The condo is on the fifth floor with a view of bustling shops below, a café with burnt coffee and an owner with body odor that’s pretty much stunk out all his customers, and, lucky for me, a pub called Grady’s. I stab the key into the lock of the condo door, and I don’t want to look around. It feels better than the house, but I’m not going to stare at photos of us on the wall and then imagine him the way he was in that photo, the same wide smile and pale eyes, his chest and shoulders buttery with coconut sun block, standing on a beach in Cabo. For all I know, he’s there right now with his arm around some other woman.
What wouldn’t be the same are the orange swim trunks he was wearing. His favorite. He didn’t take clothes. He didn’t pack anything. Maybe a reminder of this life he apparently wanted to escape so badly. Maybe just because he had money, why have luggage weigh down his elaborate plan? He really would start over completely.
I don’t even open the blinds. I place a key under the mat and call Merry Maids. Once they cleaned and took down the photos that I didn’t want to touch at the moment, I would order groceries and booze for delivery, and stop by a Macy’s down the block for new bedding. I might be able to work with the place then. For now, alcohol.
On my way out, I stop in the lobby. I remember Lettie and how I was able to help her. That seemed like another lifetime ago. I wonder if she stayed in Chicago after she left the shelter or left town to escape the ex. Just then, I see a woman trying to push open the door and balance a moving box on her hip. I hold open the door, and she rushes in. She is short and a bit disheveled, with wild hair and sweatpants. Not the usual sort of tenant the building attracts. It’s on the higher end of amenities even though it’s a historic building. It’s in a sought-after neighborhood; lots of young professionals who get dressed up just to go to the grocery store live here, so she stands out a bit.
“Oh my God. Thank you, thank you,” the woman says, out of breath. I notice that there is a cat in the box she’s holding. Before I can say anything, she holds her hand out. “I’m such a fan.”
“Oh.” I shake her hand, taken aback.
“I see you in the news, and I just want you to know there are a lot of people in your corner. It’s terrible what happened to you,” she says.
“Thanks.” I just want to be done with the conversation and have a drink in my hand.
“I’m just moving in. This is Mr. Pickle.” She nods to the cat in the box. “And I’m Hilly.”
“Well, welcome, Hilly. You’ll like the neighborhood, I’m sure.” She still stands there, staring at me. I notice a guy sliding some sort of flyer into the top cracks of each mailbox on the wall. He gives me an eye roll, seeming to understand how awkward this is as the woman stands there, too close I might add, smiling at me like I’m Beyoncé or something. He hands her one of the flyers, coming to my rescue.
“If you need any help with computer repair or set up in your new place, I’m at your service.” He puts a flyer in the box, next to her cat.
“Oh. Thanks. Say, can you replace a cracked screen?” she asks, backing out of my personal bubble and into his.
“I can do everything from turning the power on to hacking the Russian government.”
“I just need my screen fixed,” she says seriously.
“That was a little joke. I mostly do simple repairs and software installation, so yes. Just give me a call.” He smiles and continues tucking flyers into mailboxes.
“Thank you. Nice to meet you, Dr. Finley. I’m in 208 if you ever need anything, or want to come by for a cup of coffee, or anything,” she says, now trying to calm a restless Mr. Pickle, which is likely the only reason she moves past me and to the elevators.
Before I head outside, I look to the flyer guy. I know he was making a joke about hacking, but I wonder what his skills really are. I can’t ask him now, but I wonder how easy it would be for him to get into Liam’s computer, and how I could approach it without seeming suspicious.
“Could I get one of those?” I ask, pointing to his stack of flyers.
“Oh. Yeah.” He hands me one. “Need help with your computer?” he asks.
“Maybe.” I look at it and see his name across the top: Marty Nash.
“Thanks, Marty.” I slip it into my purse. “I’m Faith.” I stretch my hand out to shake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.” He shakes my hand.
“You live in the building?” I ask.
“Fourth floor,” he says, pointing to his name on the mailbox that reads 429 and then turns back to finish stuffing the last few. I’ve never noticed our neighbors below us before. When we moved to Sugar Grove four years ago, we’d really just pop into the condo once in a while to grab mail or sleep after a late event, only to rush out again in the morning. I used to write here some weekends, but we didn’t spend actual time here, so if Marty has only been in the building three years, it would make sense that I hadn’t met him until the other day. Hell, I barely know any of the neighbors in the building. Another reason we thought smaller town life would be more fulfilling.
I want more information. I hadn’t thought about hiring someone, but—as much as I wish it weren’t the case—I need to know where Liam went...and with whom.
“How long have you lived here?” Why am I asking this? My attempt at conversation is sounding creepy.
“Three years, give or take,” he answers, unoffended.
“You do this full time?” I ask. “The computer stuff?”
“Eh. I guess. I’m a software programmer, but I work from home mostly now, freelancing.”
“Oh. Cool,” I reply, not really knowing what else to say.
“I don’t know about cool,” he says, “but it pays the bills.” He looks like he wants to finish his work, so I thank him again and walk down to Grady’s.
At one in the afternoon, the pub does not have many inhabitants. The few men who line the bar—each claiming his respective bar stool with discarded coats and a hunched posture—are the embodiment of loneliness. It fills me with an intangible grief, like the permeating damp of a basement invading one’s skin, one’s mood, but it simultaneously feels like the comfort of finding home because of its safety or anonymity, I suppose.
I take a Klonopin from a zipped pocket inside my purse and chase it with a vodka tonic. I fit into this setting more than I would have a few months ago. If you look at the photo on my book jacket, I’m put together. My long, dark blond hair, always up-to-date on conditioning treatments and lowlights. My nails short but French-manicured, my thin frame mistaken for an athletic build, broad-shouldered and lanky—but really I’d simply won a genetic lottery; it allowed me to eat anything Liam needed to critique, from duck confit and butterscotch pound cake to lobster risotto and baklava at a new restaurant every week, and not worry about gaining weight.
I’m sure it will catch up with me one day, but in my late thirties, I’m still described as pretty. Who gives a shit? I think. Now, after pulling on dirty yoga pants and a down parka, and not washing my hair for a few days, I sort of fit into this shithole bar. I prefer it this way.
When all the stuff with Carter Daley began, two news anchors with tight neckties and graying temples questioned why someone so pretty and successful would need to trick a teenager into sex. I almost took a pair of rusty scissors from Liam’s toolbox in the garage that day and cut all my hair off to make a point. But I didn’t really know what point I’d be making, and rather than risk appearing crazy or unstable in light of everything I was facing, I decided against it.
The bartender slides another vodka tonic in front of me without me having to ask. It’s old school at Grady’s: you leave a small pile of singles and fives in cash on the bar, and he just subtracts the price of the drink from your pile each time, counting it out in front of you and leaving the rest of the cash, assuming, I suppose, that most of the clientele will be too drunk to count fairly shortly after taking their places on their stools. I’m one of them now. Each time I’m sure I’ve hit rock bottom, I find a new low.
I look around, almost hoping one of these drunks will talk to me because none of them knows who I am or cares, so they wouldn’t have sympathy or judgment, just meaningless small talk, which I long for. I listen to a couple of them preach uneducated opinions about politics like they’re an authority on the topic, then argue over a football play, gesturing wildly to the TV above the bar, which I hadn’t noticed until now. I heard one of the men complaining to another about how he’s gonna spend Christmas down at the mission because his sister’s a bitch.
I imagine him being invited just once a year to his family home. His bitch sister just hoping he can manage the forkful of green bean casserole from the plate to his mouth without trembling and making a mess, or worse yet, drinking too many mugs of mulled Christmas wine and making a scene in front of her in-laws.
No one wanted me either. In these recent months, all of the friends I held dear, one by one, stopped calling, stopped coming by. I wasn’t sure if success simply attracted fairweather friends, or if they, at some point, had to give up on the task of consoling the inconsolable and move on with their lives. In all fairness I’d slept for weeks, never returned calls, didn’t say much in the company of anyone who tried to see me. Should they be expected to keep trying to be there for me? I wasn’t sure. I can’t really say I fault them for quitting.
Now, three vodka tonics in, I find myself thinking of Hilly and Mr. Pickle. I think of knocking on Hilly’s door. One year ago, if I knocked on the door of a new neighbor, I’d be carrying a gift basket of expensive wine, exotic teas, and assorted meats and cheeses. Now, I find myself wondering if I’d even remembered to order a box of cookies from the grocery delivery, so I could dump one of the plastic sleeves onto a plate, passing it off as my own, in order to go have a conversation that wasn’t about “my loss.” The problem is, Hilly knows me, or at least knows of me, and any attempt at chatter about coming snow flurries or the regal architecture of the brownstone building would turn to headlines and probing questions.
The headlines have mostly faded by now, the newest school shooting or celebrity scandal taking their place. My life, my career, also forgotten about, but left ruined in the wake of accusations and a runaway husband.
The friends I once had don’t know what to say to me anymore. My personal life is splayed open, wet, raw, and exposed—I may as well be naked, spread wide on an exam table. Every detail, from the sexual intimacy I allegedly had with Carter Daley to my prescribed medications, were public knowledge.
Even when they tried to talk to me like a normal person at a dinner or the occasional obligatory event I still forced myself to attend until recently, there was something behind their eyes—a tinge of suspicion, maybe. Or worse yet, pity.
I guess that’s the same reason I can only take Ellie in small doses these days. It’s not just the perpetual shitty diaper and baby powder smell in her house and the squawks and shrieks of dancing puppets on the television that made me want to run (like literally run from her place directly to the gynecologist for a tubal ligation), it was that she’d been there through every turn, God love her, but to see her face is to see Liam. She was right next to me on our wedding day, and for almost every memory. His bare feet and white linen pants as we tried to ignore the hot wind and scorching sand beneath our feet on the beach for the ceremony. Late at night, when I’d talk to Ellie on the phone and tell her about our dates, in the early days, all the details of exotic foods and hours of lovemaking. All of the summer-soaked backyard barbecues, the Christmas Eves watching George Bailey curse the Building and Loan, the maternity ward when Ellie gave birth, the trips to Belize. It was the four of us. Ellie and Joe, me and Liam, and the reminder of a life robbed from me was too much sometimes.
I fish out a lime rind from my drink and suck on it. I remember someone telling me that lemon and lime peels have more bacteria than a toilet seat. I don’t much care at the moment. I think about Marty the computer guy. Maybe he could be someone to drink with. He didn’t even flinch when Hilly was gushing about being a fan. A fan of who? Who was I? He didn’t give a shit. I liked that. That’s the kind of uninvested stranger I need. How pathetic that I’m going to corner this poor guy because he gave me a flyer.
I know what I should do. I should call old friends. I’m back in the city, I’m standing upright, I’ve dressed myself. There is progress. And now, I have all the information I asked for. It’s time to move on. I could work out a new book idea with Paula about self-reinvention, life after loss or something, get back into the world.
But I don’t do any of that. I stumble out of Grady’s, walk upstairs, get into bed, and don’t leave the condo for days. I’m not sure how long I would have stayed like that if I hadn’t seen something shocking.
I’m sitting with a bottle of wine on a dark October afternoon, icy rain tapping at the windows, and I’m trying to muster up the energy to pay a stack of bills. Then I see it. Something in a forgotten corner of Liam’s desk that changes everything.