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AFTER SIENNA LEFT LEXIE’S apartment, she drove home, the whole way conjuring a million excuses for why the phone she found couldn’t be Brent’s, and why she shouldn’t charge it to find out. Several days had passed, and she still reasoned that surely Lexie would have told her if Brent had been the one to attack her. She told herself that she was being ridiculous. If she thought her husband capable of such a horrendous thing, what did that say about the kind of wife she was? She trusted Brent. Sure, they had their problems, but who didn’t? And besides, she would know if her husband was a rapist—he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
Still, as the days slid by into mid-week, the image of the phone slid its way into Sienna’s consciousness like a snake. The phone, the question of possession, nagged at her, chewed on the edges of her every thought, until she finally removed it out of the secret compartment in her purse (where she knew Brent wouldn’t find it), while he was at work, and plugged it into his old wall charger.
She waited, too tense to sit, too tense to make a cup of coffee or grab a glass of wine while she waited. She stared at the phone, unable to tear her eyes away, as if half expecting an image of Brent to appear, dressed in red, a forked tail, and horns. She wrung her hands in front of her, the blinking picture of the battery on the blank screen, taunting her. And she wondered why, if she was so confident the phone was not his, she felt fear bubbling in her veins.
After several minutes, she picked the phone up with a shaky hand, her nerves jittering inside her like jumping beans. She took a deep breath, mustering all her courage and turned it on. She closed her eyes, heard the familiar tone signaling power, and slowly, very slowly, she opened them, directing her gaze downward.
The familiar photo of Brent she had seen thousands of times, smiling smugly, in khaki shorts, a navy golf shirt, and visor, his nine-iron slung over his shoulder against a manicured lawn so green, it looked artificial, glared back at her.
The floor dropped from under her feet, and she dropped the phone to the floor with an ominous clatter, recoiling from the device. She clutched her stomach, doubling over as her stomach heaved violently.
She pressed one hand to her mouth, the other to her midsection. In between spasms, she sprinted to the bathroom, managing to make it just in time before she vomited on her feet and the carpeting. The tendons in her hands strained while she gripped the sides of the sink and emptied the contents of her stomach.
Once she was empty, she stared at her reflection, her chalky complexion, her pale hair, seeming to lay limply around her anguished expression. She shook her head, peering at the woman before her, wondering how she could be so blind. How did one live their life with someone and not really know them? How could she share a bed, a life, with a man so devious, so heartless, so evil? How could he do such a thing, to her best friend no less, then come home to her and act as if everything were normal?
The thought of Brent touching her, of sharing her bed, her home for the past months made her stomach quiver and roll with disgust. She could make a dozen excuses for him—for why his phone may have been in Lexie’s apartment (underneath her bed), even the coincidence that it went missing almost precisely the same time of her rape—but Sienna knew truth as surely as she knew the sun rose in the East and set in the West. Her friend would never betray her, of that she was sure, and so only one explanation remained. Brent raped Lexie. She was sure of it.
Her certainty made her wonder. She didn’t need further convincing for her to believe that Brent had done the unthinkable, yet she would never have been able to believe Lexie may have been cheating with him, that maybe the interaction with them had been consensual. What did that say about her marriage? About Brent? About her?
Images of Brent, his sexist attitude, his caustic nature, and the harsh words he had toward Lexie in these past months, seeped into the forefront of Sienna’s thoughts. Her mind jumped from one image to the next—his control, his dominance, even in bed. The way he sometimes “got carried away” (as he always referred to it) in their lovemaking, ignoring Sienna’s pleas, leaving behind the bloom of purplish bruises, physical marks of how rough he had become.
Sienna rinsed the sink out first, then her mouth. She cupped her hands and drank some of the cool water, trying uselessly to wet her dry throat. She left the bathroom, returning to the confines of her bedroom, which no longer felt like a safe haven, but instead a prison.
She looked around at the furnishings, the expensive, fine-grained, walnut. The four poster King size bed—the one she shared with Brent for over six years—with the silk burgundy spread Sienna secretly disliked because she thought it to be garish. Their wedding picture hung above their dresser, mocking along with the custom-made jewelry box he got her for Christmas, the painting they picked out together at an art show earlier that year in New York City. Everything seemed like one big lie.
She perched herself on the edge of the bed, wrinkling the flawless silk spread, the mattress sinking with her weight. She stared at his phone on the floor, trying to figure out what she should do. Her mind was a hive of activity, yet never more vacant. She couldn’t configure one thought from the other.
When she was a child and something upset her, her mother used to scoop her up in her arms and sing to her—Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Sienna would squeeze her almond shaped eyes shut, her round little face scrunched. Her mother would sway back and forth, her voice as soft and fluid as her movement. The ritual always calmed and relaxed her. Memories such as those left Sienna wishing so badly for children of her own. She wanted her turn at making someone’s world right, for having the power to change the course of her child’s day, with only the lilt of her voice and her soft touch to soothe them.
Sienna closed her eyes tight, conjuring the image of her mother, tall and soft, with hair as light and soft as peep down. She tried singing to herself, wishing for the mother who died five years ago from breast cancer, wishing to make all her problems go away with the promise of a song. Her voice came out strained, cracked, like dry clay, proving the effort futile.
When she blinked her eyes open in defeat, they landed on Brent’s phone. Leaning forward, she picked it up off the floor, marveling that such a tiny thing could hold so much weight. Her hand trembled, but she managed to shove it into the pocket of her jeans. She gripped her right wrist with her left hand, pressing firmly, trying to quell the tremors in her arm.
She supposed there was only one thing to do next.
Brent would be home in two hours. She had to confront him.