Chapter Nine

KATE

I drive extra careful on the way home checking the rearview mirror approximately every 2.5 seconds. Bile rises in my throat and I want to pull over to throw up but I can’t let you know the extent of the damage that asshole has done. Equally, I can’t be sure he won’t be there on the side of the road waiting. I wouldn’t put it past that sick bastard to follow us home. But then why would he? He already has our information. You don’t know this, of course. You think I gave him the fake ID’s and I meant to, I really did. Until I couldn’t find yours, and well, I was so worried about you taking the beating, that I did what I had to do in the moment.

“Did he hurt you?” you ask once again. You slur your words as you speak, and your gaze is off. Understandably. Still, it’s starting to worry me the way you keep asking the same question over and over. He tased you twice, which explains some of your anger. Also, I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. But then maybe this is just you, you’re always this intense, so it’s hard to tell. I get it. You want to know if he hurt me—if I’m all right— and I am, and no, he didn’t.

“What did he do to you?” you demand, and you have a head wound, which is bleeding profusely, but you just sit and stare at me. I think you want a fight. But you’re clearly not in fighting shape.

“Nothing,” I tell you and I don’t know why you have to be so stubborn. What happened is nothing you need to know—not right now— not like this. But it isn’t like you to lose, and so you’re angry and your ego is wounded— but that’s life, Jude. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, and it happens to everyone at one point or another. All I can do is chalk it up to the fact that you were tired, given what has transpired over the past twenty-four hours.

And the truth is, I’m not exactly lying. He didn’t hurt me, not really. Surely, though you can hear it in my voice. You know I’m not telling you the whole truth, and I can only assume this is why you go for the jugular.

“Please tell me he didn’t rape you, Kate,” you say, which is blunt enough in and of itself, not to mention a bit uncaring, and yet it’s what you add after that pisses me off most. “Because if he did, we need to see a doctor.”

The ‘we’ part of your statement gets me, and so I reach over and backhand you, and I would feel bad given your less than stellar state, but I don’t because that was an asshole thing to say. For one, you posed it as a statement, not a question, and the condescending nature of your tone is clear. You’re blaming me for this— as though it’s somehow my fault. Even so, slapping you doesn’t make me feel any better. So I try the truth on for size.

“No,” I tell you. “Of course, he didn’t.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, a loud one, and I let you have your moment.

“He didn’t have to,” I say watching your face. “I gave him what he asked for…”

You look over at me and I can see that you’re afraid of what that might be. You take a deep breath and you hold it. You’re hesitant to ask and you should be. At the same time, you realize you can’t not know and so you let the words roll off your tongue in spite of your fear. “And what was that?”

I press my lips together. “A lap dance.”

I watch as you stir in your seat, and then you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t ask for a blow job, or I would’ve handled the matter for you,” I retort. You aren’t amused.

Instead, you turn your attention elsewhere, focusing out the passenger window and you refuse to say anything more.

“I’m sorry,” I say even though we both know I don’t mean it.

You take a long pull off the thick air that hangs between us and then you let it out. I watch as it fogs up the window.

“Tomorrow,” you say, and then you pause and you look over at me. “I plan to head out early. Before you’re up. I need to handle the issue in the trunk. ALONE this time.”

“Fine,” I tell you, and I smile, even though nothing that was said is anything worth smiling over. But I know how much you love that word, and I enjoy rubbing salt in your wound.

“Hey Jude,” I say after several moments pass. You look over at me.

“Remember, when I said we should have gone out to the barn instead?”

You look away. But I don’t stop there. I’ve already taken aim. This time I pull the trigger. “Can we just agree I was right?”

After we get home and you get washed up, Josie calls and tells me Olivia has been crying and wants to come home, and that for the past two hours Brady has been sitting in the corner staring at the wall. Given the events of this shitty day, I ask Josie if she’ll bribe Olivia to stay, and thankfully she says she will. As for Brady, well, she knows he does that sometimes. He is your son, after all. Early on, back when we first noticed there was something off about his behavior, something off in the way he never sleeps, in how he obsesses over things, you asked the pediatrician about it. I’m sure you remember because I didn’t speak to you for three weeks afterward. They wanted us to run tests, and you insisted even though I told you it was unnecessary; I told you it didn’t matter what they found. It was already clear: he has trouble dealing with emotions, and what did you expect?

It mattered little to you that his IQ was off the charts, only that he was different, and something shifted in you then, although I’m not sure what, because well, apparently I’m bad with emotions, too.

The phone rings again, causing me to jump. It’s Josie again.

“Kate,” she says, and her voice is panicked. “Um…I don’t know how to say it so I’ll just spit it out— I think there’s something you should know…”

“Okay,” I reply, treading carefully.

I listen as she takes a deep breath and it isn’t like Josie to overreact. Eventually, she exhales. It’s painfully long and I don’t like the sound of it. “Olivia is crying about Monique.”

“Monique?” I somehow manage to say around the lump that’s formed in my throat.

“Yeah,” she tells me her voice barely audible. I hear kids in the background and then I hear a door close. There’s shuffling, and finally, she speaks. “She says she’s scared Monique will come back.”

“Why would she be scared of Monique?” I ask.

“Because she said she has been locking Brady in the closet. Whenever you’re not home. She says it’s his ‘punishment time.’”

My lungs empty, and I can’t breathe. Words fail me for a few seconds, but afraid of what else she might say, I recover quickly. “I’m coming to get them,” I say and I go.

It’s the dead of night when I’m forced straight up in bed by a shrill scream. I’m surrounded by silence, and yet it reverberates off the walls. I recall the sound so clearly that I know it wasn’t just in my dreams. It was real. I swear it was. Gripping the duvet, I inhale, counting to ten, and then I carefully let the breath go. Afterward, I begin my usual routine, employing all the techniques I’ve been told to try whenever the nightmares come. I squeeze my eyes shut, and then I open them, willing myself to adjust to the darkness.

But it’s rather apparent that the techniques aren’t working, because my breath is caught somewhere between my chest and my throat, and it feels like the walls are closing in. I sit up further and survey my surroundings and eventually, my eyes adjust, which helps. But only a little.

I take into account where I am, and I do my best to slow my thoughts, but I can’t concentrate on anything specific, and more importantly I can’t seem to suck in enough air. I count and I inhale. Over and over. Until I’m dizzy. You once told me this method was called grounding, so I’m going with that because I don’t know what else to do to make the spinning stop. All I know is that being grounded sounds good. My mind races—it feels like I’m floating. I picture myself lost in space, and I’m spinning off into the void. Nothing is holding me back; nothing is tethering me to earth. I grip the sheets, squeezing harder this time, until my fingernails burn. I’m hanging on by a thread, I realize, and my grip is slipping. I know that if I let go, there’s no turning back.

I urge myself to think, to try and recall the nightmare. But when I do it only gets worse. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I see that cop with his disgusting breath and his hands on my chest, and I can feel my stomach turn. I’m going to throw up. I feel it coming any second now, and I remember how much you hate throw up. Relying on the moonlight that filters through the balcony’s glass doors, I reach over and fumble around the nightstand in search of my cell phone. I’m not getting out of this bed without light to take me where I need to go. Thankfully the phone lights up when my fingers graze the screen. I pause for a second, looking over at you, sleeping next to me, quiet, content and I’m almost envious. Part of me wants to wake you. I want to ask for your help, and I almost do, but you’re still angry with me when all I did was save your ass. In turn, I’m angry at you for being angry at me, and we’re stuck in some sort of holding pattern, the two of us, playing this beautiful blame game in which no one wants to concede.

But I don’t have time for envy or anger or much else, because my heart is pounding and it’s all I can do to keep the nausea at bay. I can’t make myself get up, but I can’t make myself stay here either. The sound of my pulse whooshes loudly, reverberating in my ears. My feet are on standby, and my eyes are peeled—all senses are on alert.

It occurs to me to pick up the video monitors to check on the kids, although I know they are fine. They, like their father, are sleeping soundly. But not me, I am floating off. I’m lightheaded, and I can’t seem to stop whatever it is that’s coming. When I’m afraid I’m going to pass out, I shake you.

“Jude,” I say, pressing the button on my phone so that it lights up again. I need to see light. I need you.

You open your eyes, but just barely, and you raise your brow sleepily. But you don’t speak.

“I heard something.”

Hearing the panic in my voice, you sit up and you listen for a moment. You ask if I’ve checked the monitors, and I give you a look only married people understand. You sit there for a few moments, waiting. I watch as your expression changes slowly, as indifference passes over your features and settles in. I realize we’re going nowhere when you pat my leg and ask if I’ve had ‘one of those dreams again.’ It’s a gesture I understand all too well. It’s your way of telling me you think I’m crazy without actually saying it.

“No,” I whisper. “I really heard something. And I’m pretty sure it was a scream.”

“Hmm,” you say, and you pause, and right when I think you’re going to be useful you say what is quite possibly the dumbest thing yet. “Well, let me know if you hear it again.”

As I study your face, I wonder how we wound up here, how out of all the people on this planet, I ended up with you.

You don’t wait for a response. You simply yawn and settle back in.

“What if he shows up here?”

“Who?” you ask even though I’m pretty sure you know exactly who.

“The cop?”

“He won’t.”

“But you don’t know that. What if he knows where we live?”

“I hope he does. It’ll save me the trouble of going looking for him.” You close your eyes and then open them again. “Which I intend to do tomorrow—so, if you don’t mind…I could really use some sleep.”

I’m shocked by your answer and I briefly consider admitting that I gave him our address. But I know better because I know your answer isn’t a serious one, I know you just want to go back to sleep and so you’ll tell me what I want to hear, which is exactly what you do.

“What if it was him who left that note in the hotel?”

“The cop?” You ask again and I’ve never known you to be this dense.

“Yes. The fucking cop.”

“I’d say that’s a long shot.”

“But not impossible.”

You turn over. “If he’d known we’d murdered a man, I can guarantee we wouldn’t be here in this bed right now—arguing about it. Losing sleep.”

I roll my eyes even though I’m aware that you can’t see it in the dark with your back turned. I hope you felt it. You didn’t. I can tell by the way you sleepily offer your best Band-Aid, when you suggest for the umpteenth time that we move.

“Run and you’ll always be running,” I tell you. It’s a platitude, meant to shut you up, a slight jab between married people, a sentiment that puts old arguments to bed. I don’t mean it. I’m simply reminding you of what you once told me. I’m driving the point home.

You let out a long sigh, and I expect that you’ll provide some additional useless wisdom, only you proceed to righteously fall back to sleep. In a matter of minutes you’re snoring again. It’s a light snore, somewhere between the full- on, no-holds-barred sound you make when you’re really tired, and that throaty thing you do that lets me know you’re on your way there.

I know you’re tired. I am too. But it irritates me that you don’t take me seriously, about the screams and about other things. And, just as I’m ready to wake you again, to tell you as much, I hear it again. A scream so unmistakable, there’s no denying that’s what it is. It’s all panic and afterward there’s just silence. Nothingness.

I listen closely, waiting for more, and I tiptoe toward the window. Roscoe is waiting there, already, staring out, and I lean down and pat his head. His tongue hangs out, he’s panting and his breathing picks up pace. “You heard it too,” I say into the darkness, into the blank space of the early hours and he’s smarter than you. I know because he begins circling. He senses it. Something is wrong. Someone is out there and my mind can’t help but go to the dead body in the trunk—or to the cop in the woods, his hands roaming my body. It was bad out there. Worse than I told you. I know I’ll get over it eventually, particularly once he’s dead. But for now, the cut is fresh and deep. It stings. And even though it isn’t the first bad thing to happen to me, the first bully to put his hands on me, I can’t seem to shake this feeling. He violated me out there. It wasn’t rape, but it’s hard to draw lines when you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do. It’s hard to say no when you’re backed into a corner. All the while, he touched me, I thought about the kids and I kept my cool. Let him do this, I told myself over and over. Give him what he wants, or you’ll lose the only thing that really matters, your children. It helped some— at least it took my mind off what he was doing, but I’m not sure it was enough. Now I know, here in the darkness, without a doubt, that I should’ve killed him when I had the chance. What he did will haunt me until I get revenge. It haunted me at the time, but killing a cop is not only difficult to get away with, it’s no joke in the legal system, and right now I’d like to ask you where would that leave them. I want to ask you what happens if he shows up here. What happens if I can’t get these thoughts out of my mind? Only, you’re asleep, and there are things I can’t tell you because I know if I do, you’ll kill him yourself, and as angry as I am—I’m not sure I have it in me to force your hand. Anger does things to a person, and you aren’t someone who kills out of anger, not like me. If one isn’t careful, anger can get the best of you. It’ll trip you up, trick you into getting yourself caught.

I consider this as I lean closer to the glass door, trying to get a better look, but not so close as to be seen. As I peer out, I do my best to gauge which direction the sound came from, but our street is pitch black, and I see nothing. There isn’t a single light on, zero movement, nothing. All I hear are cicadas and the dog’s breathing, and it feels like Roscoe and I are the only ones in the world up at this hour— but it’s obvious we aren’t. I know because there was the scream. I wait by the door, shifting from foot to foot.

Then I wait some more. I almost give up. In fact, I’m just about to go back to bed when four houses down, at the Morris’s house, I see the faint glow of reverse lights. I watch as the car backs out of the drive. It turns in my direction, and the first thing I notice is that its headlights aren’t on. As it gets closer, I can see that it’s an older model— a dark blue, maybe black, station wagon. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen this car at their place before. I wait for the car to pass, and as it does I strain to see the plates. It’s too dark to see much, and with its headlights off, it makes it impossible. Frustrated, I go to my notebook, the one I keep beside my bed so I can note the number of night wakings our son has, and I jot this down: Single driver, male. Shoulders definitely too broad to be female. Couldn’t make anything else out. Strained to see plates as he passed. It could have been Anne’s husband Stanley, but then it could have been anyone. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry as he drove away. But then, neither would I.

Sometime just after dawn you wake me when you place a cup of coffee on the bedside table. It’s your version of a peace offering and at this point, I’m exhausted enough that it might just work. I squint my eyes, peeking out, unwilling and unable to open them fully. I see that you’re heading to the shower and it’s no different than any other morning except that it is. I watch you as you stop, and leaning halfway out the bathroom door you beckon me to join. I half want to but I can’t force myself to get up. According to my notes, Brady was up three more times after I heard the screams, and twice before. It doesn’t escape me that I only know these details because I’ve written them down, a fact I find sad. Or rather, at least I think there were screams. By the light of day, it’s all fuzzy, the hours and the sleeplessness, it blurs together and I can’t say I’m sure of anything. All I know is that I have a vague recollection of dread. This leads me to grab my notebook and study my chicken scratch. After the notes about the night wakings, of which the doctors swear there is no explanation, I wrote: Something has happened.

Studying the words on the page, I do my best to try to remember why there’s a pit in the bottom of my stomach, aside from the fact that our four year old won’t sleep, and it takes several seconds to jar my memory. I vaguely recall seeing reverse lights. My mind flashes to a dead guy in a hotel room, to the nanny at the bottom of the stairs, to you in the woods on the ground, to the unconscious woman on our bathroom floor, and then to another man’s hands up my dress. Carefully, I piece it all together, like a jigsaw, the circumstances of each event. It’s overwhelming. But eventually they fit together. My stomach churns, and I lean over and vomit into the wastebasket that you keep on your side of the bed. When I recover, I pick up the notebook again. I study the ink as it bleeds under my thumb. I’ve rubbed it into the page, smeared it in but the words remain nonetheless. Something has happened.

When I read back over the rest of my notes, my heart sinks. Maybe it wasn’t a scream, maybe the voices are coming back, and you’ve warned me about getting up so many times in the night. You tell me Brady doesn’t need me, you want me to let him be, but how can I just let him cry? You don’t know, that’s what you always say. You tell me you read that a lack of sleep only contributes to mental disorders, and of course you can’t be bothered, because you have important work to do. You can’t— and you won’t— be kept up at all hours by a child who refuses to sleep.

Even so—of all things, you might be right about, I hope it’s not this one. The voices. It’s been years, I’ve lived for years without them—so long I thought I was in the clear. But if I’m honest, there is a part of me who knew this wouldn’t—that it couldn’t last forever. Sitting here now, my tongue coated in vomit, my stomach churning, I feel it. You’re right. They’re looming, rising up, waiting for the chance to pounce. So much has happened in the last few days. All of it, so fast. Too many things have been left undone—too much is beyond my control. And it’s always in times like these they show themselves—in times I’m unsure. They’re smart and they wait, clawing their way back in slowly until they catch me off guard, seeping into every corner of my consciousness.

This can’t be happening. Not again and not now. I look over at the dog as I consider my next move. He’s still at the window. “Something is up,” I whisper. He peers back at me, briefly, before turning his attention toward the window again. He knows too. Something bad has happened.

The scream replays in my mind. I’ve heard that kind of scream before, and I know it by heart. Terror—fear— those are sounds you don’t forget. A woman, maybe even a neighbor of ours, was in trouble, and I did nothing. I don’t like trouble this close to home. Not when I’m out of the loop. Something ended last night, clearly. But I have a feeling it was the start of something, too.