Perhaps Richard had texted me back. He’d be worried if I didn’t respond. Just as the thought struck me, I heard a faint noise, again to my left. The pipe? Or maybe it was a footstep.
I suddenly became aware that I felt trapped in this metal cage. I’d left my cell phone upstairs, in my purse. No one knew where I was.
Would sound even travel up to the doorman in the lobby if I screamed?
I held my breath, my pulse quickening, waiting for a face to appear from around the corner.
No one came.
Only my imagination, I told myself.
Still, my hand shook when I began to return the topper to its box. As I laid it flat, I noticed some tiny numbers embossed on the bottom. I looked closer, squinting to make out the numerals in the dim light. A date: 1985. That must have been when the topper was sculpted.
No, that couldn’t be right, I thought.
I pulled out the figurines again and peered more closely at the numbers. They were unmistakable.
But Richard’s parents had already been married for years by then. He would’ve been a teenager in 1985.
Their wedding was held more than a decade before the cake topper existed. It couldn’t have belonged to them.
Maybe his mother had simply found the figurine at an antiques store and had purchased it because she’d thought it was pretty, I reasoned as I rode the elevator back up to Richard’s floor. Or maybe this was my fault. It could be I’d simply misunderstood Richard.
I could hear my cell phone ringing inside the apartment as I fit my key into the lock. I rushed to grab my purse, but it fell silent before I could dig it out.
Then the apartment line began to shrill.
I ran into the kitchen and snatched it up.
“Nellie? Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
Richard’s voice sounded higher than usual—stressed. I knew he was on the other side of the world, but the connection was so clear, he could have been in the next room.
How had he known I was here?
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “Is everything okay?”
“I thought you were at home.”
“Oh, I was going to, but then I was so tired—I just thought—I figured it would be easier for me to stay at the apartment,” I blurted.
Silence crackled between us.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I didn’t have an answer. At least not one I felt I could share with him.
“I was going to . . .” I stalled. For some reasons tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away. “I just figured I’d explain tomorrow rather than send you a long text while you’re with clients. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me?” He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “It bothered me far more to imagine that something had happened to you.”
“I’m so sorry. Of course, you’re right. I should have told you.”
He didn’t respond for a beat.
Then he finally said, “So why didn’t you answer your cell? Are you alone?”
I’d made him angry. His clipped tone was the giveaway. I could almost see his eyes narrowing.
“I was in the bath.” The lie just shot out of me. “Of course I’m alone. Sam went out dancing with her roommate but I didn’t want to, so I just came here.”
He exhaled slowly. “Listen, I’m just glad you’re safe. I should probably get back to the golf course.”
“I miss you.”
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “I miss you, too, Nellie. I’ll be home before you know it.”
Being in that basement—and being caught in my deception—had unsettled me, I realized as I changed into my nightgown, then double-checked that I’d secured the dead bolt on the front door.
I went into Richard’s bathroom, using his toothpaste and extra washcloth as I prepared for bed. The smell of lemons was so strong it unnerved me, until I realized Richard’s terry-cloth robe, the one he always stepped into after showering, was hanging on a hook directly next to me. The scent of his soap lingered on the absorbent fabric.
I turned off the light, then hesitated and flicked the switch back up, closing the door partway so it wouldn’t shine in my eyes. I pulled back the fluffy white comforter on Richard’s bed, wondering what he was doing at that exact moment. Probably socializing with important business associates on the greens. Perhaps a cooler of cold beers and bottled water would be in the golf cart, and an interpreter on hand to facilitate conversation. I could picture Richard concentrating on his chip shot, his face creased, his expression an echo of the one he wore when he was a little boy playing baseball.
I’d searched the bins to better understand Richard. I was still yearning for more answers about my husband.
But as I climbed between the crisp, ironed sheets in his king-size bed, I realized he understood me well enough to guess exactly where I was when he hadn’t been able to reach me at home.
He knew me better than I knew him.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
The letter to Emma feels heavy in my hand, its weight disproportionate to its actual material heft. I fold the note again, then look for an envelope in Aunt Charlotte’s room, where my aunt likes to sit at a rolltop desk to do paperwork and pay bills. I find an envelope but ignore the stamps. I need to hand-deliver this; I can’t rely on the mail to get it there in time.
Atop the pile of papers on her desk, I also see a photograph of a dog. A German shepherd with soft brown and black fur.
Gasping, I reach for it. Duke.
But of course, it isn’t him. It’s only a promotional postcard from a group that provides guide dogs for the blind.
It just looks so much like the picture I still carry in my wallet.
I need to get this letter to Emma. I need to investigate ways to help Aunt Charlotte. I should be moving forward right now. But all I can do is collapse onto her bed as the images come hard and fast, crashing over me like waves. Dragging me into the undertow of memory again.
My insomnia returned when Richard came back from Hong Kong.
He found me in our guest room at two A.M., the light on and a book splayed open across my lap. “Can’t sleep.”
“I don’t like being in bed without you.” He stretched out his hand and led me back to our room.
Feeling his arms wrapped around me and his steady breaths warm in my ear no longer helped, though. I began to wake up most nights, easing myself out of bed quietly, tiptoeing down the hall to the guest room, then I’d sneak back into our bed before dawn.
But Richard must have known.
On a bone-chillingly frigid Sunday morning, Richard was reading the Times Week in Review in the library and I was searching for a new recipe for cheesecake. We were hosting my mother and Maureen for dinner the following weekend to celebrate Richard’s birthday. My mother hated the cold and had never before come up north during the winter months. Instead, she visited every spring and fall to see me and Aunt Charlotte. During those trips, she spent most of her time touring art galleries and walking the city streets to soak up the atmosphere, as she put it. I didn’t mind that we spent so little time together; being with my mom required deep reservoirs of patience as well as unlimited energy.
I was unsure of her motivation for changing that pattern.
But I suspected it was due to a conversation we’d had in a recent call. She’d caught me on a bad day—a lonely day—when I hadn’t even left the house. The streets were crusted with old snow and patches of ice, and since I had no experience driving in winter weather, I wasn’t comfortable taking out the Mercedes Richard had bought me. When my mother phoned in the early afternoon and asked what I was doing, I was honest. I’d let down my guard with her.
“I’m still in bed.”
“Are you sick?”
I realized I’d already revealed too much. “I didn’t sleep well last night.” I thought that would appease my mother.
But it only made her ask more questions. “Does this happen often? Is there anything bothering you?”
“No, no. I’m fine.”
There was a pause. Then: “You know what? I was thinking I’d like to come up for a visit.”