I always knew that Emily was smarter than I am. I should never have let this happen. I should have died of loneliness and sexual frustration before I let myself sleep with Sean and move into Emily’s house.
I’m no match for her. She’s probably laughing about my pathetic attempt to contact her on my blog by pretending I thought she was dead. She is the only one who knows how much of my blog is a lie.
I wonder how much she told Sean. Not everything, I think. When I mention Chris, I never catch him looking at me nor studying Miles for signs that he’s been damaged by incest and inbreeding.
Sean seems to love Miles. Miles is lovable. And I’ve grown to love Nicky. Do Sean and I love each other? I don’t want to think about that.
Wouldn’t Emily have wanted this?
Not if she’s alive. Which she is. Maybe. Probably. And I’m being punished.
What have I done to deserve this? All I did was try to make a friend, to befriend the mother of my child’s friend. Bad call, Stephanie!
What will Emily do now? Nothing. She’s dead. Or is she out there? Watching.
I keep imagining someone—a police detective—asking me why I did this or that instead of this or that other thing. I keep saying I don’t know. I no longer know what makes sense. I focus on what’s best for Miles. But I’m no longer sure that the best thing for my son is living with my best friend’s husband when, for all I know, she is watching.
I pull the curtains; it doesn’t help. She’s out there. Or maybe I’m imagining it. There is always that chance.
I don’t know why I don’t tell someone. Actually, I do know. What would I tell the police? Remember my friend who disappeared? And you guys did nothing? Well, now I’m living with her husband. And she might be back, and they might be collecting millions of dollars in insurance money from her apparent death. Who would believe me? Who am I? A mommy and a blogger. Women like me get locked up in psycho wards all the time. They see the dead; they hear voices; they can’t accept the truth; they insist on their nutty stories until someone in protective services decides that their child would be better off in foster care.
I’m afraid that the story of my friendship with Emily and my relationship with Sean might lead the police to the truth about Miles’s dad. They’d have a false missing persons report and maybe insurance fraud on their hands, and self-centered me, I’m sure they’ll focus on a possible case of incest.
Whatever Emily is up to, she can count on me. I gave her that power at the county fair when we watched Miles and Nicky on the ride.
I didn’t tell Sean that Emily called. Maybe I don’t really trust him. I’m no longer sure whom to trust. I trust Miles. And most of the time I trust Nicky.
I’m almost sure that Sean believes she’s dead. And if she’s alive, she hasn’t tried to contact him. Or maybe she has, and he hasn’t told me. If she’s angry about Sean and me, why is she blaming me? He was her husband. Is her husband.
I can’t imagine how to tell him. I can’t find the right time. I’m living with him, yet I can’t say, I think your dead wife called on the phone.
I realize that the blog post addressed to my not-dead friend won’t work. It might make things worse. But it was a welcome distraction, figuring out what to say.
My inbox filled with ghost stories, which have been helpful. Moms everywhere are seeing the dead. Some of the stories were very touching. One was about a dead mom whose spirit brings her daughter a book that’s fallen open to a short story about a dead mother. The daughter felt her mother’s reassuring presence in the room. I cried when I read that one, thinking about my own mother and the hell she went through.
In none of the moms’ stories does the dead person turn out to be alive. That’s a comfort, I guess!
I haven’t heard any more from Emily. And I’ve convinced myself that she’s dead. Some cruel joker must have imitated her voice and somehow gotten it right. Maybe someone at her job. It could have been a prank call. Why would someone do something like that? People do worse things all the time. And what about the caller knowing how many fingers I was holding up?
Lucky guesses, is all.
Don’t think about it, Stephanie. I still love and miss my friend. But the truth is that her being dead may be better than her watching me from the woods. Watching me with her husband.
*
The second time Emily called, she again waited till I was alone. The caller ID said out of area.
She said, “I’m still here.”
I said, “Emily, where are you?”
She said, “The fact that I am not in heaven is proved by the fact that I can still read your ridiculous moronic blog. Blogging to me in the afterlife is really stupid, Stephanie. Even for you.”
“Mrrrr.” I made an angry cat sound. “Harsh. That’s unlike you.”
She said, “How do you know what like me is? You don’t get it, do you? You never got it.”
“I do,” I said. “I get it.” Though I wasn’t sure if I did. The caller had her voice down. This time I had to be sure.
I said, “How do I know it’s really you?”
“Listen hard,” Emily said. There was a silence. I heard static, then a clattering, like something banging against the phone. Then I heard carnival music . . .
I heard my own voice saying, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone ever . . .” I heard myself confessing that Miles is Chris’s son.
The tape recorder clicked off.
“They have marvelous voice-recognition technology these days,” Emily said, “to authenticate this, if needed.”
“Who would care?” I was bluffing.
“Everyone would,” said Emily. “Miles would, for one. If not now, then later.”
“I can’t believe you would do this,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want Nicky,” Emily said. “You can have everything else. But I want you to keep your mouth shut. For once.”
“I will!” I said. “I promise.”
“Talk soon.” Emily hung up.
After that, some homing instinct kicked in. I wanted to be home, if only for an afternoon. In my own home. Not in Sean and Emily’s home. In the home that Davis and I built, in which I’d lived with Davis and Miles, and then for three years with Miles after Davis’s death. I must have been mad to think that I could move into a place vacated by a dead woman. My so-called best friend.
I’d told myself that the four of us living together would be better for the boys. But it was worse for me. As I drove to my house, I felt dizzy. The road I’d traveled so many times looked strangely unfamiliar. I reminded myself to concentrate.
Finally, there it was. My house. Completely real, but like a house in a dream. How I loved that house! I always had. I should never have left it.
I was home. The lawn was lightly dusted with snow. How good it felt to walk up the front stairs. My feet knew the height of each step, measurements that Davis had spent hours of his too-short life figuring out. My hand knew how to turn the key in the lock, my shoulder knew how to hold the door open so I could get through even if I was holding packages, which I wasn’t. I’d come with nothing, like a refugee.
I walked into the kitchen. How I’d missed it and how I longed to be here, cooking for Miles and me. I would talk to Sean. We could work out another arrangement that would let us be home more often.
I drifted into the living room. It took me a moment to figure out what was different—what was so disturbing.
I smelled Emily’s perfume. I should never have given her my keys.
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Stephanie's Blog
Wise Children
Hi, moms!
Here’s another story about how beautiful our kids are, how they know so much more than we give them credit for, sometimes more than we do.
I was never good about birthdays. The only birth dates I ever remembered were those of my parents, my half brother, my husband, and Miles.
So I was taken aback when, early in March, Nicky asked, “Are we going to celebrate my mom’s birthday this year?”
I told Nicky, “Yes, of course.” We got a cake with a single candle.