A White Picket Fence

by Laura Branchflower

  “The graduation party starts in three hours,” Lina said, her voice deep with sleep. “You’d just have to turn around and come back.”

  “I’m not going to the graduation party. I want to see Ryan’s band. They’re playing tonight.”

  “You can’t miss Megan’s graduation party. And please lose the T-shirt before your dad or grandparents see it.”

  “No one cares if I’m at the party.”

  “I care. Your father cares.”

  “You only care because you’re afraid it will make you look bad if I’m not. You can’t make me go.”

  “You’re right. I can’t make you go, but I am asking you as a member of this family and as a favor to me, to go.”

  “No.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “Megan represents everything that’s wrong with this society, and I refuse to celebrate her.”

  Lina had no idea what she was talking about and was too tired to engage her. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “Now will you take me to Emma’s?”

  “No. I’m not taking you to Emma’s. Invite Emma to come here. There’s going to be plenty of food and music.”

  “Emma doesn’t want to celebrate Megan either! Why are you being so unreasonable? Dr. Drayton would never make me go.”

  “You don’t have to attend, but you’re not leaving this house, Katie.”

  7

  Lina tossed the magazine onto the side table for the third time in as many minutes and then, seconds later, picked it up again and began flipping through it. She was nervous and she hated it. All day she’d been recalling the flash of attraction she saw in Dr. Drayton’s eyes at Megan’s graduation, and as a result she’d spent a little more time on her appearance, carefully choosing the sleeveless crème linen dress she was wearing. It wasn’t that she liked him in any inappropriate way, but knowing he appreciated the way she looked was a welcome stroke to her ego, and she feared the knowledge might make her less comfortable around him.

  The apprehension dissolved as soon as he stepped out into the waiting room beside Katie, replaced by a rush of warmth and the realization that she’d missed talking to him. He’d been away for two weeks—on a vacation, she assumed, based on his tan—so they’d gone an extra week between appointments.

  “Have you been lounging on a beach?” Lina asked as she walked towards the couch in his office.

  “Close. I was sailing.”

  “That sounds relaxing. You own a boat?”

  “We rented a fifty footer in St. Croix and sailed to different islands.” He lowered himself into the chair across from her position on the couch. “It was fantastic.”

  “Wow, I bet. Did you rent a crew too?”

  “No, but you certainly can. Do you like boats?”

  “I do.” She smiled. “But only as a passenger. You must be experienced if you didn’t need a crew.”

  “I grew up sailing.” He leaned back in the chair and casually crossed one leg over the other.

  She realized how little she actually knew about him, which felt strange considering how much he knew about her. “Was the nephew graduating from your side or your wife’s?”

  “I don’t have a wife.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I just thought—didn’t I hear you mention a son to Katie?”

  “You did. You don’t have to be married to have children.”

  “I know.” She blushed.

  “I’m teasing you, Lina.” He smiled. “I’m divorced.”

  The use of her first name made the exchange feel more personal, and she knew the dynamics of their relationship had changed over the past two weeks. “It’s not nice to tease me. I blush too easily.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not.” She returned his smile.

  “You’re right. I’m not.” He continued to look into her eyes, and then he was pushing one of his hands back through his hair. “Katie,” he said as if reminding himself why they were meeting. He opened the folder on his lap. “Any concerns?” His demeanor changed from light and flirtatious to serious.

  “No.” Lina shook her head. Even if she had concerns, she wasn’t sure if she’d remember them. She’d been flirting with Dr. Drayton, and she felt a stab of guilt at the realization.

  Katie gnawed on her thumbnail as she sat on a chair beside the desk in her bedroom, watching Emma, who was lying on her bed reading a section in the magic book Katie had snuck from her grandma’s house. “Well?”

  Emma raised her eyes. “You have to do it,” she said. “Can you imagine if it works?”

  Katie felt a tingling of excitement in her chest. “I have a feeling it will, but how am I going to get a piece of his hair?” The spell called for a few strands of Matt’s hair. “Everything else is easy. One of us can just ask him his birthday.” She’d seen him twice since the night they met, and although they hadn’t really spent any time alone, she had talked to him enough to feel okay about asking him his birthday.

  Emma’s eyes returned to the book. “So we just need his hair and your hair and a Bible. Maybe you could pretend to want to brush his hair or something.”

  “I can’t imagine him letting me touch his hair.” He looked like someone who spent a lot of time perfecting his spiky look. “Does he ever spend the night at your house and do his hair?”

  “He does spend the night,” Emma said. “So he must do his hair. Next time he spends the night, you should spend the night too.”

  “I wish,” Katie sighed. “You know I’m not allowed to do sleepovers.”

  “Oh right. When is your dad going to lighten up? You don’t even drink.”

  “I should have gone to Megan’s stupid graduation party. I think he’s still annoyed I stayed in my room the whole time.” Katie thought he wouldn’t notice, but instead he tried to force her to come out of her room. Then her mom had said something to him and he didn’t bother her for the rest of the night.

  “So how long will it take for him to fall in love with you?” Emma asked. “I mean once the spell starts.”

  “I don’t know,” Katie said. “My grandma said it depends on how much I believe. The stronger my belief, the faster the universe will respond.”

  Phil was off with Logan at an early lacrosse game the following morning, and Lina was enjoying a few extra minutes of sleep when Katie entered her bedroom demanding a Bible.

  “A Bible?” Lina repeated, surprised, especially considering Katie’s latest arguments with Phil revolved around her desire to stop attending church. “Why?”

  “I want to borrow it.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Is Emma still here?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to her house.”

  “You want to take the Bible to Emma’s?” The Bible was Phil’s, and Lina knew he wouldn’t want it leaving the house.

  “No,” Katie sighed. “I just want to borrow it.”

  “Are you going out without showering? Your hair looks—”

  “No! Where should I look for the Bible?”

  Moments later, Lina was handing Katie Phil’s King James Bible. “Thanks.” Katie walked off towards the door.

  “Katie?”

  “What?”

  “Why the sudden interest in the Bible?”

  Katie shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Are you starting to like going to church?”

  “No!” She scowled. “Why do you have to analyze everything I do? Why can’t you just let me look at a Bible without reading into it? It’s annoying,” she said before Lina could say more.

  “Do you want to go to an Orioles game?” Logan called out after bounding out of Phil’s car later that day. “Dad says yes if you do.”

  Lina, who had been on her hands and knees weeding a flower bed, came to her feet. “You two can go.” She wasn’t in the mood for a baseball game.

  “He said he’d only go if you came too.” Logan stopped beside her. “Please.” He stuc
k out his lower lip like he did when he was a little boy and wanted something.

  “Logan—”

  “They’re playing the Yankees. Please.” He put his hands together like he was praying.

  Lina looked away from the action on the field to watch Phil who, as he’d been doing almost since they arrived, was tapping on his cell phone. “Still work?”

  He darkened the display, slipping the phone into the pocket of his shorts as he brought his gaze back to the field. “Work.” The side of his jaw was clenched.

  “Dad? Could I have some money? We want to get ice cream,” Logan said.

  Phil handed him some cash, and for the third time since arriving an hour and a half earlier, Logan and his friends went off to get food while Phil again took out his cell phone.

  Lina laughed. “Why did you make me come if all you’re going to do is text work?”

  “Sorry.” When Phil looked up from his phone, something in his eyes had Lina’s heart rate increasing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s going on at five thirty on a Saturday that is so urgent?” He rarely worked on Saturdays unless he was in the midst of an important trial.

  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m done working. I promise.”

  True to his word, Phil didn’t take out his phone again. Lina settled into the game, actually having a nice time as she drank a couple of beers, ate a soft pretzel and a hotdog and watched the Orioles destroy the Yankees, 10-0.

  It was close to 8:30 p.m. when Phil pulled into the garage after dropping Logan’s friends at their prospective houses. As Lina followed Logan into the house, she hesitated when Phil called her name. He was still sitting in the car.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I have to go out for a little while. Someone screwed up at work, and I need to deal with it.”

  “Was it Kim?”

  A flash of surprise crossed his face. “I shouldn’t be longer than an hour or so.”

  “Answer my question, Phil.”

  “I have to go.”

  Lina watched in stunned silence as he backed out of the garage and drove away. This wasn’t happening. Her husband wasn’t disappearing with barely an explanation on a Saturday night. She quickly called his cell phone.

  “Lina,” he answered, “please just let me deal with this.”

  “What’s going on? Are you on your way to the office?”

  There was a long pause. “I need you to just let me handle it.”

  “Is it work related?” she thought to ask. “Just tell me that.”

  “I’m not prepared to answer any questions right now.”

  “Not prepared?” she repeated, suddenly angry at his vague response. “I’m your wife.”

  “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Trust you to what?” She gripped her forehead as she struggled to maintain control. “Do I have to call Wayne to find out what’s going on?”

  “Don’t do this, Lina. I’m about at my limit right now.”

  “Oh, you’re at your limit? At least you know what’s going on.” She looked at her phone. He’d hung up on her.

  Katie’s chest swelled with emotion at the sound of the soulful male vocalist, knowing before she and Emma reached the barn that it was Matt. He was standing at the center of the stage, his hand gripping the mic, his eyes closed as his haunting voice filled the air.

  The band practiced for over an hour, stopping occasionally to discuss an arrangement, but Matt was mostly quiet, strumming his guitar, or scribbling notes on a pad, never once looking in Katie’s direction. As soon as they began putting away their equipment, Katie made her way to Matt, offering him a big cup of water.

  “Thanks.” He tilted the cup back, the muscles of his throat constricting as he swallowed it down.

  “You’re amazing,” Katie said, not caring if she sounded corny, because it was true, and she wanted him to know it.

  “Yeah?” He met her eyes.

  “I’m not just saying it to say it. I really mean it. You remind me of Dylan or Lennon or one of those guys.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled, and she couldn’t tell if it was a pleased or amused smile. “I need some air.” He walked past her, taking a few steps before turning back. “You coming?”

  “Yeah.” She followed him out of the barn and over to a bench, dropping down beside him.

  “What’s your story, Hunter? Ryan said your parents grounded you for a year for doing drugs. That true?”

  Katie didn’t want to lie to him, but she was afraid if she was honest he would think she was a freak, so she settled for half the truth. “Six months, but I kind of refused to leave my room because I hated them, and then it made me kind of depressed, and then I didn’t want to,” she said.

  “So you didn’t leave your room at all?”

  “I went to school and church, and I had to eat meals with my family, but besides that, no.” She could feel him looking at her but stared forward, afraid she’d see pity in his eyes.

  “What did you do in your room?”

  “Read a little, listened to music, but mostly nothing. The first couple months I didn’t have a phone or Internet, and by the time they gave them back to me, I didn’t care.”

  “What made you start caring again?”

  Katie looked at him then and was surprised to see only interest in his eyes. “They made me go to a psychiatrist, and he…” She wasn’t sure what Dr. Drayton had done exactly. “He listened to me, I guess. I sound like I’m crazy or something and I’m not.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy. Things better now?”

  “Yeah. This is probably going to sound weird, but when I talk about it, I feel like I’m describing someone else. At the time I just didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.”

  “I get that. After my mom died I had to live with my dad for a while. It sucked. He has a wife and little kids and this whole life that has nothing to do with me. I felt like I was in this alternate universe where my mom had never existed. I only lasted three weeks. I stayed with a friend until I finished the school year and then found my grandma.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  “Nothing. He knew it wasn’t working. I hadn’t even seen him for ten years when she died. I barely remembered him. He was like a stranger.”

  “That sucks.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck about him.”

  The conversation turned lighter then as Matt talked about the job he’d recently gotten at a lumberyard, which would hopefully turn full-time after the summer hires went back to school. “I could make some pretty decent money,” he said.

  “You’re not going to college?” Katie thought everyone went to college.

  “I just want to make music. College isn’t going to help me do that.”

  Katie was thinking about how to respond when she saw the blonde from the first night she’d met Matt approaching. He was going to leave, and she’d completely forgotten to get his birth date or a few strands of his hair. “There’s something in your hair,” she thought to say.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know—just something.” Katie reached out and gripped several pieces of his hair before yanking hard.

  “Ow.” His hand immediately went to his head, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

  “Sorry.” She could feel the hair in her fingers.

  “Did you get it?”

  “What?”

  “Whatever was in my hair.” He continued to frown at her.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s gone.”

  8

  Lina was greeted with a pounding headache and an empty bed the following morning. She peeked at the alarm clock, horrified to discover it was after 11:00 a.m. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late. A note beside the clock caught her eye, and she picked it up, squinting to read it.

  “L - Took the kids to church. Didn’t want to wake you. I love you, P.”<
br />
  A bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol and a glass of water sat on the nightstand.

  The events of the previous night were fuzzy, but she knew why her head was pounding. She’d consumed too much wine. She had a vague memory of Phil slipping pills into her mouth and holding a glass of ice water against her lips. She couldn’t recall whether they talked or what time it was when he came home, but he’d carried her upstairs, and he must have taken off her clothes because she was naked. Where had he been? If he told her she had no recollection, but the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced there was someone else. She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea swept through her.

  “This was a pleasant surprise,” Diane said as she joined Lina at a busy Italian restaurant not far from her house. “Although, why you chose this noisy place—”

  “I don’t want to be overheard,” Lina interrupted. “I think something’s going on with Phil.” She quickly recounted the events of the previous evening.

  “That’s it?” Diane raised her eyebrows. “Really, Lina, are you looking for reasons to be upset? Do you know how many times Wayne gets work calls on the weekend?”

  “Phil has never received a call on a Saturday night and disappeared for who knows how many hours.”

  “Now he has. He’s not cheating on you, Lina. And don’t you dare accuse him of it. He has enough pressure on him at work. Why would you even want to put those thoughts in his head?”

  Lina felt relief as she listened to Diane. “I was so sure when he—”

  “Honey.” Diane gripped her hand. “I don’t know what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, but it’s all in your imagination. You should see the way he looks at you. Men don’t look at their wives the way Phil looks at you when they’re cheating.”

  It was close to 4:00 p.m. when Lina saw Phil for the first time that day. He was in his study at the front of the house, engrossed in something on his computer screen when she paused outside the door.

  He removed his reading glasses and leaned back in his chair, his eyes meeting hers. There were light shadows under his eyes, and she wondered how much sleep he’d gotten the previous night.