It makes me uncomfortable and I nod. “Yes. No matter what I’m doing.”
He smiles now, but it’s tight and short, and when I lean up to kiss him, it’s also tight and short. His cheek feels like stone, and it doesn’t give. He gets into his car and drives away, and as I’m buckling myself into my own, I feel someone staring at me.
I look up, and I see the outline of the waitress through the window. I still don’t see her face, but she seems like she’s probably pretty. She waves. I wave back.
I’m an idiot for thinking anything was amiss. She’s just a kid, and she’s a waitress in a café where Jude eats every day. She likes tips, and it’s her job to be nice.
Lord, I’ve got a vivid imagination.
With a sigh, I nose my car out of my parking spot and drive home.
27
Four days, eight hours until Halloween
Jude
I died a thousand internal deaths when Corinne walked into the diner and I was sitting with Zoe.
Even now, in the privacy of my own car, I feel short of breath, light-headed.
I watch Corinne’s car disappear into the distance, and I try to take a deep breath.
As I do, Zoe texts.
I got a rush from that.
A pang hits my chest. God, if Corinne had walked in one second earlier when Zoe had her hand on my cheek, before I’d brushed it away, Corinne would’ve known.
She wouldn’t even look at me, though, Zoe adds. I wonder if she’s intimidated.
That makes me laugh. My wife isn’t intimidated by anyone. Zoe is arrogant if she truly believes otherwise.
She was tired, I tell her. That’s all.
She did look tired, Zoe agrees. She didn’t even bother putting on makeup.
Corinne doesn’t even need makeup, but I don’t say that. Zoe is being catty now. Usually, I don’t notice this kind of thing, but even I can see it now.
She’s so oblivious, Zoe says.
Her words twist my gut. I hope Corinne is oblivious. I hope she stays oblivious. She can never know.
I don’t answer. Instead, I slip my phone back into my pocket and start my car. I need to drive to work and pretend this never happened. This girl is insignificant. She’s nothing to me.
Guilt overwhelms me, and I certainly feel like shit for making Corinne feel like she was the one doing something wrong. It was the first reaction I could think of when she showed up, the only plausible thing. In the therapist world, we call it “gaslighting.” It’s turning someone’s suspicions or concerns onto themselves, like they are the culprit.
I’m an utter asshole.
I know that.
But I’m stuck in this terrible sticky spiderweb of deception and I have no idea how to crawl out without hurting everyone.
28
Now
Corinne
Reflections Mental Facility
“Perhaps you’re scared of intimacy,” Dr. Phillips suggests. “You trusted your father, and he betrayed that trust. He hurt your mother, and he killed people. It’s understandable that you would have trust issues, Corinne.”
“Yeah. But... I can’t explain it. It’s like there’s a wall in my head. And I can’t get past it.”
“Not even for your husband?” Dr. Phillip’s eyebrow arches.
“Not for anything.”
“Let’s examine that.”
God. Is it hot in here? My face flushes, and I fan myself. My thighs are hot enough that they’re damp, and it’s all so unusual for me. I’m usually cold, not hot.
“Everything is just so confusing,” I murmur finally. “It feels like there is a terrible large elephant in the room, but no one is talking about it, and I don’t know what it is.”
Dr. Phillips closes his notebook and studies me.
“Corinne, I don’t know if there are actual things going on with Jude, or if you are transferring old feelings and memories from your father and mother to your present life. Either way, you do have many suppressed memories. We can agree on that, right?”
I nod. Of course.
“I wonder if you’d be willing to let me try another form of treatment with you. It’s called EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s an alternative treatment for trauma. It’s been successfully used in PTSD among soldiers and accident survivors. It helps allay the feelings of panic, by moving the panicky feelings from one part of your brain to another, so that they are finally processed.”
I pause and then nod. He holds up a hand.
“I should warn you, though. It’s not uncommon to uncover old memories during EMDR, because we’re accessing old emotions. Are you still willing?”
I swallow, and swallow hard. I don’t want to.
But I think I need to.
Finally, I nod. “Yeah. I guess.”
He smiles. “Good.”
He digs around in a little black bag and pulls out two nodules. “Hold one of these in each of your hands. You will feel an alternating vibration, but no pain.”
He turns it on. I feel the buzz. First in my right hand, then in my left.
“Now, let’s talk about that night with your father. What is something you feel when you think about that night?”
“Fear,” I whisper, my eyes closed.
“Let’s examine that,” he suggests. “When did that fear begin?”
I think about that, prepared to say that it began when my father arrived. But I can’t remember when my father actually arrived, and I felt fear before that point.
“Earlier in the night,” I say, without even meaning to. The hand sensors buzz, to and fro. To and fro.
“Focus on that emotion,” he tells me. “Let it go wherever it takes you.”
I keep my eyes closed and focus on the feeling in my belly, the feeling of tightness and anxiety, of anxiety and panic. It spreads into my chest and then into my hands. I flex my fingers around the vibrating sensors.
“I wasn’t alone in the house,” I remember out of nowhere.
Someone had stepped out of the laundry room after I’d put the kids to bed.
“He cupped his hand over my mouth and dragged me to the bedroom,” I whisper, and I can smell him still. His aftershave, tart and strong, and his skin. It smelled like sweat, and it was damp. His fingers cut into my lip, bruising it. I scratched at him, and he shook me.
“Who was it?” Dr. Phillips asks calmly. “Remember, you’re safe here, Corinne.”
I focus, but I can’t see the face. It’s dark and blurred, and I can see only a shadow above me, moving in the night.
“I can’t see,” I whisper. My hands are tightly clasped, and Dr. Phillips notices.
“Corinne, you’re here. This is a safe place. You aren’t there.”
I open my eyes. “I wasn’t alone that night.”
I extend my fingers, and my palms have half-moons carved into them from my fingernails.
Dr. Phillips nods. “Okay. That’s a place to start. I think we’ve done enough for today, Dr. Cabot.”
He’s pleased, and we’re finished, and I rush outside to the common area, into the sunlight. I take a deep breath, then hunch over on my knees and vomit onto the pavement.
29
Four days until Halloween
Corinne
Jackie squeals and jumps out of her chair, almost spilling her coffee.
“You’re sure? How far along?” She hugs me and almost knocks me over.
“I’m sure, and not very far,” I answer, removing her arm from my windpipe. “You’re going to be an aunt.”
“It’s about time,” she tells me, settling back into the chair across from me. We’re in the sunroom, and Artie is in the backyard. Frost etches the edges of the windows, but I can still see through them. The dog roots around by the fence, trying to get at something. The chill seeps through the tile, into my socks.
Winter is coming.
“I think I need to see Dad,” I tell Jackie as casually as I can.
“What?” She sits up straighter. “All of a sudden? Why?”
I sip my hot chocolate and ignore my pounding heart. I can’t even speak about any of this without the panic welling up in me. It’s getting ridiculous. My hand flutters over my belly, but that’s also ridiculous. I can’t protect it from me, from my emotions. It will feel the adrenaline, too. Everything I feel will course through its veins as well as my own.
I fight to calm myself.
“Because I need to know what happened.”