A Woman Alone

by Nina Laurin

  Since he’s Scott, he found the solution.

  But that fateful evening, he wasn’t there. It was the middle of the week, and Scott was working overtime. He’d been doing that for a while, several days a week, several weeks in a row. Any other wife would have let her mind drift toward darker possibilities, suspect cheating and lies, some young mistress, or worse yet, a predatory coworker with no panties under her ugly skirt suit. But I know him better than that—it’s just not his style. He would leave at seven in the morning and come back long after Taryn went to bed at seven at night. So I’d spend the whole day alone with our daughter, then barely a year old.

  Taryn is a miracle baby of sorts. I say of sorts because I’ve heard much crazier stories, strings of miscarriages, tens of thousands of dollars spent on repeated IVF attempts that were finally rewarded with that one precious bundle of joy. And who knows? Maybe that could have been us, had I allowed it.

  No, I’d spent the previous three years or so thinking I’m the problem, that I can’t have babies, but Scott and I had a serious talk and decided we wouldn’t be one of those couples. Those who go to what he saw as crazy, irrational extremes to have a biological child.

  If it doesn’t work after three years, he said, we don’t start running around all those ghastly clinics and doing painful and invasive procedures. We have the money, he said, but that’s not the point. He said he thought it was self-centered, vain, arrogant even, to be so obsessed with passing down your own genes. What with all the babies out there who need loving homes and who are placed in the foster system instead, without proper love and care.

  Truth be told, I thought it made him sound as smug and self-centered as the people he derided, except the obsession with genes was replaced with a savior complex I found just as unappealing. But that’s Scott for you, and I’d learned to keep these thoughts to myself.

  If we don’t succeed after three years, we get on the waiting list and we adopt, he decided. It’s the right thing to do. The altruistic thing. I nodded along like a good wife. We were so busy patting ourselves on the back for our progressiveness that we barely noticed how three years flew by, and still the tests remained negative. And so every time Scott would bring up that waiting list, I’d nod some more in agreement and then stall, stall, stall.

  I guess I finally stalled long enough because, exactly three years and six months after that first conversation (not that I was counting), my period failed to show up. Everything went so well it was hard to believe, everything perfect, every ultrasound, every test. Even the delivery was a breeze, and then I had myself a perfect little baby girl, seven pounds and seven ounces.

  So I know it comes across as a little ungrateful to complain about it. But in those days, what I felt wasn’t gratitude or happiness but loneliness and boredom. We talked about putting Taryn in day care but I balked at the idea of leaving such a fragile, not-yet-verbal creature at the mercy of strangers. We talked about a nanny but our budget was already strained after the renovations and would take a couple more years to recover.

  So I stayed at home with Taryn, my ebook cover business barely clinging on. Most of the time—if not all the time—I was alone, taking care of Taryn, cleaning, cooking baby purees. After I put her to sleep, I barely had the energy to read a book and would collapse into bed by eight thirty. Scott blithely suggested I ask Therese to come over and help, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I’d rather pull out my own wisdom teeth.

  When I complained to Scott that I felt, for all intents and purposes, like a single mom, he only scoffed and rolled his eyes. Yeah, he said, a single mom with a full ride. Every woman in existence is jealous of you, Cecelia. They all want what you have.

  This was probably true. But that day, Taryn had been horrible, and putting her to bed took close to an hour. When I finally tiptoed out of her room, I felt anything but lucky. I let myself fall onto the living room couch, contemplated the blank TV screen, and wondered if it was worth the risk to turn it on even at the lowest volume. My stomach rumbled, and I tried to remember if there was anything in the fridge that I could just reheat; cooking was unfathomable.

  I picked up my phone, thinking I could order takeout through one of the many apps, but instead saw a text from Scott:

  Will be late again tonight. Sorry! Don’t wait up! xoxoxo

  Don’t wait up. Just who does he think he is? I gritted my teeth, forgetting my hunger. Throwing a sideways glance at the dark hall, at the door of Taryn’s room at the end of it, I finally chanced turning on the TV. For the first five minutes, I sat still, barely daring to breathe. But after no sound came from down the hall, I finally relaxed. I went to get a carton of ice cream from the freezer. With the new open-concept space, I could do so without needing to pause my TV show because I could hear everything just fine. Maybe there was something to this thing after all…

  Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. It shouldn’t have been too surprising, exhausted as I was. I’d just passed out on the couch, closing my eyes for only a second before I drifted off into dreamland. The point is, I woke up I don’t know how much time later. The screen of the TV was frozen with that existential query, Are you still watching Scandal? The remains of the ice cream were liquid at the bottom of the pint.

  And I wasn’t alone in the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  This is where I should excuse myself and make my exit. Anna Finch is looking at me with wide eyes filled with curiosity. Well, I’m not a circus animal, and regardless of why she invited me here, I’m not here to entertain her with sordid stories. But I sit there, with the wisteria swaying gently above my head, and don’t move.

  My phone screen inquires whether I’ve chosen what I’d like to eat.

  “I guess I went about this the wrong way,” concedes Anna. “I didn’t mean to stir up bad memories. I’m sorry.”

  I give a dry nod and swallow. The drink is sitting in front of me but the very thought of its cloying sweetness makes my teeth hurt. “I suppose you’re dying to hear the full story,” I say softly. “About how he threatened me. About how he went into my daughter’s room and took her out of her bed and told me he’d smash her head against the wall if I didn’t show him where all our valuables are. About how I led him to the drawer in the bedroom and then took Scott’s handgun out of its hiding place and shot him with it. I repeated it so many times to the police. I can manage one final performance.”

  I’d hoped for a look of dismay but she doesn’t betray it. She faces me calmly. “I’m a lawyer, Cecelia. I’m not easily shocked.”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s your job to defend guys like him.”

  “Or women like you.”

  “I didn’t need defending. Anyone in their right mind would know I did the only thing I could do.”

  “I’m not saying the contrary.”

  “Then why did you lure me here?” My calm cracks, my voice rising in pitch. “It’s only because of that. Not because you’re sorry, is it?”

  “I didn’t lure you anywhere. And sure, I admit, I had a certain…curiosity. Maybe”—she looks down at her beautiful, manicured hands—“I just wanted to see what you were like. Maybe because we’re not as different as you seem to think.”

  I’m still a little shocked that she would even ask about this to my face. But would it be worse to gossip about it behind my back instead? I’m already paranoid about that. It was part of the reason Scott was able to persuade me to move. I was tired of being dogged by that feeling everywhere I went, at the coffee shop, at the grocery store, just walking down the street in my old neighborhood. The feeling that people were observing me, watching me out of the corner of their eye, fear and morbid curiosity etched in their expressions. Or worse yet, pity.

  “There are hundreds of shootings in this city every year,” I mutter. “Maybe thousands.” Meaning to say, why get fixated on me?

  “Indeed there are,” she says darkly. This shift in tone is unexpected. “But not like this one.” She casts her eyes down once more, a
look that doesn’t suit her features or her manner. “You’re extraordinary in your own way. Unique. If anything, please forgive me for saying so but you’re kind of a role model.”

  I nearly laugh in her face. What is she talking about? Is she in her right mind? Is her mimosa too strong?

  But Anna looks up again, and her gaze locks on mine. It’s a strange, raw look, devoid of defenses or pretenses. I can’t help but shudder inwardly.

  “If you’re curious,” she says, “my name used to be Anna Lindberg. Go ahead, look it up. I’ll wait. It’s only fair.”

  Under that intense gaze, I have no choice but to cave. Clumsily, I pick up my phone, open the browser, and start to type, daring to glance up at her every couple of seconds. She’s watching me, unwavering.

  “It’s Lindberg without an H,” she’s saying, not bothering too much to keep her voice down.

  I backspace. Then tap Go.

  The story unfurls in headlines.

  POLICE SEEKING SUSPECT IN CAR CRASH

  A hit-and-run caused a major accident this morning, I read.

  The suspect ran a red light, causing a pileup. The driver of one of the vehicles as well as two passengers of another are in critical condition. Police are looking for the suspect, who was driving a red Toyota SUV. Alcohol is a suspected cause. Unfortunately, the camera at the intersection has been disabled for several weeks for maintenance so no one was able to get the license plate of the vehicle. The police are asking anyone who may have witnessed the events or who might have any useful information to please contact—

  I read on.

  FATAL HIT-AND-RUN STILL UNSOLVED

  According to our sources, one of the victims of Wednesday’s car crash, eight-year-old Marie Lindberg, has passed away as a result of her injuries. The other victim, reportedly Marie’s father, is now in stable condition. The police are still searching for the driver of a red Toyota SUV, make and model unspecified. The driver is suspected of causing the collision that has now cost two people their lives, including the driver of one of the other cars involved. If you have any information that can aid the investigation, please call—

  Onward.

  NO HOPE: MOTHER OF HIT-AND-RUN VICTIM SPEAKS OUT

  I don’t read the article. I don’t need to. There’s a full-color photo below the title, and I recognize Anna at once even though the hair is different—shorter, straighter, and blonder, probably requiring many hours at the salon and in front of the mirror in the morning. Now she has let it grow back to its natural state. To hide? Or because these things became unimportant all of a sudden? In the photo, she’s sitting with her hands folded primly in her lap, dressed in an austere black blazer. Her face is made up, and her expression grave.

  I look up from my phone. Anna is observing me intently, her expression neutral. Heat rises into my own face, and I know I must be turning crimson. I can’t bring myself to meet her gaze. It’s almost like I feel vulnerable on her behalf. This should make me vindicated, after being lured here and confronted like that, but instead, I feel a deep sadness. And, like it or not, a kinship.

  “So when we met with Clarisse and she told us there was a place where this would never, ever happen,” she says softly, “I jumped at the opportunity. And as you can see, I’m not the only one. I wanted my daughter to grow up safe. Something you can relate to, I think.”

  I gulp. She’s right, 100 percent right. Yet I’m overcome with a sense of wrongness I can’t shake.

  “All my neighbors? Even…” I have to pause and rack my brain for her name. “Dorothea?”

  Anna gives the smallest shrug. She leans in and whispers something in my ear.

  “I think…” My mouth goes dry. “I think I’d like to go home.”

  * * *

  Jessica’s office is more akin to a cubicle, although it does technically have four walls. It’s just that two of them are made of glass so there’s never much privacy.

  IntelTech is a big fan of minimalism, and her work space, like all the ones occupied by her coworkers, reflects that. It basically consists of an ergonomic chair, an empty desk, and a giant computer screen she stares at all day as alerts, complaints, and requests pour in, an endless river. The only times she leaves is to deal with pressing issues at Clarisse’s bidding. It’s not unlike those cautionary-tale jobs she knows about, where you sit in a dark room in a nondescript building somewhere and flag forbidden material at the behest of some social-media giant, all for minimum wage or close. At least all she has to cope with is the foibles of the über-rich and otherwise privileged, which in comparison shouldn’t be that bad.

  She, like the many others in other cubicles, has her own segment she deals with, which includes not just Rosemary Road but the whole quadrant. Lately, though, it’s Cecelia Holmes who’s been taking up much of Jessica’s time. Cecelia Holmes’s house, to be exact.

  She pulls up the tab that has the house at 32 Rosemary Road laid out to the smallest details. She scrolls through the blueprints, the specs, the photos: a dream home, as it was designed to be.

  Yet in the three years since it was built, it’s already managed to become the scene of a woman’s murder. One could write it off as an unlucky coincidence but now the house is acting up. This is undeniable: One look at the charts, and it’s clear that the vast majority of complaints and bug reports are from 32 Rosemary Road. This reflects badly on Jessica, and, by extension, on her standing at IntelTech. As much as Jess feels ambivalent about it, if she wants to keep her job, she better figure out what the hell is wrong with that house. Cecelia Holmes seems to think the house is being hacked but Jess knows this is impossible: IntelTech houses are unhackable, period.

  To think it was Jess who found the Holmeses and sent the application to Clarisse. She should be cursing the day the idea dawned on her. They were perfect candidates and convincing them was a piece of cake—and naturally, Jess collected a nice bonus check, money she couldn’t afford to refuse. But that Cecelia Holmes is a handful. Jess isn’t supposed to let her feelings affect her job but sometimes it’s harder than usual.

  Jess knows everything about everyone in her quadrant; it’s part of her job. She can see everything in real time, who’s cheating, who’s scheming, who isn’t who they pretend to be. At first, she found it disillusioning, then entertaining in a sordid sort of way, but lately it’s just sad. She felt nothing but sadness for poor Lydia. And now, even though Cecelia is quite the piece of work, she almost feels bad for her too. Poor woman. She has no idea what’s happening behind her back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I don’t tell my husband about Anna and our lunch. For now, I decide to hang on to what I learned.

  Against my better judgment, perhaps, I go back and read the full article below the photo of the old Anna.

  “Unless a witness comes forward, it’s hopeless,” Anna Lindberg says. “We live in the 21st century, and we think these things can’t happen anymore. You can’t just cause an accident that kills two people, one of them a child”—here her voice betrayed a tremor that her dry-eyed demeanor had been hiding so well—“and get away with it, with no one the wiser. I certainly never thought it could happen. The truth is, we fell through the cracks. This person slipped away in a perfect storm of failures. Traffic cameras out of order for weeks, surveillance footage not being recorded. A fake camera at a storefront. I feel like I’m trapped in the Middle Ages. There’s no way for me to get justice for my daughter.”

  She paused to take a breath and to have a small sip of mineral water from the nearly untouched glass on the table in front of her. She refolded her hands before speaking again.

  “But somebody out there knows something. And eventually the truth will come to light.”

  I sit on my living room couch, tablet in my lap, and think. Somehow, the truth didn’t come to light, and at this point, I doubt it will. Anna must doubt it also, which was why she decided to move on with her life—in a safer, better place. In light of this, all my complaining about our new home seems pett
y and ungrateful. I press my palms against my warming cheeks.

  Somewhere in the background, music starts to play softly. I don’t even notice right away because it’s a mellow, jazzy melody but then the lyrics kick in. Follow my lead, oh, how I need / Someone to watch over me…

  I leap from the couch. “Saya!” I bark into emptiness.

  The music gently grows in volume. There’s no answer.

  “Saya?” I repeat, feeling foolish. The same feeling from the early days in this house returns—like I’m talking to myself. I never truly expect her to answer. But so far, she always has. “Saya, turn off the music!”

  Nothing happens. The song continues to pour from hidden speakers all over the house, making it sound like it’s coming out of nowhere and everywhere at once.

  I pick up my tablet with the intention to override manually but the screen is frozen. I tap away at it in frustration but it might as well be a simple piece of glass.

  A noise from the kitchen makes me jump and nearly drop the tablet. A deep, mechanical whir that I don’t recognize over the music, which is growing and growing in volume until it’s so loud I can’t think. Against all my better instincts, I race to the kitchen and stop cold, dumbfounded.

  On the counter, two coffees are already waiting. The machine is busily whipping up a third, identical to the first two. I don’t need to taste the drink—the heap of whipped cream sprinkled with cardamom and the pungent, sweet smell of syrup in the air tell me everything I need to know.

  A wave of fear travels up my spine. My knees wobble and then buckle, and I sink to the floor, my hands pressed over my ears, which does nothing to drown out the music.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Saya!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

  At first, I think my eardrums must have burst because everything grows silent at once. No more coffee machine whirring, no more music, which leaves behind a tinny ringing in my ears. I dare open one eye and then the other. Three coffees are waiting on the counter, piled high with whipped cream.