won’t answer the question, because in that same quiet,
weary voice she says, “Abby gave me your letter.”
The letter. Written hastily in the early hours of the morning, while Therese slept. Carol hardly
remembers what she said, only that it was torture to write. Torture, to slip out of Therese’s
arms, to dress, to gather her things—
“Do you remember, when I asked you… if you felt safe with me?” Carol swallows at the
question, tears gathering hot in her eyes. Therese says, “You didn’t answer me. Not really.
But I know now that you… that that’s why you left me. Because you’re frightened. I…
understand, Carol, do you see?”
Carol covers her mouth with her hand, afraid of the sob that will break out of her if she
doesn’t.
“I just,” Therese’s beautiful voice strains. “I just wish that you had… that you had felt safe
with me, Carol. Safe enough to say goodbye. To let me say goodbye.”
She does sob, then—strangling the sound behind her fist, the tears dripping down over her
own fingers. If only Therese knew that those days in her company, those nights in her arms,
were the safest Carol has felt in years. Oh, she wants to speak! But all her will has shattered.
If she speaks, she’ll beg. Beg Therese to forgive her. Beg her to come to the house, or let her
come to Therese’s apartment. In this moment she is ready to throw everything away for one
more night with Therese, one more night to worship at the altar of her body—but she can’t
she can’t she can’t—
“You said I would understand some day. I already understand, Carol. It’s not about resolution.
I need you—I need you to know, that I understand. But I—I want to… Ask you…
something.”
‘I want to ask you things,’ Therese had whispered, so early on. How like that moment this
one was. Therese innocent, wounded. Carol guilty, ashamed. And now, as then, she has to
answer her. She owes it to her—this girl who brought the sunlight into her life, whose
absence has made everything dark—to answer.
“Ask me,” she says, her voice a tremulous whisper.
Therese breathes in, and Carol can hear the banked sob in it, before she says with surprising
steadiness, “You said I should imagine you there to greet me. I need you to tell me—I—need
to know—if I’m—” she falters, breathes in, says, “if it’s just imagination. You—greeting
me… again.”
Carol’s eyes close, the words of her letter coming back to her in all their damning
inconsistency: ‘Until then, there must be no contact between us. I have much to do—’
Yes, she does have much to do. So much, in fact, that she fears it will never end. That the
sunrise will never come. Why did she dangle that carrot before her sweet Therese? What
weakness drove her to it? She is only at the beginning of this trial with Harge, of the
negotiations, of the careful moves, of the doctor’s appointments. The custody hearing is two
months away and who knows what she will have to do in that time? She is determined to do
it. Determined to do whatever she must. She won’t lose her daughter. She won’t lose Rindy.
There is only one way to answer Therese: ‘I release you. I release you.’ Any other answer
would be cruel, would be selfish, and she has already proved her immeasurable selfishness to
this girl. Therese doesn’t deserve it. This is why she fled in the night. Because she’s not only
selfish, she’s a coward, and she couldn’t bear to say the words to Therese. The words she
must say.
And yet before she can, visions and sensations and sounds flood her mind—
That first meeting: ‘I wonder if you might help me find this doll for my daughter?’
And their first phone call: ‘Do you get a lunch hour there? Let me take you to lunch.’
Their first date: ‘Therese Belivet. It’s lovely.’
And their first, exquisite kiss. Tender. Tentative. Bending toward her with a confidence she
didn’t feel, clutching her hand and cradling the back of her head and kissing her. Kissing her
soft and deep and longing and hungry and feeling her kiss back— ‘Take me to bed’ —
‘You’re trembling’ — ‘No, don’t I want to see you’—
‘I want to see you I want to see you I want to see you…’
“My angel,” Carol whispers, unable to hide her tears. Unable to say what she must. “I—hope
not. Darling, I hope not.”
‘Selfish selfish selfish.’
Therese says nothing for long moments. In a fever of longing and fear and hope—yes, hope
—Carol wonders again if she has imagined all of this.
Then she hears it. Like a benediction.
“I miss you,” Therese whispers.
The line disconnects.
Carol stays where she is, hunched over the phone, cradling it to her ear. As if, gripping tight
enough, she will be able to send her own words back across the line, fling them through
space, into the heart of her love—
“I miss you, too.”"