Chapter 2
I lie atop the sheets, covered in darkness. Waiting. Dreading. Victoria sleeps in the crib crammed between the wall and our queen bed, breath whistling from her tiny nose. A breeze slips through the cracked window. It blurs the central air’s hum with the sounds of the river and music—loud booty-shaking baby-waking music. Party boats. Each time one rounds the island, choppy calypso invades the room, destroying the tense quiet. Interrupting my focus.
The clock sits on the nightstand, casting a green glow into the space like a searchlight: 10:00 PM. When I was little, a public service announcement would sound at this same hour, moments after my dad settled down with his bottle of Bushmills to gripe at the evening news. It’s 10:00 PM. Do you know where your children are? I’d be hiding beneath the blanket in my room. My mother would be upstairs in her bed, probably doing the same thing. The man of the house was to be avoided when drunk. Avoided period.
It’s 10:00 PM. Do you know where your husband is?
The click of the deadbolt answers. A drawn-out groan announces the door opening. The pertinent question is no longer where is my husband, but where has he been. I know what he’ll say if I ask: the office. He’s already left me a voice mail attesting to it. Hey, hon, I’ll be home late. Trying to make headway on an upcoming case so I don’t have to work on the weekend. No need to wait up. You need your rest.
Work is the safe excuse. Murder trials can require a hundred-hour workweek. There’s no homicide case on Jake’s docket, to my knowledge, but how would I know one is not in the offing? And he is working on that case of the wealthy socialite who injured a bunch of people backing her car out of a restaurant. Why wouldn’t I believe it’s taking up more time? More important, why would I ever question his stated whereabouts? Before maternity leave, I accepted such excuses without a murmur. Most of the time, I was the one giving them.
I peel myself off the bed. My full-coverage cotton panties, the mom version of tighty-whities, reflect the moonlight from the window. The same glow lands on my bare breasts. Typically, my toplessness would be an invitation for a quiet quickie. Tonight, it’s due to a lack of clean nursing bras. I bet that bitch didn’t wear a bra under her dress.
I hold myself extra straight as I creep from the room and shut the door behind me. Five weeks postpartum and my belly is almost back to normal, though I must tense to keep my lower abdominals from rounding. Whatever excuse Jake has made for his behavior, he can’t point to his wife’s weight gain.
He hangs his suit jacket in the foyer closet, the door obscuring my presence in the living area. Somehow, he doesn’t feel me feet from him. Perhaps his mind is miles away—with her. The door shuts as if in slow motion. I trace the curve of his buttocks in the light-gray suit pants, the side of his leg. I examine his arm, sleeve rolled up to his muscular bicep, his thick neck rising to his barely there beard and balding head, shaved tight so that the hair loss on the crown appears to be a choice rather than a consequence of nearing forty.
He sees me as he shuts the door and startles, stepping back toward the exit as though the woman before him is an intruder. “Beth!” He smiles, pretending he’s not disappointed by my presence. Only a corner of his thin top lip ticks up. His eyes fail to crinkle at the corners. Some things you can’t fake. “I didn’t realize you were up. Did you get my message?”
A demilune console table is pressed against the wall to my left. Without looking, I can see the two photos atop it in their heavy pewter frames. The first is of Jake and me on our wedding day. I’m hugging him while he laughs. I’d interpreted his mirth as happiness. Now I see it as mockery. He knew that I had no idea what I was getting into.
I grab the frame and hurl it at him, a pitcher trying to bean a batter crowding the base. My aim is sure, but he’s too fast. He yanks his body out of the way, head diving from the projectile, shoulders following suit. The frame grazes his dangling forearm before slamming into the front door. Glass shatters. Not in a spray, but in two neat shivs.
“What are you doing?” he sputters. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, what’s wrong with me?” I grab for the other photo.
The image stops me. A few-hours-old Victoria sleeps on my half-covered breast, wearing the pink-and-blue-striped hat that St. Luke’s slaps on all newborns. I am gazing at my photographer husband, a closed-lipped smile on my face that seems to shout, We did it. Here she is. Our victory.
My distraction is to Jake’s advantage. Before I realize what is happening, his hands are around my wrists. He pulls me toward him as I struggle to wrest free while hissing insults.
“Baby, stop it. Stop.” He doesn’t yell. Either he’s guessed that Victoria is asleep in the neighboring room from my whispered epithets or he’s remembered that she goes down around ten. He leads me to the couch, fingers still locked around my wrists like handcuffs. When he sits, he pulls me onto the cushion with him. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
My response burns, bile in my throat. I am feverish with the effort of not shouting. “Where were you, really?” The words slam against gritted teeth. “Where were you while I’ve been here caring for our baby?”
He blinks. For a moment, I swear the pink drains from his face. The blood quickly returns, flushing his neck. “At work,” he speaks slowly, examining my face. “As I told you in my message.”
The bald-faced lie should inflame my rage. But he’s looking at me with those intense eyes, blazing as a summer sky. They open so wide it seems his soul could slip out. He has honest eyes. I’d thought so the moment we met in that courtroom. I remember the way he looked at me as I loitered beside the prosecutor’s desk. Him, a handsome young lawyer on his first murder trial. Me, a new recruit to the paper’s law-and-order desk, struggling to project enough confidence to believably ask him hard questions. His brow had wrinkled at the sight of the press pass hanging from my neck like tacky statement jewelry. Then he’d seen my face, and those baby blues had sparkled like December birthstones. He’d looked at me and grinned, as though he’d been waiting his whole life for me to show up beside him in some airless courtroom. Now that I’d arrived, we would escape and be happy.
And I’m bawling. Tears cascade down my face. Convulsions shake my body and twist my mouth into grotesque shapes. Fluid fills my nose. I cry so hard I start coughing. I’m drowning.
He holds me to his side, cooing like a mourning dove. “What is it? You can tell me.” The concern in his tone sounds so real. Yet how could it be? How could he care at all about me and lie to my face?
I gasp, unable to speak without screaming. His arms wrap around my back. When I shudder, he pulls me into him and rubs his hands over my spine, as though I’ve caught a chill that he can soothe with body heat and friction. My nose presses against his white button-down. I inhale in short bursts, trying to compose myself. At the same time, I sniff his clothes. What does she smell like? Jasmine? Linen? Sex?
The green scent of his deodorant soap and the mossy perfume of his aftershave assail my nostrils. He’s applied this recently. Liberally. I push back and stare at the bulge bobbing in his neck. No trace of a sheen at his collar, despite the hot day. If he stunk of this woman, I could convince myself that they’d hung out, maybe necked a bit in the car, at worst had a one-night fling that he’d fled in a shameful daze. But he’s made an effort to clean up. An experienced cheater move. How long has this been going on?
He brushes my long bangs off my forehead, tucking the limp hair behind my ear. Part of me wants nothing more than to close my eyes and erase the memory of hours earlier. Him, me, and baby makes three. This is all I want. I hate myself that this is all I want.