Such Dark Things

by Courtney Evan Tate

  And with that, he walks down the hallway without another word.

  I’m silent as he climbs into bed and hugs his edge. After I join him, he’s very careful not to touch me, and I find myself getting angry.

  “I get that you’re upset because of my hours,” I tell his broad back. “But you’re acting like a child. What is going on here? What are you really upset about?”

  “I’m not upset,” he tells me quickly. “I’ve got a rough patient. I’m just thinking about that. It’s not you, Corinne.”

  Not sweetie, not honey. Corinne.

  I’m almost stung by that.

  I let it go, and he falls asleep, and in the night, he’s careful not to touch me, to stay on his side of the bed.

  In the night, the few times I wake, I’m careful not to touch him, and he’s just as careful not to touch me.

  Jude is gone when my eyes open.

  He didn’t leave a note, and his running shoes are still sitting by the foot of the bed.

  I grab my phone and dial his number. It goes straight to voice mail. I swallow hard. He doesn’t usually act like this. It’s so unlike him.

  I call Michel.

  “Hey, big bro,” I greet him. “Is Jude with you?”

  There’s a pause.

  “No. Why? Is something wrong?”

  I swallow again. “We had a fight last night,” I tell him. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “He didn’t meet me for breakfast today,” Michel tells me. “Do you want me to go looking for him?”

  I think about that for a minute. If anyone can calm Jude down, it’s Michel. But no.

  “Nah. I’ll do it. Thank you, though.”

  “If I hear from him, I’ll have him call you,” he promises.

  “’Kay.”

  We hang up, and Jude still doesn’t answer his phone. It’s too early for work, and so I know where he’ll be.

  Eating.

  I throw a pair of yoga pants on and a T-shirt and don’t bother with makeup as I set out for the little diner that he loves.

  It’s been a while since I’ve been there, and Vilma is surprised as I walk through the door.

  “Dr. Cabot,” she greets me. “It’s so nice to see you.”

  “Likewise,” I tell her. “Is my husband here?”

  She nods. “Right this way.”

  Relief floods me. I found him. Thank God.

  When we round the corner, I see him...sitting at a little table with a waitress. She’s got her back to me, and Jude looks utterly forlorn. Her long hair flows down her back, and she’s patting his arm, and my guilt overwhelms me. He has to seek comfort from a complete stranger in the middle of a café because he couldn’t get it from me.

  “Hey,” I greet him when I reach the table.

  He looks up, and for a minute, he almost looks annoyed. But that can’t be right. He blinks, and the annoyed look is gone, and I had to be mistaken.

  The waitress slips away without saying anything, and without introducing herself. I make a point to not even look at her. I won’t give her the satisfaction.

  Because something about her attitude bothers me. It was almost possessive, almost agitated with me. But that also can’t be right. I’m just feeling guilty.

  I slide into the seat she vacated, and Jude stares at me.

  “Did I wake you?” His voice is chilly.

  “No,” I admit. “But I’m sorry you didn’t. I hate fighting with you, Jude. Tell me what’s going on so we can fix it.”

  He looks away, his gaze stony.

  “I’m not fighting,” he says, staring out the window. “I’m just tired of being ignored. I get that you have issues. I get that you struggle this time of year. I know all of that. But this goes on all year, Corinne. You work all hours of the day, and you don’t return my texts or phone calls, you don’t come home until late at night, and I didn’t sign up for that. I didn’t sign up to be married to voice mail. And that’s the only way I talk to you lately.”

  I suck in a breath. “I had no idea you were this upset about it,” I say slowly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’re never home to tell,” he answers, and his voice is resigned and tired. And holy shit, have I really let things slide this much?

  I put my hand on his, and he doesn’t move away. “Jude, I love you. I’m so sorry I’ve made you feel like this. I’ll work on it. I swear to God. We’ll fix it.”

  He relents now, his face softening, and I want to melt into the chair. When his sun shines on you, it’s so so warm. When it doesn’t, the world is cold. It makes you pray to have it back.

  “It’s okay,” he says, even if he does sound a little stiff. “I know. I’m just... I’m not being rational. It’s not your fault, Co. You’re just trying to work hard. I get it.”

  “I feel weird lately,” I tell him. “I feel like... I don’t know. I feel like...you might be distracted. Like you don’t like me.”

  I don’t want to say what I really want to say. That there might be someone else. Because there isn’t. Right? There’s no way.

  Jude looks away, his hand tapping anxiously on his leg. He’s still upset. He’s just trying to cover it.

  “That’s insane, Corinne,” he says finally. “You’re the only person in the world besides my brother who I truly like. Honest.”

  “I have an idea,” I tell him. “I’ll take the day off work. We’ll spend it together.”

  He hesitates, then shakes his head. “That’s okay. You can’t do that, and I have patients, too. But thank you for the gesture.”

  I stare at him. “Okay. But it’s not just for you. I need to spend time with you, too. I’ll take off early and meet you for dinner. We’ll fix this, Jude.”

  “Okay.” He squeezes my hand and looks over my shoulder. I follow his gaze, and the waitress has her back to us across the room. “We need our check,” he tells me.

  His check. I didn’t get anything.

  The girl comes back, and I’m determined not to look up at her. She’s not important. I don’t want to know if she’s beautiful. And also, I don’t know why, but I feel a strong urge to show her that she’s not important. I keep my gaze on the table. I watch her put the check down, and her hand seems to linger next to Jude’s for a second. A second too long. I grit my teeth and keep my gaze on the table, on her hand that is so so close to my husband’s.

  There’s something something something in my gut.

  Something startling.

  When she walks away, I finally look up and level a gaze at my husband. “How well do you know her?”

  His gaze is sharp. “Not very. Why?”

  I don’t know. “Something felt weird for a minute. I think she might like you more than you realize.”

  I can feel the girl staring at us now from across the room, and surely I’m wrong. She’s just waiting to pick up his check. I steel my nerve and don’t look up at her. Fuck her.

  Jude is annoyed. “Seriously, Corinne? That’s ridiculous. The kid is twentysomething. I think it’s just your guilt talking. You’re trying to displace it onto me.”

  It’s therapist-speak for I’m trying to distract myself from my own guilt by getting angry with Jude.

  He could be right. I do feel guilty.

  There’s nothing going on. Jude would never.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologize. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

  “Damn straight,” Jude says shortly. “I’m almost offended, honestly.”

  He’s icy cold again, and he’s right. What was I thinking?

  I apologize again, and he shakes his head, and I can’t do anything right with him lately, it seems.

  I refuse to look at her. I refuse to look at her. I refuse to look at her. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

  Outside, Jude turns
to me.

  “I’ll be home for dinner. Will you?”

  “Of course,” I assure him, squeezing his arm. “And if you need to talk today, call me.”

  “Will you answer?” He’s direct, and he has every right to ask.

  It makes me uncomfortable and I nod. “Yes. No matter what I’m doing.”

  He smiles now, but it’s tight and short, and when I lean up to kiss him, it’s also tight and short. His cheek feels like stone, and it doesn’t give. He gets into his car and drives away, and as I’m buckling myself into my own, I feel someone staring at me.

  I look up, and I see the outline of the waitress through the window. I still don’t see her face, but she seems like she’s probably pretty. She waves. I wave back.

  I’m an idiot for thinking anything was amiss. She’s just a kid, and she’s a waitress in a café where Jude eats every day. She likes tips, and it’s her job to be nice.

  Lord, I’ve got a vivid imagination.

  With a sigh, I nose my car out of my parking spot and drive home.

  27

  Four days, eight hours until Halloween

  Jude

  I died a thousand internal deaths when Corinne walked into the diner and I was sitting with Zoe.

  Even now, in the privacy of my own car, I feel short of breath, light-headed.

  I watch Corinne’s car disappear into the distance, and I try to take a deep breath.

  As I do, Zoe texts.

  I got a rush from that.

  A pang hits my chest. God, if Corinne had walked in one second earlier when Zoe had her hand on my cheek, before I’d brushed it away, Corinne would’ve known.

  She wouldn’t even look at me, though, Zoe adds. I wonder if she’s intimidated.

  That makes me laugh. My wife isn’t intimidated by anyone. Zoe is arrogant if she truly believes otherwise.

  She was tired, I tell her. That’s all.

  She did look tired, Zoe agrees. She didn’t even bother putting on makeup.

  Corinne doesn’t even need makeup, but I don’t say that. Zoe is being catty now. Usually, I don’t notice this kind of thing, but even I can see it now.

  She’s so oblivious, Zoe says.

  Her words twist my gut. I hope Corinne is oblivious. I hope she stays oblivious. She can never know.

  I don’t answer. Instead, I slip my phone back into my pocket and start my car. I need to drive to work and pretend this never happened. This girl is insignificant. She’s nothing to me.

  Guilt overwhelms me, and I certainly feel like shit for making Corinne feel like she was the one doing something wrong. It was the first reaction I could think of when she showed up, the only plausible thing. In the therapist world, we call it “gaslighting.” It’s turning someone’s suspicions or concerns onto themselves, like they are the culprit.

  I’m an utter asshole.

  I know that.

  But I’m stuck in this terrible sticky spiderweb of deception and I have no idea how to crawl out without hurting everyone.

  28

  Now

  Corinne

  Reflections Mental Facility

  “Perhaps you’re scared of intimacy,” Dr. Phillips suggests. “You trusted your father, and he betrayed that trust. He hurt your mother, and he killed people. It’s understandable that you would have trust issues, Corinne.”

  “Yeah. But... I can’t explain it. It’s like there’s a wall in my head. And I can’t get past it.”

  “Not even for your husband?” Dr. Phillip’s eyebrow arches.

  “Not for anything.”

  “Let’s examine that.”

  God. Is it hot in here? My face flushes, and I fan myself. My thighs are hot enough that they’re damp, and it’s all so unusual for me. I’m usually cold, not hot.

  “Everything is just so confusing,” I murmur finally. “It feels like there is a terrible large elephant in the room, but no one is talking about it, and I don’t know what it is.”

  Dr. Phillips closes his notebook and studies me.

  “Corinne, I don’t know if there are actual things going on with Jude, or if you are transferring old feelings and memories from your father and mother to your present life. Either way, you do have many suppressed memories. We can agree on that, right?”

  I nod. Of course.

  “I wonder if you’d be willing to let me try another form of treatment with you. It’s called EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s an alternative treatment for trauma. It’s been successfully used in PTSD among soldiers and accident survivors. It helps allay the feelings of panic, by moving the panicky feelings from one part of your brain to another, so that they are finally processed.”

  I pause and then nod. He holds up a hand.

  “I should warn you, though. It’s not uncommon to uncover old memories during EMDR, because we’re accessing old emotions. Are you still willing?”

  I swallow, and swallow hard. I don’t want to.

  But I think I need to.

  Finally, I nod. “Yeah. I guess.”

  He smiles. “Good.”

  He digs around in a little black bag and pulls out two nodules. “Hold one of these in each of your hands. You will feel an alternating vibration, but no pain.”

  He turns it on. I feel the buzz. First in my right hand, then in my left.

  “Now, let’s talk about that night with your father. What is something you feel when you think about that night?”

  “Fear,” I whisper, my eyes closed.

  “Let’s examine that,” he suggests. “When did that fear begin?”

  I think about that, prepared to say that it began when my father arrived. But I can’t remember when my father actually arrived, and I felt fear before that point.

  “Earlier in the night,” I say, without even meaning to. The hand sensors buzz, to and fro. To and fro.

  “Focus on that emotion,” he tells me. “Let it go wherever it takes you.”

  I keep my eyes closed and focus on the feeling in my belly, the feeling of tightness and anxiety, of anxiety and panic. It spreads into my chest and then into my hands. I flex my fingers around the vibrating sensors.

  “I wasn’t alone in the house,” I remember out of nowhere.

  Someone had stepped out of the laundry room after I’d put the kids to bed.

  “He cupped his hand over my mouth and dragged me to the bedroom,” I whisper, and I can smell him still. His aftershave, tart and strong, and his skin. It smelled like sweat, and it was damp. His fingers cut into my lip, bruising it. I scratched at him, and he shook me.

  “Who was it?” Dr. Phillips asks calmly. “Remember, you’re safe here, Corinne.”

  I focus, but I can’t see the face. It’s dark and blurred, and I can see only a shadow above me, moving in the night.

  “I can’t see,” I whisper. My hands are tightly clasped, and Dr. Phillips notices.

  “Corinne, you’re here. This is a safe place. You aren’t there.”

  I open my eyes. “I wasn’t alone that night.”

  I extend my fingers, and my palms have half-moons carved into them from my fingernails.

  Dr. Phillips nods. “Okay. That’s a place to start. I think we’ve done enough for today, Dr. Cabot.”

  He’s pleased, and we’re finished, and I rush outside to the common area, into the sunlight. I take a deep breath, then hunch over on my knees and vomit onto the pavement.

  29

  Four days until Halloween

  Corinne

  Jackie squeals and jumps out of her chair, almost spilling her coffee.

  “You’re sure? How far along?” She hugs me and almost knocks me over.

  “I’m sure, and not very far,” I answer, removing her arm from my windpipe. “You’re going to be an aunt.
”

  “It’s about time,” she tells me, settling back into the chair across from me. We’re in the sunroom, and Artie is in the backyard. Frost etches the edges of the windows, but I can still see through them. The dog roots around by the fence, trying to get at something. The chill seeps through the tile, into my socks.

  Winter is coming.

  “I think I need to see Dad,” I tell Jackie as casually as I can.

  “What?” She sits up straighter. “All of a sudden? Why?”

  I sip my hot chocolate and ignore my pounding heart. I can’t even speak about any of this without the panic welling up in me. It’s getting ridiculous. My hand flutters over my belly, but that’s also ridiculous. I can’t protect it from me, from my emotions. It will feel the adrenaline, too. Everything I feel will course through its veins as well as my own.

  I fight to calm myself.

  “Because I need to know what happened.”

  I don’t have to explain what I’m talking about.

  Jackie stares at me. “Why? Why can’t you just leave it alone, Corinne? You’ve got a new life now. None of that matters.”

  “It does matter,” I argue. “It affects me in ways I don’t even understand. I don’t remember everything that happened, and until I do... Until I do, I worry I might go crazy like Dad.”

  “Dad didn’t go crazy,” Jackie says adamantly, like she always does. “It was a crime of passion. He... It was a bad situation. Love triangles and all that.”

  She’s uncomfortable now. She hates to talk about what Dad did. What he did to our mother.

  “Yeah. But...” I trail off, uncertain how much I should say...about myself.

  “What?”

  “I feel like I’m going crazy, Jacks. I hear things. Whispers. I see words written on things that aren’t there. I don’t know what’s happening, but I feel this overwhelming feeling that I need to run away. That I’m not safe. That I might be crazy.”

  “You’re not,” Jackie says quickly, reaching over to grab my hand. She squeezes my fingers tight. “You’re not. You’re the sanest person I know.”

  “I don’t feel like it right now. I keep having weird feelings about Jude, too.”