* * *
I wake at seven to the sound of rain. One of the gutters must be plugged, the water cascading in a loud waterfall outside my window. I’ll have to call the landlord. I force myself out of bed and into the kitchen, switching on lights. Greg went home at midnight and the house is quiet. He rarely spends the night. I say it’s because of Sophie, but the truth is I panic sometimes when I wake up with him in my bed, his heavy leg wrapped around mine suddenly too much.
Now I wish I had asked him to stay. I could have buried myself against his warm side, listened to the rumble of his deep voice, which always sounds rougher in the morning, like liquid gravel. I’d traced my finger over his scars: one from his appendix surgery, the long raised one down his leg from a chain saw, the jagged one on his collarbone from a motorbike accident when he was a teenager. I’ve never known a man with so many scars.
I put the coffee on, drink a cup while I make my lunch, then fill a thermos with the rest. I’m going to need the energy. Today I have two houses to clean, then a training session with Marcus. My first client of the day is one of my oddest. Joe, a man in his fifties, who’s had a head injury and suffers from short-term memory loss—his family hired me. Sometimes he forgets I’m in the house and visibly startles when he finds me scrubbing his bathtub. A couple of times I’ve been the one who’s startled by the sight of Joe lounging in the living room in his striped boxer shorts, eating canned chicken or spaghetti, and once he was dancing to “Let It Go,” from Frozen, wearing his tablecloth as a cape. He urged me to join in, calling me “Anna.” I hesitated for a moment, then wielded my mop like a microphone and gave it my best shot.
After I’m finished cleaning for Joe, who spent most of the time watching Matlock reruns, I move on to my second job of the day, a large two-story house with four very busy, very messy kids all under the age of twelve. Today it’s not too bad, though, and I finish a little early, so I decide to stop at the bank on the way to Marcus’s house and get some cash. As I wait for the machine to spit out my money, I feel an odd sensation in my stomach, a flutter of nerves. I quickly glance behind me, but there’s no one else in line.
I collect my receipt and tuck it and the cash inside my purse and turn around.
I see him standing by the corner of the bank. He’s putting money into his wallet, sliding it into his back pocket. He looks different with short hair and a beard, but the way he moves is so familiar, the shape of his head, the shrug of his wide shoulders.
The cement walls of the bank are rushing toward me as though there are only inches standing between me and Andrew. I can smell his skin, his soap, see the edge of his mouth, the way it turns up. Sophie’s smile. He’s going to see me, then he’s going to say my name with that tone that sounds loving and angry and scolding and disappointed all at once.
Run.
Legs. I have to move my legs. Some internal force spins me around. Too fast, I drop my keys. It seems as though they fall in slow motion, hitting the sidewalk with a metallic clang that echoes across the pavement. I lurch downward, clutch at my keys, and rise.
“Lindsey.” He’s moving forward, walking toward me. The distance narrows.
“Get away from me.” I stand straight, holding my keys out in my hand like some sort of sword. They’re nothing. Just tiny pieces of metal.
He stops with his palms in the air. “I was in the bank. I didn’t know you were outside.”
“Why are you here?” It doesn’t matter. I know why he’s here. I need to walk away, but my feet are rocks. I look around, hoping for people, for safety in numbers, but it’s as though the earth has opened and sucked everyone down. Not a car on the street, not one pedestrian.
“The construction company I’m working for got a new subdivision contract in Dogwood Bay. I was looking around at some places to rent.”
No. He knew we lived here. He planned this.
“I don’t want you living here.” I hate that my voice is trembling, hate how weak I feel. I want to sound powerful and authoritative, but I sound like a pleading child.
“I understand that, but I have to go where the work is. Times are tough.” Times have never been tough for him. I’m glad he’s talking. He’s making me angrier.
“You can’t see Sophie.”
“She’s eighteen next month.”
“She doesn’t want anything to do with you.” But he’s right. She’s almost of age. I can’t stop this. I can’t do anything.
“She doesn’t know me anymore.”
“I want it to stay that way. She’s a good kid. Don’t mess her life up.”
“I’ve changed, Lindsey. I’m not the same person you married. I got counseling in prison, and I go to AA now—I haven’t touched a drop in eleven years.”
I wish I could thrust the keys into his eyes and keep stabbing until he can’t look at me anymore. “I don’t believe you’ve changed for one minute.”
“Let’s not do this on the street. Can I buy you a coffee?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I shouldn’t be shocked that he actually thinks I’d want to sit and have a coffee with him, but his ability to ignore reality is truly terrifying. It’s like in his mind we’re old friends. I turn away.
“Lindsey!” he calls out, but I keep walking. Then, his voice lowering an octave but loud enough for me to hear, he says, “I know what you did. I know you drugged me that night.”
The words slam into my back and nearly knock me off my feet. I falter, the sidewalk looming in front of my eyes. I think I might faint, blink away the panic. No, no, keep going.
I make my legs move, glance over my shoulder. He’s still watching. My car is parked on the street, which means he now knows I drive a blue Mazda. My hands are shaking as I try to fit the key into the lock. I stare down at them, force my fingers to get their shit together and get me in the car now. My anger helps, makes me feel stronger. I get in and drive away as fast as I can.
* * *
I’m ten minutes late, but Marcus still opens the door with a smile. “I was starting to wonder about you,” he says. “Thought maybe you decided to stop at Dairy Queen.”
I know it’s a joke—he’s teased me ever since the time I showed up with a Blizzard for each of us—but I can’t make myself laugh today. “I’m sorry. Hope I haven’t messed up your schedule.”
“Nah. I was running late myself.” Marcus is never late for anything. He’s just saying it to put me at ease. He widens the door and I follow him inside and collapse into one of his chairs.
“I saw Andrew in town. He was at the bank.” It’s so hard to say the words, to admit what just happened. My voice is breathless as though I’ve sprinted up a flight of stairs.
“He’s following you?” He sinks down into the chair across from me, his dark eyebrows pulled together in an angry frown.
“He says he’s moving here because of work, but that’s bullshit. He wanted me to know he’s changed.” I give a bitter laugh. “He hasn’t changed one bit.” I wish I could tell Marcus everything—about the pills, what Andrew said—but I have to keep the terrifying truth to myself.
“Jesus, Lindsey.” Marcus leans forward, grips my knee. “I’m really sorry.” It’s the first time he’s touched me, outside of when we’re training, and his hand feels solid, comforting.
“I called the cop. She says Andrew claims he was working the morning someone broke into my client’s house. I know he’s lying, but they don’t have enough reason to check into it more, or any crime they can charge him with. They’re not going to waste their time.”
“Can you get a restraining order?”
“I takes more than seeing him once—and he didn’t do anything threatening. Even with one, I can’t do anything to stop him from moving to this town. He’s a free man.”
“I really hate this system sometimes. It protects all the wrong people.” He looks out the window, his mouth tight, and I wonder if he’s remembering Katie.
He turns back to me. “If you ever need to get out of
town for a while, I have a lake house on the island. You and Sophie could stay there.”
“You have a lake house?”
“It’s been in my family for years. It’s quiet, peaceful—a good place to get away from it all and reflect on life.” He must have stayed there with his wife and daughter, so I’m honored at his offer, but the last place I want to be is at some remote lake on the island, where Andrew knows every inch like the back of his hand. Doesn’t sound that peaceful to me.
“Thanks, but it won’t matter where we stay. The only thing that would ever make me feel safe again is if he’s back in jail.” I crack a smile. “That should just be a matter of time.”
He smiles back, but he still looks worried. “I’m serious.”
“I know. I just need things to stay normal right now. I’ll think about it, okay?”
He nods. “It’s there if you need it.”
We work out until I’m exhausted, my legs and arms throbbing. Finally we call it quits and I take a quick shower in the bathroom off his gym and get dressed in fresh clothes. The endorphin high from my workout is already fading. When I’d first arrived at Marcus’s house, I was in shock, numb, not ready to face the truth. But now I feel every hard edge.
Andrew is moving to Dogwood Bay, and he wants to see Sophie.
As I walk up the stairs and through the living room, I pause at the window with its ocean view, winter waves kicking up in the distance, gray clouds, heavy and bloated with rain. I watch them for a moment, try to take some calming breaths. I can’t walk out in tears. I think of Sophie: What am I going to tell her? The panic rises again. It’s going to be okay, just take a minute.
I straighten the books on the side table, look at the titles. Marcus reads all kinds of genres, but seems to veer toward memoirs and biographies. I notice one on grief, flip through the first few pages, and think about him and his daughter. Then I carefully put the book back.
Marcus is in the kitchen, making coffee. He’s showered too, his hair wet and tousled.
He holds up a mug. “Time for coffee?”
“Of course.” I take the mug and sit down. “So how is your writing going?” He’s working on a book about his travels around the world and how different cultures approach death and grief, and he’s let me read a few chapters. It was fascinating and I hope he lets me read more. While he talks about his recent research, I try to focus, but I’m still thinking about Andrew’s final words outside the bank. He’s not going to leave it at that. He’s known all these years and he’s never done anything about it. Until now. My skin grows cold, ice snaking down my spine, making me shiver. For a moment it’s like I can feel him sitting beside me, whispering into my ear.
I warned you, he’s saying. I warned you.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OCTOBER 2005
He left while it was still dark that morning, brushed his lips against my cheek. I pretended to be asleep, but I’d been awake for most the night, listening to him breathe, the ticking of our clock.
I pushed myself out of bed, cleaned up the mess in the kitchen before Sophie could see the broken dishes in the sink, the leftover beef stew smeared on the floor. He’d been angry that I hadn’t waited. As if I’d wanted to sit at the table with him and watch him eat like a sloppy old man, his head drooping, food falling off his fork before it could make it to his mouth.
He’d been going to work early for the last two weeks, and often came home after Sophie was in bed, his hair messy and his face haggard and drawn. After he was pulled over one night and given a twenty-four-hour driving suspension, he started chewing peppermint gum, as if that would mask the smell of beer. He told me that the cop was an overzealous asshole.
The kitchen clean, I made Sophie’s lunch, then sang our wake-up song loudly as I walked down the hall toward her room. “I love you! You love me!”
Her little voice answered. “We’re as happy as can be!”
I pushed open her door, snuggled in beside her under the warm blankets, tickled her until she squirmed out of her bed, giggling hysterically. “Mommy! Stop!”
I drove Sophie to school, watched her in the rearview window with a lump in my throat as she sang along with the radio. She met my eyes and smiled. “Today is going to be a good day, Mommy.” She sounded so confident. She truly believed everything was good in the world. That her mommy and daddy loved her and she was safe. It was what I wanted. I wished I felt the same.
“Yes, it is, baby.”
I parked behind one of the buses and let her out of her booster seat. “Learn lots, okay?” I gave her a tight hug, and watched her head into the building. Then I came home to cry in the shower. The sobs heaved out of me, a wild panicked wail. I leaned against the wet tiles, waited for the tears to subside, focused on my breath. In. Out. In. Out. I had to get it together. Today was too important to mess up.
I toweled off and blew my nose, tossed the Kleenex into the can. Andrew had thrown out my People magazines again. Having a long bath used to be my one indulgence, my only quiet time. The day he grabbed me at the job site, I’d gone home and sat in a warm bath trying to stop my body from shaking. Should I get Sophie and flee? Would he hunt me down? I thought about the cement, imagined it flowing over my body. He came home while I was still in the bath, startling me as he whipped open the door and sat on the side of the tub. I pulled my knees up to my chest, too terrified to scream. This was it. He was going to hold my head under the water.
“I thought about what you said this morning,” he said. “You aren’t going anywhere. I don’t want to hurt you, but I might not be able to stop myself. I love you too much to let you go.”
I tried to speak, thought about all the things I should say. You can’t force me to stay with you. Love doesn’t work like that. The look in his eyes kept me mute.
“Just give me some time,” he said. “Things will get better.” He’d lowered himself onto his knees beside the bathtub, rubbed his hand across the nape of my neck. “Don’t break my heart.”
So I stayed. Not for him. I stayed for Sophie, because I couldn’t stop thinking about that hole in the ground. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up without a mother. To spend her life thinking I left her by choice. I would try harder. I would be a better wife. I would make it work.
That was over a year ago. Nothing had gotten better.
* * *
I glanced at the clock, felt an uneasy roll in my stomach as I stirred the cake batter. Three more hours until his lunch break. Would he be smiling when he walked in, or quiet and moody? I needed to finish his birthday cake and pick up groceries before he came home for lunch. Mentally I went over my checklist. The house was spotless, I’d hung the Halloween wreath on the front door, and the pumpkins were ready for carving when Sophie was home from school.
We usually went out for dinner on his birthday, but this year he’d said, “Let’s stay home. Don’t make a fuss.” I didn’t know if he meant it, or he actually did want me to make a fuss and would be angry that we were just having dinner here.
My fingers slipped on the metal spoon, slopping batter down the side of the cupboard. I wiped it up quickly. Then I sat back on my heels, pressed my fingertips against my temples, trying to ease the constant throbbing headache that followed me everywhere.
I thought of the small bit of money I’d hidden in a can in the garden under the maple tree, dollars I’d saved from returning items, cash I’d found in his pockets and squirreled away. It was the only area of the yard the video cameras couldn’t see, but even so, I always took garden tools out with me. I’d been thinking of other things I could do for cash. Housecleaning for neighbors, babysitting, but I couldn’t see how I could do them without getting caught.
I got to my feet and looked down at the orange batter, dipped my finger in for a taste. Four-layer pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing, like his mother used to make. I’d write his name on the icing, and wear the soft blue dress he bought me. But it still wouldn’t be good enough.
* * *
&nb
sp; The eerie Halloween music in the store set my teeth on edge and the skeleton decorations at the end of each aisle with their red glowing eyes seemed macabre, not fun. I tossed items into my cart, rushed through the till. When I walked out of the store, a fog had moved in, erasing the mountains that had been ablaze with golds and russets and plums. The fall air was moist on my face. It felt like tears. I had to drive home slowly, focusing on the center line.
Andrew’s truck was in the driveway. I slammed the car into park so fast the seat belt cut into my stomach. He was thirty minutes earlier than usual.
When I got out I let my hand rest for a moment on his hood. It was cold. The truck was pristine white, not a trace of mud or dust from the job site, the tires oiled and the rims shimmering silver. When he was in his dark moods, he became obsessed with cleaning.
I jogged up the front steps, my arms full of groceries, and pushed open the door.
“Andrew?” No answer.
When I walked into the kitchen, he was sitting at the table, a bowl in front of him. The pot was still on the stove, an empty can of tomato soup beside the sink. He hated canned soup.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve been home sooner. The store was a madhouse. I can make you a sandwich. The bakery said the bread is fresh.” I took out a loaf of sourdough and some slices of turkey cold cuts and quickly shoved the other groceries into the fridge. He was silent behind me. I risked a glance over my shoulder. He was staring at me, his eyes narrowed.
“You used too much nutmeg in the cake.”
Now I saw the other plate on the table, empty except for a smear of white icing. I turned and looked at the clear Tupperware container on the counter. I could see the cake inside. He’d gouged off a corner.
I forced myself to make eye contact. “I’ll make another one.”
“You look like crap.”
I touched my hair. “It’s damp out.…” He sat back in his chair, still looking at me. “I’ll fix myself up.” I walked down the hallway, trying to think. He was pissed off about something. Was it because I wasn’t home? Had I left something out? I’d been so careful to clean the kitchen.