I got pregnant with Miles by accident. But so does everyone, right? I think it happened after a wedding that was much more romantic than ours.
Davis and I got married at City Hall when his office was on lunch break. His assistants, Evan and Anita, were our witnesses, and afterward we went out for lunch to the best dumpling house in Chinatown. Davis knew about things like that—where to get the best dumplings.
We’d been very pleased with ourselves, how hip and cool we’d been to get married in such an offhand, casual way, as if it was nothing. Just another day. But not long after that, Evan and Anita had a big, fancy wedding outdoors on an estate in Dutchess County. Under a bower of white roses, in a rolling meadow leading down to the Hudson River.
It was so gorgeous, it made me feel as if I’d been tricked. As if we’d tricked ourselves into not caring about something we should have cared about. I wondered if Davis felt the same way. Even if he was having similar regrets, he’d make fun of me if I asked him. I couldn’t help looking enviously at the table loaded with wedding presents. All Davis and I got was a check for a thousand dollars from Davis’s mom. Though if we’d gotten all those gifts, Davis would have insisted on returning them so he could pick out things that were more to his taste.
We both got drunk at the wedding and had the best sex we’d ever had. I’m pretty sure we conceived Miles that night, more to prove that we were still one step ahead of the newlywed young couple than because we wanted a baby.
How wrong I was about not wanting a child with all my heart! I fell in love as soon as Miles was born. Davis fell in love with him too. It was as if the three of us were madly in love with each other.
Not long afterward, Davis moved us to Connecticut and mostly worked from home except for meetings in the city or site visits around the country. He restored our house and designed the gorgeous light-filled addition. The house was almost completely finished, everything but the attic in the old part of the house, when Davis and my brother Chris were killed in the car wreck.
Sean is nothing like Davis. Sean is dark and tall, rugged, and muscular. Davis was a fair-haired beanpole. But sometimes when I walk into the kitchen and Sean is standing by the window, I have a moment when I think it might be Davis. I’m always happy to see him. But then when I realize that it’s Sean, I’m happier. Like it or not, that’s a fact.
But obviously there are . . . doubts. Doubts about Sean, doubts that I’d never confide in another human being. Doubts about who he is, what he knows about Emily’s disappearance—and whether he knows something that he’s not saying.
I wonder if every woman in love has doubts. I never had doubts about Davis, and I was in love with him, or so I told myself. I know some women fall in love with convicted killers, but I’m not that type of person. I have a son to protect. I’m not stupid. It’s only reasonable to ask myself if there is the slightest chance that Sean could be involved in Emily’s disappearance.
I keep up a solid front for the blog, and for the police, and the world, but I take pride in not being such a “woman in love” that I don’t watch Sean closely and allow myself to ask if some tiny unconscious thing he does seems . . . not right. When we talk about Emily, I search his face for a sign of irritation, resentment, or guilt, anything to indicate trouble. But even when he’s told me about her problems—the drinking, the pill addiction, the estrangement from her parents—there’s never anything in his face or voice but love and sorrow that she’s gone.
It’s simple common sense that my watchfulness should shoot up to the code-red (well, maybe code-orange) level after I heard about the life insurance policy that would pay Sean two million dollars if Emily died. But the second Sean got off the phone with the insurance company, he answered all my questions. It wasn’t as if he was playing for time to concoct a plausible story. The naturalness and simplicity with which he explained the situation was reassuring. His company had offered the option of life insurance for employees and their spouses for an extra few dollars a month to be deducted from Sean’s (sizable) paycheck. It was too small a deduction to make the tiniest difference. So he’d checked the box that said maximum and promptly forgot the whole thing.
I don’t believe he did anything wrong. I keep looking for something that doesn’t add up, some detail that doesn’t make sense. But I never get the slightest clue that he’s hiding something or lying. And as someone who has hidden things and lied in her life, I like to flatter myself into thinking I’m pretty good at detecting the signs and symptoms.
Anyway, it’s not a matter of clues. You can’t say exactly how you know this kind of thing. You can’t explain why you’re sure. But you are. You know it in your bones. I know that Sean is innocent as much as I have ever known anything. Ever.
12
Stephanie's Blog
A Holding Pattern
Hi, moms!
Looking at my life from the outside, you might think it looks a lot like my life before Emily disappeared. Minus our friendship, obviously, but with a lot of other elements back in place. Me and Miles, our house, his school, this blog. You might have picked up the hints that Nicky and his dad have become more a part of our lives. But that is only natural, given what they’re going through. What we’re going through.
Again I want to thank you for all the love and support. It means a great deal to me. Judging from your messages and knowing how intuitive moms tend to be, I can tell you know that all this appearance of normalcy is just a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. Our lives have been torn apart and will never be glued back together. They have been shredded by the disappearance of a mother, a wife, a friend. We continue to miss her and to live in the hope that she is alive.
So you could say that we are in a holding pattern, stalled in midair, waiting for something to decide our destination and promise a safe, if turbulent, landing.
Nicky is beginning to show the strain. He’s been refusing to eat anything but guacamole and chips, which Emily used to make for him, though never when I was there. At times he seems angry at me. He says that I’m not his mother, that he wants his mother. And even though I understand, it’s stressful. The poor child.
All I can do is be there for him and help him and his dad whenever I can. I can only cherish the time I have with Miles and be grateful for this precious gift of life, which can be taken at any moment.
Continue to wish us well. Beam all your love to Nicky. And hope and pray for Emily, wherever she may be.
In the immortal words of Tiny Tim, God bless you, one and all.
Love,
Stephanie
13
Stephanie
One afternoon Sean phoned me from home.
He said, “Oh, thank God you’re there, Stephanie. I’m driving over. Now.”
Something about the way he said now made my heart pound. Okay, this was it. He wants me as much as I want him. I haven’t been imagining it. He’s coming to tell me that he wants us to be together.
“I have news,” he said.
I could tell from the sound of his voice that it wasn’t good news, and I was ashamed of the hasty conclusion I’d jumped to.
“What kind of news?”
“Terrible news,” he said.
I watched from the window as he got out of the car, walking slowly, like someone weighed down by a burden. He seemed to have aged years in the hours since I saw him last. When I opened the door, I saw that his eyes were red rimmed and his face was ashen. I threw my arms around him and hugged him, but it wasn’t one of the freighted, lingering, lust-infused embraces with which we had been saying goodbye lately after our evenings together. It was a hug of consolation, of friendship, and—already—sorrow. Somehow I knew what I was about to hear.
“Don’t talk,” I said. “Come in. Sit down. Let me make you some tea.”