The Neighbor

by Lisa Gardner

  My husband is a handsome man. A very, very handsome man.

  My gaze came up. Our eyes met, and I felt it then, genuine, spine-tingling, bone deep.

  I was afraid of him.

  Jason wanted to walk. While the evening held a bracing, February chill, it was not raining and the sidewalks were clear Ree loved this idea, as she loved everything about family vacation thus far She walked between us, her left hand tucked in Jason’s, her right hand tucked in mine. She would count to ten, then it would be our job to hoist her into the air so she could squeal at passing pedestrians.

  They would smile at us, a well-dressed family out and about in the big city.

  We followed the red line tracing Paul Revere’s ride toward the Old State House, then took a left and continued past Boston Commons, toward the theater district. I recognized the Four Seasons, where I passed my spa nights, and walking toward it, holding my daughter’s hand, I couldn’t bear to glance at the glass doors. It was too much like looking at a crime scene.

  Fortunately, Jason veered away, and soon we arrived at a charming bistro, where the air smelled like fresh-pressed olive oil and ruby red Chianti A tuxedoed maitre d’ led us to a table, and another black-vested young man wanted to know if we wanted still or sparkling water I was about to say tap, when Jason replied smoothly that we would like a bottle of Perrier, and of course, the wine list.

  I blinked at my husband of five years, struck speechless yet again, while Ree squirmed around in her wooden seat, then discovered the bread basket. She stuck her hand beneath the linen covering, producing a long thin breadstick. She snapped it in half, obviously liking the noise it made, and proceeded to munch away.

  “You should put your napkin in your lap,” Jason told her, “like this.”

  He demonstrated with his napkin and Ree was impressed enough to follow suit. Then Jason helped scoot her chair closer to the table, and explained the various pieces of silverware.

  The waiter appeared. He poured elegant pools of olive oil onto our bread plates, a routine Ree recognized from our usual North End haunts. She fell to work soaking each piece of bread from the bread basket, while Jason turned to the waiter and very calmly ordered a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

  “But you don’t drink,” I protested, as the waiter nodded efficiently and once more disappeared.

  “Would you like a glass of champagne, Sandra?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I would like to share some with you.”

  “Why?”

  He merely smiled and returned to studying his menu. Finally, I did the same, though my mind was racing. Maybe he was going to get me drunk. Then, when Ree wasn’t looking, he’d push me into the harbor. No walking near the water on the way back to the hotel, I thought with a vague sense of rising hysteria. Must stick to the opposite side of the street.

  Ree decided she would like angel hair pasta with butter and cheese. She did her parents proud by ordering in a nice clear voice and remembering to say both please and thank you. I, on the other hand, stuttered like an idiot, but managed to order scallops with wild mushroom risotto.

  Jason had the veal.

  The champagne arrived. The waiter made a discreet show of uncorking it with a delicate little burp. He poured two glasses in paper-thin flutes that showed off the sparkling bubbles. Ree declared it the prettiest drink she’d ever seen and wanted some.

  Jason told her she could when she turned twenty-one.

  She pouted at him, then returned to drowning bread in olive oil.

  Jason lifted the first flute. I took the second.

  “To us,” he said, “and our future happiness.”

  I nodded and took an obedient sip. The bubbles tickled my nose and I thought, quite absurdly, that I was going to cry.

  How well do you know the person you have married? You exchange vows, gold rings, build a home, raise a family. You sleep side by side every night, gazing upon your spouse’s naked body so often it becomes as mundane as your own. Maybe you have sex. Maybe you have felt your husband’s fingers digging into your ass, urging you closer, guiding you faster, asking you in a low guttural tone, “How do you like that? Is it good for you?” Yet this is the same man who will slip out of bed six hours from now and prepare waffles with your daughter’s favorite ruffled apron tied around his waist and perhaps even a butterfly barrette, graciously supplied by the four-year-old, clipped into his hair.

  If you can marvel at his sweetness, your husband’s ability to be both your carnal lover and your daughter’s indulgent father, is it not so much of a stretch then to wonder what other roles he could play? What other parts of his personality are just waiting to be dialed into place?

  All through dinner, Ree giggled and Jason smiled and I sipped champagne. I thought of my husband and his lack of family and friends. And I sipped more champagne. I remembered how easily he’d convinced me to adopt a new name when we’d moved to Boston—all to help protect me from my father, he’d claimed at the time. And I sipped more champagne. I recalled his late nights hunched over the computer. The websites he frequented that he had gone to great lengths to hide. And I thought of that photo. I finally, six months later, fixated on that lone black-and-white photo of a terrified young boy, the hairy black spider clearly visible as it crawled across the boy’s naked chest.

  And I sipped more champagne.

  My husband was going to kill me.

  It was so clear to me now I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner. Jason was a monster. Maybe not a pedophile, maybe something worse. A predator of such miswired proportions that he remained indifferent to his beautiful young wife, while lasciviously cultivating terrible images of frightened young children.

  I should’ve listened to Wayne. I should’ve told him where we were going, except I had never thought to ask. No, I trusted my husband, let him lead me straight to slaughter without pressing for a single detail. Me, the very person who spent her entire childhood learning you can’t trust anyone.

  I sipped more champagne, moved the seared scallops around on my plate. I wondered what he would tell Ree when it was all over. There had been an accident, Mommy won’t be coming home anymore. So sorry, baby, so sorry.

  I poured Jason a second glass of champagne. He wasn’t a big drinker. Maybe if I could get him drunk enough, he’d miss me and fall into the harbor himself. Wouldn’t that be fitting justice?

  Jason finished eating. Ree, too. The black-vested waiter appeared, ready to whisk our plates away. He gazed down at me with great consternation.

  “Was it not to your satisfaction? May I present you with another choice?”

  I waved him off with vague excuses of having eaten a big lunch. Jason was watching me, but he didn’t comment on the lie. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked rakish, the open collar of his dress shirt, the rumpled waves of his thick hair, the deep impenetrable pools of his eyes. Other women were probably admiring him when they thought I wasn’t looking. Perhaps everyone was admiring us. Look at that beautiful family with that gorgeous little girl who is so well behaved.

  Didn’t we make a pretty picture? A perfect little family, if only we survived the night.

  Ree wanted ice cream for dessert. The waiter took her to the gelato case to pick out a flavor. I topped off Jason’s glass with the last of the champagne. He had barely touched his second glass. I thought that was grossly unfair of him.

  “I propose a toast,” I declared, definitely tipsy now and feeling reckless.

  He nodded, picked up his glass.

  “To us,” I said. “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

  I tossed back a quick hit. Watched my husband take a more conservative sip.

  “So what else are we going to do on family vacation?” I wanted to know.

  “I thought we’d visit the aquarium, maybe take the trolleys around town, check out Newbury Street. Or, if you’d prefer, we could do the museums, book a spa appointment or two.”

/>   “Why are you doing this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you doing this?” I waved my hand around the restaurant, sloshing champagne. “The extravagant hotel, the fancy restaurant. Family vacation. We’ve never done anything like this before.”

  He didn’t answer right away, but twirled his own champagne flute between his fingers.

  “Maybe we should’ve been doing this before,” he said at last. “Maybe you and I spend too much time surviving life, and not enough time enjoying it.”

  Ree returned, clutching the waiter’s arm with one hand and the world’s largest bowl of gelato with the other. Apparently, picking one flavor had been too hard, so she had settled on three. The waiter gave us a wink, distributed three spoons, and quietly disappeared.

  Jason and Ree went at it I just watched them, my stomach churning, feeling like a condemned woman stepping up to the chopping block and waiting for the ax to fall

  Jason called for a cab to take us back to the hotel Ree had hit the point where the gelato sugar rush was colliding with the late hour to form one hypercranky child. I wasn’t moving so steadily on my feet by then. The three glasses of champagne had gone straight to my head.

  I thought Jason seemed less than razor-sharp as he opened the cab door and attempted to load Ree in, but I couldn’t be sure. He was the most self-possessed man I’d ever met, and even two glasses of alcohol barely seemed to affect him.

  We made it to the hotel, managed to find our room. I got Ree out of her fancy dress and into her Ariel nightie. A maid had magically transformed the sofa into a bed, topping it with thick blankets, four pillows, and two gold-foiled chocolates. Ree ate the chocolates when I went in search of her toothbrush, then tried to hide the wrappers by sticking them under the pillow. Her deception would’ve worked better if not for the smear of chocolate ringing her lips.

  I herded her to the bathroom for face washing, tooth brushing, and hair combing. She squealed, whined, and complained for most of it. Then I corralled her back to her sleeping quarters, tucking her into the bed with Lil’ Bunny snug in her arms. Ree had packed twelve books. I read two of them, and her eyes were already heavy-lidded before I finished the last sentence.

  I dimmed the desk lamp, then crept out of the room, closing the door to a small crack behind me. She didn’t complain, a sure sign of success.

  In the master bedroom, I found Jason lounging on the bed. His shoes were off, his jacket tossed over a chair. He had been watching TV, but turned it off when I came in.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Tired.”

  “She did very well tonight.”

  “She did. Thank you.”

  “Did you have a nice night?” he asked.

  “Yes. I did.” I moved closer to the bed, feeling awkward, unsure of what to do, of what was expected of me. The champagne had made me tired. But then I looked at my husband, his long, lean body sprawled out on the expansive white comforter, and the emotion I felt wasn’t exhaustion at all. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so mostly I stood there, twisting my hands over and over again.

  “Sit,” he said presently. “I’ll help you with your boots.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. He got up, kneeling before me and taking the first boot between his hands. His fingers worked the zipper, sliding it down the inside of my calf slowly, careful not to snag the skin. He eased the right boot off, went to work on the left.

  I found myself leaning back, feeling his fingers whisper down my calves, cup the heel of my naked foot as he stripped off my sheer stockings. Had he ever touched my legs? Maybe when I was nine months pregnant and couldn’t see my own feet. I swore it hadn’t felt like this back then, however. I would’ve remembered this.

  My stockings were off, and yet his fingers remained on my skin. His thumb brushed down the inside arch of my foot. I almost jerked away, but his other hand held my foot in place. Then, both his thumbs were moving, doing positively delicious things and I found my back arching, my breath expelling in a little groan at the decadence of a foot massage after a long night in tight leather boots.

  He moved from my right foot to my left foot, then his fingers were working their way up my calves, finding small knots, kneading. I felt his breath behind my knee cap, the whisper of his mouth brushing the inside of my thigh. The sensations kept me transfixed, unable to move, reluctant to break the spell.

  If I opened my eyes, he would disappear and I would once again be alone. If I said his name, it would bring him back to consciousness and he would bolt downstairs to the goddamn computer. I mustn’t move, I mustn’t react.

  Yet, my hips were beginning to writhe on their own and I was keenly aware of each touch of his rough-padded fingers, the tickling sensation of his wavy hair, the silky smoothness of his fresh-shaved cheeks. The champagne warmed my belly. His hands warmed my skin.

  Then he got up and walked away.

  I bit my cheeks to stop the moan. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and in that moment, I felt my loneliness more acutely than I had during all of those nights he’d left our bed. It isn’t fair, I wanted to scream. How could you?

  Except then I heard the click of the door shutting between our room and Ree’s sleeping area. Another rasp as he tended the chain lock on the main door.

  Then the bed sagged as he returned to me, stretching out beside me. I opened my eyes to discover my husband of five years looking down at me. His dark eyes were no longer so calm, no longer inscrutable. He appeared nervous, maybe even shy.

  But he said, in that calm voice I knew so well, “May I kiss you, Sandra?”

  I nodded yes.

  My husband kissed me, slowly, carefully, sweetly.

  I finally figured out that my husband had heard me the other night. He wasn’t trying to kill me. He was granting me a second child instead.

  There are things you always wished you had known sooner versus later. If you had spoken up earlier, before the lie grew too big. Or if you had braved the conversation in the beginning, before by its very omission it became too much to handle.

  I had sex with my husband. Or rather, we had sex with each other. And it was slow, delicate, careful. Five years later, we still had to learn the feel of each other’s bodies, the way one gasp meant I had done something well, and another gasp meant it was time to ease back.

  I had the impression that of the two of us, I was the one with more experience. Yet it was important for him to take the lead. If I pushed too hard, moved too fast, it would be over. A switch would be thrown and we’d be right back where we had started, strangers who shared a bed.

  So I let his fingers dance across my skin, while discovering the lean outline of his ribs beneath my fingers, the ripple of muscle on his sides, the taut feel of his butt. There were indentations across his back, markings of some kind. But if I tried to touch them, he drew back, so I contented myself with threading my fingers through the light whorls of hair on his chest, the broad, solid feel of his shoulders.

  I reveled in the feel of his body, and hoped he found some kind of satisfaction in mine. Then he loomed between my legs and I parted them gratefully, arching my hips, taking him into me. At the first moment of penetration, maybe I cried out, maybe I had wanted him that much.

  Then he was moving, and I was moving, and we didn’t have to be careful anymore and we didn’t have to be awkward anymore. Everything was as it should be and it all felt right

  I held him afterward. Pressed his head against my shoulder and stroked his hair He didn’t speak, and there was moisture on his cheeks which could’ve been sweat or maybe something else. I liked lying with him like this, our legs entwined, our breaths co-mingled.

  I may have had sex with a lot of men, but I have slept with very few of them, and it felt like I should grant my husband that much.

  I fell asleep thinking that family vacation was a positively brilliant idea.

  And woke up to the sound of a guttural cry.

  My husband was roc
king beside me. In the dark, I could feel his movements more than I could see them. He seemed to be rolled into a tight ball, caught in the throes of a nightmare. I reached out a hand to his shoulder He jerked back.

  “Jason?” I whispered.

  He moaned lower, rolling away from me.

  “Jason?” I tried again, voice louder now, but not too loud, as I didn’t want to wake Ree. “Jason, wake up.”

  He rocked and rocked and rocked.

  I placed two hands on his back and shook him hard. He went shooting out of bed, scrambling across the room, crashing against a wingback chair, tripping over a standing light.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me!” he screamed, careening into a corner. “I fucking killed you! You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  I was up out of the bed, hands out as if to brace myself “Shhh, shhh, shhh. Jason, it’s only a dream. Wake up, sweetheart, please. It’s only a dream.”

  I reached for the bedside lamp, clicking it on, hoping the sudden infusion of light would snap him back to his senses.

  He turned his face away, grabbing the curtain and holding it across his body as if to shield his nakedness.

  “Go away,” he whimpered. “Please, please, please just go away.”

  But I didn’t I took one step closer to him. Then another Willing my husband to wake up, even as I willed my daughter to remain asleep.

  Finally, very slowly, he turned his face toward mine.

  I sucked in my breath as I gazed at his oversized dark eyes, still dilated by fear, wild with terror Something clicked in the back of my mind and all the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place.

  “Oh Jason,” I whispered.

  And I realized at that moment that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

  | CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR |