Chapter 14
I FLOAT ALONE in the darkness. Shades drawn. Yellow quilt pulled up high. Door of the bedroom shut tight. I think my head is on fire, but as long as I keep my eyes closed, I can manage the pain. I like the darkness. It is cool, comforting.
I finger the quilt and think again of the woman who made it. I miss her, have always missed her. Funny, because you’d think the passing of years would make it easier, dull the ache. But if anything, I feel her absence more acutely now.
I don’t like to dwell on it, so I call up Vero instead.
Snapshots. Three years old. Six years old. Ten, twelve, fourteen. They blur through my mind, refusing to focus. When I try to slow the parade, I get only her skeleton, asking, “Why me, why me, why me?”
A noise. Footsteps, moving downstairs. Thomas, I think, prowling the house. I wonder what he’s been doing since the police left. Tending to household chores, cleaning up evidence? The police questions bother me. Just how likely is it for one woman to suffer three accidents in only six months? A woman without family or friends. A woman who, by all appearances, is solely dependent upon her husband. Though he tells me that’s my fault, my rules of engagement.
Is it? I honestly don’t know. Something about it sounds right, but why would I insist on such a thing? And what kind of man would truly leave everything, do anything, for a girl he’s barely met?
I feel there’s more here I should know, except the harder I try, the more the details slip away. I don’t find my memories welcoming. They don’t invite me closer. Instead, they whisper restlessly, Beware, beware, beware.
I understand that muscle memory is easier for me. Rote actions, things I do, versus things I think. By those terms, shouldn’t I be able to recall putting on a coat, grabbing car keys, before my late-night drive? Or what about climbing into the car or backing out of the driveway? I try, but my mind remains blank. I see only darkness, nothing else.
Which makes me think the police might be right—I’d already been drinking that night.
I consider scotch. Eighteen-year-old Glenlivet. Best of the best. I picture a crystal tumbler filled with liquid gold, feel the smooth taste warming my tongue. On cue, saliva glands water. There’s no doubt about it; I could use a drink.
Then something comes to me. An old memory.
Do you know the best place for a wife to hide something from her husband? Not her jewelry box; too obvious. Certainly not under the shared marital mattress. Or in a medicine cabinet, or in a cookie jar or stashed behind the turkey in the freezer.
No, there’s one place no self-respecting husband would ever search: his wife’s box of tampons, tucked beneath the bathroom sink.
More footsteps below. In my mind’s eye, I can follow Thomas’s progress to the rear of the house. A faint screech. The back door opening. A slight bang; back door falling shut. He’s left the house, headed toward his work shed. I know this without thinking.
The temptation is immediate and overwhelming.
I push back the butter-yellow quilt, rise to standing. Then—there’s no other word for it—I sneak across the hall to the guest bath.
A single sink, undermounted in earth-tone granite, topping a hickory cabinet. Next to it is the toilet, then to the far right the bathtub. My bathroom. I used it to shower without thinking first thing this morning. Moving on memory again; reach for the plate, don’t stop to think where the plate is. And sure enough, the top drawer had held my toothbrush, hairbrush, a quilted paisley bag filled with makeup.
Now I open the lower cabinet to discover a collection of bathroom cleaners, a blow dryer and, yes, a box of tampons.
I pull them out. The box rattles slightly; the tinkle of glass. And I know what I’ll find inside. As I remove the token six tampons lining the top. As I expose the collection of tiny scotch-filled bottles beneath. It turns out, I have my own hidden collection of nip-size Glenlivet.
The police have it wrong; my husband didn’t have to liquor me up Wednesday night, then pour me into my vehicle.
Apparently, I’m already that kind of drinker.
I’m already that kind of wife.
Now I consider the tiny bottles. Six in total. Enough for a bad afternoon or stressful night. I wonder, is it Thomas who drives me to drink? Is it Vero? Or am I my own worst enemy?
There is no muscle memory to call upon for these answers. Only a feeling that if I was smart enough to know why I did what I did, then I’d be smart enough not to do it.
I place the tampons back in the box. I place the box back in the cabinet. I don’t destroy the bottles or empty out the alcohol. I’m not that strong. But a new thought has come to me, and it’s compelling enough to allow me to walk away.
I know where a wife hides things from her husband. But where does a husband hide his secrets from his wife?
Now, while Thomas is in the work shed. I have to search. It’s desperately important.
I creep back into the hall, ears attuned for any sound from downstairs. But the house is settled, silent. I am alone. For now.
I start in the master bedroom, with its massive four-poster bed and oversize dark-wood furniture. His domain, not mine, and when hiding secrets, the first instinct is always to keep them close. I smooth a hand under the pile of pillows, then beneath the edge of the heavy, king-size mattress. I check under the bed but find nothing but dust bunnies, dirty carpet.
Next I hit the nightstand. I can tell which side of the bed belongs to Thomas, as it’s more rumpled, and sure enough the nightstand yields a pair of reading glasses, a small roll of antacids, and a collection of magazines: Guns & Ammo, Entertainment Weekly, National Geographic. To judge by the diversity, my husband is a regular Renaissance man.
But there is nothing sinister here; at least not his own collection of alcohol.
The bureau boasts a reading lamp, a framed picture of the two of us, and a leather box containing a vintage watch, thick gold chain and simple gold band. His wedding ring, I know without thinking. He doesn’t wear it anymore because his job involves tools. But he’d wanted a ring so I’d walked to the neighborhood pawnshop, picking out the cheapest band, which was already the most two poor kids could afford. He’d smiled when I slid it onto his finger. No, he’d beamed, his entire face lighting up.
Now I am yours, he’d said, and I remember my heart pounding in my chest, instinctively scared by that level of responsibility.
The ring has an inscription inside, a date: October 3, 1993. We’d been together barely a month. What were we thinking? From first date to forever in four weeks or less?
And did the fact that we were still together twenty-two years later mean we were a success? Or that simply after so many years, we didn’t know any better? Couldn’t dream any bigger?
It occurs to me that given the dates, I have been with this one man for more than half of my life.
As I search his bedroom for signs of deception.
The dresser yields nothing, so I move on to the walk-in closet, pausing from time to time to listen for footsteps. But the house remains still. Thomas’s job requires concentration, a focused unit of time to create an item from beginning to end. Maybe he’ll be out there the rest of the day, or even into the evening. He works a lot, I know without thinking. I spend much of my time alone. But it’s never bothered me. I prefer it that way.
The walk-in closet is surprisingly large and features a fancy organization system. Also cherrywood, with shelves and racks and built-in drawers, like something you’d see in a home magazine. Thomas installed it. One of his weekend-warrior projects. He did it to make me happy.
Because at least in the beginning, I’d lived in this room, too.
Sure enough, some of the clothes in the closet are mine. Dresses, nice slacks, fancier shirts. Not my everyday wardrobe; that I discovered in the guest room closet. But the overflow, clothes I don’t need to access regularly, has remained here. A sign we were working things out? Or I was just too lazy to move all of my belongings?
Thomas has rows of cargo pants, stacks of well-worn jeans, an impressive collection of long-sleeved flannel shirts. An overwhelmingly casual assortment of clothes, as befitting a man who spends his day in a work shed. I find three suits, one gray, one black, one navy blue. For funerals and weddings, I think, except if we have no friends, no families, what are we ever invited to?
I start with the drawers, searching each one. I discover socks, underwear, workout clothes, T-shirts, pajamas, pants and nothing else. Next I work my way through the small pile of shoes, mostly sneakers, hiking boots, the obligatory dress shoes, one in black, one in high-gloss brown, to go with the suits.
I try to think of the male equivalent of tampons, but I come up empty. Yet I don’t stop looking. He has secrets. I know it. Because twenty-two years later, those secrets have started catching up with us. Even before we moved here. Even before my “accidents.” Things have been strained between us.
Then, patting down the dark-gray suit jacket, I feel it. Something thin and flat in the lapel. I stop, search more slowly. Then pull an old, tattered envelope from the inside jacket pocket.
Just as I hear the creak of a board on the stairs.
I freeze, feeling like the proverbial kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. There is no place for me to run. If he’s already up the stairs, he has a clear view of the doorway, would spot me the moment I exit his bedroom. There’s only one thing to do, then.
I don’t leave the room. Instead, I jam the envelope into the back waistband of my yoga pants. Then I limp hastily across the room, breathing already ragged, and throw myself faceup onto the bed.
A second later, Thomas’s voice comes from the hall. “Nicky? Nicky? You all right?”
I don’t answer. Don’t trust myself to speak without sounding guilty or flustered. But a moment later, I don’t have to. Thomas looms in the doorway, his gaze finding me lying coffin straight on my side of the bed.
He doesn’t say anything right away. Just makes his approach, eyes upon my face.
“I’m testing it out,” I offer.
“And?”
“It feels familiar.”
“It should. You used to sleep there.” He doesn’t come directly to me, but instead loops around the bed. I feel a faint pressure on the mattress as he takes his position. In contrast to my rigidity, he tucks his hands behind his head, crosses his legs at his ankles. I turn my head to study him. It’s his bed, his room; he looks as if he belongs here.
“Why did I move out?”
He rolls onto his side.
“Come here,” he says.
I don’t immediately move.
“More testing,” he says, and gestures to the space beside him. I know what he wants; I just can’t do it. Then I don’t have to. He comes to me, closing the space between us. Until the heat of his body is pressed next to mine. I can smell sawdust, sweat, the residual soap from his morning shower. I hold my breath, not sure what to expect, not sure what I want to happen next.
He reaches out and feathers back my long hair. The pad of his thumb is rough. I feel it trace gently around the first line of stitches, then the second, the third. I flinch, but not because he’s hurting me.
“Do you wonder if we have sex?” he asks. “Two decades later, does our marriage still involve intimacy?”
I can’t speak. I’m too aware of him, touch, sound, smell. I understand immediately, instinctively, that none of this is new or unfamiliar. I like his touch. Crave it, even. The feel of his body over mine. The intense look on his face as he first thrusts into me. The sound of his heart, pounding wildly in my ear.
“You still want me,” he continues. “I still want you. Sometimes, I think it’s the only way we still connect. In here, lights out, we find each other again. And I know you need me, want me, love me, even if you remain too quiet the rest of the day.”
“Why did I move out?” I whisper. His fingers are still dancing across my face, working the edge of my hairline. Is he trying to distract me? Do I care?
“You have night terrors. Always have. But lately, after your fall down the basement steps, they’ve become worse. You wake up screaming, nearly out of your mind, sweat pouring down your face. If I try to touch you in any way, reach out, offer a soothing hand, you get worse.”
“I hit you.”
“Sometimes.”
“I smashed your head with a lamp.”
“That hurt.”
“Then I cried. Because I didn’t mean it, I really didn’t, and you had blood pouring down your face.”
“You thought it was best if you slept alone.”
“So I couldn’t hurt you.”
“You think leaving our bed didn’t hurt me?”
My gaze falls. I can’t look at him and the vulnerability on his face. I find myself touching his chest, my palm flat, my fingers splayed. I can feel his heartbeat. It’s surprisingly steady, given how fast I know my own is racing.
“Do you love me?” I hear myself ask.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He smiles; I can feel the movement of his lips against my hair. I inhale again, the scent of his skin.
“In the beginning,” he murmurs, “you were so sad. It was like a tangible presence, all around you. And I thought . . . I wanted to see you smile for real. I wanted to be the man who made you happy.”
“Is that love?” I asked him. “Or is that a hero complex?”
“I don’t know anymore,” he tells me, and I know he’s being honest. “Maybe it’s something in between. But when I finally did get you to smile, it all seemed worth it. And I just wanted to do it again and again. I figure there are worse ways to spend a life than making the woman I love happy.”
“But I’m not happy.”
“You were. At least, in the beginning. When we first left New Orleans, we went to Austin. You loved the warm weather, the great music, the dogs frolicking in Zilker Park. But then you got restless. More bad days, fewer good days, so we tried San Francisco. Then Phoenix. And Boulder, and Seattle, and Portland, and Chicago, and Knoxville and Raleigh and Fort Lauderdale and, and, and . . . You would be happy. Then you would be sad. So we would move again. Because to this day, all I want is to make you smile.”
I don’t speak.
“But you’re right: I can’t make you happy anymore,” Thomas says quietly. “You wear your sadness again, and when I try to ask you questions, you refuse to answer. What do you need, how can I make you happy? Just tell me what you want. But you don’t talk to me anymore, Nicky. Hell, I couldn’t even get you to come clean about that damn yellow quilt.”
“It’s mine,” I hear myself say. Immediate. Defensive.
“You ordered it on eBay three years ago. Day it came, you locked yourself in the bedroom with it and cried all day. I asked, I waited, I begged. But you’ve never told me why you need it so badly, what makes it so special. Most of my life I have loved you. And still, there are moments when I’m sure I don’t know you at all.”
“You have secrets, too,” I say, conscious of the worn envelope pressed against the small of my back.
“Silence breeds silence,” my husband says.
“Why do you stay with me? It sounds like I’m nothing but trouble.”
“Because I haven’t given up hope.”
“Hope of what?”
“That someday, I can make you smile again.”
He rolls away from me. I feel his absence more acutely than I would like. The air is cold, the bed empty, and for a second, my hand actually reaches out, as if I would call him back. It comes to me, what I thought the first moment I saw him. He was looking right at me, smiling right at me. And my first impression was I wished he would just go away.
But then, once he left, I wished he’d come back, because no one had ever smiled at me like that before.
I love him. I fear him. I need him. I resent him. I pull him close. I push him away.
And I have a feeling that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.
“You can stay,” Thomas says, rising to his feet. “Rest as long as you’d like. I’ll go down, start dinner. Grilled cheese, tomato soup, sound good?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“We’ll get through this,” he says. Reassuring me? Reassuring himself? Maybe it’s all the same. My husband leaves the room.
I wait until I hear his footsteps descend all the way down the stairs, followed by an echo from the kitchen below. Then, and only then, do I roll gingerly onto my side and pull the envelope from my back. My fingers are shaking. I set the small parcel on the bed, noting the way the edges are yellow, the paper darkened in places from old stains, perhaps the oil from a workingman’s fingerprints.
He has handled this often over the years. Obviously revisited it again and again.
I find myself hesitating. A turning point. Do I really want to know? Maybe all couples need their secrets. Apparently, I still hoard mine, from a yellow quilt to a stash of scotch.
But I can’t let it go. Having discovered the envelope, I need to know what it contains. So I delicately ease it open, pull out a single item: an old photograph in about as great shape as the envelope.
Faded out, yellow toned, smudged; I still know immediately what I’m looking at. A summer’s day. A ten-year-old girl wearing a familiar floral dress and a small, uncertain smile.
I stifle a gasp. Reflexively clutch the picture.
Vero.
I am holding a photo of Vero.
Which my husband had hidden from me.