I pause, and the world stops.
Everywhere I look, there’s a bad memory. She was in my house, in my bathroom, with my husband. I have to stop my thoughts from spiraling.
But I can’t commit.
I can’t decide if I can forgive him. It’s been weeks, and I’m struggling.
I’m struggling.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him.
He pulls out his phone when it dings with a text, and as he does, as he looks at it, my heart races. He used to text her. Maybe even when I was sitting right there. He glances at my face and freezes.
“God, Corinne, I’m sorry. It’s just the office.”
He holds his phone faceup so I can see it.
I relax when I see the familiar number.
It’s still hard to swallow, though.
Jude eyes me. “Just looking at my phone is hard for you, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I know it sounds silly. But you talked to her on it. She sent you pictures, and you arranged dates and...” My voice trails off, and I stare at the offensive object, at the orange-and-gray case that I’ve seen a million times before. It looks different to me now. Menacing, almost.
“Okay.” Jude stands up and walks out of the room immediately. Curiously, I follow him outdoors.
He drops his phone on the driveway and stomps on it. It doesn’t break.
He picks it up and throws it against the ground. It still doesn’t break.
“Glad I invested in the titanium case,” he says wryly, with a scowl.
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “I’ll get over it. It’s just a phone.”
“It causes you pain,” he points out stubbornly. “Hang on. I know what.”
He tosses it on the driveway again, gets into his Land Rover and runs it over.
The glass finally crushes, and it feels amazingly good. He picks it up and hands it to me, and it’s shattered.
“Thank you,” I say limply. “I’ll get you a new one tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll do it.”
I drop it in the garbage, and we return to our dinner.
“When I get a new phone, I’ll leave it on the counter when I’m home,” he tells me casually after taking a bite of rice. “That way, if a text comes in, you’ll see who it’s from. I want you to feel comfortable.”
I choke up and my eyes water.
“Corinne, it’s okay,” Jude promises. “If I can do anything to help you, tell me. I’ll do it. No questions asked.”
I nod because I can’t speak, because words won’t form. Jude gets up and leads me to the couch, his hands gentle. He sits with me, and we watch the fire burning.
“Don’t leave me,” he says finally. “Please. I love you.”
My eyes are on his hands, his long fingers, and I picture him touching her with them.
“Did you hold her hand?” I ask him, and I know that’s a stupid question. Who cares if he held her hand? But I do. It signifies love and tenderness.
He shakes his head. “God, no. It wasn’t like that, Corinne. It wasn’t sweet love and butterflies. It was sexual innuendo and kinky talk. That’s it.”
My hand curls around my belly, the belly that was almost empty because of her. No matter what, everything will be different now. I’ll have to mourn the loss of my marriage the way I knew it.
If we stay together, it will all be different now.
I’m not the naive girl I once was.
She’s gone forever.
I’ll have to grieve her, too.
66
Jude
All my life, when I was upset, I talked to my brother.
We discussed everything.
Not being able to talk to him about this is killing me.
So I pretend. I go into my study and pretend that he’s sitting in the chair across from me, like he has so many times before.
“I’ve never felt so helpless in my life,” I tell him. I gulp at my water, and I imagine that Michel examines me with his watchful eyes, the way he has a hundred times before.
“You’ve done a terrible thing,” he points out to me. “There are consequences. You’ve got to wait and see what happens. I wish I had better advice.”
“Jesus.” I gulp at my water again. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“Jude, whatever was wrong in your marriage, you should’ve addressed it. Sought counseling. You can’t turn to someone else. If you’ve learned nothing else, I hope you’ve learned that.”
“Yeah. I’ve learned that.”
“How’s Corinne?”
“She’s as you would expect. Confused, devastated, sad. She’s got an influx of memories about that Halloween, and all of the emotion from this, and the horror from Zoe’s accident...and...you... Shit, she’s having a hard time.”
“What are you doing to help?” Michel’s gaze is firm and unwavering. I feel like squirming beneath it.
“I’m there for her. That’s all I feel like I can do. She doesn’t want to talk about it. But I’m there for her when she does.”
“Think about this from her perspective,” Michel tells me. “It was horrific. She’s been through a lot. You were unfaithful. Your lover tried to kill Corinne, and she did kill me. You’ve got to show Corinne that life is worth living, and that you’re worth sharing it with. Earning back her trust will take time, but you can start by showing her the good stuff.”
“The good stuff?”
I don’t even feel dumb pretending to talk to a dead man. It’s bringing me comfort, so fuck it.
Michel points at the newspaper on my desk, tapping on an ad from the local animal shelter.
Puppies need a forever home.
“You think a new dog is going to fix everything?” I ask dubiously.
“Hell, no. But a puppy will give her something to smile about. That’s what you need to focus on. Giving her reasons to smile, every day, until one of these days, she smiles all on her own.”
“You’re right,” I admit. “You actually make sense.”
“Well, I’m fairly bright.” Michel shrugs. “Particularly now. I’m omniscient.”
That’s exactly something my brother would say. I roll my eyes and get up, taking the newspaper with me.
I call the number from the car, and I drive to adopt a second dog.
It happens just that fast.
On the way home, the wriggly fat puppy in the passenger seat looks up at me with big brown eyes, and I pat his head.
“You’re medicine, boy. I hope you’re up to the task.”
He wags his tail, and I turn into the drive.
I carry him inside, and we find Corinne and Artie in the sunroom. She is curled up on a lounge.
When she sees the puppy, her eyes widen, then soften. She glances up at me.
“What’s this?”
“His name is Rx,” I tell her, sitting him on her lap. “He’s here to make you feel better.”
She starts to scowl at me, but Rx puts a big puffy paw on her chest and leans his face against hers.
Her eyes soften further, and she hugs him, clasping him to her chest.
“I love that puppy smell,” she admits without looking at me.
“I’ll take care of him,” I promise. “You won’t have to do a thing.”
“This doesn’t fix things,” she tells me seriously. “A puppy won’t fix us.”
“No,” I agree. “But he made you smile.”
She stares up at me with teary eyes, and for the first time this week, her gaze isn’t guarded.
“Yeah, I guess he did.”
“That’s progress,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
I leave her snuggled with the puppy. They’re both asleep when I check on them an hour later, his face lying right next to hers with Artie nearby. I cover her lap with a blanket and tiptoe away.
67
Corinne
Days and nights have been running together.
Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don’t.
I’m plagued by nightmares, of the past and of the present.
Of my rapist, of the murders, of my husband and Zoe, of Michel dying.
It’s all so much.
But to my husband’s credit, he’s been doing everything in his power to make things right. He does little things for me every day, like running my bath towels through the dryer before I use them so they’ll be warm, or putting a note on my bathroom mirror to tell me he loves me.
Or bringing me home something to love me.
Rx stares up at me now, his eyes so big and brown. He yawns, and he’s got puppy breath.