What waited for me at home, in rural England, had been fated by my birth: I’d marry one of the boys I’d known my entire life, one of the boys who, in primary school, pulled my hair or called me names. It was no secret that Oliver Hill wanted to marry me. He’d been asking since he was twelve years old. His father was a rector in the Anglican Church, his mother the kind of homemaker I vowed never to be: one who obeyed her husband as if his command was the word of God.
James was older than me, which was exciting; he was cosmopolitan and brilliant. His stories were impassioned; people hung on to every last word out of his mouth, whether he was talking about politics or the weather. It was summer where I first saw him at a restaurant in the Loop, sitting around a large circular table with a group of friends. His voice boomed over the sounds of the restaurant, and you couldn’t help but listen. He drew you in with his poise and presumption, with his vehement tone. All around him, eyes waited expectantly for the punch line of some joke, then everyone—friends and strangers alike—laughed until they cried. A few broke out in applause. They all seemed to know his name, those dining at other tables, the restaurant staff. From across the room, the bartender called out, “Another round, James?” and within minutes, pitchers of beer filled the table.
I couldn’t help but stare.
I wasn’t alone. My girlfriends, too, ogled him. The women at his table weren’t hesitant to touch him when they could: a hug, a pat on the arm. One woman, a brunette with hair that stretched to her waistline, leaned close to share a secret: anything to be close to him. He was more confident than any man I’d ever seen.
He was in law school at the time. That I’d later learn, the following morning when I woke up beside him in bed. My girlfriends and I weren’t old enough to drink, and so it was apparently my infatuation that was responsible for my reckless abandon that night: the way I found myself sitting beside him at his round table; the gluttonous expression on the woman with the long hair as he draped an arm around my shoulder; the way James fawned over my British accent as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
James was different then, not the man he’s become over time. His faults were much more endearing, his bravado charming instead of the unpleasant way it’s grown to be. He was a master at flattery long before his choice words became insulting and ugly. There was a time in our lives when we were happy, completely bewitched by the other, when we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves. But that man, the one I married, has completely disappeared.
I call Detective Hoffman first thing in the morning, after James has left for work. I waited, as I always do, until I heard the garage door close, his SUV make its way down our drive, before emerging from bed, where I stood in the midst of our kitchen with my mug of coffee, the face of that man who has Mia engraved in my mind’s eye. I stared at the clock, watched as the minute hand crawled its way around the circle and when 8:59 gave way to nine o’clock, I dialed the numbers that are becoming more familiar with each passing day.
He answers the phone, his voice professional and authoritarian as he announces, “Detective Hoffman.” I imagine him at the police station; I hear the bustle of people in the background, dozens of officers trying to solve other people’s problems for them.
It takes me a moment to gather myself and I say to him, “Detective, this is Eve Dennett.”
His voice loses its edge as he says my name. “Mrs. Dennett. Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
I envision him standing in our kitchen last night; I see the vacant look on his kindhearted face when James told him about Mia’s past. He left in a hurry. I hear him slam the front door over and over again in my mind. I hadn’t attempted to withhold a thing about Mia from Detective Hoffman. To me, in all honesty, her past behavior didn’t matter. But the last thing I need is for the detective to have misgivings about me. He’s my only link to Mia.
“I had to call,” I say. “I had to explain.”
“About last night?” he asks and I say yes.
“You don’t need to.”
But I do anyway.
Mia’s teenage years were difficult, to say the least. She wanted so desperately to fit in. She wanted to be independent. She was impulsive—driven by desire—and lacking in common sense. Her friends made her feel accepted, whereas her family did not. Amongst her peers, she was popular, she was wanted, and for Mia, this was a natural high. Her peers made her feel like she was on top of the world; there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her friends.