The house seemed so quiet, with only the little sounds usually drowned out by the great cacophony that is life with children. Various creaks and groans, the rumble of the furnace coming on, a steadily dripping tap. I sat in my upstairs office trying to concentrate on work—the project was a beast and I really was in danger of missing the deadline—but I couldn’t focus. Instead, I found the numbers for various domestic-violence hotlines and safe houses and made lots of phone calls, looking for help in getting Heather to leave and finding her a place to hide from Viktor. By the end of the afternoon I had over ten pages of notes and numbers, which I compiled into an orderly list to present to Heather.
“Not right away,” I reassured Julie when she arrived early that evening and balked at the stack of papers. “I’ll wait until later, after we’re done talking.”
“I just don’t want her to get scared off,” Julie said apologetically. She deposited a bottle of pinot grigio on my counter along with a string bag that held various bundles wrapped in butcher paper. “I’ve brought goodies from that great French store—there’s a soft goat cheese and a smoked Gouda plus these delicious crackers and olives, those delightful little Ni?oise ones—I just love those, don’t you?” She prattled on about the food while I uncorked her wine and my own bottle of red and took glasses and plates down from the cupboards.
We might have been prepping for a party; it certainly would have looked that way to others. Chastened by her concern about the list, I put it out of sight while Julie moved refreshments to the glass-topped coffee table in my living room.
From the outside, my house looked like the quintessential cottage, a lovely stone-and-siding turn-of-the-last-century two-story with an actual white picket fence around the front yard and a climbing rose growing along it. This was what had attracted us when we’d first visited. Michael and I had ignored the poky rooms and windows so old and thin that the wind that blew through couldn’t be called a draft, but a gale. We’d spent the first year of home ownership, and the better part of our savings, knocking out walls and bringing the electrical up to code and replacing every window and fixture in the house. The inside finally had enough charm to match the outside—an open entertaining space with a wood-burning fireplace and an updated kitchen, and we’d furnished it in comfortable cottage décor, helped along by lots of white paint, spackle, and sales at Pottery Barn. As I liked to tell people, we were lucky that “distressed” was officially a style.
Julie was plumping the pillows on my worn velvet sofa when Sarah rang the bell. She had the look of someone arriving last-minute to a surprise party, darting glances behind her and pausing to peek out a window as she slipped off her coat. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Of course Eric didn’t get home until ten minutes ago.”
“You look like Little Red Riding Hood,” Julie said with a laugh, taking in Sarah’s hooded wool coat and the large-handled wicker basket she’d hauled inside.
I reached for it and wrenched my shoulder. “What on earth did you bring—this weighs a ton!”
“Just some bread and olive oil to go with it. Oh, and some wine, too.”
“Some” bread turned out to be two homemade loaves, and there were three bottles of olive oil that she’d personally infused with different seasonings, plus two bottles of wine. Count on Sarah to make the rest of us look and feel like slackers. “Do you think she personally stomped the grapes?” I whispered to Julie when we were alone for a minute in the kitchen, and she laughed, turning it into a cough as Sarah joined us. I took out bagged salad and a wooden bowl to toss it in, sensitive to her watchful eye. Had Sarah just sniffed at my lame offering?
“Heather should be here soon,” she said, pouring herself a large glass of wine from the bottle of cabernet I’d opened.
Julie poured herself a glass. “Brian is going to feed the kids, because they were playing when I left. What’s that saying—never disturb a sleeping child? I’ll amend that to never disturb a contently playing child.” She laughed nervously, fidgeting with the gold bar pendant hanging around her neck.
The doorbell rang and we all flinched. I was tossing dressing on the salad, so Julie offered to get the door. I heard the sound of the floorboards in the hall creaking, and then we could hear Julie greeting Heather: “Come in! Come in! It’s so great to see you!” Her usual enthusiasm, but I heard a nervousness that seemed to crackle like static in the air. There were the sounds of the coat closet opening, hangers tinkling, and chitchat about Daniel. Then they both appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Heather’s here,” Julie said unnecessarily, in a voice that sounded even higher and brighter than usual.
“Hi,” Heather said with a smile, depositing a box of chocolate truffles on the counter and looking at Sarah and then me. “Can I help with anything?”
“No, we’re all set.” There was a slight tremor in my hand as I reached for a wineglass. I did my best to steady it and my voice, fixing my expression in a smile. “Red or white?” I said, indicating the bottles.
“White. I thought I’d be the first,” Heather said, “but I can see that I’m actually the last—did I get the time wrong?”
“Oh, I just got here early because I came straight from the store,” Julie said, busying herself with finding bowls for the salad.
With a brittle laugh, Sarah said, “I had to escape my children.” She reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass. I had a fleeting thought about what my husband’s reaction would be at not finding any of his favorite red left when he came home.
I put the bread and oil on a tray and Heather offered to carry it, holding it steadily and walking gracefully, her nonexistent hips swaying slightly as she walked into the living room. We followed her with the rest of the food, like ladies-in-waiting, agitated and heavy-footed and altogether less graceful.
We took seats around the fireplace, the log fire warming the room and creating a coziness belied by the purpose of the evening. But where to start? What had seemed like a good idea ahead of time now felt daunting. She’d gotten so upset the last time we’d tried this conversation.
We avoided the topic by passing around the food, and then passing around compliments about the food, all of it stiff and polite and unlike any other get-together. But it was easier than bringing it up. For a moment I thought that maybe Julie was right and we should just pretend that we hadn’t seen anything. Let it go. Don’t ask. This was someone else’s marriage and we were about to cut it open and examine its contents, and how was that an okay thing to do?
It was only when I saw Sarah and then Julie giving me pointed glances that I finally turned the conversation. “Did you get your kitchen back in order?” I asked Heather, trying to sound casual, but my hands felt suddenly clammy and I had to work to look directly at her.
She was eating a piece of bread with small, mouse-like nibbles and she’d barely touched her wine. I knew she was one of those women who chewed each bite of food dozens of times in order not to overeat. A leftover from her modeling days, when gaining weight meant losing work. She paused, holding the bread near her lips. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“Is Viktor okay?” It was a stupid question and it came out squeaky, because I couldn’t think of another way to ask.
Heather swallowed hard—I could see the movement in her slender throat—and she let the hand holding the bread drop to her lap. It took her a moment to answer, but when she did, all she said was, “He’s fine,” her voice so quiet that we could barely hear her.
Even less sure than I’d been when I started, I said, “I didn’t realize, that is, Julie said that Viktor was married before.”
Heather’s head shot up at that and Julie positively gaped at me. “What are you doing?” she demanded, and then said rapidly to Heather, “I didn’t know you hadn’t told anyone else—I thought it was common knowledge.”
“We’re just concerned about you,” Sarah added, and that was the end of any pretense that this was just a regular girls’ night.
“What is this?” Heather asked, still in that quiet voice, but there was something in the way she looked at us—anger? Agitation? I couldn’t read her expression, but her eyes were alert and very focused. “Why are you asking me this? I told you things are okay with Viktor.”