“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Maybe I need some for myself.” I lay a soft hand on Trish’s shoulder, gliding it over her silk robe. She looks up to me with her dazzling blue eyes. On any other day, she’d be in a designer dress, her face made up with cosmetics to conceal the wrinkles I now see. She’s gorgeous, but all I can see is the humiliation she’s caused me. We stand, embracing, while Anne Elise stares at us. Baby manuals say the eyesight of newborns is limited—they’re only able to see eight to twelve inches in front of them—but Anne Elise is enthralled by what she’s seeing. Perhaps Simpkins is right. Perhaps she’s someone else’s child, but it warms me, knowing she’s transfixed by the sight of me. But I feel like such a heel. The screws can’t possibly be turned any tighter on me. My mind is a stew of rage. I can hardly think. I’m selling out Anne Elise’s mother, and I don’t think I can live with myself. But what choice do I have?
“Can I have a few minutes to think this over?” I ask.
“Take all the time you need,” Trish says, already confident she’s done enough to persuade me to sign her note.
I turn around, head back downstairs. What I need is a long walk to clear my head, but there’s no time for that. Inside, I’m about to explode. One way or another, I’m being forced into a choice I don’t want to make. Trish and Laurel represent two irreconcilable paths I’ll no longer be able to hold together in my life.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I grab Trish’s prescription bottle. The Valiums are like little pieces of candy, their color pale blue like the SweeTARTS I consumed by the handful as a child. A small v is cut into each pill, a fanciful touch I wouldn’t have expected in a pharmaceutical, the v’s resembling little hearts when tilted sideways. If I march upstairs and sign Trish’s agreement, forsaking Laurel, I won’t be able to live with myself. So why should I live any longer? I spill the pills onto a bamboo cutting board, wonder how many I’ll need to either lose the rage that’s engulfing me or just plain kill myself.
I crush a few pills under the heel of a silver spoon, crumbling them into a blue dust. I open my wallet, take out the lone dollar remaining in it, and roll it up. I’ve never snorted cocaine or done drugs, but I’ve seen enough movies to know how it’s done. Snorting the drugs allows them to enter into the bloodstream quicker than if ingested orally. The Valium will overwhelm me, or so I imagine, inducing a pleasant serenity in me, comforting me, and maybe numbing me, and if it doesn’t knock me unconscious or kill me, I’ll crush a few more pills and shove the rolled-up dollar bill up my nose again.
When I was a boy working with my father on the family Chevy, he’d look over my shoulder and caution me not to overtighten the screws and bolts. Trish and Laurel, Simpkins, and Jack Riggs have tightened the screws tighter than I can bear. I can’t think anymore. Nor do I want to think anymore. All my life, I’ve wondered what my father meant. What would happen if I overtightened a screw? Would it strip away the screw’s threads? Would the screwhead twist off? Fracture? Burst into a thousand fragments? I’m about to find out.
I lower my head to the cutting board, slip one end of the rolled-up dollar bill into my nose, and close my eyes. Just as I’m about to inhale the powder, though, another option flashes into my thoughts: it doesn’t need to be me who dies. I’ve got a baby daughter who needs me. I let go of the dollar bill, go to the stove, and heat up a kettle of water. I can still be the father I’ve always wanted to be, but for that to happen, I need to brew up a special batch of chamomile tea for Trish. The blue dust will dissolve easily when stirred into a hot liquid, but to make sure I have enough, I grab the spoon again. Despite my anger, I become amazingly calm as if under some spell, the spoon in my hand crushing more pills as if under its own volition. The teapot whistles.
I select a fresh canister of loose-leaf chamomile tea from the pantry, still amazed at what I’m doing. I watch my hands shake tea from the canister into a silver tea ball. I’m so calm it’s as if I’ve swallowed a Valium or two myself, but as I pour the hot water into a thermal-lined carafe and as I deposit the tea ball into the carafe, the full import of what I’m doing almost floors me: I’m killing my wife, the woman I’ve loved from the moment we met. As the tea steeps, its color changes, darkening, becoming a brownish yellow.
I worry what will happen to both of us when Trish tastes the tea, but I’ve made my choice. I lift the cutting board to the carafe and watch as the blue dust sprinkles into the tea. Soon I can take Anne Elise and Laurel into my life with total undivided love. I lug the rosewood cradle that had been in the dining room upstairs under one arm, blankets and all, while balancing the carafe, a spoon, and a Wedgewood teacup in the other hand.
“I figured Anne Elise would like this,” I say, laying down the cradle on the square of free floor space at the side of the old desk.
Trish, spotting the carafe, bursts into a smile. “You’ve brought me tea!”
Usually, Trish offers me a sip of the tea I brew for her. Luckily, I’ve declined so often that, today, it won’t provoke suspicions when I tell her I’m not thirsty. I lift Anne Elise into the cradle. The blankets are soft, maybe cashmere, and Anne Elise delights at the feel of them against her skin. She stretches out her arms. Trish prefers tea made from loose-leaf chamomile and an embarrassing amount of sugar. To mask whatever bitter flavor the pills might have, I stirred in even more sugar than usual. I’m not sure if she’ll notice the difference. She’s liable to have one sip and, declaring it not to her liking, dump the whole pot into the toilet. Or, not thinking, she may swallow a full cup in one swoop.
I pick the Montblanc pen off the desk and sign the promissory note, blowing air onto my signature to dry the ink. I know what I’m doing, and it still hits me when I drop the pen back on the desk: I’m selling out Laurel should Trish survive the tea. Trish perks up, her face filling with greedy-eyed happiness. She reaches out to me, kisses me, tells me she knew she could count on me.
“How soon do you need the money?” Trish asks.
I freeze, shocked. The money. In order for Trish to get me the money, she needs to be alive. I can’t believe how badly I just botched the sequencing of events. How could I be so stupid? The carafe’s already on the desk. I’d thought she’d drink the tea right away and then fall down, dead, allowing me a few minutes to destroy this promissory note before going through the motions and calling for an ambulance. If I tell her not to drink the tea, she’ll figure out what I’ve done. If she drinks the tea, she’ll not live long enough to get me my cash. I’m also running up against Jack Riggs. Pretty soon—maybe even later today—he’s going to make his own sizeable withdrawal from Trish’s account.
“I need the money soon, Trish. Real soon.”
“Okay,” Trish says, linking her arm around mine. We used to stroll through Rock Creek Park like this, arm in arm. I’m nervous. Incredibly nervous, so nervous I’m amazed she can’t pick up on it, but she just stands and gazes contentedly at Anne Elise. “Just think! We’re going to have two wonderful babies soon.” She giggles. “After all these years of being childless, it’ll be just like having Irish twins.”
“Honey? I think I need to get going soon,” I say, decoupling my arms from hers.
“James?”
“Yes?”
“James, you didn’t even tell me I’m pretty today. Am I still pretty?”
I laugh, kiss her on the lips. Trish bats her eyes fetchingly. I touch her face, lifting her chin so she can look straight into my eyes. “Your lips. I’ve never said this before, but you’ve got beautiful lips.” I kiss her, gently, but with more passion, more zest, than before. Her lips are soft, plump pillows. “Yes, you’re still pretty. You’re such a good kisser. I will never tire of kissing you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three