by Paul Pen
Then time passed, the promise lost power, and the feeling that he’d done something bad became diluted, while his desire to see Mara recrystallized. With the same firmness with which he’d persuaded himself he wouldn’t succumb again, he now persuaded himself that surrendering to desire was his best option, even for his marriage. It was clear: controlling himself too much could lead to him making the decision to leave Grace once and for all and pursue the dissolute sex life that some part of him longed for. And then the breakup would affect the children. And they would all suffer. As things stood, neither Audrey nor Simon nor Grace would suffer due to the unimportant fact that from time to time he gave himself relief with another woman.
The time he spent with Mara did not take a single second away from his family life—all the time was taken from his work schedule. He treated Grace with the same devotion as ever, with the same affection. He still took the peas one by one from her plate and put them on his, because she liked the combination of the rest of the ingredients in the ready-made rice she always bought. He still slept with his neck twisted every night so that she could stretch her arm out under the pillow. Compared to those gestures devoid of passion but full of love, surrendering to his sexual urges once in a while with some girl meant nothing. There may be a moral rule that says it’s not right to cheat on your partner, on your children, but another more important rule was that you shouldn’t hurt the people you love. If he kept quiet, Frank wasn’t hurting anyone. Telling Grace the truth would have been like opening up a wound in her soul through which all her goodness would spill out. It would also discredit all the advice she had given her YouTube subscribers in years of videos, as an expert in marital happiness. And it would set a terrible example for the children. Each time Frank’s reasoning reached this point, he called Mara again. He told her it was work that prevented him from seeing her more often—he didn’t want her to know of Grace’s existence. That way, his deceit of his wife seemed less significant, and it prevented any future complications. Not that it seemed as if things would become complicated with Mara, who didn’t appear to be developing feelings for him. They were just two adults enjoying sex when the opportunity arose. And although the opportunity kept arising, whenever Frank dialed her number, he promised himself it would be the last time, that he had to stop calling her.
But he had stopped calling her and it had not worked. Because Mara was still there, present in his life, ruining his summer, and now sleeping outside, a few feet from his family and the motor home she’d sold them. Things had become much more complicated than he had foreseen. Everything always proves to be more complicated than it first seems.
The affair Frank thought he had ended had followed him. And with her presence she was forcing him to confess his darkest secret. As much as he tried to escape to the other side of the country, he wasn’t going to be able to distance himself from the terrible past in which he was the worst husband in the world, the most despicable man ever to have existed.
Frank shifted under the sheets, restless, with Grace’s arm stretched out under the pillow. He felt disgusted at himself for sharing a bed with his wife while remembering his sexual encounters with Mara. Everything he’d done with Mara. He separated his body from Grace, his back from her stomach, as if he might soil her with his corrupt skin. Poison her with his perverse morality.
Lulled by the crickets’ chirping, Frank had a revelation. He would confess. Tell Grace everything. As he should have done from the beginning. If only he had. He still could. Right now. He could wake her and explain to her who the girl they almost ran over was. Confess what happened. And between the two of them, they could make a decision that would minimize the impact, especially on the children.
“And ruin my entire life . . .”
The words, barely audible, escaped in a sleepy outbreath. Drowsy, Frank cursed his situation. He cursed the plan to use this road, the moment when the RV ran into Mara. He also cursed his skill in swerving away from her, because everything would be much simpler had he not done so. Killing her would have been much more convenient.
Intermittent currents of air whistled as they found their way in through the cracks in the motor home. On the verge of falling asleep, Frank stopped censuring his thoughts.
If only he had killed her.
If only she were dead.
19.
Grace opened her eyes the moment dawn broke. The little light that filtered into the motor home was enough to wake her. She got out of bed before her first blink.
“Frank.” She knotted the belt on her robe while putting on slippers. “Wake up, Frank, it’s light.”
With a knee on the mattress, she kissed him on the temple, where she kissed him in the mornings to avoid his breath.
“I know, I’ve barely slept.”
Her husband didn’t have the dry lips or puffy eyes he typically had when he woke. The smoothness of his face suggested he’d only been asleep a short while, but his grimace revealed exhaustion.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t sleep, with all this going on.” Grace smoothed down his eyebrows. “But the problems will be over today. As soon as we find the cell phones.”
“Yeah, the cell phones . . .”
“Come on, get searching.” She slapped the bed. “Who’s going to check how our guest slept?”
She used the word on purpose, to make light of the situation, as if it were a visiting friend sleeping in the tent.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“And then I’ll make a delicious breakfast for everyone.”
Grace wanted to cheer Frank up—he seemed worried. He was only half up, sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees. He looked at her over his shoulder.
“That’s great, honey.”
She heard him sigh as she left the bedroom. She woke the children on the sofa by rubbing their legs under the bedspread, apologizing that it was so early. She reminded Simon to change into his day patch as soon as he’d washed his face. One of Audrey’s hands searched for something on the arm of the sofa, the place where she would have left her cell phone during the night if she’d had it. Even lying down, her shoulders slumped at the disappointment of not finding it there.
“That’s why I’ve woken you up, sweetie,” said Grace, “so we can all go look for the phones now that there’s some light.”
She caught Simon’s foot and shook it until she heard him laugh.
Then she opened the door and descended the retractable steps.
With the branches and needles damp with the dawn, she could almost feel the dense pine aroma on her skin like a cool, fragrant lotion that revives the spirit. Grace breathed it in several times, allowing herself to be purified. With each breath, the situation they found themselves in seemed a little less serious. In a world that offered such a pure smell, nothing could be all bad in the end. That was why the sun, peeking over the horizon, was turning dewdrops into sparkling pale-yellow diamonds encrusted on the immense jewel that was the forest at sunrise.
Stretching, Grace felt as optimistic as the promise of a new summer’s day. A refreshing current of air crept under her robe, between the buttons on her pajamas. She interrupted her stretching when she saw a plastic zip tie attached to the zipper on the tent. Connected to the structure’s upper rod, it secured the opening.
“Frank?”
Her suspicion escaped from her mouth as a whisper. But her husband wouldn’t do anything like this. Why would he imprison the girl? It was one thing wanting to protect his family by not allowing a stranger to sleep in the same room, it was quite another to cage her like a wild animal. It had to be an optical illusion. Grace walked toward the tent, her footsteps muffled by the soles of her slippers. When she reached it, she was no longer in any doubt. It was a zip tie. She considered whether Mara had put it on herself, to lock herself away from any dangers outside. Bears, perhaps. But bears neither know how to open zippers nor would bother to do so if they wanted to eat a camper—they would just rip the tent open
with their claws. And she would have attached the zip tie to the zipper pull inside, not on the outside.
“Grace?”
She gave a start when she heard her name. Frank poked his head out the door.
“I told you I’d go see her. You come here.”
Grace pressed her lips together. The rubber on her soles didn’t muffle the anger in her footsteps now as she returned to the RV.
“How could you do that to her?”
“Do what?” Franks eyes opened too wide. “What happened?”
The specter of a suppressed smile visited his face for an instant.
“We have to take it off.”
“What’re you talking about, honey? Has something happened to her?”
“It’s almost like you want something to happen to her, asking like that.”
Grace elbowed her way past her husband in the doorway.
“We have to take it off before the poor girl wakes up and tries to get out.” Climbing onto the sofa where the kids were still lying, she opened the first kitchen drawer. “Before she realizes you’ve penned her in like a wild animal. That’s if she didn’t try to get out in the night to take a pee . . . Oh, how embarrassing, Frank.”
“I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about, seriously.”
She decided to attribute the tremble in her husband’s voice to his sleepiness.
From outside, Mara’s voice reached them. “Hello? Can you hear me? I can’t get out.”
In the kitchen, Grace gestured at the tent through the window. The structure shook with each frustrated tug on the zipper.
“I’m talking about that. You locked her in.”
“Me?”
His surprise seemed genuine. She showed him the scissors she’d taken from the drawer and told him to go with her. They walked back to the tent together.
“Morning, Mara,” Grace said. “It appears the zipper’s stuck. Give us a minute.”
She passed the scissors to Frank, ordering him in sign language to cut the zip tie. As soon as he’d done it, she snatched everything from him and hid it in the pocket of her pajama shirt, covered by the robe. The zipper lowered with a buzz. Mara emerged with tangled hair.
“It was stuck,” Grace apologized. “The tent’s new, looks like the zipper pull doesn’t run very smoothly yet. How did you sleep?”
Mara looked first at Frank, with her eyelids half-closed, and Grace knew she hadn’t believed the lie about the zipper. After Frank’s excessively cautious behavior the night before, Mara must have guessed why the tent wouldn’t open and who would’ve been responsible for taking such a precaution.
“I slept well,” she told Grace, smiling. “There’s nothing like a night in the wild to ease the pain of a broken heart. This peace is just what I came here looking for.”
Grace touched the butterfly bandages over her eyebrow.
“This looks very good.” She pressed on the ends to make sure they were stuck down. “Does anything hurt on your body?”
“No, not on my body.”
Grace understood that she was afflicted by other pains, that they just weren’t physical.
“Right, well, I’ll take those pains away now with some breakfast,” she said.
From inside the RV, the children asked for help to fold up the sofa bed.
“You go,” she said to Frank. His frown revealed a reluctance to leave her alone with Mara—her husband really was harboring the ridiculous suspicion that the girl was dangerous. “Go on, they need your help.”
This time he obeyed, but before going into the vehicle, from the steps, he gave Mara a threatening look.
“I’m sorry, really,” whispered Grace. “You shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of suspicion. I don’t know why he’s so worried about this situation.”
“And the zipper wasn’t stuck, right?” Mara asked. “He secured it.”
Grace confirmed it by lowering her head. “Honestly, I’m so embarrassed.” She felt her cheeks flush hot. “I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, seriously. I can understand a man taking certain measures to protect his family.” Mara touched Grace’s elbow. “What gives me the shivers is thinking I spent the night in there locked up in the tent with a plastic zip tie, like one of those bags they put dead bodies in.”
“Oh, don’t say that.”
The image gave Grace the shivers, too, and she shook her shoulders to get rid of them.
20.
Frank left the motor home with the children as soon as he’d finished folding up the sofa. He didn’t want Grace alone with Mara.
“Where should we start looking for the cell phones?” asked Simon. Dressed in a T-shirt and jogger shorts, he’d put on the patch printed with monarch butterflies. “Because I’ve only got one eye and I have to choose the right place to look.”
“You’re going to look everywhere,” Audrey replied, tying the laces on her sneakers with enthusiasm, eager to start the search. She was wearing gray leggings and a vest with a smiling emoji on the chest. “We have to find them.”
“I hit the brakes over there, so they could be anywhere in that area.” Frank glanced at Mara, as furtive a look as the first ones they exchanged at the dealership. They both knew that, as hard as the kids tried to find the phones, they would never appear. He gestured toward a long stretch of the road while announcing the inevitable: “At any rate, I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find them. They could have flown a long way—they might be in the bushes, or broken from the impact.”
“Don’t dishearten your kids. Those cell phones are here somewhere,” Grace cut in.
“I’m sure they’ll find them,” Mara added.
Fury gripped Frank’s stomach.
“And if need be, I’ll go rooting through those weeds—no problem,” said Audrey. “Come on, Si, you go right and I’ll go left.”
“It’s the dampness that’s the problem. Even if they turn up, they’re not going to work if they’ve spent the night on the ground or among the plants. I don’t know if there’s much point in wasting time.” Frank hated having to lie to his children. “Look how much dew there is everywhere.”
Audrey gave him a proud smile. “Mine’s waterproof, so that’s not a problem.”
“And mine has fingerprint recognition,” Simon said to her.
“Oooh, how revolutionary! Dude, even coffeemakers have that nowadays.”
They both laughed.
“At least your dad thought to put them in a ziplock, so they’re protected. They’ll work, for sure.” Grace reproached Frank with her eyes for dispiriting the children in such a way. “I’m going to make breakfast while you search. Let’s see if I have time to get it ready before you find them. And you can go look for your car key, Mara—that’ll definitely work. It can’t have gone far if you had it in your hand when . . .”
She cleared her throat to omit the first words that came to mind, words Frank knew would be we hit you.
“. . . when you appeared on the road,” she ended up saying.
While Mara joined the kids on an expedition that would come to nothing, Grace took Frank by the wrist and pulled him into the kitchen.
From the refrigerator she took eggs, milk. From the cupboards, cereals, a frying pan, cups. She turned the knob on a burner and held her ear close to make sure the gas was coming out.
“There’re two new cylinders,” Frank reminded her.
“Why did you shut her in?”
“It wasn’t me, honey. Honestly, it wasn’t.”
“So why was she so surprised from not knowing what was happening? Why would she shut herself in with something that kept her from getting out?” Grace was cracking eggs against the edge of a bowl, the shells breaking up between her fingers from too much force. “After an accident like hers, the poor girl told me she felt as if she’d spent the night in a body bag, as if she hadn’t survived the accident, locked in with that zip tie you put on there.”
Mara couldn’t have known it was a z
ip tie that had secured the zipper unless she’d put it on there herself. He and Grace had cut it and hidden it before she came out of the tent. But Frank already knew that. Of course it had been her—he didn’t even have zip ties in the motor home. And he also knew what Mara’s intention was: precisely to create this disagreement between Grace and him. To make him look like the liar only his lover knew he was. The zip tie, the imprisonment, was to fuel suspicion of a lack of honesty between Frank and Grace. Which was exactly what Mara had come here to do. That piece of plastic was a symbol, a reminder that Frank had to accept the implications of his actions. Though furious that Mara’s lesson had worked so perfectly, that she had sent him her message in such a subtle but devastating way, Frank knew it would be easier to admit his false guilt.
“All right, well, forgive me for wanting to protect my family.”
Grace stopped the fork she was beating the eggs with.
“I knew it.” She blew out with her disappointment at being deceived. She diverted her eyes to the chopping board, unable to look at the husband she never expected to lie. “I don’t like you lying to me, Frank. I don’t like it at all. What will we become if we can’t trust each other implicitly?”
They would become something horrible. And that was why Grace couldn’t know the truth—or all the lies—about him. She wasn’t ready. It would hurt her too much, and she didn’t deserve to suffer.
“I’m sorry, honey.”
He tried to kiss her on the cheek but she bent down to pick something up.
“Go on, go find those cell phones.”
Frank apologized again and went out. Audrey and Simon were bent over, combing the road, the light from the sun growing ever brighter. He crouched down like his children, rekindling an old pain in his lower back. Only by suffering like his kids could he ease the sinking feeling it gave him to see them working so hard at something that would never end in success.