They went to Sylvia’s bedroom. She stretched out on the bed, her daughter beside her, as they did when Lisa was a child. “Now tell me your latest thoughts about your divorce.”
“Screw that.” Yes, indeed, fire was coming back into Lisa. “Who the hell is that horrible woman?”
Sylvia seemed to wrestle with her own mind. What to tell? What not to tell? “Shall I start at the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“All right, but are you grown up enough to keep secrets?”
“I believe I am.”
“You know how my novels are autobiographical?”
“Yes. It was embarrassing to read about myself, though. I wish you’d lied, or at least sugarcoated it.”
Sylvia kissed her daughter’s forehead. “After your dad died, I ran out of the bio, the life part. With him gone, I no longer had a reason to be social. I just wanted to stay home with my garden, play with those adorable Nesbitt boys, and write. But what did I write that would be interesting to a reader? Baking brownies with the neighbor’s children?”
“So what was your solution?”
“I got Janet to tell me about her life.”
“She doesn’t seem like someone who’s very interesting.”
“Oh, but she is. She is fascinating. She has the oddest philosophy of life. She believes that other people make her do bad things.”
“Lots of people believe that.”
“But not like she does. She has no internal scale.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you murder someone, your punishment is worse than if you are, say, rude to a person, right? But not to Janet. A big transgression against her carries the same weight as something minor.”
“Everyone is quirky.”
“How do I explain this? Say you’re in the grocery store and a woman hurries forward and gets in front of you. What do you do?”
“Give her a dirty look.”
“But you don’t slash her tires, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“What about finding out who the woman is, then leaving notes in her car that are supposedly from other women to her husband? Or posting nasty comments from the husband about his boss so the boss can see them?”
“That didn’t really happen, did it?”
“Yes. Janet did all those things to a woman who pushed in front of her at the grocery.”
“You can’t stay here with someone like that. You have to leave. Now.”
“Not yet. I’m finding out too much to quit. I just have to be careful of what I ask her and how I say it. Above all, I have to be on her side and give her lots and lots of sympathy.”
“Sympathy? For what?”
“Janet lives in a world where she sees others as being out to get her. They want to hurt her. They think about her all the time and plot to cause her downfall.”
“She certainly sees herself as important, doesn’t she?”