Such Dark Things

by Courtney Evan Tate

  It happens just that fast.

  On the way home, the wriggly fat puppy in the passenger seat looks up at me with big brown eyes, and I pat his head.

  “You’re medicine, boy. I hope you’re up to the task.”

  He wags his tail, and I turn into the drive.

  I carry him inside, and we find Corinne and Artie in the sunroom. She is curled up on a lounge.

  When she sees the puppy, her eyes widen, then soften. She glances up at me.

  “What’s this?”

  “His name is Rx,” I tell her, sitting him on her lap. “He’s here to make you feel better.”

  She starts to scowl at me, but Rx puts a big puffy paw on her chest and leans his face against hers.

  Her eyes soften further, and she hugs him, clasping him to her chest.

  “I love that puppy smell,” she admits without looking at me.

  “I’ll take care of him,” I promise. “You won’t have to do a thing.”

  “This doesn’t fix things,” she tells me seriously. “A puppy won’t fix us.”

  “No,” I agree. “But he made you smile.”

  She stares up at me with teary eyes, and for the first time this week, her gaze isn’t guarded.

  “Yeah, I guess he did.”

  “That’s progress,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  I leave her snuggled with the puppy. They’re both asleep when I check on them an hour later, his face lying right next to hers with Artie nearby. I cover her lap with a blanket and tiptoe away.

  67

  Corinne

  Days and nights have been running together.

  Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don’t.

  I’m plagued by nightmares, of the past and of the present.

  Of my rapist, of the murders, of my husband and Zoe, of Michel dying.

  It’s all so much.

  But to my husband’s credit, he’s been doing everything in his power to make things right. He does little things for me every day, like running my bath towels through the dryer before I use them so they’ll be warm, or putting a note on my bathroom mirror to tell me he loves me.

  Or bringing me home something to love me.

  Rx stares up at me now, his eyes so big and brown. He yawns, and he’s got puppy breath.

  “You need to go out,” I tell him. “Before you have an accident.”

  I listen for Jude because I know he’s still home. He’s been home every morning since it happened. He hasn’t gone running on the trails. He’s tried to change everything about his life that might remind me of her.

  He runs on the treadmill now, until I start to feel more comfortable. He didn’t have to do that, but he insisted.

  I lie still and listen to the whirring of the treadmill belt, and the pounding of his feet.

  When it stops, I wait for him to come shower, but he doesn’t. Minutes pass, and finally, I get up to check on him, carrying Rx with me. The doctor has cleared me to walk around the house a bit, and for that, I’m thankful.

  Jude is in his den, on his computer.

  When I walk in, he minimizes his screen quickly, and my heart pounds.

  “What are you hiding?” I ask, because that’s what I’m scared of now. What he’s hiding. Is he chatting with someone again? Is he going to go back down that path?

  He shakes his head and turns his computer around. “Don’t be scared,” he tells me softly. “I’m not doing anything wrong. Look.”

  There’s a real estate website pulled up. He’s looking at houses in other towns...in Denver, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle.

  “I didn’t want you to freak out,” he tells me. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured.”

  Relief floods me from my head to my toes because he’s not doing anything bad. He’s not texting someone, he’s not chatting with a strange woman.

  Maybe...

  Just maybe...

  Maybe he means what he says. Maybe I can lower my guard...just a little.

  The fresh new houses stare at me from the screen, and the idea of starting somewhere new is suddenly appealing.

  “Portland might be nice,” I suggest, and my words are soft.

  Jude startles, then smiles. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Without another word, I leave and let the dogs out and then make coffee for Jude.

  He joins me and we curl up on the sofa and we start talking, and we don’t stop for hours. We talk about where we went wrong, how we grew apart. We talk about how he should have reacted and how he didn’t, and how we both felt when Zoe died. We talk about Michel and how devastated we are. We talk about all of it.

  “How are we going to get through this?” I ask, and I realize that I’m afraid to hear the answer.

  Jude is silent, and his head is bowed, and I have to strain to hear him.

  “We’ve already been doing it, Co. We’ve been getting through every day, hour by hour. We swallow the pain like a pill and move forward. We’ve already been doing it.”

  “Tell me how it all started with her,” I tell him. “Please. I need to know.”

  So he does. He tells me all of it. How he was flattered, how it felt validating. How he felt useless to me and important to her. And how she manipulated all of it.

  “I’ll never understand how I got to such a place,” Jude finally says at the end of his explanation. “It was like I wasn’t even myself. Looking back, it doesn’t even seem like me. It seems like a bad caricature.”

  “It does,” I agree.

  “It’s going to be a long road,” Jude tells me, cupping my face with his hand. “For you to recover, I mean. It’s been traumatic, and it kills me that I did this to you. But if you can just live one day at a time, and focus on the now, I promise you, I’ll make it worth it.”

  I swallow, and there’s a lump in my throat, and I want to believe him.

  I desperately want to believe him. That has to be a start.

  “I can’t make love to you yet,” I warn him as he kisses my forehead. “I just can’t. I keep picturing you touching her and...” I shudder.

  He lifts my chin with his finger.

  “I want to tell you something. I never made love to her. Not ever. It was all so stupid and ridiculous, but she meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. You are everything, Corinne. Everything. Without you, I’m lost.”

  My chest rumbles, and I’m going to cry again, so I swallow it down. I do believe him. I believe that she meant nothing. He showed me the texts—all of them. From the very beginning, and even though it hurt, even though it shredded me, it painted a picture of a girl pursuing a married man. And while that’s true, he still succumbed. So he’s not faultless. That’s what I can’t get past.

  “If that ever happens again, you have to shut it down,” I tell him. “From the very beginning. You can’t allow yourself to be flattered. You have to be firm.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says wryly. “I’ll run in the other direction. I promise.”

  He leaves to get us milk shakes and then dinner, and then days turn into nights, which turn into days, which turn into a strange sort of healing.

  Every day, Jude tries to prove that he’s strong and true.

  He texts me from wherever he goes, and tells me he loves me and holds me at night. Every night, I have nightmares...about Zoe dying, about Jude sleeping with her...about all of it. Sometimes I wake up screaming. When I do, Jude holds me and soothes me.

  We decide to sell our house and move to Portland to start over. I’ve always loved the mountains and the sea, and Portland is a metropolis near both, just waiting for us to start anew in.

  On the night we sell our home, I stand in the doorway of our guest room, staring at the empty walls. It’s how Jude finds me when he comes home from work.

&nbs
p; Coming up behind me, he wraps his arms around my waist.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “It’s just... This house was supposed to grow our family. We were supposed to flourish here.”

  “Our new house is beautiful,” Jude reminds me. “We’re going to have our baby there, Co. She’ll have a beautiful nursery, and then we’ll have more babies. And our life is going to be grand.”

  “Make love to me, Jude,” I say softly. He glances down at me sharply, and I nod.

  “It’s been a long three months, Jude. I think I need this...to heal. I need to make you mine again.”

  “I’ve always been yours,” he growls against my lips before he kisses me. “I’ll always be yours.”

  He carries me into our bedroom and lays me gently on the floor.

  “Has your doctor approved this?” he asks, and he’s so so concerned and gentle.

  I nod. “Yeah. I can resume all normal activity. Our baby is fine.”

  We make love on the floor, surrounded by blank walls. It doesn’t matter. My husband makes me his again, and his hands are everywhere and he’s mine.

  He’s mine.

  He doesn’t fuck me, he makes love to me. My chest swells with emotion, and he’s so gentle, so loving. He touches me with reverence and stares at me with such a soft look in his eyes. The gold in them turns liquid, and I kiss him softly, my lips melting into his. He pulls me close closer closer. He rocks with me, and we come together, and it’s a meeting of souls, not just a joining of bodies. We’re one again.

  We’re Corinne and Jude, and we both feel it.

  “Don’t hurt me again,” I tell him afterward as my head rests on his chest. “Just don’t.”

  “I won’t.” His words are quiet, his grip is strong. He holds me like the world is ending, and in a way, it did.

  Our world ended. And then it started again. It started over, and it started better.

  We’re stronger now than ever before, and we won’t be vulnerable to something like this again. I feel that in my bones.

  I close my eyes tight and let my husband hold me, and I know that everything is going to be all right. Maybe not today, but someday.

  I am strong, and our wounds will heal, and our scars will fade.

  That’s what scars do.

  It has to be enough.

  “Will you stay with me?” Jude asks, long after the flush in our cheeks has faded and we’re still clinging together.

  I nod, and my cheek scrapes against his chest.

  I remember lying like this with him in Hawaii, on our honeymoon. We were on the cusp of a life together, and we were so naive and new.

  We’re battered now, but we’re stronger.

  We’re older, but we’re wiser.

  We’re better now. So much better than before.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “I’m staying. You’re my home.”

  He is my home, no matter where we move or where we end up.

  “You’re mine and I’m yours,” he promises me. “And that’s how it will always be.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” I tell him, my fingers lacing through his.

  And I will.

  EPILOGUE

  Two years later

  Jude

  I stare at the paper in my hands.

  Calvin Jacob Friess will be appearing in front of the parole board in fourteen days. I know Corinne will fly out there for the hearing. She’s done everything in her power, along with our attorneys, to get her father granted parole. With her testimony about the rape he walked in on and how she herself killed Joe Gibson in self-defense, it does give him more credibility that he’s not a monster.

  He was protecting his daughter, something any man would do.

  He’s not a menace to society.

  He’s not even mentally unstable.

  It was a lie he told to protect his daughter.

  I put the letter in my study. I’ll give it to Corinne tomorrow. For now, we’ve got another obstacle to hurdle tonight.

  Venturing down the hall, I find my wife and daughter in our bright kitchen.

  “We don’t have to do this,” I mention to Corinne as she tugs the Halloween costume onto AnnaBelle’s writhing body.

  “Hold still,” Corinne tells her, laughing. AnnaBelle stares at her indignantly, her golden curls bouncing as she shakes her head.

  “No,” she pouts.

  “Why did she have to learn that word so well?” Corinne sighs, straightening the princess crown on our daughter’s head.

  “Because she’s petulant like you,” I suggest. Corinne swats at me.

  “But seriously,” I add. “We don’t have to take her trick-or-treating. She’s not even two. She won’t know the difference.”

  “But I will,” Corinne says. “It’s okay, Ju. I’m okay. It’s only taken a year of intense therapy, but I can do it.”

  Corinne always handles things in that way, with sarcasm, and wry humor, and a little bit of self-diminishment.

  “You’re the bravest person I know,” I tell her honestly. “You really are.”

  She rolls her eyes now and turns AnnaBelle loose. Our daughter runs away, with Rx right on her heels, chasing her princess skirt. The little-girl giggles echo through the halls of our Oregon home.

  “It’s going to rain,” I tell her. “Will that be a trigger for you?”

  Corinne chuckles. “It’s Portland. It always rains. I’ve learned to deal with it.”

  She walks into the living room to empty candy into a bowl, and I follow.

  “Want me to take AnnaBelle trick-or-treating, or should I stay here to hand out candy?”

  “What? And miss her first trick-or-treating? I think not. We’ll go for a while, take a bunch of pictures and then come back to pass out candy.” Corinne kisses my cheek and turns.

  She pauses, then turns back.

  “Jude, want to hear something great?”

  “Always,” I tell her immediately. We’ve made a habit out of trying to make each other smile every day. It started out as a method of healing, but it’s turned into something we truly enjoy.

  “I’m pregnant,” she says simply.

  And my grin is as big as the ocean. I gather her into my arms in a bear hug, and my wife smiles into my neck.

  “For sure?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I just found out yesterday. I wanted to wait and tell you when the time was perfect...but I haven’t made you smile yet today. So there you go. Your daily smile.”

  I shake my head. “You make me smile every day just by being here.”

  She could’ve left me. I know that. Yet she didn’t. She chose to fight it out with me, and in doing so, our marriage has turned into something bigger and better than we could ever have dreamed.

  Corinne squeezes me tighter, and for a second, a blissful amazing second, the world seems perfect.

  “It’s all working out,” she finally says, with tears in her eyes and joy in her smile.

  “Yes,” I agree. “And it always will. We’ll make it so.”

  We hold each other for a while, standing in the living room of the home we’ve made together, in this new life that we’ve built, while the rain starts lightly pelting the windows.

  Corinne laughs. “I’ll get the umbrella.”

  As she does, I finger the St. Michael’s medallion that Corinne bought me last year.

  “Michel is always going to watch out for you,” she’d told me. “This will just be a tangible reminder of that.” I’m not too proud to say that I cried. I wear it every minute of the day, and I do allow myself the luxury of thinking my brother is always with me.

  One way or another, he is.

  Corinne and I bundle up our daughter, take the umbrella and head down the driveway. Behind us, the jack-o’-lanterns on our porch t
winkle as the candles inside of them burn.

  I briefly wonder if my wife is okay, with all of the Halloween decorations around us, and she looks at me.

  “Memories can’t hurt us anymore,” Corinne tells me softly, as though she can read my mind. “We’re okay. We’re safe.”

  And we really are.

  Our daughter toddles to the neighbor’s door, her candy bucket in her hand, a giggle on her lips, and Corinne and I share a smile, and her fingers flutter to cup her still-flat belly where my child grows.

  We really are.

  * * * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my beautiful best friend, Michelle Leighton. You kept my head above water when everything seemed dark and ugly. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you then, and I don’t know what I would do without you now. I hope I never have to find out.

  To my husband. Sherrilyn Kenyon said: The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. We’ve certainly proved that to be true. We’re stronger than ever, and we’ve worked for that. I love you. You’re mine, I’m yours.

  To my brother-in-law, E.L. I knew you would be helpful with this manuscript, providing insight with the whole “twin thing,” but I underestimated exactly how helpful you would be. You’re awesome at providing feedback, and you truly helped me make Michel shine. Thank you for that, big brother. You are my second favorite twin!

  To my agent, Kevan. Thank you for believing in me so fiercely. You are a dream agent, a force to be reckoned with. I’m so glad to have you on my team. Thank you for always being in my corner.

  To my editor, Kathy. Thank you for seeing this story and deciding that it needed to be told. Thank you for believing in me and bringing me into the MIRA/HarperCollins fold. I look forward to seeing what else we can do together!

  To Talon Smith and Jennie Wurtz. You were among the first to see this story and to tell me to Keep Writing It. I appreciate you both, so much. You always give me the honest truth, and that is so priceless. I love you both—forever and ever.

  And...to my readers. You are my rock stars every day. It’s because of you that I get to dream up fictional people and treat them as if they’re real. On my darkest days, you guys are all beams of light. I thank you for that. Thank you for reading my stories and for making my dreams come true.