I’m startled with the suddenness of reality, then disappointment slams into me as I realize that I’m alone. My wife isn’t here. I’m not making love to her. The sheets are cold, the house is quiet.
Damn it.
Damn it.
I stare at the ceiling, calming myself down, slowing my breathing.
I’m alone.
Corinne is across town. In another bed.
I get to my feet with a sigh and let the dog out, and it’s as I’m watching her out the window that my phone rings.
“Jude?” It’s Dr. Phillips, which startles me. He doesn’t usually call this early.
“Is something wrong?”
“Don’t worry, it’s under control now. Corinne had a bit of an episode last night. She thought someone was in her room. We tried to discuss it at an early session this morning, but she had another episode. We had to sedate her, but she’s resting comfortably now.”
I’m silent as I process that.
“Jude? Don’t worry. It’s under control.”
“How bad was it?” I ask slowly, imagining the worst.
There’s a pause.
“She didn’t try to hurt herself again, if that’s what you’re asking. She had a panic attack and was clawing at her throat. But she was out of it. She wasn’t purposely trying to hurt herself.”
I suck in a breath.
This can’t be my life.
This isn’t my wife. It isn’t.
“Was it because... I mean, has she remembered?”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “Can I come see her before Saturday?”
Another long pause. “I don’t think that would be wise,” he finally answers. “In fact, we might want to put a pin in Saturday, too. She really needs to focus on herself right now, Jude. If you’re here, she’ll be worried about how you are perceiving her, or you could even trigger memories that she simply can’t handle right now. Why don’t we discuss this as the weekend draws closer?”
I’m numb as I hang up.
Numb as I pour some coffee.
Numb as I pour it down the drain without drinking it.
My coffee sucks ass.
I pick up the phone, and Michel answers on the first ring.
“Can we meet for breakfast early? I don’t want to be alone.”
My brother’s answer is immediate. “I’ll meet you in ten minutes.”
I make it to the café in nine.
I get my regular table and wait for my brother, and it isn’t long before his hand is on my shoulder.
“Been waiting long?” He grins.
I shake my head. “No.”
He sits, examining my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Besides everything?”
I tell him about Corinne’s newest developments as I sip on coffee. My heart feels heavy and hard, and everything seems a little hopeless.
“What if she never gets out?” I ask, and I know I sound crazy. I’m talking about my talented, brilliant wife. That idea is preposterous.
“She’ll get out,” Michel assures me. “And soon. I promise.”
I look away, at the floor, at the wall. My eyes sting, and I don’t want Michel to see. I’m not a pussy, for God’s sake.
When I look up, Zoe is sauntering toward us. Her eyes are knowing, her hips are swaying. When she stops next to me, her hand is familiar and warm on my back, and she flirts with both my brother and me in her typical fashion.
“What are we having, sailors?”
Michel orders, then Zoe turns to me. Her fingers trail down my back, lingering, and no one can see. I’m the only one who knows.
“I’ll have a ham-and-cheese omelet.”
“Anything you want, sugar.”
She winks and walks away, and Michel watches her go.
“She’s taken to this job,” he observes, watching her flirt with another patron at another table.
“Yeah, you did her a service getting it for her.”
I glance over my shoulder and see her picking up her phone. Her eyes are on mine, and she purposefully walks away toward the bathroom.
Two minutes later, my phone buzzes with a text. I already know it will be from her.
I glance at it, then shift it so no one can see.
It’s a picture of her bare tits, her fingers tweaking her own nipple.
Come suck it? she texts next. Please?
I swallow hard and furtively glance at my brother. He’s oblivious as he checks his own phone.
No, I answer.
Not right now? she replies. She knows she has me now. She knows my situation is precarious. She knows she can blow it all out of the water.
I put my phone in my pocket without answering. She’s the devil in a waitress uniform.
She brings our food twenty minutes later and sits next to us for a minute, and when she throws back her head and laughs, she puts her hand on my knee and leaves it there. There’s a weird tension between us, like a live wire flipping around on hot pavement.
Michel notices, and I shrug away from Zoe, her hand falling away.
She looks at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Well, I’ll leave you boys to eat,” she says, standing up and walking away.
Michel stares at me over his coffee cup.
“Anything you’d like to say?” he asks calmly, unruffled.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what you mean. You know how she flirts.”
“Yeah. I guess.” But he’s troubled as he eats. I can see it on his face. And he has every reason to be troubled. I am, too. I have no idea how I got into this tangled-up mess.
And it is a mess.
The only question is...how am I going to get out of it?
8
Eleven days, twelve hours until Halloween
Corinne
I’m walking through the ER, and everything is still.
This can’t be right, I think. The ER can’t be this quiet.
But it is. It’s motionless, silent. I peek into an exam room, and Jackie and Jude are lying on gurneys, their eyes wide-open, their mouths slack.
They’re dead and bloody, and I scream. Only, no noise comes out.
Even my screams are silent, and I can’t seem to move to help anyone.
I try, because I’m a doctor, and maybe I can bring them back, and I struggle against the air, against unseen hands restraining me.
But I can’t. I can’t get to them, and they’re dead, and I couldn’t stop it.
“Corinne!”
A voice, my father’s, calls out from across the hall. I’m terrified, and now I can move, but only toward him. Unbidden, one foot steps in front of the other, until I’m standing in front of the curtain. Shaking, I pull it back.
My father sits on the table, his mouth a bloody grotesque mess.
“You haven’t fixed it yet,” he accuses, and his teeth are missing. “Fix it.”
“I can’t fix it,” I insist. “It’s yours to fix.”
“No, it’s not,” he argues, and blood streams down his chin. “It’s yours.”
I’m confused and I stand still, and the whispers seem to come from everywhere, surrounding me, filling my ears.
Cuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcunt.
They hiss and spin and strike me, and then...
My eyes startle open, and I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom.
I’m soaked in sweat, and my fingers are wrapped in a sheet. I untangle them and allow the circulation to flow back to my hand. Rubbing at it, I stare at my husband. He’s sleeping peacefully, burrowed under his pillow, oblivious to my torment.
It’s the second nightmare in one night.
It was so real that I thought it was.
I sit up in bed and take a dr
ink, then take several deep breaths, willing my racing heart to slow. As I move, Jude hears me and stirs.
“Co?” he asks in confusion. “When did you get home?”
“A few hours ago.” I run my fingers through my damp hair, and Jude notices my sweat.
“What’s wrong?” I can see his concern, even in the shadows.
“A nightmare.”
“Oh, babe.” He sighs, reaching to rub my back. “It’s okay. I’m here. Nothing bad is going to happen. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
My husband’s fingers feel good on my skin, familiar and soothing, and I’ll never want anyone else to touch me but him. I allow myself to relax, to close out the images from my head.
“I’ll never forget it,” I tell him softly.
He nods. “I know. No one would. But you can move on from it, Co. It doesn’t have to hold this power over you.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, because my brain knows that. It really does. But my heart... My heart isn’t so logical.
“I just wish I could unsee what I saw,” I offer limply.
Jude pulls me into his arms, and his warm breath moves my hair.
“You can’t,” he replies simply. “But we can deal with them, babe. I promise you.”
“It’s been years,” I tell him, and I feel so dejected.
“I know. But the mind works in powerful ways,” he tells me. “You know that. Be patient. I really think you should see someone, babe. You need help working through this. You should’ve gotten help long ago.”
“I don’t know,” I answer doubtfully. “I don’t want to see a psychiatrist.” I stare at the ceiling and remember my panic attack. “Or maybe I do. I don’t know.”
I don’t say what I’m thinking...that I’m afraid of what I’ll find if I poke around my head too much. Something feels like it’s there...lurking just behind a wall...waiting for me to find it.
Jude squeezes my hand. “Just hang in there. We’ll figure this out. What time do you work today?”
“Second shift.”
I know he hates second shift, and so do I. It means I can sleep in, but it also means that I won’t see Jude until almost midnight. He sighs, hard, just like I knew he would. When you’ve been married so long, you can anticipate your spouse’s reactions.
“I swear. It won’t be for much longer,” I tell him, and I mean it. “As soon as they get another doctor in, I’ll transition to Family Practice.”
“I’ve heard that before.” Jude is wry.
“I know. But I mean it.”
He turns to me, his eyes almost green in the early morning light. There’s something there in those mossy depths, something I haven’t seen in a while.
“Are you sure? Because that would mean that you’d actually have to spend time with me.”
His words are pointed, barbed, at the same time as they are insecure.
His implication takes my breath away.
“What are you talking about?” I ask hesitantly, because that’s crazy. “You’re the most important person in my whole world.”
“You have a weird way of showing it sometimes.” Jude’s eyes are hard, and he’s staring at me, and I see the truth in his gaze. He feels neglected.
I taste guilt in my mouth.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “Jude, I’m sorry. I never want you to feel that way. I love you.”
Something passes over his face, and he shakes his head, and his attitude is different.
“I know,” he tells me, and he sounds so tired. “I’m sorry. I’m just being passive-aggressive because I never see you. This will pass. These hours...everything.”
“Do you really believe that?” I ask, and he nods again.
“Yeah. I do.”
I grab his hand and squeeze it, his fingers entwining with mine.
“You know, let’s make a deal,” I suggest. “All honesty, all the time. If something bothers you, just tell me. And I’ll do the same. That way, we don’t get worked up about things that aren’t even true.”
He smiles. “I like that. It’s a good idea.”
“I have them sometimes.” I grin back and he chuckles. “In fact, I can go first right now...because I have a concern.”
Jude waits, and I continue. “It bothers me that we don’t have much of a sex life anymore,” I tell him honestly.
He stares at me, and I can practically see him biting back a sharp retort. His tongue must hurt from the effort.
“Okay. Point taken. And it bothers me that you’re not home more. It bothers me that we haven’t started a family yet, Corinne. We’re not spring chickens.”
A heavy feeling of dread drops onto my chest like it always does when he talks about having a baby. I swallow hard, then again, then again.
“I promise to come home by dinnertime at least twice a week.” I make a spur-of-the-moment resolution, addressing one thing at a time. “Can you promise that we’ll have sex once a week? I miss our sex life, Ju. It makes us feel closer, and without it...well...”
Without it, I feel so distant.
He grips my fingers.
“Yes. That’s a deal.”
We’re quiet then, and I almost think I’ve escaped an uncomfortable subject, but then Jude brings it up.
“What about our family?” he asks after a few minutes.
I swallow again. Hard.
“I...I don’t know.”
Jude’s hazel eyes look more green in the light, as they do whenever he’s upset. I try to meet his gaze, to meet the disappointed look there, but it’s hard. I look out the window instead.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I tell him quietly. “Living under the shadow of what my father did. I can hardly stomach the idea of bringing a child into that.”
“Into what?” Jude is frustrated now, as he always is when I speak of this. “You didn’t commit your father’s crime, Corinne. No one knows us here. Our child would never have to deal with it.”
He’s right. Of course he’s right.
But I’m not telling him the entire truth. I’m not telling him that I’m afraid of genetics. I’m afraid that our child might inherit my father’s mental illness... In fact, I’m afraid that I even have or my sister. My father didn’t snap until he was an adult.
Jude watches me, watches the wheels turn in my head. “It’ll be okay,” he tells me, and his voice is understanding. “Our baby would be okay.”
I nod. “I know. Maybe soon.”
Jude blinks away his disappointment at my non-commitment.
“Want to go get breakfast?” I ask him. “It’s almost morning. We can go to your little place—so I can make it up to you for coming home late all week.”
He pauses and almost seems reluctant.
“We can,” he tells me. “Or we can stay here and spend some quality time together.”
He stresses the word quality, and I know what that means. I’m so tired, but I don’t want to tell him that. I was the one who just asked for a better sex life, for God’s sake.
“What do you have in mind?” I flirt, ignoring my exhaustion, and I rub my hand on his leg. Once upon a time, that would’ve made him instantly hard, but we’re not twenty-five anymore, so it doesn’t.
“Let me show you.” His voice is a growl and he flips me over.
I suck in my breath because this is new—his roughness, his coming at me from the back. His fingers bite into my shoulders, and he pushes me into the bed. His passion is palpable, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen him this way.
Excitement laps into me, and I exhale in a rush.
My fingers curl into the sheets, and I hold on as he slides his fingers into me, rough rough rougher. One finger, two, then three.
I moan, and he moans into my neck, his chest rubbing my back, his heat leaching into my own. The friction is
delicious, and the aggression is pleasingly different.
It’s so unlike him, so unlike us, and for a minute, I revel in that. He’s taking a renewed interest in our sex life, taking my words to heart.
But then...then...
He grasps my neck from behind. His fingers curl around the sides of my flesh, not truly hard, but hard enough.
I suck in my breath, and for a minute, a strange minute, I feel panicked.
I don’t know why. It comes out of nowhere.
I feel subdued, compressed, constrained. It’s suddenly terrifying, and I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
My lungs are hot and I scramble around, pulling away from Jude, turning onto my back and pushing him away. It takes him a minute to realize what’s happening. His eyes are glazed over with sex.
“Jude, no.” I push at him. “Don’t.”
He comes to a halt, pausing over me, his forearms shaking with the effort.
His breath comes in pants, then it slows, then he rolls over to the side.
I feel a bit weak, and I’m embarrassed by the panic. What the hell is wrong with me?
“I was just trying something new,” Jude says finally, his voice low. “I wasn’t really choking you. I would never hurt you, Corinne. Surely you know that.”
“I do,” I answer quickly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I guess it was just unexpected. It wasn’t like you...and...”
I don’t know what else to say. My heart is starting to slow down now, and I feel ridiculously self-conscious. What the hell is wrong with me?
“It’s okay,” he assures me, but somehow his voice seems empty, or offended. Something seems off. “We won’t try rough sex again.”
“It’s not that,” I protest. “Just maybe tell me first next time.”
“Okay.”
We’re silent for a while, and he turns to me slightly, his lips in my hair. It should feel intimate, but instead, it doesn’t. It feels like we’re a million miles apart. We’re doing the right things, but it’s lacking substance. We’re on autopilot, going through the motions. I wonder if Jude feels the same way, and I wonder why it feels this way.
I feel a moment of panic, because marriage isn’t supposed to be like this.
“Jude?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you feel like something is wrong? With us, I mean?”
Such Dark Things Page 6