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His eyes are sad and vulnerable, and in them, Jude sees concern, not judgment. She wants to go to him and wrap her arms around his body, burying her face against his chest as she’s done so many times. Vance has always been a source of real comfort for Jude, and from the first time they met, he’s been her safe place. His love is unconditional, but right now, his exasperation is palpable.

“I’ll do better,” Jude says contritely. “I’ll stick to having a cocktail onlyafterdinner, if that helps you to feel better.”

Vance puts a hand to his face and then pinches the bridge of his nose as he nods vigorously. “Yeah,” he says, “that would help. At least if I’m here, I can handle things when you can’t. But if I’m at work, I can’t be worrying about you and the girls.” His hand falls and he looks at her again, this time with slightly reddened eyes. “Can you understand that?”

They stare at one another for a long, drawn-out moment, and from the front room, they can hear Hope and Faith’s high-pitched little girl voices as they play Barbies together.

“I can understand that,” Jude says, sealing their agreement.

But what she really hears is that she needs to hide away more of herself. If that’s who she is—a woman who enjoys a drink to relax—then she needs to be less of that. She needs to be less Japanese, less of a burden to people, less of a liability. There are so many parts of her that she needs to actively keep hidden away, that she’s nearly losing track. It makes her dizzy to contemplate.

“Come here,” Vance says, holding out a hand to her. Jude takes it, albeit somewhat reluctantly, and lets her husband pull her to him.

In Vance’s arms, Jude tries to let herself melt. The tension that’s locked up her back, her neck, and her shoulders needs to flow back out of her, but it feels permanent. Jude closes her eyes and puts her ear to Vance’s chest, listening to the solidthump, thump, thumpof his beating heart. She can do this. She can hold herself accountable and stay laser focused until Vance gets home in the evenings. She can be a better helpmate for her husband, watching the girls and keeping gossip and trouble away from him so that it doesn’t interfere with his career and their livelihood.

Not only can she do this, shehasto do it.

When Vance finally kisses the top of her head and releases her, Jude puts a wan smile on her face and watches him walk across the bedroom. He heads out to the front room, and the deep rumble of his voice as he talks to their girls filters back to her.

Once Jude hears the sliding patio door and she knows that her husband has gone out to sit by the pool, she smooths the bedding and tugs the corner of it firmly to straighten it out. She’s got this. Starting today, starting now, she can do the one very small thing that Vance is asking of her. It won’t be hard. It won’t be hard at all.

She’ll turn off her brain, not think of all the things about herself that are too dark to share with others, and she’ll be the best mother and wife that she can be. The days won’t be too long, because she’ll fill them with trips to the grocery store, with housework, with cooking, and with taking the girls to the park when they’re not at school. She’ll take them to dance and wait out on the sidewalk with the other mothers, chatting and watching the little girls through the large front window of Mia Perla, Frankie’s dance studio, as they pirouette, point their toes, and gleefully act like a bunch of tiny sugarplum fairies. That actually sounds fun to Jude. Way more fun than sitting alone in the kitchen, thinking about Alice Kamp, or her mother, and wondering if she should top off her drink.

Jude straightens the things on their dresser and both of their nightstands, determined to stay on task, to stay focused, to stay sober each day until the sun dips its first rays below the horizon.Totally possible, she thinks to herself,I can do anything I set my mind to.

Jude pauses in the middle of her bedroom, ears perked up for the sounds of her husband and children: she hears them outside as the girls take their Barbies out to the pool area, most likely to play another game with them while their father reads the newspaper nearby. Certain that everyone is occupied, Jude goes into the en suite bathroom and opens the cupboard beneath her sink. There, tucked away in the back next to her Kotex, is a bottle that looks like it might be filled with some sort of bath or body oil. Instead, it’s filled with vodka. Jude glances over her shoulder as she crouches down there, a desperate animal not wanting to be caught.

With one final listen to ensure that she’s in the house alone, she uncaps the pink bottle and takes a long swig, then another. She’ll brush her teeth and put on fresh lipstick before going out to the kitchen with a smile on her face.This is the last time, Jude promises herself.I don’t need this to get by.

But she does need it to stop the shaking of her hands.

* * *

The day dragged on nearly without end as Jude counted the hours until she could mix herself a drink and sink into the couch with a magazine. She did her best to stay busy all day--first a walk to the park with the girls while Vance washed and waxed the car, then an art project in the backyard that involved newspapers and glue, and finally, the long slog through dinner, bath time, stories, and then, finally, bedtime.

But the day had been filled with interminable thoughts about all the things that Jude normally drinks to forget. She found herself alternately imagining her mother's face the last day she'd seen her; thinking about the way that Alice had thrown her from the car and called her a "Jap" that night when they were teenagers; and remembering the feeling of otherness that had essentially defined her entire childhood. None of it helped her to stop wanting a drink, and Jude vows to herself now, as she mixes a cocktail in the stillness of the evening, that tomorrow will be easier.

She just needs a mantra. Or a project.

A project! Yes!she thinks, stirring pineapple juice with vodka this time. She needs something to keep her busy; something that will demand sobriety to accomplish. There's driving, of course, but a woman only has so many hours a day that she needs to spend behind the wheel of a car.

She sips her drink and puckers her lips at the tartness. She could take Vance's suggestion and search for Catherine, something she's certainly thought of over the years but never really entertained. The idea, however, begs the question:to what end? When and if she tracks down a woman she hasn't seen in nearly a decade, what will she say? What will she do?

In her mind's eye, Catherine is dipped in honey; she is a celluloid dream. With her hair of spun gold, her skin smooth and tanned by the California sun, Catherine emerges in Jude's memory like a film starlet from another time--and, in fact, that's precisely what she was. Catherine Hamnett, Hollywood actress. A woman with a low, rumbling laugh like the engine of a giant truck, and a pair of legs that started at her hips and went on for eternity. When Catherine turned her head, others did too. Everyone wanted a look at her: cheekbones with a sharp curve that swooped down to a perfect jawline, blue eyes like a mysterious pool of water that seemed bottomless.

Catherine Maryellen Hamnett, Jude thinks.Where are you now?

She isn't even sure whether finding Catherine will answer questions or raise them. Whether tracking her down will fill some hole in her life or her heart, or whether it will just make her wistful for a life that she left behind when she married Vance and had the girls. But doesn't every woman have a part of herself that she packs away in a neat little box and tucks into a corner of her heart, trying to hide it from the light of day? Doesn't every woman have things that she drinks to forget?

No, perhaps not...but maybe confronting the past is the only way for Jude to have a real future. She stands up from the couch and walks into the kitchen, debating a second cocktail. Instead, she rinses the glass, turns out the light, and walks back to the bedroom to sleep.

It's the first night she can remember only having one drink in years.

CHAPTER10

Jude

"Okay,and when is the last time you saw Mrs. Hamnett?"