by A B Whelan
I knock twice before his wife comes to the door and opens it a crack. Pablo isn’t here, that much I understand. She doesn’t speak English, and my Spanish is rather basic, so after a ridiculous attempt at miming my inquiry about her husband—which looks like a threat of cutting her arm off—I leave disappointed.
I look for blood drops around the house but find none. I should leave a note for Pablo, but I don’t have any pen or paper on me. I’ll just check on him later.
On my way back to the house, I grab a handful of apples from the basket on top of the firewood pile and hide them in Richard’s prized hedges. Deer like to chew on the fresh green shoots, and I encourage their habit—which drives Richard crazy—by feeding them apples. Watching my husband supervising Pablo trimming off the damaged branches, face red with rage, is sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day.
Listening to the birds chirping and breathing the fragrant winter air, I head back to the house. In sunny Southern California, flowers never stop blooming.
We live in an elegant English Norman estate on Aberdeen Avenue. A home like ours is fit for a Hollywood celebrity, which used to make me wonder how Richard could afford it all, considering that his life’s work is managing a nonprofit organization.
As I drag myself along the road back to the house, a massive jolt runs through my head, so strong that it sends me doubling over in pain. I lean against a pine tree for support. A series of ragged breaths helps me to still myself while I focus my eyes on the warm house and my mind on a cup of hot coffee.
From this spot, I have an unobstructed view of the carriage house and a piece of white fabric underneath Richard’s black Maserati. I falter toward the building to check it out. Holding onto the bumper, I bend down and stretch my arm underneath the car until I touch something soft. I pull out a silk scarf, and it’s not mine. One whiff of the sweet-scented fabric sends my heart into a jealous rage.
The entire world starts spinning around me as I frantically search the Maserati’s back seat.
The interior of the car is immaculate—not one mint wrapper forgotten beneath the seat, not one dry leaf on the floormat, not a single long strand of hair stuck in the carpet. The car looks as if it just rolled out of a dealership.
I shut the door with enough force to send an echo throughout the garage. My knees won’t stop shaking as I stare at the trunk, wondering if I’m brave enough to look inside it. I debate with myself about potentially facing an unpleasant truth or leaving the trunk closed and carrying on with my business, like I always do. Like what I’m expected to do. But as the years go by, it’s getting harder to swallow the bitter pill.
For a moment, I forget about my headache and my worries about my future, and I pop open the trunk. I find a pink handbag sitting lopsidedly in an otherwise bare space. With shaking fingers, I take out the faux-leather purse screaming of bad taste, unzip it, and pour out its contents into the trunk. Lip gloss, half a dozen condoms, a pack of antibacterial wipes, a small bottle of mouth wash, a box of mints, and a few folded tissues fall onto the beige carpet. My first impression is that my husband had found himself a cheap street prostitute to bang, and I suddenly see why he married me. The puzzle I’ve been trying to solve for a decade has finally presented itself in a glaring light.
Bile comes up against the back of my throat and my eyes tear up as I rummage through the cluster of items. I discover a cell phone and a small wallet with a smiley emoji sticker on the front.
I check the phone first. It’s an older iPhone with a cracked screen. I press the home button with my icy fingertips, but the screen remains black. I drop the phone back onto the pile and pick up the wallet. A folded wad of cash is crammed in it, along with a few membership and credit cards. I pull out the driver license, issued nearly five years ago by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The girl in the photo has a kind and pretty face. A cascade of blond hair spills over her shoulders, half-covering a golden necklace with red stones that loops around her neck. My eyes wander down to the name, and the card falls from my hand.
Skyler O’Neill.
It takes a moment to come out of my shock, to slow down my heartbeat, and then I’m able to stuff all the items back into the purse and place it in the exact spot I found it. I slam the trunk closed and drop to my knees to put the scarf back under the car. On second thought, I slip the scarf into the pocket of my silk bathrobe. Richard would have never left such obvious evidence of his unfaithfulness on the ground unless he dropped it without realizing it.
I half-run, half-stumble to the house. Margit catches me at the bottom of the stairs before I can sneak back to my room. “It’s about damn time you got up,” she grunts in her thick Hungarian accent.
She ushers me to the kitchen and pulls out a chair for me. I don’t want to be here, yet I sit down like an obedient schoolgirl.
“What’s the matter with you this morning?” she asks, putting a dish in the oven.
“I’m not feeling well again,” I explain as though I owe her an explanation. I can’t help myself. I’m still a little girl inside who can’t do anything right. Margit is the ironfisted mother I never had.
“You need to see a doctor,” she tells me, managing to take off her mittens, close the oven with her right hip, and talk to me at the same time.
“I will. I promise,” I tell her because I want her to get off my back. Richard thinks that I stress too much and that I need to rest more. I don’t do a damn thing all day and have nothing to stress over, so whenever he mentions the word rest I want to claw his eyes out. Maybe he wants to keep me in bed all day so that he can go about his shady business without my interrupting. Tiny imaginary monsters start gnawing at my stomach. What happened to the fairy-tale life I was supposed to live? When I met Richard, this was not the life I imagined.
“I’m not talking about a family doctor. You need to have someone look at your head. A shrink, or whatever you call those people who sit down with you and make you talk about your problems,” Margit says, wiping the flour from her hands onto her apron.
“I don’t have any problems!” I hear myself shout. I don’t want to be rude to her. She genuinely cares about me, so my impatience with her is unnecessary and rude. I’m not a hot-headed teenager controlled by her hormones. However, she picked the wrong morning to lecture me. My head is about to split open. The pain comes in waves, and each time it pulls me into the deep like an undertow I have no power to fight. I see red, then stars in white spaces. “Jesus!” I hiss.
I need to find Richard. I can’t live like this any longer. I’m sick of being sick. My ovaries are withering away. I’m running out of time. If Richard doesn’t want to start a family with me, then it is time for me to look at other options. And now his cheating puts everything into a new light.
“Did Richard say when he’d be home tonight?” I ask Margit, who’s already at the stove heating water in a kettle for tea. She is an old soul. The tea will be a blend of chamomile and cherry, enriched with honey and fresh lemon from our tree. She has a traditional Hungarian remedy for every problem. I must admit, I do love it.
“He was gone by the time I got here,” she says.
Good, then I’ll have time to soak in the hot tub to loosen my muscles and nerves and mull over how to approach the situation. Confronting my husband about the purse would leave me with two options: forgive him and live the rest of my life in silent humiliation or divorce him and restart my life from ground zero. Either way, I’m screwed.
I ask Margit to bring my tea and a towel to the den and drag myself out of the kitchen. On my way to change into a bathing suit, I pass more colossal oil paintings of Richard and his mother. My mother-in-law’s judging eyes follow me as I move through the house. Her bitter face makes me want to puke.
Back in my bedroom, I lie down on my bed and start flipping my phone around in my fingers. At least a dozen times I dial Ashley’s number, but I can’t bring myself to hit the call button. Whenever I close my eyes, conflicting emotions overwh
elm my thoughts. If I make this call, my marriage is over.
I need more evidence. I need to understand why my husband has a woman’s purse in the trunk of his car, especially the woman who’s the patient of my one and only friend, Ashley. I close my eyes and imagine that poor, young girl lying on Ashley’s couch and talking about my husband. Did she mention his name? I can’t even begin to think that way.
Margit is calling for me. I yell to her, asking her to leave the tea in the kitchen because I changed my mind about the hot tub. If I go in, I may never come out.
I continue licking my wounds while mulling over what I should do. I wish there was a handbook for situations like this.
The more I roll the possibilities around in my head, the more I understand that if I want answers, then I have no choice but to break into Richard’s basement lair, the private sanctuary he keeps locked up from me and from the rest of the world. If I were a cheat, I’d keep my secrets where nobody could find them. Not once have I been invited into his private chambers. For years, I’ve been accepting his excuse about how after a long day at the office dealing with drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes, he needs peace and alone time to center himself. I will not honor his privacy any longer. Not when he violated my trust.
I send Margit to town for strawberries. She leaves, grumbling all the way to the front door. There is plenty of fruit in the refrigerator, and she finds it wasteful to drive to the market just to satisfy my cravings when I’m not even pregnant.
After her car disappears down the bottom of our driveway, I try the handle on Richard’s private door in case I luck out.
I don’t.
I know a few ways to pick a lock. My brother taught me how when our dad locked us up in our rooms as kids with no food, water, or access to a bathroom. The easiest way is to use a screwdriver, but that could leave a mark on the doorframe, so instead I dig up my lock-pick case from the bottom of my tattered brown moving box in the closet—the only thing holding the scant memories of my old life.
I’m a little rusty, but it only takes a few attempts to pop the lock open.
I do know that there is a staircase behind this door because I’ve heard Richard descending it more times than I care to admit. I step inside the dark, feeling shaky and hot. It’s not right to be scared in my own house, yet my stomach is a squeezed stress ball. I refrain from touching the walls for the much-needed support—I’m dizzy and my migraine is killing me—but I fear leaving my fingerprints. Silly of me to be so paranoid. Richard would never dust the walls for prints, but I can’t help thinking of those stupid crime shows on TV that run in the background all day to keep me company.
I move on light feet, my eyes watching for a thread or wire stretched across my path, which, if snapped, would alert Richard to my meddling about in his room. How terrible is it to have such eerie thoughts about my husband? Isn’t marriage supposed to be a safe place for a wife? I wouldn’t know. My mother’s life was always in danger when my father was home. I still hate the sound of rattling keys because I dreaded that sound every day when I was a kid. It meant my father was home, and we never knew if he was in a good mood or a get-out-of-my-way-or-I-will-beat-the-crap-out-of-you mood.
I don’t turn back, not because I’m not scared but because I need to prove to myself that I’m not a frightened little girl anymore. I’m a brave married woman. I have rights.
There is another door at the end of the staircase that is also locked. I pick that lock, too, wiping the salty, warm perspiration from my face frequently. The anticipation is ripping me apart, but I overcome my fear and enter the room.
The interior of Richard’s private room has the same feeling to it as the rest of the house. The heavy wooden furniture set in the room makes me wonder—strangely—who helped Richard carry it down here. The dark paint on the walls lends a mysterious touch that gives me the chills. If I were a writer, I’d enjoy working on a thriller or mystery in this Sherlock Holmes-ish atmosphere. But I’m not, and neither is Richard.
Shivering, I walk along next to the bookcase, my fingers gently caressing the spines of leather-bound books. The air has the same scent to it as the hollow spots on Richard’s neck. I used to love lying next to him and sniffing his skin for hours. His scent meant love, safety, and a future for me. I had thought that after all the terrible things that had happened to me, I’d finally gotten it right. The image of another woman sniffing the same spot on his neck barges into my mind and fills my brain with hot blood.
I can’t be sensitive now, not when I’m doing something forbidden and unforgivable. I can almost sense my husband’s presence in the room. Chills run down my spine. The feeling is strong enough to force me to look back and check the space behind me.
I’m alone, so I let out the breath I’m holding.
There is a desk at the far side of the room and an ebony leather chair behind it. The room lacks a personal touch, a nobody-ever-comes-to-see-my-place mess. If I’m not careful, I may leave my trace behind for Richard to find. I sniff at the collar of my bathrobe. It smells faintly of perfume, but I don’t think it’s strong enough to mark my presence in the room.
I don’t know what I expected coming down here. The thought of unraveling the dark side my husband desperately tries to hide from me was initially exhilarating. There is nothing incriminating here. No laptop with secret e-mails from his lover amateurishly hidden in a folder titled “business documents” or something equally inept. Not even a picture on his desk to give me a straw to grasp at. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, apart from invading my husband’s privacy. This is ridiculous, and I should be ashamed, but I can’t stop myself from pulling at the drawer handles one by one, hoping to get lucky. After taking the risk and making the effort to get into this room, leaving empty-handed would be a shame. Only none of the drawers will open. My suspicion rises, and my mind begins conjuring up possibilities. Most of them are downright crazy. When did my thoughts of warm beaches and palm trees turn into something so dark and sinister in my marriage?
I hear footsteps upstairs. It’s my cue to run, but my legs won’t move. Go! Damn it! I scream in my head, but my body is frozen.
Rushing water fills the pipes in the ceiling. Judging by the sound, I assume Richard is home and that he jumped right into the shower downstairs, as he always does when he comes home from work. The only difference is that it’s too early.
Either my blood pressure or my blood sugar drops, and I feel lightheaded. I stagger to the recliner in the middle of the room and sit down. I will only close my eyes for a second to compose myself, to gain the strength I need to climb the stairs. The chair oddly faces a wide expanse of blank wall—a pale, unblemished section that stands out from the otherwise darker colors in the room. My mind is too numb to dwell on the reason. With my back pressing against the very same leather my husband’s back presses against, I picture him leaning over me.
The sounds of pelting water remind me that I may or may not have time to make it out of this room. My right hand slips off my thigh and lands on something hard wedged between the cushions. My groping fingers push deeper and pull out a small hardcover book. Only when I open it do I realize that it’s not a book but a journal. As I hold it in my hand, the spine of the journal resting against my palm, the pages split open in the middle and unveil a pencil drawing of a naked girl bound by her wrists and ankles and chained to the ceiling. As my heart leaps out of my chest, I turn the page so fast I get a papercut. Sucking at my bleeding finger, I flip through dozens of pictures of women drawn in submissive and humiliating positions. Richard is not an artist. He can’t draw. If he could, his mother would have already bragged about it to me. So, if Richard didn’t draw these pictures, then where did this dirty, pornographic journal come from?
Enclosed in a bubble of confusion, I barely notice that the water has stopped running in the pipes. I snap the journal closed and push it back into the fold of the cushions. I need to run for the door, but my limbs feel paralyzed, and all I can manage to do is
trip over my own feet and crawl on the carpet toward the staircase. I bang myself from wall to wall as I make my way higher and higher up the seemingly endless staircase.
It takes an eternity to reach the first floor. I close the door behind me, and ignoring my urge to keep moving, to get to safety, I lean against the wall like a package too heavy to be moved.
My knees are shaking, and perspiration is rolling down the center of my back, tickling my spine. There is a shadow, a sound. Richard rounds the corner, wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. His damp chest is glistening from the sunlight. He radiates warmth and confidence, an almost palpable energy of a trustable, strong man, yet I can’t stop my chest from rising and collapsing. Only a matter of time before he notices my emotional state.
He walks up to me. I push my hair back with both hands and force a smile. You can do this, girl.
He leans against me. His breath is warm on my face. He reaches for my wrists and lifts my arms over my head. His hips pin me to the wall. His lips latch onto mine. His tongue forces itself down my throat. I close my eyes to relax my mind. A trail of goosebumps follows the path where his hand moves along my arm and down my side. Then his hand slips underneath my robe. He is touching me. I’m shrinking. My world is disappearing.
“I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have lost my patience with you,” he whispers in my ear while his other hand pulls off his towel. “Let me make it up to you.”
The wet towel lands on the wooden floor with a muffled thud. There is no escape for me now. He is inside of me. A place we had been so many times together. A happy place, except this time I can’t help but feel violated.
Twenty-Five Years Ago
The tires of my car relentlessly consume the miles on the US 101—the famous Pacific Coastline road that people put on their bucket lists to visit, but to me it’s the road I hate the most. I’m like a captured mouse in a cat’s mouth, dragged to places I don’t want to go yet left with no other choice but to surrender to my circumstances. The entire process is habitual and tedious, each Saturday repeating itself, like a day that’s on constant replay. Sometimes I feel that I live with a rope around my neck that tightens and loosens to prolong my suffering, and the other end of the rope is in Mother’s hands. These constant weekend trips to Morro Bay killed my love of driving right out of me. There was a time I looked forward to starting my new, independent life at Stanford University—away from my suburban Southern Californian hometown of Escondido, away from Mother—I no longer consider choosing a faraway school to continue my studies a wise decision.