Married to a Stranger

by MacDonald, Patricia

  David sprang across the room, wielding a tire iron, and whacked it across Kieran’s back. The boy’s grip on Natalie loosened. He staggered and cried out.

  David did not hesitate. He struck a blow at Kieran’s shoulder that then glanced off the side of his head. Kieran crumpled to the floor.

  Natalie was staring at David.

  David crouched down and pushed the boy over, picking up the knife. Kieran was unconscious, a bruise blackening the side of his face. David stood up. Emma watched him, her heart in her throat. He looked at Natalie. Then he turned and cut the bonds that tied Emma to the chair and handed the knife to her. In that instant, Natalie understood. She threw herself at him, clawing at his face, pummeling him with her fists. Screaming.

  Ignoring her rage, David lifted the tire iron and held it up.

  “Natalie,” he shouted, making himself heard over her cries. “Don’t make me kill you. I promise you, if I hit you with this thing, I will kill you.”

  Natalie stopped for a moment and stepped back, eyes wide. Emma raised the knife, ready and willing to plunge it into Natalie if she came one step closer, but Natalie did not notice. She was gazing at Emma’s husband.

  “How did you know I was here?” Natalie asked.

  David returned her gaze coldly. “I was searching for Emma. When I came to the door, I knew there was something familiar about the boy. I was driving away and I kept thinking I had seen his face. Trying to place him. It was the hat that threw me off. Hiding the pink hair and that ugly-assed eye on his forehead. Mentally, I tried to remove the hat. And then I remembered. The boy with the three eyes. From the Wrightsman Center. Emma’s patient. She was so kind to that kid. What did you do to him?”

  Natalie ignored his question. “I told Emma about us, David. She didn’t know.”

  David’s face reddened. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said dully.

  “Really?” Natalie asked. “Nothing to tell?”

  Emma saw the guilt in David’s eyes and she knew that it was true. He and Natalie were lovers. It was not some figment of Natalie’s fevered imagination.

  “There was no reason to tell her. It was a meaningless affair. Especially, when I thought you were dead…”

  “Meaningless? You loved me,” she cried.

  “I never loved you,” David said.

  “You did,” Natalie cried. “You did and you know it. Don’t bother to deny it for her sake.” Natalie looked at Emma with loathing. “He couldn’t get enough of me.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Emma said dully.

  “Don’t talk to my wife,” said David. “Spare her your venom.”

  Natalie glared at David. “Did you mourn for me?” Natalie cried. “Did you weep over my grave?”

  David shook his head. “Weep for you? Hardly. I thought it was justice, although you took the coward’s way out. You ran over that old man. You got out of the car to make sure he was dead and then kept on going.”

  “Were you with her when it happened?” Emma cried, horrified.

  David shook his head. “No. I didn’t even know about it until the guy with the videotape contacted her. I had already met you and broken it off with her, but she called me and pleaded with me. Said she had a horrible problem and only I could help.”

  “So you went to her again.”

  David was staring at Natalie. “I went to her. She told me everything and begged me to help her.”

  Natalie glared back at him.

  “And you helped her?” Emma asked.

  “I told her to turn herself in,” he said. “Or I would.”

  “You didn’t give a damn about helping me,” Natalie said.

  “You killed a man, Natalie,” said David.

  Natalie shook her head. “You make it sound so righteous. Tell the truth, David. You wanted me out of the way so you could marry this heiress for her money. But I wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction. Did you think I would just go away quietly and let you get away with that? Did you think you wouldn’t have to pay for your crimes? I asked you for help and you betrayed me. Whose crimes are worse?”

  Outside the house, cars were roaring into the clearing and doors were slamming. Emma looked toward the window. She could hear Chief Osmund on a bullhorn, yelling for his men to shoot to kill if necessary. And Joan Atkins was urging caution in a cool but insistent tone. Emma knew she should feel elated, but all she could feel was numb.

  “The police are here,” Emma said.

  David looked sadly at Emma, who turned away from his gaze. Then he looked back at Natalie. “Your crimes are worse. But tell that to my wife, who will not look at me. And to my best friend whom I did betray…”

  “Burke is dead,” Emma said dully. “They killed him.”

  “NO,” David protested.

  “That’s what they said,” said Emma.

  David blanched and seemed to sway slightly. “He was never anything but good to you, Natalie. He did everything in his power to help you.”

  “He kept me a prisoner in his little well-ordered world. With his theories and his medications and his KISS THE COOK aprons. I was dying slowly living there with him. I told you that the first time we were together. Remember?”

  “David,” Emma said, recoiling. “My God.”

  “I remember,” said David. “I remember thinking at that moment that my friend Burke was too good for you. That I should walk away from you and never look back.”

  “But you didn’t,” she cried triumphantly. “Did you?”

  Emma held her breath for a moment. Wishing he would deny it. Say it wasn’t so.

  David shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  There was a pounding on the door. “Police,” yelled Audie Osmund.

  “Come in,” Emma cried, gripping the knife tighter and holding it high, ready to strike if she had to. “We’re in here.”

  “Save me,” Natalie whispered to David, stepping over Kieran’s limp body on the floor. Her cheeks were flushed, her alabaster skin beaded in sweat.

  Emma looked at him, wondering what he felt, wondering how she could have known him so little. His face was expressionless.

  “Never,” David said. “Not even if I could.”

  33

  IT WAS after midnight when they were finished, for the time being, with the police, the hospital, and the press. Natalie was in jail, held without bail. Kieran was treated at the hospital and then he too was arrested and held in jail. Burke was in critical care, but conscious. The doctors were optimistic about his prognosis. He told the police that he began to suspect that Natalie was not dead when Emma received the shell dish as a wedding present. The autopsy results confirmed to him that he had identified the wrong body. And he had gone in search of his wife. With dire results.

  David and Emma had given their statements, advised by Mr. Yunger, who had shown up in a tuxedo, called away from a New Jersey Bar Association dinner, to shepherd them through the process. They had run the gauntlet of reporters, Yunger insisting that they would not compromise their testimony by speaking to the press. Now, finally, they were home. David unlocked their front door and held it open as Emma slowly and painfully made her way inside. She unfastened the toggle clasp on her cape. David lifted the ripped and stained garment off her shoulders and hung it on a hook inside the closet door. “We should throw this thing away,” he said.

  “NO,” said Emma sharply. “No. I want to keep it.”

  Emma walked to the door of the living room and leaned against the doorframe as David went around switching on the standing lamp and the various amber glass table lamps. Emma looked around the room. It was relatively tidy, thanks to the late Lizette, who had cleaned it up for them before she met her death at Kieran’s hand. Some trace of the efficient, doomed nurse seemed to linger, a sorrowful note in the room. Once Emma and David had imagined themselves on cold nights like this, cuddled in front of their fireplace, the room illuminated by candles and the color of the glass lamps. But now, even in the warm, amber glow, the ro
om did not beckon her.

  “Come and sit down,” David said.

  Emma felt too numb and exhausted to protest. She went over to the leather sofa and sat down in the corner, against a large, tapestry pillow.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  Emma shook her head. “I feel like we’ve been gone for years,” she said.

  “I know,” he said.

  She studied him for a moment. “Did you ever suspect?” she asked.

  “Never,” he said. “I’m ashamed to admit this, but I had really begun to think that it might be Burke.”

  “Burke?” she cried.

  “I didn’t know what to think. The notes at your job. He could have been responsible. I thought he might have found out about my affair with his wife. I was becoming pretty paranoid.”

  “Poor Burke,” Emma said.

  “I know. But they think he’ll be okay.”

  Emma shook her head. “How is he supposed to ever recover from this? The shock. The betrayal…”

  They were silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” David said. “We all have to recover.”

  “Somehow,” she said.

  “Tomorrow we’ll start over again. Start fresh.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I think I’ll go out to Chicago tomorrow. And stay with my mother and Rory for a while.”

  He was silent. She waited for a response, but there was none. Finally, she looked at him.

  “Why?” he said, staring straight ahead.

  “Because I feel like I need to…get away.”

  “From me,” he said.

  “Just get away.”

  “From us,” he said accusingly.

  “David, I don’t want to argue. I’m too tired.”

  “From our marriage.”

  “What marriage?” she snapped.

  For one second she looked at him balefully, directly in the eye. She saw that she had wounded him. In a way, she was glad. In a hollow way. She looked down at her hands, flexing them in her lap. “Look, don’t get me wrong. I am grateful to you for finding me. For coming after me. And I don’t want you to misunderstand. I don’t blame you for what Natalie tried to do to me. She’s mentally ill and she’s cruel. It’s a terrible combination. I owe you my life, David. I’ll never forget that.”

  “Well, that’s really touching,” he said bitterly. “Considering that you assumed I was trying to kill you.”

  Emma straightened up. “What would you have thought, if you were me?” she demanded, refusing to be ashamed. “I had to assume that. I am carrying a baby. I couldn’t take a chance with my baby’s life. If you’re insulted, well, I’m sorry. I didn’t see myself as having a lot of choices.”

  “I know,” he said.

  They sat tensely, side by side, not touching. Emma was aware of her heart aching. A little part of her wanted simply to say so. Admit to her pain, because it was true. But he might interpret that to mean that it was all right. That everything was all right. And it wasn’t.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” David said at last.

  Emma did not reply. She knew that nothing David had done would ever compare to Natalie’s crimes. But betrayal was not really a crime with levels.

  “We’re not going to make it if you don’t tell me,” he pleaded. “Just tell me.”

  “So you can say it isn’t true.”

  She saw a flicker of anger in his eyes. Before he could respond she said, “I can’t understand how you justified it to yourself.”

  David flinched but did not look away.

  “How you took the wife of your closest friend for a lover.”

  “I wanted to,” he said.

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she almost wondered why. “That’s great, David,” she said.

  “I know it.”

  “Have you no loyalty? How could you do that to Burke?”

  David drew in a deep breath. “I could say she seduced me, but I’m not a teenager. I wanted her, and I thought…I don’t know.” He exhaled. “I wish I could tell you how I agonized over it. But in the end, I did it. Even if I did agonize over it, that wouldn’t change what I did.”

  “He was your dearest friend.”

  “He was more like a brother to me,” said David. “Complete with rivalry. As a kid, I always envied him. That’s not an excuse, by the way.”

  Emma was silent.

  “What else are you thinking?” he asked.

  “Isn’t that enough?” she cried.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But it’s not all.”

  She didn’t want to say it out loud because deep in her heart, she suspected that Natalie must have been lying. But even a lie can fester inside you. He was looking at her. Waiting.

  “She said you still loved her. Even though you married me.”

  David stared at her, silently insisting that she meet his gaze. Finally, she acquiesed.

  “Do you believe that?” he asked.

  Emma said nothing.

  “Look. I’m not going to tell you all about my affair with Natalie, Emma. Neither one of us is a masochist. But I will tell you this. When I went to see her, after the blackmailer called, I asked her to tell me about the accident. The old man’s death. She told me everything. She was exhilarated, she was speeding, singing along to a CD, and then bam. She hit him. She never saw him walking by the side of the road. She got out to look, and the old man was dying. She looked all around and didn’t see anyone. And it occurred to her that she was lucky. That if she left right away, everything would be fine. Because no one would know.” David shook his head. “How can you think I ever loved her?”

  “But you wanted her. You wanted her enough to betray your friend.”

  “I acted like a pig,” he said.

  “And with me? What was it with me?”

  “Emma. You know what it was. What it is. Surely you haven’t forgotten us. Emma, I am just not that good an actor. You know?”

  Emma knew. She thought of all their days and nights together. The way their bodies met, heart and soul. “I know,” she said. “I’m just so mad at you. For not being…what I thought you were.”

  “Honorable?” he asked.

  Tears came to her eyes again, and she let them fall.

  David sighed. “You know, when you started to get those crazy letters, I actually thought for a moment that they sounded like something Natalie would write. But then I thought, Natalie is dead. I wasn’t even capable of imagining what she did.”

  “Were those her letters in the locked drawer?”

  David nodded. “Yes. After I broke it off, she kept sending them to me. They were…ravings. It was fascinating. In a repulsive sort of way.”

  “I can imagine,” Emma said glumly.

  “Emma, it’s over now. You don’t need to go to your mother’s,” he said. He slid right beside her on the couch and carefully put his arm around her. “You need to stay here with me. We need to start our marriage over. Get ready for our baby. We need to prove that Natalie did not destroy our dream.”

  Emma shook her head helplessly.

  “Look, I’m not any good at this,” he said. “All my life I despised my father, and I acted just like him. I’ve always been good at leaving, not staying. But when I made those wedding vows to you, I said them from the heart. They were for you and our baby too. Our children. You’re the smart one, Em. Help me figure out how to do this.”

  His handsome face was near hers, and his sad eyes searched hers. More than anything she wanted to let go and relax against him. She looked away, looked at the blackness outside the windows, and thought of spring, when the baby would be born. How she longed for those endless, pale blue evenings. No more darkness She turned to face him directly. “Did you sleep with her again, after we met?”

  “No,” he said.

  Yes. No. What did it really prove? she wondered. How could you ever really know?

  “I did not betray you, Emma,” he said.
“I will never betray you.”

  “How can I believe you?” She looked at him, wondering.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  “Swear it,” she said. “Swear it on our baby’s life.”

  David hesitated. Then he shook his head. “No. I won’t,” he said. “Leave our baby out of it. This is between you and me.”

  To her surprise, his words filled her with relief. She realized that she had posed him an impossible condition. After all, it was the nature of lovers to promise to be true. And to mean it, at least for the moment, with all their hearts. But a parent, a father, did not barter his child’s life, just to get his way. In denying her request, he had actually convinced her it might be possible to try again. There was no going back to the innocent bliss of her wedding day. She would have to mourn that loss for a while.

  Emma sighed. “I think maybe if I just spend some time away from you. Go out to my mother’s. It might help,” she said. “I need time to think.”

  “No, Em. Think here. Think with me. I’ll give you plenty of room. All the room you want. But this is no time to be apart. Stay here.” He picked up her left hand, where her gold band glinted. “For better or for worse. That’s what we promised.”

  She looked down at her hand in his. “That is what we promised,” she admitted.

  “We’re due for some ‘better,’” he said.

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Can we start over?” he asked.

  She frowned, wondering if they could. He was not the prince she had imagined him to be. She knew perfectly well that it was foolish to imagine any man a prince. But all the same, she had.

  He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “We can make it, Em,” he said. “If you can forgive me and let us try again, we can make it. The three of us. You, me, and our baby.”

  “The three of us,” she said, imagining her baby safely sleeping inside of her. She did want to believe they would be a family. That was why she married him in the first place. He was no prince, but a man, like any other. Their life would not be perfect, but it was the life she wanted. Forgiveness was a good place to start. She hesitated, and then she made her choice. She reached out and ran her fingertips down the side of his face. And in her heart, she prayed for grace.