by Cassia Leo
A sacrifice I’ll always be grateful for, even if it was for nothing.
If he could say something so repulsive to me, he was nowhere near finished hurting me.
I thought of his confession that he might never be able to love another one of our children.
I thought of the wall in his office, obsessively wallpapered in newspaper clippings and maps dotted with thumbtacks. Despite his compulsive need to solve this case, he’d made zero headway. His tenacity would be admirable if it weren’t tearing us apart.
As I thought of our wedding day, a small fairy tale ceremony set against the backdrop of evergreens in the Hood River Valley, Jack turned over.
My heart galloped in my chest. Was I really going to do this?
I’d asked Jack to go to marital counseling or to see a therapist on his own. I’d read dozens of books on dealing with grief and saving your marriage. I’d tried herbal supplements and yoga and talking to my doctor. I tried looking for a group for grieving parents, but the nearest groups were an hour away in Portland.
I’d been thinking about moving into my mom’s house for months. Ever since Jack’s interest in the case began keeping him from sleeping in our bed. It was demoralizing and heartbreaking having to lie in bed alone while your husband hobnobbed with his fellow armchair sleuths on the internet.
My emotions betrayed me as my throat began to close and my sinuses stung with the effort of trying to hold back the tears. This was a decision I would either regret or be grateful for the rest of my life. But there was no way to know now how I would feel later.
All I knew was that I wasn’t happy living this way. And Jack had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t willing to see a therapist, or let go of the investigation, or get rid of his weapons arsenal, or have another baby. I was running out of options.
Finally, I held my breath as I turned over to face Jack. I reached up to touch the smooth skin on his back. I traced the tattoo of my name on his right shoulder blade. As I finished tracing the -el at the end, Jack let out a soft grunt and rolled onto his back.
He squinted at me through the pale morning light. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long,” I lied. “We need to talk.”
He blinked a few times, letting his eyes adjust, before he sat up abruptly. “We can talk at home.”
“No, I want to talk now.”
He shot me a defiant look, as if he wanted to challenge me, but he decided against it, shaking his head as he turned to face me. “What do you want to talk about?”
I took a deep breath and sat up, folding my legs in front of me like butterfly wings. “I’m going to stay here at my mom’s for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, our marriage is in trouble. I’ve lost faith.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve lost faith in me or our marriage?”
“Both.” I looked him straight in the eye, waiting for him to roll his eyes or put me down, but he said nothing. “We need help. We’ve tried doing this on our own and it’s not working. We need professional help.”
There it was. The infamous Jack Stratton eye-roll.
“This again?”
“Yes, this again,” I replied, just barely able to temper my anger. “I’m going to look for a marital counselor. If you’re serious about saving this marriage, you’ll go with me.”
He shook his head. “What does that have to do with you staying here? Why can’t you just come home and we’ll go to counseling over there?”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I willed him to remember the one time he agreed to go to counseling only to change his mind the very next day.
“I’ll do it this time. I swear.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “So you’re going to blackmail me into going to counseling by moving into your mom’s house? What if I do go? Will you come back?”
“I will, but not after the first or second session. I need to know you’re not going to back out.” I looked down at my hands, which I just realized I was wringing mercilessly. “It will also give me some time to fix up the garden.”
One of the things that brought me tremendous guilt was that I had let my mother’s beloved garden die along with her. Staying at my mom’s house for a few weeks would allow me to hold Jack accountable for attending marital counseling, and it would give me the opportunity to correct one of my greatest mistakes.
“How long?” he asked, and I knew he was asking how long it would take to fix the garden.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, three or four weeks, at least. It’s August, so I’ll need to get it done before the rain gets steady in October.”
He was silent for a while, then he nodded. “All right. I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit. But I don’t want to lose you.”
I scooted toward him and curled my arms around his neck as he pulled me into his lap. “I’ve been feeling like I lost you months ago,” I said, leaning my forehead against his.
“You haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”
I kissed his scruff then laid my head on his solid shoulder. “And I haven’t felt this happy in ages. I’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto this.”
He nuzzled his head against mine. “I love you more than you can imagine,” he said, echoing the words he’d said to me on our wedding day.
“I can’t imagine loving anyone more,” I replied.
Cuddling turned into very slow, very emotional sex, which almost made me change my mind about staying at my mom’s house. It was the first time we’d had sex that wasn’t initiated by a fight in more than a year.
As Jack got dressed in yesterday’s clothes, I watched him from the bed, marveling at his beauty. The sleek fluidity in the definition of his muscles as they moved beneath his smooth skin. The way the sunlight poured through the window and bounced off his bulging shoulders, his messy brown hair, his straight nose and full lips.
I was reminded of the first time we met with our wedding photographer and he asked if he could use our wedding photos to promote his business. I was a bit surprised, considering the photos hadn’t been taken yet. How did he know the photos would be good enough for promotional purposes? His reply: “Because you are the most gorgeous couple I’ve ever worked with, and beauty sells.”
I slid out of bed as he knelt down to tie the laces of his gym sneaker. “Why don’t you stay a while? It’s Sunday. We can have breakfast, then we can Netflix and chill all day.”
He stood up and flashed me an uncomfortable smile. “I wish I could, but I have to get home. I have a Q&A in the Facebook group at two p.m.”
My stomach dropped. I had just asked him to stay here and basically have sex with me all day and he would rather do a Q&A with some internet sleuths in the Justice for Jack Stratton Jr. Facebook group.
I blinked a few times as I attempted to recover. “Okay. Have fun.”
He rolled his eyes. “This Q&A has been planned for months.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, turning to leave the room. “I’m fine. I swear. I have to get started in the garden, anyway.”
He followed me down the hall toward the stairs. “Are you sure you’re not going to hold this over my head later?”
I bit my lip to keep from lashing out. I wanted to tell him that I had every right to hold this over his head, because this was one of the reasons I had decided to leave. But I had initiated this separation. He was simply adhering to the rules of living separately.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I headed straight for the front door. “I’m not going to hold this over your head, but I’m also not going to pretend it doesn’t bother me. We can talk about it later, maybe with the marital counselor.”
He sighed as he reached for the doorknob. “Great. Something to look forward to.”
I flashed him a fake smile as he pulled the front door open. “I’ll call you when I’ve scheduled our first appointment.”
&nbs
p; He nodded. “Right.” He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else, then he pressed his lips together to stop himself. “All right, well, I guess we’ll talk later?”
I nodded, but I remained silent, afraid my words would betray me and we’d end this conversation with an argument.
“All right,” he said, eyebrows raised. “This is really fucking awkward. Can we at least acknowledge that?”
“Acknowledged.”
“Okay,” he said, stepping toward me. “I’ll call you later.”
He planted a quick kiss on my forehead, then stepped out onto the porch. As I watched Jack’s truck drive away, I knew I’d made the right decision. How could two people who knew each other the way we did feel like strangers?
Standing on the front steps, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The crisp morning air felt blissful on my fevered skin, which still smelled like Jack. The scent of dusty wood reminded me that I still hadn’t swept the porch, but I’d have plenty of time to do that later. Right now, I had to text John to cancel our appointment.
But as I opened my eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to go back inside. Guilt gnawed my insides as I stared at the rows of shriveled hydrangea and honeysuckle lining the walkway. Even the laurel hedges along the garden fence and the gardenia tree in the corner were overgrown and neglected. My mother’s heart would break if she knew I’d let her garden die.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered as I spun around to go back inside, turning my back on the graveyard of everything my mother once loved.
The sound of footsteps made me whip my head around again. A guy in a faded black T-shirt came down the steps of the house next door with the gray siding and American flag hanging from the eaves. Was that the neighbor my mom had mentioned on a few separate occasions before she died? The handsome guy with the green thumb?
The guy reminded me a bit of Jason Momoa, but with slightly less facial hair. His bulging muscles strained against his shirt. Tattoos covered almost every inch of his bronze skin. His chin-length, light-brown hair and the scruff on his face appeared naturally lightened by hours in the sun.
As he grabbed the newspaper out of the plastic yellow Oregonian mailbox at the curb, I couldn’t stop myself from making a snap judgment: he didn’t look like the kind of guy who got his news the old-fashioned way. But then again, he also didn’t look like the kind of guy who possessed a green thumb. This was probably a new neighbor who’d moved in after my mom’s death.
This realization was disappointing. It would have been nice to meet the young man my mom had seemed to have an innocent crush on in her final days. But as he walked back toward his front steps, I realized his grass was a technicolor green and his garden was extremely neat and healthy.
He glanced in my direction as he climbed the steps, and something about the dark look in his eyes sent a shiver through me. He turned away quickly and headed inside, but not before taking one final glance at my yard. It was almost as if he were saying, “It’s about damn time someone did something about that mess.”
I shook my head as I turned around to go inside. My guilt over neglecting my mother’s garden was making me believe that this guy was judging me. He probably couldn’t care less what my garden looked like.
As I shut the front door behind me and locked it, I suddenly felt very alone and scared. I hadn’t anticipated what it would feel like being alone in this big house without Jack and his weapons arsenal to protect me.
I would have to keep myself busy with the garden or I would soon be catastrophizing all the horrible things that could happen to me here. Images of that night flashed in my mind, making my skin ache. I leaned against the inside of the door as I was overcome with a familiar sense of impending doom. I slid down to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.
Thirty minutes of deep breathing later, I grabbed the door handle and pulled myself to my feet. Maybe I should invite Drea out here to have some lunch.
I shook my head as I made my way to the kitchen. It was Sunday. Drea would be busy spending the weekend getting in some quality time with Barry and the boys. I’d call her later to chat, but I’d have to tough out the loneliness and fear.
I should have been more persistent about Jack spending the day with me.
Entering the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator only to be reminded that I had no food in the house. I didn’t normally eat breakfast, but I would have to eat something before I started working in the garden, or I’d risk getting lightheaded once the summer sun was beating down on me.
Come to think of it, I also needed to make a run to the garden store. But it suddenly dawned on me that I didn’t know if I was allowed to use Jack’s money while we were separated. Were we really separated?
Oh, God. Jack and I were separated. And it was mostly my decision. I definitely couldn’t use his money.
I closed the refrigerator door and fanned myself as I began doing some simple math in my head.
I still had a little more than two grand in a secret personal checking account that I’d had since before Jack and I merged our finances. I used it when I wanted to buy Jack a gift online, but didn’t want him to know about it. I really didn’t want to use the money, since it was my only emergency stash. And if I had to pay for utilities, food, and gardening supplies for one month, that money would dwindle pretty quickly.
I really underestimated how dependent I’d been on Jack.
I would have to use my stash. I would just have to figure out a way to replenish this account. The obvious solution would be to get a job. But did I really stand a chance of finding a job quick enough to get paid within the next few weeks? Especially since I hadn’t worked a single day since Jack and I graduated from OSU eight years ago.
I would have to find an inexpensive gardening store or I was going to blow through my cash fast. Maybe I should introduce myself to the neighbor with the nice garden, and ask him if he could recommend a place. But as I remembered the dark look he’d given me, he didn’t seem like the neighborly type.
I threw up my hands. Fuck it. I needed to get this garden fixed fast and cheap. I was going to have a chat with my neighbor.
Chapter 7
Jack
I left Laurel at her mother’s house at a few minutes past eight a.m. and went straight to the gym. Despite the possibility of injury, I finished off my ten-mile run with one full hour of power cleans. The satisfaction of lifting more weight than was probably safe and letting it drop was fucking satisfying.
Every time I squared off my hips, bent my knees and engaged all my chest and upper body strength to lift that bar, I felt as if I was lifting the weight of my world: Laurel, our marriage, the investigation, Laurel’s safety, the business. All of it resting on my shoulders. Then, I’d drop it onto the floor, watch the bar and the weights bounce, imagining all of it, everything I carried on my back, shattering into a million pieces.
I was going to be sore tomorrow.
As I left the gym, I texted my best friend Nate, suggesting we get some beers later. At the house, I took a screaming-hot shower, though I didn’t want to wash Laurel’s scent off my skin. But I knew if I was already missing her, she was missing me just as much. Especially since Laurel had never lived alone in her life.
When I met her our senior year at OSU, she was living with the same roommate she’d moved in with her freshman year; a girl named Priti who had no interest in being Laurel’s friend because, according to her and her parents, partying and school did not mix.
This was fine with Laurel, who had no problems making friends on campus. According to my pixie, she spent most of her freshman and sophomore year partying, and most of her junior and senior year catching up.
By the time I met her, her partying days were over, replaced by a 3.7 grade point average and a very serious work ethic. I was more than willing to help her loosen up a little.
Laurel was a lot different now.
Nowadays, she never got out of bed before nine a.m. And she jumped at her own shad
ow and broke into tears randomly.
But despite her sudden need to run away from our problems, underneath that fragile exterior, Laurel was strong. When she decided on a goal, she saw it through to completion. Where most people would give up, she toughened up. It was one of the things I loved the most about her.
Like the time she suspected one of her professors of grading her unfairly after she didn’t return his flirtation. Laurel refused to back down when the dean of academics asked her to drop the complaint. In the end, the professor was suspended for one year — with reduced pay — on grounds of “moral turpitude.”
The phrase “moral turpitude” was one of our many inside jokes now.
Laurel’s toughness. Her need to fight back. That was why I wasn’t surprised that she left. It was also why I knew I couldn’t convince her to come back by simply promising to go to counseling. She was stubborn and she was going to hold me to my promise.
I just hoped this separation wouldn’t be our undoing.
As I came out of the bathroom, I emptied the pockets of my gym shorts onto the dresser in my bedroom so I could throw them in the hamper. I shook my head when I saw Laurel’s ring. I’d forgotten to give it back to her. Maybe that was a sign.
As I showered, I mentally went over the topics we were preparing to discuss at today’s question and answer session in the Justice for Jack Stratton Jr. Facebook group. We would be discussing a possible break in the case, the same one I’d mentioned to Laurel last night over pizza. Then, I tried to think of ways I could make this separation easier.
I could offer to spend the weekends with Laurel at her mother’s house. But if the point of the separation was to have some time and space to ourselves, that didn’t seem like the right way to go about it.
I could offer to take time off work, but it was a bad time for that. I had an important meeting tomorrow morning with Kent to discuss our plans for opening a Tokyo office. Taking into consideration what Laurel had mentioned about Kent in the letter I burned, I couldn’t piss off the partners by taking more time off.