But soon—soon!—he’ll be gone, and she’ll have her baby boy again. Maybe then she’ll turn the basement space into a nice playroom.
Or maybe she’ll sell the house, move away, get a fresh start somewhere . . .
Down south, or in Mexico, or the Caribbean or South America, even . . .
Carmen had family there, on his late father’s side. He used to talk about visiting them one day, maybe even going back for a year or two.
“I want to show my son his roots,” he would say. “He should know where he comes from, since—well, since my side of the family is all the roots he has.”
He will know, Alex promises Carmen now. I’ll take him there. I’ll show him. I’ll make sure he knows about his father . . .
His father.
But his father won’t be—
No! Don’t think that way. The details don’t matter.
Alex pulls the door open, picks up the flashlight and shines the beam into the room.
Carlos is lying on the bed.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Alex calls softly. “Time to wake up. I brought your supper.”
Huddled under the blanket, he doesn’t move.
“Carlos,” she calls.
Nothing.
Maybe he’s still pretending to be someone else. Fine. She’ll play along.
“Nick! Nick?”
Still, no response. Keeping the flashlight beam trained on the bed, she takes a step into the room, wondering if it’s a trick. He pulled this crap once before.
“Nick?”
Nothing.
Is he going to pounce on her when she comes close enough?
She inches toward the bed, keeping a cautious distance. He doesn’t move.
“Nick. Last call for supper.”
No response.
She shrugs. She’s not falling for this again.
“Fine. Go ahead and be that—” She breaks off, seeing the blood.
It’s not easy to say good-bye . . . even the second time.
Peter’s words resonate in Ben’s head as he tucks his credit card into the bill folder and hands it back to the waiter.
“I don’t know why you won’t let me split it with you,” Gaby says, wallet still in hand.
He rolls his eyes and says to the ceiling, “Como coco.”
“You sound like Abuela. Only she never called me coconut-headed. Jaz was the stubborn one. And so was she.”
Ben grins, remembering Gaby’s tiny—no more than five feet tall—but tough grandmother. She had a soft spot for her motherless granddaughter, but not much of one for anyone else. That included him. Gaby had hoped she’d like him from the start because he was a fellow Puerto Rican, unlike her former boyfriend, to whom Abuela continued to refer as the Guebon.
“At least she doesn’t have a derogatory name for you,” Gaby told Ben when her grandmother failed to warm up to him immediately. “That’s a good sign.”
She was right. Eventually—before their wedding day—Abuela came around.
At the reception, she came up to Ben and cupped his cheek in her withered hand. He asked her to dance.
She shook her head. “I can’t dance anymore. I just want to say something to you.”
“What is it?”
She pointed to Gaby, across the room laughing with her cousins. “Cuidala.”
Take care of her.
“Don’t worry, Abuela. I will. I promise . . .”
Ben pulls out his phone to check the time. It’s late—but not too late.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says impulsively. “I’ll let you buy us an after-dinner drink. Will that make you feel better?”
She looks taken aback. “Okay. Sure. Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere.” Just not home, alone, again. “You can decide.”
The waiter reappears with the bill folder. Ben busies himself adding in the tip, slaps the folder closed, and pockets his credit card.
“Ready?” he asks Gaby.
“Ready.”
Out on the street, she points. “I know a nice place off Gansevoort.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
As they walk, Ben fights the urge to take her hand. This isn’t a date. They’re not together like that. They’re just . . .
Saying good-bye? Is that really what this is?
Peter is right. It’s not easy. The more time he spends with her, the more he wants to suggest that they give it another try.
But that shouldn’t come from him. It should come from her. And that’s about as likely as—
“Oh, no! It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The place I was taking you—it’s right over there, but . . .” She points at a small building with a metal security gate covering the entrance of the first-floor business. “I guess it’s closed.”
“We can go someplace else.”
“We can.”
They look around.
“Or,” she says, and then stops, shaking her head.
“Or what?”
“I was going to say we can just get in a cab and you can come up to my apartment . . . you know, to get your box of stuff. But you probably don’t want to—”
“No, I do. That’s a good idea. We can do that. Let’s do that.”
He turns and raises his arm to flag a passing cab, smiling to himself.
Damn him.
Damn Carlos Diaz—Nick Santana—whoever the hell he is.
Damn him for slitting his wrists with a shard of broken glass that came from a vase Carmen brought home on their first Valentine’s Day after they were married.
On that day, the vase had held a dozen roses. Yellow ones, because pink and red, he said, were too cliché.
Alex was thrilled—until she bragged about it the next morning to one of the nurses at the hospital.
“Yellow roses are bad luck!” the woman exclaimed. “Don’t you know that?”
Alex did not. A chill ran through her.
“You have to get rid of them,” her coworker urged. “Before something terrible happens.”
She’d gone home and plucked one thorny stem after another from the vase, feeding each one head first into the garbage disposal. She cried, listening to the grinding blades turning the velvety golden petals into pulp.
Carmen didn’t even notice the roses were gone. He was working late, working all the time back then. Only came home to shower and sleep for a few hours.
She knew he sometimes went to visit his mother, who at first was friendly toward her. But her mother-in-law kept her distance as time marched on. It was hard to believe that she was even the same woman Alex—as a new bride—had believed might become the mother she’d always wanted.
“She hates me,” she’d tell Carmen.
“She doesn’t hate you. That’s crazy. You’re just paranoid.”
Crazy . . . Paranoid . . . Imagining things . . .
She was so sick of hearing those accusations, had been hearing them all her life from people she believed really cared about her, people she’d even thought might adopt her and become her family.
Now she was hearing those things from her own husband.
Carmen didn’t mean it that way, though. He’d never been fully aware of certain things in her past. Her juvenile records had been sealed, and there was no reason for him to know. If she told him, she might lose him, and she had already lost so many people.
“You won’t lose me,” Carmen promised whenever she grew insecure. “Don’t worry. You have me forever. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”
But then . . .
Then something terrible happened.
Damn Carmen for bringing her yellow roses. Getting rid of them hadn’t gotten rid of the bad luck after all. Even now, years later, it continues.
She should have seen it coming, though—Carlos’s suicide. Should have taken precautions to keep it from happening.
He was on antidepressants when he came here. You don’t stop any medication cold turkey—especially not t
he one Carlos was taking. That particular drug carries an increased risk of suicide if the patient abruptly discontinues it. She should have tapered him off the drug just as she had her own medication years ago. Or at least she should have made sure he didn’t have the means to harm himself.
She’d slipped up, and now look.
With a muttered curse, Alex pries the sharp, bloodied piece of the broken vase from Carlos’s hand and drops it into a small bag. Then, crawling on the floor with the flashlight, she collects the rest of the shards. She puts them into the bag and carries it out to the garage.
She puts the bag into the trunk of the car, along with the shovel, rake, and headlamp. Then, leaving the trunk open, she rolls the handcart into the house, jaw set grimly.
Lying naked in Ben’s arms in her bed, her head against his bare chest, Gaby keeps her eyes closed, though she’s not the least bit sleepy.
If she allows herself to open them, she’ll have to stop pretending that the past few years never happened.
Right now she can almost convince herself that they’re back in their old apartment—not the junior four with the nice countertops, but the smaller place where they lived together when they were young and in love and . . .
Happy.
We were so happy.
If they’d stayed in that cozy apartment, Josh’s crib would have been right next to their bed that morning. He’d still be alive.
That was what Gaby told herself—and Ben—for months after the loss.
Right or wrong . . .
In this moment, it doesn’t matter.
She’s happy right here, right now, for the first time in so long . . .
She doesn’t want to think about what led them here, or where they’ll go from here . . .
Ben’s fingertips play up and down her bare arm. “You okay?” he asks softly—the first words he’s spoken since they somehow tumbled into bed together.
“Yes. Are you?”
“Yeah. But—”
“Don’t say it, Ben.”
“Don’t say what?”
“You know. That it was a mistake, that we shouldn’t have let it happen, that—”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You weren’t?”
“No. It wasn’t a mistake.”
She ponders that, listening to the city’s night noises through the open window. Hip-hop music from a club a few doors down mixes with traffic and sirens. Departing patrons shout at the bouncer.
Gaby’s fantasy is shattered. The old apartment was on the thirtieth floor, with central air-conditioning. They heard very little even when the windows were open—which was rare.
Reluctantly, she allows her eyes to open. Her gaze falls on two almost empty glasses of wine sitting on the table. They were sitting right there, sipping and chatting, when he leaned in suddenly and kissed her.
“Then what were you going to say?” she asks him. “When you said ‘but’ . . . ?”
“I was going to say that I don’t think we should talk about it.”
“About . . .”
“This. Not tonight, anyway. I don’t think we should try to figure out what it means, or what should happen next . . . okay?”
Relieved, she smiles and closes her eyes again. “Okay.”
Muttering to herself, Alex shoves the blade of a shovel into the patch of ground she just raked clear of fallen leaves from the dense patch of trees arching overhead.
“Over your dead body is right, you son of a bitch . . .”
She heaves a shovelful of dirt to the side of the hole and stabs the blade again into the deepening pit.
“If I’d known what you were going to do, I’d have done it for you myself . . .”
Thud. The shovel slams into the hole again.
She grunts, lifts. More dirt hails down, hitting her shoes.
“Would have made it a lot less messy, too . . .”
Thud.
Grunt.
Lift.
Toss.
At last, the hole is deep enough.
The beam of her headlamp bobs along the trail as she pulls the handcart up to the shed that contains a few large wooden crates, the kind used to ship construction materials and furniture. Carmen meant to burn them or repurpose them, but never had the chance. Alex carts a large one back down to the freshly dug crater. She pries off the lid and sets it aside, then pushes the crate over the edge. It lands in the bottom of the hole with a thump, open side up. Waiting.
Panting hard, she pulls the handcart back to the car, parked in a small clearing off a lane that runs up to the property from the main road. At this time of year, there’s a good amount of vegetation to conceal it even if someone happened to pass by—not that anyone ever does.
Reaching into her back pocket for the keys, she’s seized by momentary panic. They aren’t there.
Where can they be? Did she drop them in the shed? Into the dirt? Somewhere along the overgrown trail? If so, she’ll never find them. Now what?
It’s not as if she can call Triple A for help. And she can’t abandon the car here with a dead body in the trunk.
She can if she flees the country.
It isn’t the first time the thought has entered her mind. She can make a fresh start in Mexico or South America . . .
No. That was Carmen’s fantasy, back before they built their dream house here. He was the one who had faraway family. She had no one.
No one but him, and their son . . .
And when they were gone, she was back to having no one.
Oh. Okay, there they are. The keys. Thank goodness. No fleeing the country tonight, at any rate. She’d tucked the key ring into the back left pocket of her jeans, not the back right.
She presses the remote and pops open the trunk.
The interior is lined with a big blue plastic tarp. On top of it lies a bulky black garbage bag—the oversized, extra-thick kind used by contractors.
With a grunt, she wrestles it out and lets it clunk to the ground. Then, positioning it on the handcart, she backs down the trail to the waiting crate inside the hole.
Every trudging footstep is in time to the refrain running through her head.
Two . . . weeks . . . two . . . weeks . . . two . . . weeks . . .
That’s all the time she has to find someone new.
Chapter 6
“Me muero de hambre!” Jaz exclaims, picking up the menu.
“What else is new?” Gaby asks, seated across the table from her, busily texting on her phone. “You’re always starving.”
“I want the challah French toast and the goat cheese omelet. I can’t decide. They both sound so good.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Or maybe I’ll have the deep fried goat brains instead. What do you think? Do you want to split that?”
“Sure, okay, whatever . . .” Gaby murmurs while typing: @ brunch w/ my cousin, how bout you?
“Ay Dios mio!”
Startled, Gaby lifts her head. “What?”
“You’re not even listening to me!”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re texting. You should have just stayed home alone and had brunch with your phone.”
“I’m sorry.” Gaby hastily types gtg—shorthand for got to go—and guiltily tucks the phone into her pocket.
Jaz is right. She probably should have stayed home.
But when her cousin called to invite her to brunch, she had just noticed the beautiful day beyond her measly window and was feeling as though she should get out there and enjoy it. Credit for that instinct went to Abuela, who had worked in a factory most of her life. She always said it was a crime for anyone who didn’t have to be inside not to go outdoors when the sun was shining.
“Sal afruera!” she’d command, and Gaby would obediently get outside.
She had automatically said yes to Jaz’s invitation before stopping to realize she was about to spend several hours with someone who asks a lot of questions she’s not in the mood to answer
on an ordinary day—let alone today.
Jaz still lives in the old neighborhood in the Bronx and has a Jeep that she likes to drive into Manhattan on weekends. Gaby met her on their usual corner near the parking garage a few blocks from her apartment. Luckily, Jaz was so full of news about a new guy she’d met that she did almost all the talking as they strolled through the dappled Saturday morning sunshine to this café just off Central Park West.
Gaby found herself watching the fat white clouds sailing high above the skyline, remembering those long ago beach days with Ben.
“That one looks like a wizard riding a tricycle up the side of a sugar cone with two scoops of strawberry ice cream,” he’d say, or, “Look! It’s a three-headed duck swimming over a waterfall!”
“What? I don’t see it!”
“That’s because you’re not looking at it the right way, Gaby. If you really want to see something, just look for it, and it’ll be there . . .”
Right now all she can see is her cousin shaking her head disapprovingly from across the table, her big hoop earrings swaying back and forth.
“What? I put away the phone.”
“I feel like you’re still thinking about it.”
“I’m not.” She reaches for her own menu and tries to focus on it. But she’s too distracted for that; too distracted even for simple conversation. Electronic conversation—with him—would be a different story.
A tone sounds from her phone in her pocket, signaling a return text. She waits until Jaz looks away to reach for it, but her cousin catches her.
“Gaby! Come on! You’re going to see him in a few hours anyway, aren’t you?”
“See who?”
“Ryan. Isn’t that who you’re texting?”
“No. But I am seeing him tonight,” she adds quickly. “We’re going to a movie. Have you seen anything good lately?”
Diversion foiled: “If you weren’t texting Ryan,” Jaz says, “then who were you texting?”
“Ben,” she admits reluctantly, setting the menu aside again. Might as well get it over with.
“Ben? Ben, Ben?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
She takes a deep breath. “We got together the other night, and we—”
“No!”
“What?”
“Please tell me that you did not do what I think you did, Gabriela.”
The Black Widow Page 12