“I’m so glad. They’re good kids. Smart.”
I rolled/fell out of the bed and made it to the door and then out into the den, doubled over like I’d been gut-punched. “Where are you, Adam? Are you in the house?” I pushed open his office door, forbidden territory. He wasn’t there, and his desk had been swept clean. The monitor and desktop computer were gone, keyboard and mouse cords trailing like long fingers pointing out the door. My head pounded. I could hear Adam breathing fast and nervous on the phone, but he wasn’t saying anything.
Tiptoeing even though my heart felt louder than my footsteps could possibly be, I checked the rest of the house. Hope and Drew were sleeping the comatose sleep of preteens. Jada’s floor was scattered with dolls, so I couldn’t get close enough to check her bed without risking a broken limb or puncture wound. She rocked sideways and mumbled something when I flipped her light on and off. Even at three and a half she was prone to nightmares so terrifying that I didn’t like her to tell me about them. I convinced myself that the reason her waking hours were so carefree and happy was because these nighttime demons chased her worries and fears away. The alternative looked too much like hiding, or avoiding—too much like me.
“Tell me what’s going on, Adam. Talk to me.”
“They got too close. They’re putting things on my computer now. Messages. Words. Numbers. I can’t let them get everything. Not all of it. If they just take my thoughts, steal them right out of my head, then I can’t make the deal. I need the money for you and the kids. I’m going to take care of you. I can do that. I can take care of you.”
Facing as many doors and windows as possible in the den, I curled into the corner of the sofa, phone pressed bruise-hard to my ear. I could hang up. I could just hang up. He was so far past understanding that nothing I said would matter anyhow. But I had spent too many years doing what I imagined to be the right things. The safe things. The things that would be right enough to level his mood. Don’t set him off, please don’t do anything to set him off had been my internal chant long enough to become a personal motto. I didn’t know another way to think. Placating and pleasing Adam was a mind-set I didn’t know how to escape even though we had been talking about separating, giving his mind a break from the chaos of the kids.
“… is what she said. So, we’ll do that tomorrow?” he asked.
“Sorry, I’m not really awake. What time is it?” I pulled the phone away, relaxed my fingers when I saw how contorted they were from my grip, and then checked the clock. A flash of anger made me flush. I could have checked other clocks in the house if they were reliable, if Adam didn’t change them. Even with the phone away from my ear I could hear his sigh. He had important things to say and I damn well better turn off the useless prattle in my own head to hear them. Wandering minds were disrespectful. Unacceptable. “Sorry, I didn’t catch all of that. It’s two in the morning.”
“It’s two thirty-six, Cara. Two thirty-six A.M.” He enunciated the words carefully, anger creeping between the syllables.
“Yes, Adam, so it is. What about tomorrow?”
“We have to go somewhere. Probably far away. Somewhere noisy so we can talk. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Things are getting out of hand and it can’t be like this. I can’t be separated from the things that matter—from my family. You will always be my family. We’ll grow old together, just like we always said.”
The words were the right ones to say, but I could hear his fist thumping against a table or desk on every fifth word or so. Something metallic rattled after each thump, maybe a spoon. I yanked a fleece blanket off the ottoman and pulled it over me in a tent. Instantly, I felt better. Safe. Bulletproof.
“We haven’t made any decisions yet. We can talk at home. I can’t just leave the kids. Why aren’t you here now? Where did you go?” I held my breath, waiting for the storm.
“Remember when we decided the diving in Cancún didn’t measure up to Cozumel and took a day trip for a drift dive? Twenty-seven hours of taxi, bus, taxi, pedicab, ferry, taxi, dive boat.” He laughed, slow and real. “Rinse and repeat for the trip home. The dive was incredible, but you got so sick.”
It had been a really spectacular trip. Just the two of us to stay connected, to keep our love alive. And things hadn’t been so bad at home then. He had just started to look in the rearview mirror a little too often and fill one too many yellow legal pads with pages of dots and dashes. It was the leading edge of insanity, when things could still be explained away. He had been eccentric and charming rather than slap-ass nuts. The good old days.
“Is there any coast you haven’t puked off in a dive boat, a spot we’ve missed? Maybe you’d like to turn green down under?” He laughed again, his fist thumping faster and the spoon dancing in a jingle.
He laughed so hard that the laughter faded to little throat clicks before billowing back out in a full belly chuckle. “Do you remember the old man with the ponytail who fed you grapes? They’ll make you feel better, he says. But you puked them starboard before he had time to reach for the next handful. He was a persistent old hippie.”
No laughter this time, and I knew why. He was making connections and closing circles. That little man, sun-damaged enough to be a skin-cancer poster child, was now part of them, part of the conspiracy to trick him out of an invention worth millions. He was no longer merely the grape man, but an idea thief, one in a long line of spies who stretched back to Adam’s childhood.
“I’ve got to get some sleep,” I said. “The kids are doing fine. We’re fine. Let’s leave things like they are for now. Come home and get some sleep. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Not now.” I heard him drawing in a long breath, filling his lungs until they were near bursting, but I remembered to add, “And we’re not going anywhere tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to shut me out. You are my family. If we don’t stick together, we won’t be safe. None of you are safe, Cara. Not you, and not the kids. You could die! Is that what you want? Do you want to die, Cara?”
“We need some rest. It’s too late for either of us to think right now.” It was a lie. I was thinking, all right: crystal clear. I was thinking of what he could do to me, to the kids. How easy it would be for his mind to slip even further. I was thinking he had to get away from me for good. For better or worse—I’d promised, I knew I had, but not with my kids’ lives. I knew then that he had to go. Tomorrow, he had to go for good.