Enough spoilers, moms. In case you decide to see it . . . not that I’m suggesting you do.
So let me just say that the dead man keeps showing up in unexpected and terrifying places, not like a slasher film (the phone call is coming from inside the house!) or a gore fest, but something darker and more wicked.
The story turns and turns. No one is what he seems. Nothing is what you think.
I stayed with it. I got the shivers. I was surprised by the end. It got me through a few hours.
See the film or not. The choice is up to you brave, intelligent moms.
All my love and, as always, thanks to you,
Stephanie
24
Stephanie
What I’ve just written in my blog is—once again—not what happened. In fact the film drove me crazy. Even as the film was scaring me senseless, part of me was wondering: What if everyone is lying? Gaslighting me? What if Emily is alive? What if Emily and Sean conspired to put me through this? To do this to me. But why? What did I do to them? It was extremely depressing.
I watched the film in my own house—secretively, guiltily, as if it were a porn film. The minute it ended, I wished I was at Sean’s house. I needed to hear Sean tell me that I was just being paranoid. I needed to believe him.
It was worth waking up the boys and driving over to see Sean. Miles and Nicky would fall back asleep on the way.
Papers covered Sean’s dining room table. He’d been working. We put the boys back to bed. Sean poured me a glass of brandy. A fire roared in the fireplace. The couch was comfortable and warm.
I said, “Is there any chance—any chance—that Emily could be alive?”
“None,” he said. “None at all.”
I said, “Miles saw her. Miles has very good eyesight. He’s my son. I believe him.”
“Kids are always seeing things that aren’t there,” said Sean.
“Not Miles,” I said. “Miles knows what’s there and what isn’t.”
First Sean looked annoyed, then horrified, then scared, then . . . I had no idea what he was feeling. His expression changed in slow motion. He got up and left the room. He didn’t return for a long time. I sat there, confused and worried. Should I go after him? Should I get Miles and go home? Should I wait?
I waited. It was the easiest thing to do.
Finally, Sean returned. He sat back down on the couch and put his arm around me.
He said, “I’m sorry, Stephanie. I am.”
“For what?” I said.
“For not realizing how hard this has been on you. All the time, I thought Nicky and I were the only ones suffering. But you’ve been in pain too.”
I began to cry.
“I miss her,” I said.
“We all do,” said Sean. Then he said, “Move in with me. Let’s try and make this work. Emily’s gone. She’s dead.”
I was crying harder now. Sean was weeping too.
“Nicky wants his mom to be alive. He wants it so much he’s convinced himself that she is. And somehow he’s convinced Miles that he’s seen her. But she isn’t alive. And she would have wanted Nicky to have a mom, for us to have a stable household. Come live here. Full time. Please.”
“All right,” I said. Within moments, I felt the fear and doubts of the last few days vanish, like an illness from which I’d suddenly, miraculously recovered.
Sean said, “We can stick together and protect ourselves from ghosts or whatever it is that the kids are imagining. Circle the wagons, as you Americans say.” And he laughed through his tears.
Miles is delighted. He likes Nicky’s house. He’s comfortable here. Their TV is bigger than ours. I don’t miss the nights that Sean and I and the boys spent in our own houses. I don’t miss my own house. Not really. Sometimes I do. Mostly I like being here with the boys and Sean.
Every day we spend here means that Emily is one day further away. For so long I wanted to keep her close, and now I want her gone. I want to be the one Sean loves and, eventually, the one Nicky loves. I have to be patient.
There’s a lot I can’t blog about. Not blogging gives me more time to think, to wonder about my friend.
How could you think you know someone and know so little? How could Emily have been the person who would leave her child and drive to Michigan to drink and take drugs? That wasn’t the friend I knew.
I became obsessed with what remained of her in the house. It was a hard conversation, but I convinced Sean to put some of Emily’s things in storage. I volunteered to find the place and arrange the transportation.
I considered asking the moms if they knew the best storage facility on the New York–Connecticut border. But I was afraid they’d see through it and know that I was getting rid of some of Emily’s clothing and possessions. It was something we had to do, to make room for me and Miles, to make us feel as if we really lived there. Sean agreed.
We arranged for Sean to work with the movers on a Saturday afternoon. I’d take the boys out to a movie, and he’d tell a whole team of professional household organizers what things he wanted to go and what he wanted to stay.
I was interested in what remained, in what Sean couldn’t bear to send away.
Until then, whenever I stayed at Sean’s, I had been respectful, honoring Emily’s privacy. It would have felt wrong to go through her drawers and closets. (Sean had thoughtfully cleaned out a dresser and a closet for me to use.) But once I moved in, I began to look around more freely.
If I found something of Emily’s that interested me, or that seemed to offer some information, I would examine it for evidence about who she really was, and why she did what she did.
Around this time I stopped blogging. I sent a message to the moms community announcing that I was going on leave and would be back soon.
It was too hard to write about my life with anything like honesty. I could have blogged about Miles’s diet and helping him grow up to be a good person. I could have blogged about forming a blended family and navigating around the huge hole in our lives.
Moms aren’t stupid. They would have heard the hollow note; they would have figured out that my interests had begun to lie elsewhere. Maybe they would sense that I’d gotten myself into a slightly dark place that I was going to have to get myself out of.
I’d become obsessed with how much I could find out about Emily.
What if Miles and Nicky were telling the truth? What if she was out there? Could she be alive? Could she and Sean be conspiring against me? Was it the insurance money? It was starting to look as if, with the help of the crackerjack lawyers from his firm, Sean was going to succeed in having her death ruled an accident, so the two million would be his, minus the lawyers’ fees.
When the boys were away at school and Sean was in the city, I began to play a game. I would look for, and find, one interesting thing about Emily each day. One object that would provide a clue about who she really was. Then I would make myself stop.
The first place I looked was the medicine chest. Not very creative! I found a full bottle of 10-mg Xanax. Prescribed for Emily by a doctor in Manhattan. Why hadn’t she taken it with her? If I were going to ditch my husband and leave my kid with my best friend and go on a drug holiday with alcohol and pills and swimming, the pills would be just what I’d want.
Unless she had so many she didn’t need these.
I couldn’t remember what the police report said they found in the cabin. Were there empty pill and liquor bottles around?
The second day, in a hall closet, I found a purple alligator purse with the Dennis Nylon logo. The purse was filled with bills, small denominations, some euros but mostly various pesos and rubles and dinars, all bright and with flowers and the faces of national heroes. Souvenirs of travel for Dennis Nylon. I imagined poolside parties with lots of local boys and fashion models and drugs.