She followed him to the kitchen, unable to resist his bait, itching for a fight.
He stood before the open refrigerator, staring as though a plate of roast beef might leap into his hands. Next he opened the freezer.
“Do we have ice cream?” he asked.
“Do you see any?”
“No. I don’t.” He glared at her.
“So why’d you ask?”
“Because I hoped I was wrong, and you took the time to buy some small piece of comforting shit, like ice cream or cake or a fucking box of cookies.”
“Really, this is what you were hoping? Did you think of hoping the kids would call or the people you screwed all over the world might get some help? How about our family, every aunt, cousin, brother and sister—how about hoping they’ll survive what you did to them?”
Jake slammed the refrigerator shut with the unsatisfying kiss of expensive appliances. He shuffled to the dining nook and sank into the edge of the curved booth. “When I think about it, I fall apart. Which is why what I want now is a piece of cake.” His eyes appeared weaker than she’d ever seen. “I try to imagine a life without family. Us. Everything. I just can’t.”
If she were going to stay with him, shouldn’t she be kind? She touched his shoulder with two fingers for a moment. “I’ll make something.”
He took her hand and kissed it. She forced herself not to pull away, to claw her way out of his hold. Tried to remember when this man’s touch didn’t disgust her. “Thank you,” he said.
Fury gnawed her guts. “Watch your movie.”
“What would I do without you?”
Pity flashed as he shambled out. Jake strode over the world like Zeus since the day they had met. She opened the pantry door and reached for the airtight containers holding shredded coconut and chunks of dark Valrhona. While the melted chocolate cooled, she beat egg whites with salt until they stiffened, slowly added sugar and vanilla, and whipped until it became a glossy meringue.
She dipped in a finger at each stage—loving the flavor of the sugary egg mixture, relishing the grit of coconut. The chocolate. Rich, dark, thick; she couldn’t stop tasting as she mixed. After lining the cookie sheet with parchment paper, she dropped teaspoon-sized lumps in even rows. As they baked, she ran a spatula along the side of the bowl, scraping and licking until she tasted more rubber than chocolate.
The timer rang, and she slid out the tray, replacing it with a waiting one of raw macaroons. She put them on a rack to cool, eating one, two, and then a third and a fourth the moment she could touch them.
Phoebe crammed cookies into her mouth until the sugar sickened her. Then she opened the liquor cabinet and grabbed one of the ridiculously expensive liqueurs that clients showered on Jake. Glinting from the shelves, overdesigned bottles lined up like perfume flagons for giants. She pulled out the crystal-faceted stopper of the Courvoisier L’Esprit cognac, the Lalique glass cool in her hand, and tipped the bottle to her mouth.
She arranged a dozen cookies on the Limoges plate she hated most—stupid birds on a black border; yet another client gift—and carried it to her husband, along with the open bottle. Then she covered a never-used Flora Danica oval platter, easily worth a thousand dollars, even secondhand, with cookies for Manny’s family, wrapped it in green cellophane, and used a butter knife to create curling cascades of silver ribbon.
“Keep it,” she’d say when he offered to return it.
? ? ?
Jake’s cell phone rang as she poured their first Monday cups of coffee. He peered at the caller ID. “Gideon,” he said, pressing Talk.
“What?” he said after a minute.
Phoebe raised her eyebrows, and he motioned for her to stay quiet. His voice rose. “Bullshit! Family fucking mementos, that’s all we sent. Christmas presents. We’re not allowed to celebrate the holidays? Now that’s on the list of things I can’t do? Fucking feds.”
Jake remained silent for a few minutes. Phoebe could imagine Gideon’s deep, soothing voice sending platitudes equaling “You’re fucked. Do what I say.” Her husband seemed stunned when the conversation ended, the phone dangling from his hand. “The kids called the feds about the jewelry. Now they’re going to try to revoke my bail. I gotta go in.”
“They called? Kate and Noah?”
“Ungrateful—”
“Jake! Don’t. Their lawyer probably told them to do it, to keep out of jail.”
“They’re not going to jail because we sent them a few presents.”
“How the hell would you know?” She slammed a box of Cheerios on the table. “How would you know anything about what’s wrong and what’s right?”
“And you know so much? Why not look it up on your computer with everything else you’re so addicted to? Google ‘ungrateful children’ while you’re at it. Everything they have is from me.”
She should leave right now and never look back. Not unless she wanted to turn into a pillar of salt. But twisted remnants of her wedding vows kept her at Jake’s side. She questioned her own culpability. If she’d paid more attention, would she have seen signs? Jake was the biggest storyteller of all time—she knew that. As a teenager, he’d once convinced a math teacher that an answer, which Jake’s friend had inked on his hand and then shown to Jake, had been done in his head through a self-designed formula.
But he’d married her the moment he’d thought he’d brought harm to her. Now their eyes met, and she still saw that boy. Try as she might, she couldn’t find a way to morph him from man to monster.
“I’ll check your suit while you shower.”
Part 5
* * *
After
CHAPTER 32
Phoebe
“Beware the ides of March” seemed a wholly appropriate quote for this day. Phoebe curled up on the bed with her laptop—her best friend—waiting for Jake to come in and say good-bye. Numbness fought with guilt. She wanted him gone for so many reasons.
Having her children back in her life.
No longer seeing him twenty-four long hours a day.
He’d begged her not to come to the courtroom, not to watch him plead guilty to crimes that would send him to jail for the rest of his life. Agreeing came easy.
Jake’s complete house arrest—his punishment for sending presents to the children—had been carved out of time, an unreal period of suspended animation where they ate, read, and inhaled television shows.