Jess Walter - Land Of The Blind

Caroline offers her badge. "I'm Detective Caroline Mabry. With the Spokane Police Department."

Susan flinches. Behind her, a single eye watches through the crack in the barn door. Susan opens her mouth to say something to Caroline, but nothing comes out.

"I need to ask a couple of questions about your ex-husband." When Susan's expression doesn't change, Caroline realizes she's going to have to be more specific. "Clark Mason," she says.

Susan covers her mouth. "Oh my God. What happened?"

"Nothing. I just have some routine questions," Caroline says. "We're just trying to get some information."

Susan's eyes tear up.

Caroline is surprised.

"What did Clark do?" Susan asks. "Is he okay?"

"No, he's fine." Caroline smiles reassuringly. "I just talked to him."

"Oh." Susan reaches up and absentmindedly pulls a piece of straw from her hair. "Oh. Thank God. I worry about him."

"Why?"

"I don't know." Susan looks Caroline up and down, measuring her. They are about the same height, but that's the only similarity, and eventually Susan looks at the ground. "Habit, I guess."

Caroline looks down at Susan's one sandal. She hands her the mate she found in the lawn. Susan drops it in the grass and steps into it without apology.

"How is Clark?" she asks.

"He seems a little troubled," Caroline answers.

"You don't say."

They walk back to the patio. Susan steps inside, pours them each a glass of lemonade in green, stemmed glasses, and with little prompting when she returns, begins telling the story of herself and Clark.

"We started dating when we were sixteen," Susan says. "Clark was my high school sweetheart. We went to the prom together. The whole nine yards." She crosses her legs. Painted toenails.

"But you didn't get married until 1999?"

Susan nods. "We broke up at the end of our senior year. He went to college and acted like a-" She searches for the word. "-beatnik for a while. I married an older guy. Sort of like Doug, but a bit more-" She glances up at the barn. "-attentive. Clark and I lost track of each other. I was living in Seattle in '99. I'd just gotten divorced." She makes eye contact with Caroline. "My second divorce. My ex-husband had been a big political donor, and we were invited to a fund-raiser for some candidates, and I figured just because we were divorced didn't mean I had to lock myself away, so I went. It was at the Seattle Art Museum. There were all sorts of candidates milling about, and I watched one of them work the crowd and I couldn't believe it. It was Clark." She smiles at the memory. "Do you remember the first person you ever really loved, Detective?"

Caroline nods and thinks, not of high school, but of someone far more recent – she's surprised to find that she wants to call him right now.

Susan shrugs. "He swept me off my feet." She looks out to the barn, to where Jack is leading the horse back inside, and then looks down at her painted toenails. "Which is probably not that much of a trick, now that I think about it."

Caroline doesn't know what to say. She sips her lemonade. It is fresh squeezed.

"Our first date, he rented a Jeep Wagoneer and we drove into the mountains." Something about the memory strikes her as funny and Susan looks down at the ground. "We were married within three weeks. It just felt so right."

"And you moved back to Spokane?" Caroline asks.

"It's funny. At the fund-raiser, I just assumed Clark was running in Seattle. It wasn't until I'd agreed to marry him that I even realized that the Fifth congressional was in Spokane. And by then, I was convinced that we were in love."

She shakes her head. "I spent my whole life trying to get out of this place, and now Clark drags me back with him. It was hard. I had a little boutique in downtown Seattle – nothing fancy, second-tier designer wear, last season's misses. But I was happy.

"And it wasn't just me. Clark had big clients and was writing contracts and bringing in business. He was considered a legal expert on high-tech companies." She smiles. "Which, in Seattle, was a pretty good position to be in. And I'm not even talking about the money, which was considerable. We were established. And he throws that all away. Says his name is Tony Mason now and he's running for Congress. Gives up everything, pisses it all away, to come back here."

"Why do you think he wanted it so badly?"

"I don't…" Susan leans forward, holds her glass in both hands and watches the lemonade swirl around the glass. "Actually, I've given that a lot of thought. I took it for granted because Clark always wanted to be in politics. He used to joke that he was president of his incubator. In high school, he ran for everything.

"But I don't think I ever understood just how badly Clark needed it. My therapist says running for office was his way of compensating." She glances sideways and then whispers, "Because of his eye."

Caroline nods. "What happened to his eye?"

"Some kind of accident when he was a kid." She shrugs as if it's not important. "I guess I always thought Clark wanted the power, or the fame, or, you know… to pass laws or govern or even, what… make a better world?" She says the words "better world" like a person might say "flying car." "But he doesn't want that shit. Fame, money. He sure as hell doesn't want power. You know what he wants?"

Caroline shakes her head no.

"He wants people to vote for him. Clark just wants them to pick him."

They are quiet. Susan leans back and crosses her legs, a move so elegant Caroline has to remind herself that only a few minutes ago those legs were riding the help.

"And you didn't want to be a politician's wife."

"No, I was into that part. Go to Washington, D.C., the parties and society there? In a minute. But even if he'd won, that was more than a year away. And when we got to Spokane, it was okay. We got a nice house, joined the Spokane Club and the Manito Country Club. I joined the Junior League. It was fine.

"Then, one day, I was at Nordstrom and I saw a girl from high school. I don't even remember her name, but she remembered mine. Do you remember so-and-so? she says. She's got three kids. So-and-so had an ovary removed. So-and-so works at the Safeway. Jesus – and it was like… My God. I can't live here. I mean, I lived in a two-million-dollar house on Lake Washington. I owned a boutique in Seattle. But here I was, just another stupid girl from the Valley, and no matter what I did, that's all I'd ever be. That's all I can be here." She finishes her lemonade.

"In the meantime, the party abandoned Clark. Sent him over here to run, and then cut off the money to the campaign. He won the primary, but he started out thirty points behind Nethercutt in the general and the people who said they were going to vote for him also would've voted for a potted plant.

"Then the attack ads started running, saying that Clark was a puppet, a Seattle guy coming in to take over Spokane. Clark… he went crazy. He should've given up, or run a cursory race. Even his campaign manager said that. But Clark wouldn't listen. He started spending our money. Without telling me. He sold all the stock – Microsoft, Cisco, everything but one stock: this idiotic Empire Game company that belonged to some guy he knew. He traded in his BMW. Tried to trade in mine. Took out a mortgage on our house. I arrived in Spokane the wife of a millionaire, and when we split up we had four thousand dollars and some stock in this worthless game company."

Caroline finds herself wanting to defend Clark. "In the divorce records, he accused you of having an affair."

Susan's eyes drift closed. Then they snap open, and Caroline sees something like determination behind the eye makeup. "I love Clark. In fact, he might be the only person I ever have loved. So go ahead and judge me if you want, Detective. I don't care. But don't think for a second that you know me. Because you don't."