A Simple Favor

by Darcey Bell

  Sean was spending that night at his house, working. I was supposed to keep the boys overnight, but I called and said I wanted to come over. Sean heard the urgency in my voice. Without asking what was wrong, he told me to put the boys in the car and text him when I was outside his house. I carried the boys, still in their pajamas, into my car. When I reached Sean’s house, he came out and helped me carry them to their rooms.

  I told him that I had smelled Emily’s perfume on Nicky, and that this time Nicky had insisted that he’d seen his mom. That she’d touched him.

  Sean looked weary. His face got dark, and his tone was curt and even angry as he said, “Stephanie, please cut the Twilight Zone crap.” He had never talked to me that way before, and for the first time it occurred to me that Emily could win this one. Until then I hadn’t even known that it was a contest. But it was. He would always love Emily—love her memory—more than he loved me. Like Nicky, Sean would never get over her loss.

  He said, “Stephanie, you’re losing it. Emily is dead. No one wants that to be true, but it is true. It wasn’t supposed to happen. But it has.”

  I had a vague memory of him saying that before: It wasn’t supposed to happen. And again I wondered, What was supposed to happen?

  Sean said, “We need to help Nicky accept that, not indulge him in his painful, destructive fantasies.”

  I knew he was right. But the smell of Emily’s perfume had unnerved me. Maybe I was wishful thinking, wanting to believe she was still alive. Though I did realize that, if she were, I’d have some serious explaining to do. I told myself: Get a grip. We’re all grieving, and grief makes people imagine and do crazy things . . .

  Sean sighed deeply. Then he got up and took my hand and led me upstairs to the back bathroom on the second floor where, in the linen closet, way up on a shelf, was an atomizer of Emily’s perfume.

  He sprayed it into the air.

  It was eerie. Lilacs and lilies. Italian nuns. It brought Emily back to us, just for a moment. Emily was there with us in the room.

  He said, “I keep a bottle back here. Somehow Nicky found out. And he got the stepladder and dragged it over to the shelf and reached the perfume bottle and sprayed it in his hair. Poor little guy. I suppose it made him feel closer to his mom.”

  Part of me knew that it didn’t make sense. Nicky hadn’t been home for two days, and it was only tonight that I smelled Emily’s scent on his hair. But I wanted a logical explanation. I wanted to believe Sean. And besides, there was no other explanation. I’d seen the autopsy report and the urn that contained my friend’s ashes.

  With Emily’s perfume, with her sweet scent of lilacs and lilies hanging thickly in the air, Sean and I made love. It was shameful, how turned on we were. But maybe it wasn’t all that surprising. Maybe we were just trying to prove something to ourselves and to each other.

  Our beloved Emily was dead.

  But we were still alive.

  One night, I was at my house with Miles eating dinner: pasta with fresh tomato sauce, the kind of delicious vegetarian meal we used to have when it was just the two of us. It was a relief, in a way. A relief and a pleasure.

  I was feeling peaceful, so that it was doubly shocking when Miles said, “Hey, guess what, Mom. I saw Nicky’s mother today. She was heading into the woods behind the school when we went outside for recess. It was like she was waiting till we came out. And then she ran away because she didn’t want anyone else seeing her. She was moving fast. But it was her.”

  Is it possible for your heart to stop beating while the rest of you goes on living? It must be. My heart stalled in my chest.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Sure sure?” I asked, trying to stay calm.

  “Sure sure,” Miles said.

  There was a book we used to read. One of the moms who follows my blog recommended it when I blogged about that time when Miles was always hiding. And scaring me senseless.

  The book is called Where Is Buster Bunny? The bunny keeps hiding from his mom and frightening her, though the kids can find him in the illustrations. And the mother rabbit is very worried because she has no idea where he is. Anyway, at the end, the little bunny promises that he’ll never hide again:

  “Do you promise with your little pink nose?” his mother asked.

  “Yes,” said Buster Bunny.

  “Do you promise with every one of your cute little toes?”

  “Yes,” said Buster Bunny, and he never hid from his mother again.

  It had become a game that Miles and I played whenever I wanted him to promise me something. Now I asked him:

  “Was it really Emily? Do you promise with your little pink nose?”

  “Yes,” said my son.

  “Do you promise with every one of your cute little toes?”

  “It was her. I promise,” said Miles.

  22

  Stephanie's Blog

  Another Simple Favor

  Hi, moms!

  This is going to be a quick one. Can any of you moms remember the name of a French movie I’m pretty sure I saw in college about a sadistic high school principal and his sexy mistress (Simone Signoret?) who conspire to scare his rich, fragile wife to death by making her think she has murdered him and then making it seem like he’s come back from the dead?

  I can’t believe I would have made this story up. Do let me know.

  Thanks!

  Love,

  Stephanie

  23

  Stephanie's Blog

  Another Simple Favor (continued)

  Diabolique!

  Thanks, moms, for the answer, which came back within seconds! I cannot believe how attentive you are, how this proves that there are moms reading this right now, and that if I need help—just a memory jog, in this case—they don’t hesitate for a second.

  Diabolique.

  I was able to stream the film within minutes of posting my question.

  What an amazing moment this is! You want something, but you don’t know exactly what you want, and you put it out there into cyberspace, and you figure out what you want. And you get it.

  If only real life were like this blog.

  I’m undecided about whether to recommend this film to you moms. The mom who emailed me the name said the reason she remembered the title is that the film scared her more than anything she has ever seen. She would never watch it again, and she strongly suggests that I not make other moms live with the memory of it, as she has.

  If we’re the type who thinks that Patricia Highsmith’s (just typing the name makes me miss Emily!) novels are creepy, this might not be for us. But I was engrossed because the plot is so twisty and because Simone Signoret is so outrageous playing the hot high school teacher/sinister-babe mistress.

  The film begins at the school where lots of gawky French boys in short pants are running around yelling. The principal is a control freak. Everyone is scared of him, and he messes with everyone just because he can.

  Simone Signoret is wearing dark sunglasses to hide the bruises she got from the principal, her violent lover. He also abuses his wife but only psychologically, because the wife’s money supports the school. The wife’s got a heart condition, so the guy makes her so unhappy that she thinks she’s going to die of misery and humiliation.

  Films like this always make me realize how, despite the mistakes I’ve made and the bad things I’ve done, I’ve been lucky in my choice of men. Because (as so many moms have discovered) it’s so easy to get involved with a person you think is a nice guy. You have a child with him. And one day he turns . . .

  The wife and the mistress both hate the principal so much they decide to kill him. They feed him drugged whiskey. Then they put his body in a basket and dump it in the school swimming pool.

  The plan is to make it look like an accident. It was never going to work, but that turns out not to matter. When they drain the pool, there’s no body.

  Enough spoilers, moms. In case you decide to see it .
. . not that I’m suggesting you do.

  So let me just say that the dead man keeps showing up in unexpected and terrifying places, not like a slasher film (the phone call is coming from inside the house!) or a gore fest, but something darker and more wicked.

  The story turns and turns. No one is what he seems. Nothing is what you think.

  I stayed with it. I got the shivers. I was surprised by the end. It got me through a few hours.

  See the film or not. The choice is up to you brave, intelligent moms.

  All my love and, as always, thanks to you,

  Stephanie

  24

  Stephanie

  What I’ve just written in my blog is—once again—not what happened. In fact the film drove me crazy. Even as the film was scaring me senseless, part of me was wondering: What if everyone is lying? Gaslighting me? What if Emily is alive? What if Emily and Sean conspired to put me through this? To do this to me. But why? What did I do to them? It was extremely depressing.

  I watched the film in my own house—secretively, guiltily, as if it were a porn film. The minute it ended, I wished I was at Sean’s house. I needed to hear Sean tell me that I was just being paranoid. I needed to believe him.

  It was worth waking up the boys and driving over to see Sean. Miles and Nicky would fall back asleep on the way.

  Papers covered Sean’s dining room table. He’d been working. We put the boys back to bed. Sean poured me a glass of brandy. A fire roared in the fireplace. The couch was comfortable and warm.

  I said, “Is there any chance—any chance—that Emily could be alive?”

  “None,” he said. “None at all.”

  I said, “Miles saw her. Miles has very good eyesight. He’s my son. I believe him.”

  “Kids are always seeing things that aren’t there,” said Sean.

  “Not Miles,” I said. “Miles knows what’s there and what isn’t.”

  First Sean looked annoyed, then horrified, then scared, then . . . I had no idea what he was feeling. His expression changed in slow motion. He got up and left the room. He didn’t return for a long time. I sat there, confused and worried. Should I go after him? Should I get Miles and go home? Should I wait?

  I waited. It was the easiest thing to do.

  Finally, Sean returned. He sat back down on the couch and put his arm around me.

  He said, “I’m sorry, Stephanie. I am.”

  “For what?” I said.

  “For not realizing how hard this has been on you. All the time, I thought Nicky and I were the only ones suffering. But you’ve been in pain too.”

  I began to cry.

  “I miss her,” I said.

  “We all do,” said Sean. Then he said, “Move in with me. Let’s try and make this work. Emily’s gone. She’s dead.”

  I was crying harder now. Sean was weeping too.

  “Nicky wants his mom to be alive. He wants it so much he’s convinced himself that she is. And somehow he’s convinced Miles that he’s seen her. But she isn’t alive. And she would have wanted Nicky to have a mom, for us to have a stable household. Come live here. Full time. Please.”

  “All right,” I said. Within moments, I felt the fear and doubts of the last few days vanish, like an illness from which I’d suddenly, miraculously recovered.

  Sean said, “We can stick together and protect ourselves from ghosts or whatever it is that the kids are imagining. Circle the wagons, as you Americans say.” And he laughed through his tears.

  Miles is delighted. He likes Nicky’s house. He’s comfortable here. Their TV is bigger than ours. I don’t miss the nights that Sean and I and the boys spent in our own houses. I don’t miss my own house. Not really. Sometimes I do. Mostly I like being here with the boys and Sean.

  Every day we spend here means that Emily is one day further away. For so long I wanted to keep her close, and now I want her gone. I want to be the one Sean loves and, eventually, the one Nicky loves. I have to be patient.

  There’s a lot I can’t blog about. Not blogging gives me more time to think, to wonder about my friend.

  How could you think you know someone and know so little? How could Emily have been the person who would leave her child and drive to Michigan to drink and take drugs? That wasn’t the friend I knew.

  I became obsessed with what remained of her in the house. It was a hard conversation, but I convinced Sean to put some of Emily’s things in storage. I volunteered to find the place and arrange the transportation.

  I considered asking the moms if they knew the best storage facility on the New York–Connecticut border. But I was afraid they’d see through it and know that I was getting rid of some of Emily’s clothing and possessions. It was something we had to do, to make room for me and Miles, to make us feel as if we really lived there. Sean agreed.

  We arranged for Sean to work with the movers on a Saturday afternoon. I’d take the boys out to a movie, and he’d tell a whole team of professional household organizers what things he wanted to go and what he wanted to stay.

  I was interested in what remained, in what Sean couldn’t bear to send away.

  Until then, whenever I stayed at Sean’s, I had been respectful, honoring Emily’s privacy. It would have felt wrong to go through her drawers and closets. (Sean had thoughtfully cleaned out a dresser and a closet for me to use.) But once I moved in, I began to look around more freely.

  If I found something of Emily’s that interested me, or that seemed to offer some information, I would examine it for evidence about who she really was, and why she did what she did.

  Around this time I stopped blogging. I sent a message to the moms community announcing that I was going on leave and would be back soon.

  It was too hard to write about my life with anything like honesty. I could have blogged about Miles’s diet and helping him grow up to be a good person. I could have blogged about forming a blended family and navigating around the huge hole in our lives.

  Moms aren’t stupid. They would have heard the hollow note; they would have figured out that my interests had begun to lie elsewhere. Maybe they would sense that I’d gotten myself into a slightly dark place that I was going to have to get myself out of.

  I’d become obsessed with how much I could find out about Emily.

  What if Miles and Nicky were telling the truth? What if she was out there? Could she be alive? Could she and Sean be conspiring against me? Was it the insurance money? It was starting to look as if, with the help of the crackerjack lawyers from his firm, Sean was going to succeed in having her death ruled an accident, so the two million would be his, minus the lawyers’ fees.

  When the boys were away at school and Sean was in the city, I began to play a game. I would look for, and find, one interesting thing about Emily each day. One object that would provide a clue about who she really was. Then I would make myself stop.

  The first place I looked was the medicine chest. Not very creative! I found a full bottle of 10-mg Xanax. Prescribed for Emily by a doctor in Manhattan. Why hadn’t she taken it with her? If I were going to ditch my husband and leave my kid with my best friend and go on a drug holiday with alcohol and pills and swimming, the pills would be just what I’d want.

  Unless she had so many she didn’t need these.

  I couldn’t remember what the police report said they found in the cabin. Were there empty pill and liquor bottles around?

  The second day, in a hall closet, I found a purple alligator purse with the Dennis Nylon logo. The purse was filled with bills, small denominations, some euros but mostly various pesos and rubles and dinars, all bright and with flowers and the faces of national heroes. Souvenirs of travel for Dennis Nylon. I imagined poolside parties with lots of local boys and fashion models and drugs.

  Meanwhile Emily was writing press releases and controlling information. My friend hadn’t been a drug-addled mess but a responsible mother and a loving wife with an important job. Or maybe she was all those things. The currency was Emily’s c
ollection. Her travel diary.

  Maybe there had been a crime. Maybe the Russian mob was moving into fashion, and Emily got in the way. My imagination was spinning out of control. I told myself to relax.

  I found a box full of photos of Emily. It seemed weird that there were no pictures of her childhood or of her life before she married Sean. Had Sean gotten rid of those snapshots? Or was there something about her past she’d wanted to erase? Sean had said she was estranged from her parents, but she’d been vague about the reasons. Wasn’t it strange that they could be married and he didn’t know? I told Davis a lot about myself. About my parents. But I’d left out one big thing: my relationship with Chris.

  The only pictures in the box were of Emily and Nicky together. I remembered that Sean gave the photographs of Emily alone to the police, and we hadn’t gotten them back yet. I’d helped him edit out the pictures with Nicky because we decided that we didn’t need our little boy’s face all over the papers, or the internet.

  In a back closet beside the place where the chimney ran up through the attic, I found a pale blue dress on a hanger and a pair of stylish pale blue high-heeled sandals placed neatly beneath it.

  The dress swayed when I opened the door. Like a person hiding in the dark and waiting to jump out and scare me. Boo! I was scared, at first.

  Was it Emily’s wedding dress? I couldn’t ask. I didn’t want Sean knowing that I was rifling through the closets in the attic. He’d told me that he wanted me to feel as if this house was my own. But I didn’t think he meant this.

  I slipped the blue dress off the hanger and took it, together with the shoes, down to our bedroom. I put on Emily’s clothes. The dress was too tight, and the sandals were a bit of a squeeze, but I loosened the straps. I felt like Cinderella’s stepsister trying to stuff her feet into the glass slipper.

  I looked in the mirror. I felt sinful. I felt sad.

  I pretended I was Emily. I lay down on our bed with my legs draped over the end so I could watch myself in the mirror. I reached up under the filmy pale blue dress and began to masturbate. I pretended I was Emily and that Sean was watching me.