As Sick as Our Secrets

by A B Whelan

  I pull Betty out of the room. “Let’s go,” I mumble under my breath.

  Among the rampaging dogs and blaring TV, we head for the exit. Betty doesn’t come easily.

  “And tell that little shit not to send her friends here anymore. She wanted to be legally separated from us, so she better stay away from us. Everything here will be Maddie’s! You hear me? She won’t get a dime! You tell her!” Mrs. O’Neill’s raging voice escorts us to the door.

  Outside, I catch the sight of the young girl slipping behind the house, leaving Olivia alone underneath an overgrown olive tree.

  “What happened?” she rushes to us, taking out the pepper spray from her pocket.

  I rip the car door open. “Nothing. Just get in the car.”

  Leaving a massive dust cloud in our wake, I speed down to the main gate, which is opening automatically.

  “What were you thinking?” I say, with enough authority in my voice to scare Betty into the corner of the back seat, where she leans her head against the side window.

  “Why? What would you have done? Leave that poor woman there like that?” she retorts, her breath fogging up the glass.

  “What are you talking about? Did you find the girl?” Olivia switches her attention between me and the back seat.

  “No, our friend here decided to do a little spring cleaning in the house, so we were thrown out.” The tires screech as I turn onto the main road.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  “So, did you find anything out?” she asks. That’s what I like about Olivia; she doesn’t push things that shouldn’t be pushed.

  “I’m calling family services on those bastards. Animal control, too,” Betty murmurs in the back seat.

  “And nobody will stop you,” I assure her, glancing at my sensitive, mother-tiger friend in the mirror. Then I turn to Olivia. “How about you? I saw you talking to the girl. Tell me you have something.”

  She smiles. “I got more than you can imagine.”

  Olivia

  Wednesday

  I don’t remember the last time I stared at my husband with so much disdain, scrutinizing the details of his aging features in my mind. I’m not sure I could pick him out of a lineup by touching his face with my eyes closed. Yet his voice, his scent, I’d recognize out of a million men. He’s been using the same skin-care products since I’ve known him. The scent has become him. I used to like it. Now it makes my stomach turn.

  Nowadays he doesn’t look at me much either. We no longer lock eyes and offer each other warm smiles as a sign of our love for each other. He doesn’t tuck loose strands of my hair behind my ear. I don’t wipe off mustard from his lip with my fingertip. We don’t hold hands, watch sunsets from the hood of his car, or sit in a coffee shop just to spend some time together. We barely talk or look at each other. But ever since I found that sadistic pornographic journal in his private room, I’m spending most of our time together staring at him.

  I don’t really know why I do it. Maybe I hope that I’ll see the evil in his eyes or the unmistakable sign of a killer. Whenever I read an article about a brutal murder, I can always see the soullessness in the killer’s eyes. How many times have I said, “He looks like a child molester. He is definitely the killer.” Richard doesn’t strike me as the same. He looks like a calm, confident man whose life is in order. If he has anything to do with Skyler’s kidnapping, then he has fooled not only me but also the entire city.

  The room is dark. The bed is cold beside me. Richard hasn’t come home from work yet, though it’s past eleven at night.

  All week he has been putting in long hours at the office. I had always admired how tireless and prompt he could be when it came to helping someone in need, but his eagerness to accompany Ashley and Skyler to the police station took it to a whole new level.

  When I got home from Temecula, I was glad he wasn’t home yet. My story to explain what I’d done all day was full of holes. But now I’m worried.

  I reach for the glass on my nightstand and drink some water. The chilly liquid seems to douse some of the fire in my brain. I start to consider the possibility that, in light of recent events, I’m exaggerating Richard’s actions to suit my theories. Maybe I’m just a bored housewife going crazy, but I can’t shake that uncomfortable feeling from my gut. Richard is not who I think he is.

  I can’t sleep. I lie on my back, wide awake, listening to the storm outside. Violent winds slam against the windows and gather under the gutters to lift the roof off the house. When I was a little girl, my mother would climb into bed with my brother and me, making us feel safe when all hell was breaking loose outside. I’m alone in this big bed tonight. There is only loneliness here to keep me company.

  My ears are sharpened for the sound of a door opening or the muffled thumps of footsteps. I’m hoping to pick them out from the creaking of trees and the whistling of the wind.

  A massive lightning strike illuminates my room, followed by a thundering explosion that echoes all around. I jolt upright in my bed. The sky has fallen upon us.

  I rush downstairs, my heart throbbing in my chest. In the dark hallway, I notice an orange-tinted glow spilling from the cracks between the door and doorframe at the entrance to the spiral staircase. I try the handle, and it gives way. Holding my breath, I put my foot onto the first step. Another immense lightning strike casts a curtain of white light onto the wall to my right. The black shape of a figure is outlined in the brightness, like a shadow puppet. I spin around so fast that I lose my balance and nearly roll down the stairs.

  “What are you doing, Livi?” I recognize Richard’s voice. He’s standing in the open patio door, dripping wet and dirty.

  “I was looking for you,” I say with ragged breath.

  As he makes his way to me, terror pinches my skin, and every bone in my body shudders.

  “I’m here. You don’t have to be scared,” he says, pressing my head against his damp chest and wrapping his arms around me, soaking my nightgown. As the thin, damp fabric sticks to my skin, an uncontrollable trembling sweeps over me.

  “Did you hear that godforsaken explosion?” he breathes the words into my hair. “That giant eucalyptus tree fell over. You know, the one by the carriage house that Pablo hit with the lawnmower last year? It’s laying across our driveway. I don’t think I can get anybody out here by morning to move it. It seems I’ll be stuck home tomorrow.”

  He pushes me away just enough to read my reaction. I do my best to appear excited about the news. But I can’t think of romantic picnics and midday movies when I need to ask him about Skyler’s purse in the trunk of his car. He will most likely make up a story about it, like every other time he’s late for dinner or cancels our plans. There is always a last-minute dinner obligation or a new donor who requests a visit to see the foundation’s day-to-day operation. So why ask? To hear another lie?

  He picks me up, lays me in his arms like a child, and carries me to the living room. He lowers me onto the sofa and kisses my forehead.

  I watch him build a fire. I want to get up and run—run far away from here and from him, but my body is numbed, paralyzed. The last time he built us a fire was years ago on Christmas. I fear what will happen next as much I anticipate it.

  He climbs onto me. He is different. Aggressive. His mind is in a faraway place. I barely move and lie there with clenched teeth and closed eyes. It’s my way of traveling to a new dimension in my head. A little routine I picked up in Dubai. One of the girls on our girl-for-hire trip taught me how to do it. I press my eyes together as hard as I can until I see stars. Then I flex my tongue, and by concentrating on the pressure in my neck muscles, I’m able to block out any other feelings or sounds until my mind shifts. If I don’t fight the inevitable, the pain and humiliation diminish. This technique helped me survive in the Arab world. Ten thousand euros for ten days of humiliation and pain.

  But I thought marriage was supposed to be a safe place. I never anticipated that one day this sk
ill would come in handy with my husband.

  He’s done with me in less than ten minutes and wraps me in his arms as tight as a cocoon. I squirm in his hold, trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling of overheating and claustrophobia.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, loosening his arm around me.

  “Nothing,” I whisper. “I’m just tired and thirsty.”

  He smiles at me, and I do my best to smile back. I don’t watch him as he walks down the hallway toward the guest bathroom, but I hear his bare feet tapping against the floor. Soon, I hear the water running.

  I go back to the bedroom and lay down on the bed. My head’s rattling like a windup toy. I close my eyes to settle my racing mind, wishing to slip into sweet oblivion.

  My ears pick up Richard’s footsteps, as he climbs the stairs. He appears at the door, naked, balancing a tray with a glass of orange juice and a cup of warm milk. When he offers, I don’t take either one. His eyes squint at my rude gesture. Without a word, he sets the tray on my nightstand, curls up behind me on the bed, and pulls me to his chest, like old times—very old times.

  “What’s wrong?” He plays with my hair, and I need all my willpower to keep my irritation at bay.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you still worried about that journal?”

  I don’t look back at him, fearing he will read my mind. “No. Why would you ask that?”

  “I don’t know. You’re different since you brought it up.” He’s tracing letters on my back. I can’t make out what he writes. Damn language barrier.

  I arch my back, because it feels good to be touched. “I’ve already forgotten all about it. I’m actually glad that young man came to you with it before he did something stupid,” I lie, but I’m not sure if I’m convincing enough. “I’m thinking about that girl, Skyler. Where could she be?” His hand stops. His fingers linger on one spot. I twist my body out of his embrace. “By the way, thanks for offering to join Ashley to take her to the police, even if she was a no-show.”

  He kisses the top of my head like I’m his little girl. “Too bad. I was looking forward to meeting your friend. It seems you’ve been spending quite a lot of time with this Ashley Hayes. Maybe you should invite her over for dinner sometime.”

  I roll myself back onto my side because I can’t afford to let him see my face. “Sometime.”

  His fingers now trace the side of my neck. “Did you guys find out anything new about that missing girl?”

  I swallow hard. “Not much to go on, no.”

  “What if she doesn’t turn up? Do you have any evidence to take to the police on her alleged kidnapper?”

  A thick, sticky feeling descends on me like a heavy gray blanket, and it’s crushing me. I’m going to lie to my husband because I have a feeling that I can’t trust him with the truth.

  “You know, the girl seemed very unreliable to me. It’s possible she was making the whole kidnapping story up. I can’t go to the police with speculations.”

  He squeezes my shoulder muscles, hard enough to make me wince. “Good, because I don’t want our family name caught up with some fabricated crime story.”

  I lean toward my nightstand lamp, yawning loudly, and switch it off. “I’m so tired. I can’t keep my eyes open. Do you mind if I go back to sleep?” A bright flash lights up the room, and soon after, a crashing thunder splits the sky open. The storm is right above us. I pull my blanket to my chin. “If I can sleep in this storm, that is.”

  “Do you need a drink to help you fall asleep?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Well, I do. Do you mind if I go down to my office and look over a few papers? I’m not ready to go to bed yet.”

  If I kept a diary, I’d mark this moment. Richard never asks my permission to do anything.

  “Not at all.”

  He turns off the light on his side of the bed and, on his way out, closes the door behind him.

  Once the upstairs falls silent, I go to the bathroom and wash him out of me.

  The raging storm doesn’t ease for hours. It moves the trees like a puppeteer. Heavy drops of hard rain beat against the roof, changing rhythm and speed as the wind whistles. I remember stormy nights like this from my time growing up in Gävle (where the temperature rarely rises above twenty-five degrees Celsius in the summer months), but I’ve never seen such an angry winter here before. I can’t help but picture Skyler lying on the cold ground, hitting the crack pipe to help fight her demons. How many times have I watched people around me snort up everything they could get their hands on while I thought of doing the same thing myself to numb my mind? How many times, when my father beat my mother senselessly, did I wonder if it was easier to simply end my pointless life? Yet somehow—by the grace of God or by sheer luck—I always pulled through. It’s scary to think about how easily I could have ended up like Skyler. I run my hand over the silky 1,200 thread-count Egyptian cotton pillow cover before I rip it off and toss it as far as I can across the lavish bedroom.

  Somewhere between the deafening thunder and the branches knocking against the window, I fall asleep.

  Ashley

  THURSDAY

  After waking up every two hours like a nursing mother and feeding myself on stale pastries and expired lunch meat, I give up on sleep and kick the covers off me. Due to the lack of any meaningful sleep, my mind is all mashed up and unable to form a coherent stream of thoughts. My body feels as though it’s dragging iron weights with chains bolted to my neck.

  I snort a small line in the bathroom before I make my dark, robust coffee. But even this double kick isn’t enough to bring me back to life. I draw myself a hot bath and slip underneath the bubbles. I lie still, listening to the tick-tock of the clock on the wall, waiting for the sunrise.

  Most mornings my dreams slip away unnoticed—if I dream at all—but now I remember everything as if the images in my head were reflections of real memories, not segments of my imagination.

  I dreamed that Skyler was tied up in a Victorian-style dungeon, overwhelmed with haunting darkness and creepy details, crying for my help. I couldn’t get to her. I wanted to, I struggled, but my feet wouldn’t carry me. I tried so hard to move that my legs ripped from their sockets. The image was messy, bloody, and terrifying.

  I dreamed I was a little girl, shivering on a bare mattress without a blanket. Around my bed, the rat droppings came to life, grew legs and arms, and danced around me like performers in a traveling carnival.

  I dreamed about my mother, leaning into a dumpster to fish out a box of Fruit Loops and feeding it to me with a small spoon.

  I think it’s better if I don’t remember my dreams at all.

  The streets outside are glowing with twinkling lights of a metropolis that never sleeps. It’s a magical sight if you are in the right mood. I’m not. To me, the lights are growing into clusters of blurry smudges in front of my eyes.

  I check my phone for a missed call or message from Betty. Nothing.

  I can’t go back to bed, so I gather my hooded running sweatshirt, joggers, and shoes from the carpet around my bed, throw some chilly water on my face, and head for the door.

  I run to the nearest CVS, where I buy a prepackaged bear claw and a bottle of chocolate milk. I sit down on the curb in front of the store to eat my breakfast. I slowly munch on my food as I watch three homeless men dressed in baggy pants and layers upon layers of jackets and coats argue in the parking lot. I think of Skyler, how alone she must have felt living on her own so young. I never had to worry about money, where I was going to get my next meal, or where I would lay my head down to rest. It’s easy to look the other way and pretend that people around me are fine and capable of taking care of themselves. But who was taking care of Skyler? Many people are predators. They prey on you when you are most vulnerable. I can’t imagine how many soulless bastards must have taken advantage of that unfortunate young girl.

  I pull out all the money I find in my pocket and smooth the bills out as I approach the three shaggy-l
ooking men. The bald guy with a white blanket of facial hair notices me first. He elbows the man on his right. The shortest of the three whistles at me, swaying his hips as he starts toward me.

  Suddenly aware of the situation, I cringe and make a quick sweep of the area with my eyes. The parking lot and the streets around us are deserted, like a movie set from a zombie flick. What was I thinking? It’s L.A., the land of fallen angels. Most homeless people here are not innocent victims of a cruel, unsympathetic society but are junkies, criminals, and rebels.

  It’s too late to back down because that would show weakness and be an invitation to get mugged or, worse, assaulted, so I keep up my pace as I get closer to them.

  The short guy continues calling me names that a true lady would deem insulting. White Beard circles around us, and I keep him in my peripheral vision. I stop in the middle of the open road, because if they plan to drag me between two parked cars, at least I’ll have a fighting chance. I stretch my hand out with the dollar bills, forcing a smile on my lips. “I don’t have much cash, but can I buy you guys breakfast?” I offer, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

  Shorty rips the money from my hand as a diversion, though it’s a pointless act because I’m aware that I’m surrounded.

  I glance back at the entrance of CVS behind me, where a motorcycle pulls up with a burned-out rocker dude and a drunken young woman. I weigh my options to make a run for the store.

  The tallest, heavyset man steps in front of Shorty and warns him to stop frightening this nice lady. He seems genuine, but I inch my way backward anyway when he approaches me. Before he can reach me, a police cruiser cuts between us, and the cops engage in a rather heated conversation with the objects of my daily attempt at a humanitarian effort. An officer tells me to get the hell out of here and go home. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a cop.