When Julie came out of the house with Owen, she said she’d forgotten she had an appointment later that afternoon. I got up at once, eager to leave. Alison followed suit.
“You don’t have to go so soon,” Heather said, but it was a halfhearted protest at best. It was clear she wanted us to go and I wondered why she hadn’t simply canceled this afternoon.
We took turns saying good-bye to her on the driveway, each giving her a careful embrace, cradling her close.
“If you ever need to talk,” Alison murmured when it was her turn.
“Yes, we’re your friends,” Julie said, adding, “Thank you for the coffee,” as if trying to normalize everything. I waited to say anything to her until we’d loaded the kids into the car, and until Alison had pulled out ahead of us, and until we’d waved, parade-float smiles in place, at Heather standing in the drive, her slender arms wrapped around her midsection.
“I feel terrible leaving her there,” I said in a low voice, conscious of the kids. “Viktor is a monster.”
“We don’t know that,” Julie whispered, eyes darting to the kid mirror to see if they were listening in the backseat. “They had an argument. Granted, it looked like a really bad argument, but all couples argue.”
“C’mon, he trashed their kitchen—that’s more than an argument and you know it.”
“Shh. Careful about certain little someones with big ears. Look, I know it seems … excessive, but we weren’t there and we don’t know what really happened. Maybe they were both throwing dishes.”
“If that were true, then wouldn’t she just tell us that? And have you forgotten the welt?”
Julie had no answer to that. Noticing her hands clutching the steering wheel, I realized how stressed she was about it. Julie liked things light and happy. She was the one who always tried to defuse tension in our group. One reason she was such a successful salesperson was that she didn’t internalize negative feedback about the properties she listed, focusing only on what worked and plowing ahead to highlight it. Clients loved her bubbly personality and I did, too, but this wasn’t the first time I’d felt frustrated by her attitude.
“I know you admire Viktor—”
“Of course I admire him—he’s a very well-respected doctor.”
“But how well do you know him? How well do any of us know him?”
We knew one another’s husbands only as the accompanying spouse for the occasional cocktail party or kids’ sporting event. We’d gone to dinner once or twice as a group, but eight people required a pretty large table, so I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Viktor. One time, Julie and I decided to separate the couples in order to spark more lively discussion, and that had been the longest conversation I’d ever had with him.
Sitting there in Julie’s passenger seat, I tried to recall my impressions of Viktor. He was a tall man, much taller than me, of course, but he also towered at least two inches above Eric. He was good-looking in a way that could make people feel slightly nervous when he turned his blue eyes in their direction. I’d been nervous before first meeting him, having heard he was a plastic surgeon and feeling self-conscious about my body and afraid that I’d see a negative assessment in his eyes. I needn’t have worried. He was friendly, with old-school manners, always holding doors for women and offering a hand to his wife when she had to take steps or climb out of the car. Granted, it was a bit paternalistic, but I’d never seen any hint of bullying behavior.
What had we talked about at that dinner? Something innocuous—was it about cooking? A cooking show? I remembered being surprised that he had any time to watch TV, much less to cook, given the busy schedule he somehow maintained, albeit with all the help that having a doctor’s salary afforded him. “Heather doesn’t care for cooking,” he’d said in his easygoing way. “I’ve tried to explain that kids need more to eat than PB&J.” He’d laughed when he said it, but had there been an edge to it? Or was I only imagining that now I’d seen the rage he was capable of?
“Did you know Viktor was married before?” Julie said in a musing voice. I turned to look at her, my mouth literally dropping open.
“No, I didn’t know that. How on earth do you know and I don’t?”
She shrugged. “Heather told me. I guess I just assumed she told you and Alison, too.”
“Divorce?”
“I assume, but I didn’t want to pry.” Which was just so typical of Julie. Alison or I would definitely have asked questions.
“What if he abused his first wife?” I said, flashing to all the cases I’d seen in court, bruised women and men desperate to escape, filing restraining orders against battering exes.
Julie took her eyes off the road to look at me and whispered, “I was just wondering the same thing.”
*
As soon as we got home, I set the kids up in front of the TV so I could Google Viktor Lysenko. My kids usually weren’t allowed to watch TV on weekdays, and they plopped happily on the couch to stare glassy-eyed at some Disney princess, while I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and sat down in front of the desktop in the small alcove that we’d turned into a home office. Our house was only a three-bedroom and space was at a premium—we’d bought what we could afford to get into the school district. I’d carved out this little work space in the only place available and Eric and I vied to use it, although it didn’t really afford any privacy. The minute I sat down, Hansel, our large orange Persian cat, jumped up into my lap.
It had been a stressful afternoon and I needed to take the edge off. I sipped the wine, trying not to gulp it down, while searching online, occasionally reaching down to absently stroke Hansel’s soft fur. There was nothing marriage-related except Viktor’s wedding announcement to Heather. Instead, what jumped out at me was how much more information was included about Viktor than Heather: Her bio was two sentences about being related to some people in West Virginia and having modeled, while his was a veritable Who’s Who, listing his connections to various hospitals and organizations, and his embrace of Pittsburgh when he came from the Ukraine as a youngster. And their wedding had taken place in Pittsburgh, not the bride’s hometown. Had that been at Viktor’s insistence? It smacked of someone who needed to be in control.
I grabbed a pad of paper to jot down what I’d found, but when I looked for my favorite pen—a black Montblanc that had been a law school graduation gift—I couldn’t find it. Eric had probably taken it to grade papers; I wished he’d remember to put things back where they belonged. Josh called from the other room, needing me, and I didn’t have time to get back to the search until later that evening. Once I’d done laundry, made dinner, and bathed the kids, I finally had a moment free to call Alison. Of course, techie that she was, she managed to find more information online than I had.
“There’s a wedding announcement for Viktor and a woman named Janice Franz. I found another reference to her and there’s a Janice Franz who lives in Penn Hills.”
Just east of Pittsburgh, only fifty minutes away. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d be so close by. “What if we called her and asked about Viktor?”
“I think we should talk to her in person,” Alison said. “We don’t know what happened with their marriage and how she feels about Heather.”
Alison patched Julie in to our call so we were all on the phone together. Not surprisingly, Julie didn’t jump at the chance to question Viktor’s first wife in person. “How on earth are you planning to bring that up? ‘Excuse me, did your ex-husband ever hurt you?’”
“Something like that.”
“Count me out. What if she’s still friendly with him and calls Viktor?”
I said, “We could ask her to be discreet.”
“What about Heather?” Julie said. “What are you going to say if it gets back to her?”
“That we’re concerned about her,” Alison said. “That we think she’s being abused and isn’t facing reality.”