A Life Well-Hidden

by Emily Nealis

  Of course, it was.

  At that moment, I didn’t give a damn how close or far away the restaurant was. It didn’t matter if the restaurant was one stop sign away from our house, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I had no desire to sit in that place with Travis, who was constantly trying to save his own skin, Carolyn, a whiney, two-faced brat who grated on my nerves, and my husband, a selfish asshole with no morals. However, I was also exhausted, and I wasn’t above using my family to hide the fact I was hanging onto sanity by a thread from my children. I also didn’t have the energy to come up with an excuse for our absence. I began punching the keypad, replying that I didn’t care. I didn’t feel like being responsible for another dinner. I needed a break, even if I had to mentally check out and drown my feelings in cheap sports bar appetizers.

  An hour later, I was melting into the corner of the couch under a fleece blanket with a mug of tea, staring at the TV, but not registering what was on the screen. Thunder grumbled in the distance, spitting rain onto the window glass. Finally. Maybe I would get a few more vegetables out of the garden before the temperature dropped. It was too early to frost yet—there was still time. Not like it mattered; the pepper plants were a complete bust this year and the jalapenos barely bore enough fruit to make a decent batch of salsa. I browsed the internet from my phone, searching for frost dates and temperature forecasts. My anxiety began to rise. What if the temperature plummeted before I could get the last crop of tomatoes and beans out of the garden? That’s where I was—having anxiety about the last remnants of vegetables even though I had a basement pantry stuffed to the gills with jars of canned vegetables from a long, humid Kentucky summer.

  I never found the projected frost date. I was startled by the kitchen side door opening. I dropped my phone onto the couch cushion. Whatever. Adam appeared from around the corner.

  “Hey.” He sounded exhausted as he bent over and untied his boots, depositing them against the wall behind the section of the couch I was sitting on. I didn’t bother responding right away, and I don’t think he noticed.

  “My mom and Carolyn have been blowing me up tonight. Mom and dad want to go to dinner with all of us tomorrow night,” I rolled my eyes, “At the Steeplechase.”

  There was a pause as Adam took his time in responding, his eyes lingering a little too long on the floor.

  “So, what did you tell them?”

  “I said OK.”

  “Well if you didn’t want to go, why didn’t you just say so?” The irritability in his voice began to grow. The sarcasm that lay just beneath the skin began to seep from his pores. Adam pursed his lips, nodding his head like he usually did in these situations, when he was inconvenienced, underappreciated by those who owed him unconditional gratitude.

  “It’s not like you bothered to mention it to me until now.”

  I blinked, looking at Adam with what could only be described as disdain. And this was how it went—he was so put upon, this pillar of familial responsibility. His work ethic had become his entitlement. He worked hard all day long, all for me and the girls.

  Well, what the fuck about me? I know what you’ve been doing! You liar! You goddamn cheat!

  But that’s not what everyone saw. Instead, they saw an inspiration to the community. See how perfect our life is? The irony was that I’d willingly helped create this charade. I had to prove to everyone that he was perfect, and it worked better than I’d ever imagined.

  After a few moments, I realized I hadn’t actually said anything. I’d just been staring at Adam, lamenting my own blindness and willingness to build him up as an unquestionable force. We were still talking about dinner with my family.

  “Well, you were working so I didn’t want to bother you. And I also don’t feel like dealing with dinner tomorrow night, so if you’d like to cook, then feel free. Otherwise, the girls and I will be going out to dinner.”

  I turned back to the TV screen, my jaw tightening, refraining from saying what I really wanted to say. But I knew it was not the time for impulsivity. Adam wasn’t the only one who could be cold and calculating. I felt his eyes on the side of my cheek, that stare that on any other day would usually elicit a response. Sometimes it was a fight, other times it was an apology because I was too afraid to ruin the tranquility that lingered between us longer than it usually did. This time, I let his eyes bore into my face, shrouded with indifference.

  A cupboard door slammed from the kitchen. I looked up to see Adam bring a bottle to his lips and tilted it back in a swift arc. I watched him, in shock, as he poured the amber liquid down his throat. Adam never drank liquor. Did we even have liquor in the house? Then it dawned on me it must have been left over from a gathering long ago. Bourbon didn’t go bad, I suppose. As I stared at him, trying to comprehend what I was seeing, he slammed the bottle back down on the counter and replaced the cap. He opened the cupboard door again and slid the bottle back onto the top shelf, back into the dust until the next oddity occurred to spur such a bizarre act. He turned around and walked across the living room to the hallway, disappearing into the darkness. I remained on the couch, my tea having gone cold, left to wonder who this man was living in my house.

  The Steeplechase looked different—older—as though the wedding had been years ago. Maybe I just didn’t recall what the inside of the building looked like. The night of the wedding, I was fluttering around, doing twenty different things with twenty different people for twenty different reasons. So much had changed since that night. Now, I was sitting at a table by the full-length windows that separated us from the brick patio, in what now seemed like an alternate universe. Perspective is everything, I suppose. The overpowering thunder of raw carrot between my molars reverberated through my head, drowning out the voices around me. I wasn’t even hungry, but I needed distraction and raw vegetables piled next to a bowl of beer cheese offered relief rather than nausea.

  My dad squeezed the back of my neck, laughing at some sassy comment from June about how a go-kart might as well be a real car and, therefore, she was ready for life on the road. My mom reached across the table to show Carolyn a picture on her phone of their front porch Halloween decorations. It was almost that time of year. I should probably ask the girls what they want to be for Halloween. I needed to call the usual suspects and see if there would be a group Trick-or-Treating event again this year. That’s the thing about living out in the country; you have to go into town—preferably a historic neighborhood with people who are exceptionally enthusiastic about Halloween—to participate in Trick-or-Treating. Mom told Adam to let her know if we were coming into town on Halloween and she would have dinner ready beforehand.

  I recalled Halloweens past, when I was the one dressing up like witches and genies and even one year a 9-year-old Sally Ride in a space suit. My dad would take Travis and I out to load up on candy until the last porch light went out while my mom handed out candy at our house. I wondered if my mom and dad were still the same people they were when we lived in their home. They were people who seemed to always be laughing, much like they did now. That is, save for the couple of years after I graduated from high school when it was as though I was an orphan who had no parents. After that, life seemed to resume as normal. I can’t imagine them as anything else except as my parents who are also best friends—two people I could never imagine being apart. I sat there, next to them, the newfound cynic in me wondering if I was right or if they were just really good actors. No, if my parents couldn’t hide their distaste for Adam all those years ago; they definitely couldn’t hide any fundamental cracks in their marriage for over 30 years.

  I imagined their house was still the same, but quieter without their two children. Even with all their chaos and inherent sibling rivalry, I was suddenly petrified of June and Vivian growing up and finally leaving home. The thought of my home being just as quiet as my parents’ home no longer filled me with relief. I might have been relieved that I successfully raised two productive members of society, but what would they leave b
ehind? Recalling the events as of late, including the quiet preparations of my own, I didn’t want to think about it. Instead, I poured a pint from the pitcher of beer my parents ordered and took a few gulps to decrease my heart rate, which had steadily risen with each passing minute.

  I glanced across the table at Adam, sitting on the other side of June. Even if being here was the last place he wanted to be, I could always trust that Adam would be the perfect date. God forbid he look bad at anything. Even tonight, he acted as though there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Not that he would have minded, outside of the sudden obligation to attend. Adam and Travis sat next to one another, picking up wherever they left off as if no time had passed. All these people around this table had so much history together.

  To my surprise, I no longer felt the contempt and frustration with my brother that I had for the past year. Tonight, he was my brother again, the kid with strawberry blonde hair that I could never tell anything because everyone must learn from their own mistakes. Travis wasn’t a bad person. Misguided, selfish, and conceited at times, yes, but I truly didn’t believe he was any kind of sociopathic mastermind. I felt a strange comradery with him that evening, though we hadn’t yet spoken a word to each other. Maybe that’s what happens to two people who are experiencing their own varying degrees of misery, unbeknownst to everyone else around them. However, I was assuming a lot. I didn’t know that Travis was in misery. But if your wife is questioning the rest of the family about your integrity, it probably wasn’t indicative of a healthy home life.

  I felt a hand on my arm. Carolyn’s nails, glimmering with clear coat polish in the low light, grasped my forearm. She leaned in close to me to be heard over the dull roar of the bar noise. I tilted slightly toward her to hear what she was about to say.

  “This place looks a lot different than the last time we were here.”

  Maybe it’s because you’re sober now.

  “Yeah, it’s a lot different when everyone’s not rushing around, I guess.” I reached for the plate in the middle of the table, “How are…things?” I dug through the remnants of celery and crusty bread as though it was the most important task at hand. Carolyn shrugged, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips.

  “Fine!”

  I peered at her, unable to mask my expression, a combination of confusion and annoyance. Her cheery demeanor was suspect, wholly unlike the blubbering disaster I remembered from my living room couch. “Fine” was a relative term, I decided.

  “Fine?” I required more explanation than the sudden turnaround she offered. Carolyn glanced across the table at Travis and then back to me, brushing her coal black hair behind her ear. Once more, she leaned in close to me. I didn’t meet her halfway this time, I was past the secrecy of her and Travis’s dysfunctional marriage. At this point, I was too preoccupied with the culminating dysfunction of my own. Carolyn shrugged again, grinning.

  “Things have gotten a lot better. I don’t know, maybe it was just a rough patch or something. Every marriage has them, I guess. But everything’s been fine lately.” I just stared at her as she grinned at me like an idiot, blowing off the entire evening where she fell to pieces in my living room as if it was just another bad day—like losing your car keys or the air conditioner going out.

  Everything’s fine—just like that. I bet it is.

  Travis pounded the surface of the table in front of me with the palm of his hand, breaking my gaze on his wife. He was looking back and forth between me and Adam. Adam sat next to him, his elbows resting on the table, one hand cradling his chin, his fingers covering his mouth as though he were trying not to laugh. I could already tell from the flicker in Travis’s eye that he had a good buzz going. He asked me something about going down to Lake Cumberland for a weekend with the whole family. Before I could respond, Vivian chucked a wadded-up straw wrapper at Travis’s head. He winced and she cackled as it bounced off his temple. My dad looked to the side facetiously, clearly the mastermind.

  “That would be so much fun!” Carolyn chimed in. I felt my heart rate begin to rise again, a steady pulse in my ears. Everything was moving quickly and I was being carried away by the current. Was I having a panic attack? What did a panic attack even feel like? I jiggled my shoulders in an attempt to snap out of it, I needed to refocus. The conversation quickly progressed to planning a weekend of camping. We had a new RV, after all, didn’t we? A long weekend of camping and boating before it got cold. A perfect fall getaway. Mom and Dad never passed up a trip with the girls. They still had the boat, stored and covered in the garage, of course.

  “Hal,” Travis took a drink from his glass, flicking his hand in my direction, “Let me see your phone to look up camp sites. Mine’s dead.”

  I glanced down at my phone sitting next to the plastic water glass, condensation seeping beneath the waterproof case. I extended my fingertips and slid the phone across the table toward Travis, his hand extended over the table. His head was turned, speaking to our dad about who-knows-what, waiting for my phone to appear in front of him. He glanced down and swiped the phone from the table top.

  “Oh,” I leaned forward slightly, catching his eye as he looked at the screen, “You’re going to need the password.”

  I emphasized the last word, which hit him like a punch to the gut. He looked at me, back at the phone, and then back at me. Travis’s eyes darted back and forth. He turned the screen back to me as it prompted him for a password. He reached into his pockets for nothing as I reached out and swiped my finger over the screen, moving only to distract himself. I stared at him, relishing the discomfort I had caused. He recoiled, drawing the phone back to his chest as soon as I granted him access. If only he knew what kind of Pandora’s box he’d opened. He probably wouldn’t have been so forthcoming. This is what he got for deciding to be helpful for once. But even after all of this, I couldn’t blame Travis. He’d only done what he thought was right.

  I released him from my gaze and looked around the table at my family. June was telling my mom about starting horseback riding lessons, and subsequently, how she was convinced that we should start keeping horses. Carolyn called across the table to Adam, inquiring about whether they could ride down to this hypothetical camp site with us. Vivian sat next to my dad, listening intently as he taught her a magic trick involving a nickel. A quarter was still too big for her fist, after all. Travis busied himself with a fact-finding mission about the hypothetical camping trip. After everything was said and done, maybe he wouldn’t even want to go down to Lake Cumberland. Maybe he would just book a one-way ticket to Dubai and call it a day.

  All these people made up such a significant part of my life. They expanded and contracted throughout time and space to form my universe. All these people around this table had so much history together. And so much of it was based on lies and deceit.

  10

  October 4 – BEFORE THE STORM

  Diana

  I had a dream about Adam Hunt the night after I left him alone in the parking lot. I was in my house, except it was different from the one I lived in at the time, and I was busy in the kitchen. It was dark outside and the windows were open. Suddenly, I saw a face in the window, and then another one appeared right next to it. They were the faces of little girls—Adam’s little girls, June and Vivian. They were watching me while I worked, following me from window to window, as though they wanted me to let them inside. They never said anything, but kept following me, even when I left the kitchen and walked into the living room.

  When I got to the living room, there was a sliding glass door. I realized the glass door was ajar, and when I walked towards it, June and Vivian were already there, standing right outside, peering around the edge of the doorframe. I reached for the door handle and saw a silhouette behind them. About ten feet behind them, Adam was standing in the darkness. I should have been afraid—children creeping around the outside of my house in the dark and Adam standing in my backyard, but I wasn’t. Instead, I looked at each of them and slid the door shut o
n them. I didn’t bother locking it, because I knew they couldn’t come in.

  The irony of it all was that Adam’s response to my meeting with Sam resulted in exactly what he was afraid of. One hour later, I received a message from Adam.

  “Today is the last time you walk away from me.”

  I never realized how predictable he was. He thought this would be like every other time with every other woman in every other shallow relationship he had—he would be angry, act hurt, and wait for me to try to make things better, try to convince him not to leave. After I read his message, I couldn’t help but laugh. I stood on my patio, proudly surveying my plethora of plants, holding a cup of coffee, cackling to myself as I responded to him.