She blinked, then stared at the ceiling.
She was in a room.
She blinked again, trying to focus it into one room from three.
It hurt to move her head, and she tried to lift her hand. It was bound with her other one, and both feet.
The concrete beneath her was cold.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice throaty.
No one answered.
Her pants were torn and bloody, presumably from her being dragged.
She tried to think but couldn’t remember her last conscious moments.
“I need help!” she called. “Help me! Please!”
Her mind was black, an abyss of emptiness. She couldn’t remember anything.
Where was she? What had happened? How hard had she hit her head?
The pain was overwhelming, and she succumbed to it, closing her eyes and drifting into unconsciousness yet again.
From behind the door, someone peered in, checking.
She was still breathing.
Thank God.
The figure came in, picked up the sparkling wedding ring from the floor, and slipped away again into the night.
12
Gen, Then
They boxed up her apartment together, she and Thad, deciding what to throw out and what to keep.
“You’re so sentimental,” he told her with a laugh.
“You’re so not,” she answered. “I want that oven mitt.”
“It’s got pineapples on it.”
“I know. That’s why I want it.”
“I’m going to build you a mansion fit for a queen,” he told her. “Cartoon pineapples won’t fit with the decor.”
She giggled, and threw it in the keep pile. “Pineapples go with everything,” she decided. After she’d made her way into the bathroom, Thad put it in the discard pile when she wasn’t looking.
An hour later, her sister showed up with a pizza from Giordano’s.
“Thank God,” Gen declared, pulling Meg inside by the hand. “I’m outnumbered here. I need you.”
Together, the two women lobbied for knickknacks, while Thad fought for simplicity.
They all bonded together over the pizza, though. Hunger was the great equalizer.
“I don’t care what you throw out,” Gen finally said, as she chewed. “I just want to marry this pizza.”
“Promise?” Thad asked hopefully.
“Promise,” Gen nodded. “I don’t even care. Except for anything Meg gave me. Obviously.”
“Nice save,” her sister laughed.
“Thank you.” Gen smiled primly. In the end, her most sentimental things were put into a cedar chest and boxed away.
“When you get maudlin, you can pull them out and look at them,” Thad said.
“Maudlin?” both Gen and Meg said together.
“Are you from 1760?” Gen asked with a laugh.
They teased him for a while longer, and then finally gave up when he pretended he was beaten.
His phone rang, and he chirped, “Saved by the bell.”
He excused himself to take the call, which left the girls alone.
“I like him,” Meg told her sister. “I really do.”
“Back off. You’ve got your own,” Gen joked. They smiled together, and Meg folded one of Gen’s shirts, putting it into a box.
“I’m serious. He’s your opposite. Like me. He’ll be good for you.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Gen said. “I do, too.”
They chatted for a while about wedding things, and Gen surprised Meg by announcing she wanted to elope in Vegas.
“You’re kidding!” Meg replied.
Gen shook her head. “Thad doesn’t have any family. I don’t want him to feel self-conscious.”
“Mom is going to kill you. She wants a big wedding.”
“She had that with yours. She doesn’t need another. Dad will be relieved that he doesn’t have to pony up for one again.”
“True,” Meg said with a laugh.
And that’s how eloping came about, which Thad was in full agreement with.
“You’re sure, though?” he asked that night, his eyes so concerned. “I’ll have a big wedding, if you want. I don’t want you to feel deprived of one single thing.”
“I’m sure,” she said with certainty. “Walking down the aisle with everyone’s eyes on me? Ugh. You know I hate that kind of attention.”
He paused, then burst out laughing. “Oh, yes. You repel drama.”
She stared at him indignantly. “I get enough drama in my books. I don’t need a big wedding. I promise.”
“I love you,” he said. “So much.”
“I know,” she answered. “You’d better.”
They eloped the next week, and after, she, Meg, Joe and Thad had all tied one on and been hungover for a full day. The memories that were made were priceless, including the tattoo of a bunny on Joe’s ankle. None of them remembered how that had come about.
“Gah. At the very least, you could’ve gotten my name,” Meg moaned, examining the pink outline on her husband’s leg. “I can’t imagine whyyyyyy this happened.”
Gen laughed, and Thad looped her fingers in his. “I would’ve gotten your name,” he told her.
“You didn’t get one at all,” Joe growled at him.
Thad appeared smug but opted not to say anything.
Gen decided it had been the best possible wedding. After all, who else had she really needed besides her sister and her new husband?
That night, Thad got sick after eating all-you-can-eat shrimp, and their intimacy level ratcheted up a few notches as she held his head while he vomited, over and over, pressing a cold cloth to his brow in between.
“You don’t have to do this,” he groaned to her in the middle of the night, but she waved him off.
“Of course I do. In sickness and health, right?”
He stuck his head in the toilet and vomited yet again, and she grimaced but held him tight.
“I hate Vegas,” Thad announced in the morning, when the light of day filled their hotel room. Gen laughed, and he scowled. “I’m serious. I’ll never step foot in this dingy place again.”
And he didn’t.
But the pictures of their wedding still existed, and were pulled out at family dinners quite frequently, including those Gen took of Thad when he was sprawled on the bathroom floor.
Pictures were forever.
Gen slept in the Caesars Palace T-shirt for years, even though they hadn’t stayed in Caesars Palace—they’d stayed in The Venetian, where Meg almost fell into the “canal.”
None of them knew how Gen had gotten the T-shirt, which added to the entertainment value. It was a trip none of them would forget, even though they could only remember parts of it.
Years later, Joe’s tattoo remained intact, although Meg had tried to get him to tattoo over it. As good-natured as he was, Joe wanted it to stay.
“Besides,” he told his wife, “my work boot covers it.”
Looking back, Gen seemed to recall that Thad was absent for parts of it, going and coming, appearing and disappearing, but she’d been drunk, and her memory couldn’t be trusted.
13
Gen, Then
Gen stared at the rain through her office window. She had two chapters to finish before she could stop for the day, but she was reluctant. Her creativity didn’t want to cooperate and she hated forcing it. Regardless, her agent had emailed yesterday, checking on her progress. This was the first time she’d ever been late on a deadline. She couldn’t seem to help her distraction. She kept thinking about Thad and how distant he was, how tired. How removed.
He’d worked late the last four nights in a row. He’d come in quietly, and gotten up and left before she’d woken up in the mornings.
It all felt very sterile, very detached. They almost seemed like roommates now, not the married couple that they were supposed to be.
It made it particularly hard for her to write about happy couples when she wasn’t part of one. She was a lie, typing out her happily-ever-afters and all the while she was a fraud.
She texted her husband. He didn’t answer.
She got annoyed and stood up, stretching a long stretch, reaching her fingers toward the ceiling. She looked out the windows, at the cars that seemed like toys and the trees bending toward the pavement in the wind.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered to no one in particular, since she was alone.
She pulled some jeans and a sweater on and piled her hair on her head. She grabbed her purse and headed out into the brisk Chicago air, and strode down the street. The movement stirred her blood and the circulation should help her creativity. Hopefully, by the time she made it back home, she’d have the next two chapters of her book figured out.
She walked aimlessly, or so she thought, until she found herself standing at her husband’s office building. She didn’t even know how she’d gotten there, and she’d certainly never intended on walking this far.
She started to open the door, but something, and she didn’t really know what, caught her eye. A movement, maybe. She turned and saw Thad sitting across the street on a park bench. She’d recognize him anywhere. She started to walk toward him, but then saw him lift his hand and touch the face of someone sitting next to him.
A woman.
Her back was to Gen, and she couldn’t see what the woman looked like, or who she was, but he was touching her face in such a familiar way. Too familiar.
Gen’s heart slammed into her chest, and she wanted to storm over and confront him, to yell, to see who the woman was, but she couldn’t. Her heart kept slamming and slamming, and her breath got shorter and shorter, until she couldn’t breathe at all. She somehow managed to make it around the corner of the building so that he couldn’t look up and see the disgrace of her panic.
She gasped for air, sliding to the ground and staring at the sky.
How could this be happening?
All of the late nights, her suspicions...her gut instincts...were true.
She should never doubt herself again, which didn’t help her pain in this moment.
She wanted to kill him, and her, but first...Gen had to breathe.
She sucked and sucked, and finally, it came. Her lungs filled up, and blessed relief. She wasn’t going to die.
She wasn’t going to die.
She breathed in and out, evenly and rhythmically, until at last, she felt back to normal.
Her blood boiled in a rage she’d never felt before, though, and she stood, ready now to confront them both.
But when she rounded the edge of the building, they were gone.
She stood still, staring at where they’d been. It had happened so fast, and she tried to visualize what she’d seen. What color of hair did the woman have? She didn’t know. How big was she? Gen didn’t know. She didn’t remember anything. Shock had crippled her.
She focused. He’d been touching the woman’s face. Wasn’t her hair brown?
She still couldn’t be sure.
Her mouth was dry, completely drained of moisture.
She decided she was in shock, since she was actually shivering. She felt like she wasn’t inside her body, like she was seeping out of it.
She willed her feet to step back into the sunlight, back toward the park bench. Thad was gone; the bench was empty. She had to find him. She turned toward the building, and there was a familiar pink coat, right in front of her, then a hand on her elbow.
Her sister’s familiar perfume.
“Gen?”
She was delighted to see Meg.
“Meg,” Gen exhaled. “What are you doing down here?”
“Meeting the chief of surgery for lunch. He’s retiring this year, and I’m not sure, but I think he might be angling to make me his replacement.”
“Wow. That would be amazing, Meg.”
“Don’t get overly excited,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “It’s only something I’ve been working for my entire career.”
“I’m sorry. I...” Gen’s voice broke off and tears started welling, and before she knew it, she was a mess. Meg was alarmed, and together, they sat on the very same bench that Gen had just seen her husband on.
In between sobs and breaths and whimpers, Meg was able to make out Gen’s words, and her face was stark as she surveyed her sister.
“Babe, that can’t be right,” she said, stiltedly. “Thad wouldn’t.”
“How do you know?” Gen screeched, a wounded bird. “You don’t.”
“I know that I didn’t see him,” she said calmly. “I was standing right over there for about ten minutes, talking to a nurse on the phone.” She pointed across the street. “I would’ve seen him. He wasn’t here, babe.”
Gen stared at her sister, her mascara streaked down her face.
“Think about it,” she urged. “Think hard. Was the man you saw wearing the same clothes as Thad was today?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t awake when he left this morning.”
Meg’s face settled into victory. “Gen. It couldn’t have been him.”
“This is his building,” Gen told her. “Of course it was him.”
“Call him,” Meg said suddenly. “See if he’s even here.”
Why hadn’t Gen thought of that?
With shaking fingers, she dialed his number. He answered.
“Hey, honey,” he said, and he was cheerful. “Where are you? I came home to take you to lunch.”
“What?” Gen said, uncertain now. “You’re home?”
“And you aren’t,” he pointed out. “The one time you leave the house, and I choose it to surprise you with lunch.” He chuckled, and she was stunned.
“I guess so,” she finally managed to say.
“Well, I’ll make it up to you another day,” he said.
“I’m in front of your building right now. Do you want to meet around here for a quick bite?”
“Sorry, honey. I’ve gotta get back to the office. I’ll be late again tonight, so I was just wanting to see you.”
Gen’s chest tightened. “Okay.”
They hung up, and Meg stared at her sister.
“And?”
“He went to the condo to surprise me,” Gen said limply.
“So it wasn’t him.” She didn’t say I told you so, but her tone did.
“I guess not.”
But she’d seen him. She knew she had.
Her sister hugged her briskly goodbye and wiped at her mascara with a tissue from her purse.
“You’re okay now, right?” She stared at Gen, concerned, her eyes wide and waiting.
Gen nodded. “Of course.”
She had to be, right? Apparently, her eyes had deceived her.
Meg left for her lunch meeting, and Gen went back to the condo. Alone the rest of the day, she replayed the events of the morning in her head.
If that wasn’t Thad, then he had a twin out there.
In her mind, she watched that hand, his hand, touch another woman’s face.
She couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she knew, she knew, that she’d seen his.
Her gut told her that her husband had a mistress.
Her eyes told her that her husband had a mistress.
But facts... They said otherwise.
She might be losing her mind. Maybe she was alone too much. Maybe it was starting to affect her. Maybe writing books and thinking of crazy story lines was causing her imagination to run overtime.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
14
Meg, Now
Meg and Detective Hawkins sat at the coffee shop table again. They had met several times now, and after he and his team had pored over her hotel room, looking at everything she and Gen had in their suitcases, he suggested that she call him by his nickname, Hawk.
Hawk’s notebook was at the ready.
“Do you recall anything strange about Thad over the years?” he asked, his pen poised over the paper.
Meg sipped her hazelnut coffee, thinking.
“Everyone is strange,” she finally said. “In their own way.”
Hawk rolled his eyes. “Don’t be interpretive. Was there anything unusual that stood out? Anything that made you feel uneasy?”
Meg shook her head.
“He was a bit controlling in the later years, but I think it was because Gen hated taking care of mundane things. So Thad took them over.”
“Her creative spirit and all?” Hawk asked.
Meg couldn’t tell if he was being condescending. “Probably. He didn’t mind it, or at least that’s what he always said. He said he’d rather make sure the bills were paid than wonder if she’d forgotten.”
“Surely, together, they made enough to hire someone to do that,” Hawk pointed out.
Meg shrugged. “Being an attorney, Thad never really trusted anyone else with their money. He’d seen people burned like that many times before.”
“So he was suspicious by nature?” Hawk asked.
Meg paused. “I guess. But that’s also a hazard of his profession. He sees the dregs of society at times. Like you.”
“Do you always defend him?” Hawk asked curiously.
Meg stared, wide-eyed. “Am I? Do I sound that way?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Every time I say something that could even slightly be construed as derogatory toward him, you dismiss it. Is it safe to say you like him?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I do. I mean, I always did. This divorce made things ugly, and I don’t like that. It came out of nowhere, and hit us all like a ton of bricks. My parents were devastated. They’d come to see Thad as part of our family. My dad thought of him as a son.”
“Divorce is difficult,” Hawk said. “On everyone involved. At least they didn’t have children.”
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