MARK
Suspicion is not a new look on Helena, but it still stabs when it hits. He shifts against the counter’s edge and meets her stare. She seems to be calculating, eyeing puzzle pieces and moving them together. He helps her out, his words slow and unemotional, the sentences as clear as he can make it.
“I’m picking up Kate from the airport at seven. The movie starts at eight. Would you like to come with us?”
“No movie.” The words are quick, an automatic response as she continues to think.
“Okay.” He lets out a long breath. “Would you like to come to the airport with me to pick her up?”
“We need to work.” She’s stuck on this, her dedication impressive, if not exhausting.
“I can’t write any more until you tell me what to say.” This side of her is new, and he wants to ask questions, but doesn’t want to start a fight. She’s taking enough drugs to kill a small animal, and he’s dealt with some of them before, handled the side effects of increased irritability, ones that had occasionally turned Ellen into a raging bitch.
“I’m sorry. I get paranoid about…” she sighs. “Things. I don’t care if you and Kate are close, but I don’t want you to tell Kate anything about this.” She taps the top of the manuscript with her finger, and he sees the vulnerability in her eyes. A spark of understanding flares.
“I don’t. We don’t talk about anything like that.” His conversations with Kate had been strictly Helena-focused, but never about that. They had been almost business-like in their execution, calls about groceries, doctor appointments, blood test results and travel arrangements. He’d expected, in every call, a question about the manuscript—but there had been none.
“I am a very private person.”
“I don’t talk to anyone about the things you tell me.” She must read the truth on his face, her shoulders relaxing slightly, her voice dropping in intensity.
“I’m sorry.” She looks down, her fingers lining up the pages, making them perfectly straight in their stack.
“No need to apologize.”
“My mother and Simon…” her voice trails off and he crosses his arms over his chest, waiting her out. She presses her lips together, her eyes darting across the table. “I shouldn’t assume that you are the same.” She looks up and his hope disappears that a revelation is coming. Her face is closed, the expression one he’s becoming increasingly familiar with. When she gets like this, there is no discovery to be had, no confessions of the past, no stories to record. When she gets like this, he can only retreat and wait. “Enjoy the movie.” She smiles and there isn’t a bit of sincerity behind the gesture.
He waits for more, but she picks the pen back up, and he loses her to the words, her head dipping, body relaxing, eyes moving. When he leaves, the house is quiet, his truck halfway to the motel before he realizes he never built her a fire.
My earnings have gotten excessive. Simon doesn’t have to work, but he does. I don’t have to write, but writing has never been about the money anyway. So I’m writing. He’s working, and he’s spending.
First, a new Jaguar coupé, one that Bethany’s carseat wouldn’t fit into, one that took up the only spot in a garage that was quickly filling with more and more things. It caused too many fights, and was quickly replaced by a Range Rover.
Then, a sailboat, my name emblazoned on the side as if that would make the terrible purchase okay. An expensive chore, that’s what “The Helena” was. Simon wanted to spend a summer on it, talked about me writing out on the open sea, like it would be exciting to bathe in a gallon of water, and vomit from rough weather, and constantly be on the lookout to make sure that Bethany doesn’t fall over the side. We paid marina rent on that boat for two years before it sold. Every month, I hated him when I wrote that check. Every month, a small dark part of me wished he would go out sailing, catch a storm, and never come back.
Then, skis. A SubZero fridge. Automated blinds that rose and fell with the click of a remote. Heated floors in our master bedroom. Season tickets and a skybox to some football team three hours away.
He won’t stop spending, and I only watch and say nothing. Our house fills with things; I close the door to my office and write. The more I earn, the more he spends.
Maybe we’re normal. Maybe every husband drives his wife crazy. Maybe every wife falls short.
But it doesn’t feel normal. It feels like we are at war. A war I am losing.
I write, outline, then set aside the notepad and build a fire the way I was taught. A core of paper, finely shredded, set against the base of a log. A surrounding tee-pee of kindling. I strike the match and watch the flame, my hand shielding it as I take it to the base of the kindling, the first three matches burning out before anything catches fire.
Then, a glow of ignition, the crawl of the flame up one stick, then a second. The paper catches fire and there is a small WHOOSH of action, the warm crackle bringing a smile to my face. Simon hated fires, his stubborn chauvinism never allowing me to handle the task, his own attempts pitifully inept. Every winter, in this house, he had tried to build a fire. Every winter, there had been cursing, the lighter fluid grabbed from the garage, our living room reeking of failure and chemically-created warmth. Mark’s fire was the first authentic fire in this fireplace. And now mine. I leave the grate open and scoot back until I reach the couch, leaning back against the leather as I watch the flames, their lick and spark, the jump of embers, smoke curling its way up the chimney. The warmth heats my legs, and I close my eyes, appreciating the moment.
When the knock sounds, I almost miss it.
I wrote my first novel about my mother. They say you should write what you know, but I didn’t know her. I wrote about her to understand her. I built a world around a character so that I could live in her shoes, could think her thoughts, could understand her intentions. I wrote a hundred thousand words and barely understood any of them.
The readers didn’t care. They loved the woman I didn’t. They embraced her when her husband left. They rallied beside her when he reappeared. They never read the truth. I buried those pages in the back of one of my journals—my knowledge of the romance world advanced enough to understand the value of a happy ending. So I gave my mother one. When my father returned, they fell back in love. And when the daughter ran from him, he chased her, hugged her, loved her.
All of that second half was lies. When my father came back, I was eight, and my mother was bitter. There was no joyous reunion. There was a lot of shouting. When I ran from him, he called me a nerd. When I woke in the morning, he was gone. And I didn’t, not in my third-grade uniform, nor as a college freshman, give a damn about it.
The last time I spoke to my mother, I was dressed in black and huddled against the wind, staring down at a fresh gravestone. She tried to hug me. She told me she loved me. In response, I told her the truth.
I told her I hated her for turning Bethany and Simon against me. For calling me unfit. For siding with him. For taking my daughter from me. All unforgiveable sins, ones that I could only punish her for with cruel silence, ignored calls, and spiteful words snarled beside a black hearse.
I vowed, in that graveyard, to never speak to her again unless she found a way to return my daughter to me.
I open the front door, and that threat scatters in the wind.
Any other night, Mark would be here. He would be the one to answer the door and deal with this. Instead, I am unprotected, exposed in the doorway, when I’m hit with her eyes.
“Mom.” Just a single word, yet it burns on its way out.
“Helena!” Her head snaps back, and those eyes widen in alarm. “Are you all right? You look terrible.”