Shame

watch. Less than three hours until the news conference, and so much to do both before and after. There were interviews to arrange, sites to visit, and research begging to be done. Her finished books always surprised her the way they looked so neat and tidy on the bookshelves. They reminded her of processed meat, with the blood all but absent in the final packaging. That’s how her words were marketed—the blood implied but kept under wraps.
    Elizabeth’s head dropped again. She let her eyes close, not to sleep, but just to rest them. She could hear Anna’s soothing voice, lulling her children back to sleep again. Once upon a time, she thought. Being around children always spoke to her own regrets, and her own once-upon-a-times.
    “Doing anything right takes its toll. Are you sure you want to pay the toll?”
    Gray Parker stared at her, assessed her.
    “Yes.”
    “If you do this book right, you’ll never look at the world in the same way again.”
    “You’ve already made me look at it differently.”
    “If you do this book right, you’ll find yourself on a roller coaster ride, and the ride won’t stop with my death. You’ll get into my head, but you might not get out of it.”
    “I’ll take my chances.”
    “Yes, you will. And you’ll keep taking them, like Russian roulette. If you keep doing your books right, you’ll have the same bug as the people you write about.”
    “Bug? Do you think of yourself as some kind of diseased person?”
    “I’m the plague.”
    “And that makes me what, a potential carrier?”
    “If you do this book right, you’re going to be marked, sure as I marked those women.”
    Elizabeth felt sick, dirty.
    “If you do this book right, you’re going to get a glimpse of the face of God.”
    “How could you possibly,” she said, her voice cracking with anger and disdain, “show me that?”
    “No one can look directly at God’s face without going insane. It’s too complicated, too brilliant, too unfathomable. So what we do is use little funhouse mirrors, and we take our peeks, and we look at him from angles. We find roundabout ways to glimpse God, like how we look at the sun through our fingers, or the way we track an eclipse through reflection instead of direct observation.”
    “You might be able to show me the devil, but I doubt whether you can show me God.”
    “If you do this book right, you’ll see both. Sometimes you never see God so clearly as through the devil.”
    “Is this some kind of jailhouse conversion you’re going through?”
    “If you do this book right, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
    “I have to go,” Elizabeth said.
    But she didn’t leave before hearing his last assertion.
    “If you do this book right,” he told her, “you’ll fall in love with me.”
    “No,” she said—what she always said.
    “Excuse me?”
    It was Anna Parker in the flesh, not Gray Parker and his demons, standing in front of her.
    “Nothing,” Elizabeth said. “I was just talking to myself.”
    “I’m making coffee,” Anna said. “Would you like some?”
    “Please.”
    While the coffee was perking, James walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He was a handsome boy, had his mother’sbrown eyes and square features. There was little resemblance to his father. Or his grandfather.
    “Mom, Janet’s on the bed I want.”
    Anna was expert at officiating. “Let her have that bed today, James, and if you still want it tomorrow, it will be your turn.”
    “We’re going to be here tomorrow, too?” he asked.
    “Yes,” said Anna, her tone saying, “I’m afraid so.” But her son didn’t share those sentiments.
    “Oh, good,” he said.
    “Go to sleep now.”
    “Okay.”
    He walked out of the room, giving Elizabeth a small, shy glance as he passed.
    “They think their dad’s going to join us soon,” Anna said. “I almost believe it myself.”
    She served the coffee, and both women sat and sipped quietly for a minute. They still weren’t totally comfortable with each other.
    “I hope you don’t mind my asking you some questions this morning,” said Elizabeth.
    “No,” Anna said. “At least I don’t think so.”
    Elizabeth pulled a document out of her purse. Cops had their Miranda, and she had her release forms. “I’d like you to read this at your leisure. If you consent to what’s on there, I’ll need your signature. Boiling down all the legalese, what it translates to is your giving me permission to quote you.”
    “So