A door slam woke Imani. She gasped as though a pair of invisible hands had released her throat. Vaguely, she remembered retreating to her room to read the latest articles and commentary about Nate’s death. The coverage hadn’t revealed any additional facts about the case, though the army of online armchair detectives had included plenty of speculation about Melissa’s culpability and motives. Revenge for infidelity appeared to be the leading theory. No one had posted evidence of Nate having an affair, but his occupation was its own indictment.
Imani supposed she’d dozed off. Guilt at having abandoned Ava overcame the sadness sapping her energy, forcing her from the recliner where she’d fallen asleep. Counseling individuals dealing with trauma was her literal job, yet Imani had left a grieving teen in the care of a fifteen-year-old. “Mother of the year,” she admonished herself.
The hallway outside her room was windowless, penned in by bedrooms and the stairs leading both to the first floor and the attic. Her eyes adjusted to the little light emanating from her open door, confirming that both her kids’ doors were closed. She cracked the first one, revealing Jay stretched out on his extra-long twin, covered only by a sheet despite the freezing temperatures outside. Imani was tempted to pull up the duvet bunched at the bed’s edge, but she restrained herself. Pubescent boys were living, breathing furnaces. He’d only kick it off again.
She headed to Vivienne’s room next. Before entering, she listened through the wall, aware that her daughter might be talking to Ava and resent any interruption. When her kids had been younger, she’d retained the moral authority to do nearly anything simply because she was Mom. Now she had to respect Vivienne’s and Jay’s privacy. Nine months of carrying these beautiful creatures in her belly only for them to constantly demand space a decade later.
Hearing nothing, Imani placed her palm on the door for a full second as if testing for fire. Feeling nothing, she turned the knob like a dial. When the lock clicked, she pulled back the door.
Blond hair shone white on Vivienne’s violet pillowcase. Her daughter had apparently given Ava her bed, choosing to sleep on the trundle mattress below in the guard dog position. Imani could make out her kid’s ringlets falling from the edge of the mattress onto the shadowed floor.
Imani shut the door. Perhaps it had been best that Vivienne had taken over for her. Fear for Melissa had erased years of Imani’s therapeutic training. Instead of actively listening, she’d been spouting unsupported assurances that Melissa would be found safe, exhausting her credibility on lies to make herself feel better. It was little wonder that Vivienne had taken Ava to her room post-dinner.
The lights were off on the first floor. Imani’s skin prickled as she stood on the landing, too afraid to descend. Someone operated in the darkness. Someone bigger than her. She could sense the person’s size by the sounds creeping up the stairs, the heaviness of the footsteps, and the bang of kitchen cabinets.
“Philip?” Imani whispered his name so as not to wake the children. Though she didn’t know the time, it was certainly late. The street noises that were the sonic backdrop to her waking life had completely shut off. There was only the tinkling of liquid hitting glass.
Imani forced herself to step down. Her body buzzed as if she’d fallen into a pool of carbonated water and oxygen bubbles were launching off her every pore. She grabbed the banister to steady herself, held her breath, and strained to hear.
A cabinet shut. “Imani?”
Philip’s voice recalled tires on a worn road. It was gravelly and hoarse from the day, yet still familiar. Still her husband’s.
She descended the remaining steps and entered the narrow kitchen. Light from a far window illuminated the right side of Philip’s face, highlighting a deep-set eye, heavy frown line, and pale skin glistening with sweat. He hovered over the cement countertop, a scotch glass in one hand.
The irony of chefs was that they often ate like food was irrelevant. In spite of possessing a palate that could detect a grain of salt in a spoonful of sugar, Philip would inhale cold leftovers while standing in a corner. At the restaurant, he often wolfed down the trimmings of whatever was on the menu: cod fish tacos filled with the remnants of skinny tail pieces or shredded beef sandwiches made from less-than-prime cuts. Philip didn’t take time to dine unless he was sampling the competition.
He also rarely treated his family to homecooked meals. After spending all day in a professional kitchen, her husband couldn’t bear to waste time waiting for a stove to reach four hundred or working with a pan that no longer evenly distributed heat. When the family ate at home, it was Imani’s efforts that they consumed, most often fashioned from a combination of store-bought shortcuts and online recipes.
“There’s takeout pizza in the fridge,” Imani said. “It was all I could do to order.”
Philip stepped forward as her voice broke on the last word. A long sinewy arm extended, offering to pull her into safety and comfort. She refused to accept it. Philip had left her alone to deal with the disappearance of a woman who might as well be her sister and console their children about the loss of “Uncle Nate,” all the while caring for Melissa’s grieving daughter. He’d faced a choice between helping her through a harrowing time and attending to his business. He’d chosen the restaurant. Again.
“Babe, come here.”
Imani hugged her torso, pulling her sweater tighter around her midsection. “The kids are asleep.” Her tone betrayed her disappointment more than her exhaustion. “I passed out sometime after cleaning the kitchen. I don’t know when. Since the police came, I’ve been operating in a daze.”
Philip’s outstretched arm retreated into his chest. He set down the drink and unbuttoned the collar of his chef’s jacket. “The cops were here?”
“They wanted to question Ava about whether she’d seen anything.”
Philip unhooked another button. “Did she?”
“I guess she was sleeping with a sound machine on. She has no idea what happened or where Melissa could be.”
“So what do the police seem to think?”
The question suggested that Philip had not yet read any of the news coverage. “I think they’re leaning toward murder.” Imani rested her back against the counter, suddenly too tired to support her own weight. “Apparently, Nate’s hands lacked gunshot residue.”
Philip wiped his mouth, dragging his former expression into a concerned pout.
“I think they may even suspect Melissa,” Imani added, “which is obviously ridiculous.”
Her husband’s eyes opened wide. “Jesus, really? That’s…”
As he trailed off, the whites of his eyes took on a wet gleam. In all the years she’d known him, Imani could count on one hand the times she’d seen Philip cry: the birth of their kids, their wedding day, and once back when they’d been dating and had a huge argument that they’d both assumed might end things.
He wasn’t crying so much as becoming teary-eyed. Still, Imani was surprised that Nate’s death had so moved her husband. Though Philip had hung out with Melissa’s spouse a good deal over the past ten years, it was always because of plans involving the families. Nate had been Phil’s counterpart in the Imani/Melissa, Vivienne/Ava package. Imani had always thought the husbands’ friendship akin to the relationship between her son, Jay, and Melissa’s daughter. Her boy was polite, and Ava tolerated him because he was tied to a dear friend.
“That’s terrible,” Philip whispered.
Imani suspected Philip’s tears were truly for Ava. Like Imani, Philip knew what it was like to lose a parent young. Both of his had perished in a car crash before his twenty-third birthday. At the time, he’d been living at home, fresh off a four-year enlistment with the marines, working the bottom rungs in a restaurant kitchen. Philip often brought up his parents after reaching milestones, regretting that they’d never seen him enroll in culinary school, let alone graduate or open his first restaurant.
Philip’s vulnerability activated Imani’s maternal instincts. Though she was still upset, she embraced him, wrapping her arms around his waist and placing her head between his pectorals. At six-three, Philip was nearly a foot taller than she, so a kiss wasn’t possible unless he bent to her level.
“I’m so scared for Melissa.” Imani felt her own tears on her husband’s shirt. “At first, I kept thinking that she was somewhere and hadn’t heard what had happened. But they would have found her by now. She has to be in real danger or…”
Imani couldn’t make herself say the obvious. Philip patted her head, unable to run his fingers through the curls that had reasserted themselves in the year since she last visited a hairdresser. “Maybe she’s somewhere getting her head straight,” Philip said. “She’s out there, figuring out what to do next.”
Imani looked into Philip’s now-dry eyes. “Melissa didn’t kill Nate.”
“I’m not saying she murdered him, honey. Maybe there was an accident, they were arguing—”
“And what? She pulled out a gun and shot him?” Imani arched her back, signaling to Philip that she wanted out of his vise grip.
He released her. “I don’t know. Maybe he had the gun and—”
“Nate wasn’t abusive.”
Philip reached for his whiskey. “Who knows what really goes on in a marriage?” He punctuated his statement with a sip of his drink, inhaling the alcohol like a smoker taking a pull off a cigarette.
Instinctively, Imani crossed her arms over her chest. “Melissa would have told me if Nate had ever gotten violent with her.”
Philip set down his glass. Amber liquid sloshed over the side. Clearly he’d poured himself a double. “There’s a first time for everything. I mean, they’re stuck in a house together day in and day out, unable to cool off from an argument in their normal ways by having a cocktail with a friend or whatever.”
The last word was loaded. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”
Philip turned his attention to the fridge. “Okay, then. Never mind.”
The fridge’s fluorescent bulbs added a yellow glow to the shadowed surroundings, highlighting the tight line of Philip’s lips. His face showed a strain that Imani swore hadn’t been there before. The therapist inside of her noted it and said to tread lightly. But Imani the wife wanted Philip to explain himself. If even her husband thought her best friend guilty, then what chance did Melissa have of the police taking her safety seriously?
“You clearly have something to say,” Imani snapped.
Philip considered the scant selection on the fridge’s shelves before withdrawing a jar of kimchi. “I wouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t know.”
“What do I know, Philip?”
He opened the container, wrinkled his nose, and then capped it, shaking his head the whole while.
“What do I know?” she repeated.
“You know that Nate had a wandering eye and Melissa could be…”
“What?”
Philip sighed. “Flirtatious.”
Imani pulled her chin into her neck, displaying the indignation that she didn’t actually feel. The truth was that both Melissa and Nate had loved to work a room. Imani could picture Melissa at a dinner party, moving from guest to guest, asking if anyone needed anything while making elaborate, flattering, and often innuendo-filled introductions to both men and women. You don’t know Philip? Well, let me introduce you to the man of the hour or hors, right? Hors d’oeuvres. I’m being punny because small plates are the specialty of Banque Gauche, Philip’s restaurant. You can’t judge a man by the size of his plate, though. Just his Michelin stars. High reviews, this one. Isn’t that right, Imani? Imani Banks. Philip’s better half, but my girl. Keeps me sane, and not only because she’s a celebrated psychotherapist. I don’t know what I’d do without her living among all these neurotic New Yorkers.
Imani believed that such coquetry was confined to party conversation—at least on Melissa’s part. Though Melissa flirted, she was always checking over her shoulder to see if Nate was noticing. Imani assumed that flirting with others was a game for them. The way they kept their marriage interesting. They’d each endeavored to attract just enough attention to make sure that they held each other’s own.
“A penchant for holding court isn’t against any marriage laws,” Imani said.
Philip put the kimchi back in the fridge and slammed the door. The sound echoed off the high ceilings.
“We can disagree without you waking the kids.” Imani hissed.
“It’s not that…” Philip rubbed his forehead. Whenever her husband had trouble saying something, he massaged the words into his brain.
“I’m going to close the restaurant.”
“What?”
Though Imani had heard him, she assumed some mistake. Banque Gauche hadn’t been doing well amid all the restaurant shutdowns, of course. But it wasn’t an ordinary eatery that would go belly-up after a few bad months. Her husband’s place was an institution. Michelin-starred tourist destinations around for a decade-plus didn’t simply close down. They perished only after prolonged downturns that left plenty of time for estate planning.
“I’ll keep the kitchen open for delivery,” Philip continued. “But the staff isn’t earning enough in tips to make a living, and I can’t keep paying folks to wait on nonexistent customers.”
Imani suddenly understood the source of Philip’s tears. He was sad for Ava, surely, but he was devastated for himself. Banque Gauche was her husband’s baby, sprung like Athena from his frontal cortex, made entirely in his image. It was the only thing that could compete with Philip’s feelings for his family, and win.
“I hope you understand why I couldn’t be with you today. Things are bad.” Philip threw up a hand. “I mean, everywhere you look. Nate. Melissa’s disappearance. People choking to death on their own phlegm. A city that’s become a ghost town.” The raised hand curled into a fist. It knocked twice on his forehead. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
As much as Imani wanted to ask questions, she forced herself to think like a therapist. Her husband’s identity was melded with his career. Closing his restaurant had to feel like excising a limb.
She reached for the hand engaged in the mock beating. “No one could have anticipated all that’s happened. You’ve done the best possible.”
Philip dropped his fists to his sides. He looked longingly at his scotch.
“Don’t worry,” she continued. “We’ll manage. We have my salary and our savings, and we only have the property taxes on the house. We’ll—”
“We owe on the house.”
For the second time, Imani had trouble processing the words she’d so clearly heard. They couldn’t owe on their home. Philip had inherited the place free and clear from his parents. When she’d met him, he’d been treating his childhood residence as a flophouse, letting rooms to other guys working their way up in kitchens like himself. But that hadn’t been about paying any mortgage. He’d wanted to fill the vacancies left by his folks and earn extra spending cash. Debt had never been an issue with the house.
“We can’t keep this place, you mean. You want to sell it?”
Philip drained the rest of his whiskey. He poured another as he spoke. “Remember when I revamped the restaurant and added Coffre? I took out a loan—a home equity line of credit. I thought I’d have paid it off by now, but the refresh didn’t bring in the level of new business that I’d hoped, and then the pandemic hit and Coffre had to close. Nearly every penny over the past year has gone toward the lease and staff salaries. There’s been nothing left over to pay down the debt.”
Imani placed a hand on the counter, concerned that her knees might buckle. After eighteen years of living together, surely the carriage house was as much her place as his. How could he have taken out a loan and not told her?
“How much is the mortgage?”
“Six grand a month.”
She breathed in through clenched teeth. A back-of-the-envelope calculation wasn’t required to show that her salary couldn’t cover that kind of a payment, even with the entertainment budget set at zero, their transportation costs cut in half, and no household help. Philip had insisted that they let go of their cleaning lady at the start of the pandemic. Given this new information, Imani couldn’t help but wonder if his fear of exposing the children to COVID had simply been a cover for their inability to afford a weekly maid visit.
“Do you think we can renegotiate with the bank?” she asked.
“I’ll figure something out. Cut costs. A different menu.” Philip was muttering to himself rather than truly explaining anything. “I sold off most of what was in Coffre. But the bar countertop is still there. When restaurants really reopen, somebody will want that.”
Coffre’s fire sale had already happened. Imani couldn’t imagine that whatever was left would be worth more than a few thousand dollars. “Well, school tuition is paid through the year,” she said, trying to be grateful for small blessings. “I can cover, maybe, four thousand a month. I’ll ask to pick up shifts at the hospital.”
Philip set his drink on the counter. “Absolutely not.”
“Woodhill is always looking for clinical psychologists.”
“Yeah, because the crazy people knife those on staff.”
Imani winced at the memory of the case: a Hopkins-trained psychotherapist had been stabbed repeatedly by a patient who’d faked taking his meds after convincing himself that the doctor was trying to poison him. “Patients don’t have access to knives,” she muttered. The assailant in the case had used a ballpoint pen.
“Over my dead body.”
“What else can I do?” Imani snapped. “You took out this loan.”
Philip grabbed both of her arms. His fingers tightened around her biceps like police cuffs placed too high. “Listen, babe, I’ll fix this, okay? I won’t let the bank kick us out of our home. I won’t let them shut down my business. And I won’t let you risk your safety to help. I’ll figure something out.”
Imani couldn’t imagine what solution Philip would invent. But she couldn’t question him anymore. The day’s revelations had knocked her down sure as a taxi speeding through a crosswalk. She lacked the energy to speak, let alone argue.
Imani fell into her husband’s arms, allowing him to rub her back and whisper lies. Things will be fine. I can tweak the menu. The customers will soon return. Tears flowed down her cheeks. The pandemic had been their personal apocalypse. Fighting was futile, Imani thought. Her only option was surrender.