The Last Mrs. Parrish

by Liv Constantine

  “Still think it’s funny? You stupid cow!” In a rage, he started pulling everything out and throwing things to the floor. I stood, transfixed, as I watched. When he got to the eggs, he began throwing them at me. I tried to shield my face but felt the sting on my cheeks as he whipped them at me as hard as he could. Within minutes, I was covered in fluids and food. He shut the refrigerator door and stared at me for a long moment.

  “Why aren’t you laughing now, slob?”

  I stood rooted to the spot, too afraid to speak. My lip trembled as I muttered an apology.

  He nodded. “You should be sorry. Clean this shit up, and don’t even think of asking any of the staff for help. It’s your mess.” He walked over to the plate of cupcakes I’d been frosting and threw it on the floor. He unzipped his pants and urinated all over them. I started to cry out, but caught myself in time.

  “You’ll have to tell Bella you were too lazy to make her cupcakes.” He wagged his finger at me. “Bad Mommy.”

  Then he turned around and opened the drawer where I kept my keys and jangled them in his hands before throwing them at me. “And your keys were here the whole time, dummy. Next time, look harder. I’m so tired of having such a lazy, stupid wife.” He stormed from the kitchen and left me there, huddled in the corner, shaking.

  It took me over an hour to clean everything up. In a numb haze, I threw away all the ruined food, mopped, wiped, and cleaned until all the surfaces shone again. I couldn’t let the staff see a mess when they arrived early tomorrow morning. I would have to stop at the bakery tomorrow and pick up cupcakes to replace the ones he’d ruined. I dreaded going upstairs, hoping he’d be asleep by the time I showered and got in bed—but I knew that it excited him to humiliate me. The lights were out when I finished drying my hair and walked over to my side of the bed. His breathing was even, and I heaved a sigh of relief that he was asleep. I pulled the covers up to my chin and was just about to drift off when I felt his hand on my thigh. I froze. Not tonight.

  “Say it,” he commanded.

  “Jackson—”

  He squeezed harder. “Say it.”

  I closed my eyes and forced the words out. “I want you. Make love to me.”

  “Beg me.”

  “I want you now. Please.” I knew he wanted me to say more, but that was all I could force out.

  “You don’t sound very convincing. Show me.”

  I pushed the covers back and lifted my nightgown off. Straddling him the way he liked, I positioned myself so that my breasts were in his face.

  “You’re such a whore.” He thrust into me with no regard to my readiness. I gripped the sheets and made my mind blank until he finished.

  Fifty-Three

  The next day, as usual, there was a gift. This time it was a watch—a Vacheron Constantin worth upward of fifty grand. I didn’t need it, but of course I’d wear it, especially around his business associates and at the club, so everyone could see how generous my husband was. I knew how it would go. He would be charming for the next few weeks: compliment me, take me out to dinner, act solicitous. In truth, it was almost worse than his derision. At least when he was debasing me, I could feel justified in my hatred. But when he went for days on end masquerading as the compassionate man I fell in love with, it was confusing, even when I knew it was all an act.

  He checked in with me every morning to go over what I had planned for the day. That morning I had decided to skip my Pilates class and get a massage and facial instead. He called me at ten, like he did every day.

  “Good morning, Daphne. I’ve e-mailed you an article on the new exhibit at the Guggenheim. Make sure you take a look. I’d like to discuss it tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “On your way to the gym?”

  “Yes, see you later,” I lied. I wasn’t in a mood for a lecture on the importance of exercise.

  Later that night, I was having a glass of wine in the sunroom and reading the damn Guggenheim article while the girls were being bathed. As soon as I saw his face, I knew something was wrong.

  “Hello.” I made my voice bright.

  He was holding a drink. “What are you doing?”

  I lifted my iPad. “Reading the article you sent.”

  “How was Pilates?”

  “Fine. How was your day?”

  He sat down across from me on the sofa and shook his head. “Not great. One of my managers lied to me.”

  I looked up from the screen. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. And about something really stupid. I asked him if he’d made a phone call, and he said yes.” He took a long swallow from his glass of bourbon. “Thing is, he hadn’t. All he had to do was tell me, say he’d planned to later.” He shrugged. “It would have been no big deal. But he lied.”

  My heart fluttered, and I picked up my wineglass, taking a sip. “Maybe he was afraid you’d be angry.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. Now I am. Really pissed, actually. Insulted too. He must think I’m an idiot. I hate being lied to. I’ll put up with a lot of things, but lying, I can’t abide it.”

  Unless he was the one doing the lying, of course. I gave him a neutral look. “I get it. You don’t like liars.” Now who was treating someone like an idiot? I knew there was no manager, that it was his passive-aggressive way of confronting me. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I did wonder how he knew I’d skipped my class. “So what did you do?”

  He walked over to me, sat down, put his hand on my knee. “What do you think I should do?”

  I slid away from him. He inched closer.

  “I don’t know, Jackson. Do whatever you think is right.”

  He pursed his lips, started to say something else, then sprang up from the sofa.

  “Enough of this bullshit. Why did you lie to me today?”

  “About what?”

  “Going to the gym. You were at the spa from eleven to two.”

  I frowned at him. “How do you know that? Are you having me followed?”

  “No.”

  “Then how?”

  He gave me a vicious smile. “Maybe people are following you. Maybe cameras are watching you. You just never know.”

  My throat started to close up. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I gripped the side of the sofa as I tried to stop the room from spinning. He said nothing, merely watched with an amused expression. When I finally found my voice, the only word that came out was “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  When I didn’t answer, he went on.

  “Because I can’t trust you. And I was justified. You lied to me. I won’t be made a fool of.”

  “I should have told you, I was just tired today. I’m sorry. You can trust me.”

  “I’ll bestow trust on you when you deserve it. When you stop lying.”

  “Someone must have really hurt you in the past, made a fool out of you,” I said in a sympathetic tone, knowing it would get under his skin.

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “No one made a fool out of me, and no one ever will.” He grabbed my glass of wine, walked over to the wet bar, and poured the remains in the sink. “I think you’ve consumed enough calories—especially considering you were too lazy to exercise today. Why don’t you go and change for dinner? I’ll see you then.”

  After he left, I poured myself a new glass and thought about this latest revelation. I bet he was spying on me in other ways too. I couldn’t let my guard down at all. Maybe he’d bugged the phone or put cameras in the house. It was time for action on my part, and I needed a plan. He controlled all of the money. I was given a cash allowance for incidentals but had to give him receipts for everything I spent. All the rest of the bills went to his office. He gave me no discretionary spending—just one more way he tried to keep me under his thumb. He didn’t know that I’d accumulated my own secret stash.

  I’d set up an e-mail account and cloud credentials under a fake name on one of the laptops in the office and hid the computer in a closet underneath brochures and flyers
—somewhere he’d never think to look. I sold some of my designer purses and clothing on eBay and had the money wired into an account he knew nothing about. I had everything go to a post office box I’d set up in Milton, New York, a thirty-minute ride from the house. It was slow going, but over the past five years, I’d put together a decent enough emergency fund. To date, I’d saved close to $30,000. I also bought a pack of burner cells that I kept at the office. I didn’t know yet what I was going to do with all of it, only that I’d need it one day. Jackson thought he had every angle covered, but, unlike him, I was unfettered by delusions of grandeur. I had to believe that somehow they would be his undoing.

  Fifty-Four

  Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. I sang in our church choir every Christmas Eve, and Julie was always front and center, cheering me on. Then we’d go back to the inn and have dinner, happy to be the ones waited on for a change. We could give one gift early and save the rest for Christmas Day. The last Christmas that I spent with Julie, she’d been fidgety all through dinner, as though she was bursting with some secret she couldn’t wait to share. I gave her my gift—a pair of gold ball earrings that I’d scrimped and saved for with my tips at the inn. When it was her turn, she handed me a small box, her eyes bright with excitement.

  I tore open the paper and lifted the lid. I gasped. “No, Julie. This is your favorite.”

  She smiled and took the heart pendant from the box, holding it toward me to put on. “I want you to have it.”

  She’d been so much weaker lately. I think she knew, or at least accepted, before we did that her time was running out.

  I held back tears and grasped the thin chain in my hand. “I’ll never take it off.” And I didn’t. Until after I married him, and I knew that if I didn’t hide it away, he’d take it from me too. It was safely nestled under the cardboard bottom of one of the many velvet jewelry boxes that contained his gifts to me.

  For the past ten years, Christmas had been nothing more than an obscene display of consumption. We didn’t go to church. Jackson was an atheist and refused to expose our children to what he called “a fairy tale.” But he had no problem perpetuating the Santa myth. I had stopped trying to reason with him.

  I did take pleasure in the girls’ enjoyment. They loved the decorating, baking, and sights and sounds of the season. This year, I had another reason to be excited. I had Amber. I had to hold myself back from showering her with too many presents. I didn’t want to embarrass her. There was something about her that made me want to take care of her, to give her all the things she never had. It was almost like I was giving Julie all the things she’d never lived to enjoy.

  We got up before the girls and went down to have our coffee. It wasn’t long before they swept in, little tornados attacking the mountains of gifts with glee, and yet again I worried at the message we were sending them.

  “Mommy, aren’t you going to open any presents?” Tallulah asked.

  “Yeah, Mommy. Open a present,” Bella chimed in. Mine were stacked in a tall pile—beautifully decorated in gold foil and elaborate red velvet ribbons. I knew what the boxes would contain—more designer outfits that he’d chosen, jewelry to show off how good he was to me, expensive perfume that he liked, none of the things I would have picked for myself. Nothing at all that I wanted.

  We had both agreed that the children’s presents to us would be handmade, though, and I was looking forward to that.

  “Open mine first, Mommy,” Bella said. She dropped the half-unwrapped package she had been opening and ran over to me.

  “Which is yours, sweetie?” I asked.

  She pointed to the only package covered in Santa paper. “We wrapped it special so it’d be easy to spot,” she said proudly.

  I tousled her curls as she handed it to me, smiling as she perched on tiptoes, watching me wide-eyed. “Can I open it for you?”

  I laughed. “Of course.”

  She ripped the paper and threw it on the floor, then pulled the lid off the box and gave it back to me.

  It was a painting—a family portrait. It was quite good. I hadn’t realized what a sharp eye she had.

  “Bella! It’s amazing. When did you do this?”

  “In school. My teacher said I have talent. Mine was the best one. You couldn’t even tell what most of the others were. She’s going to talk to you about art classes for me.”

  The picture was twelve by twelve, and it was painted in watercolors. We were all standing on the beach, the ocean behind us, Jackson in the middle with me on one side and Tallulah on the other. Bella stood across from the three of us, noticeably larger than we were. Jackson, Tallulah, and I were dressed in drab grays and whites, Bella in bright oranges, pinks, and reds. Jackson and Tallulah were both turned, looking at me, Tallulah looking glum, Jackson smug, and I was staring at Bella with a wide smile. The picture unsettled me. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out that the family dynamics were off-kilter. I shook off the troubling thoughts and pulled her to me for a hug.

  “It’s beautiful, and I love it. I’m going to hang it in my office so I can look at it all day.”

  Tallulah looked over. “Why are you so much bigger than the rest of us?”

  Bella stuck her tongue out at her sister. “It’s called pesperective,” she said, stumbling on the word.

  Jackson laughed. “I think you mean perspective, my dear.”

  Tallulah rolled her eyes and brought me her present. “Open mine now.”

  It was a clay sculpture that she’d made of two hearts united with a ribbon, on which she’d painted the word love.

  “It’s you and Aunt Julie,” she said.

  My eyes filled with tears. “I love this, darling. It’s perfect.”

  She smiled and embraced me. “I know sometimes you get sad. But your hearts will always be together.”

  I was so grateful for this thoughtful child.

  “Open one of mine,” Jackson said as he handed me a small box wrapped in red foil.

  “Thank you.” I took the package from him and began tearing the paper to reveal a plain white box, then lifted the lid to find a gold chain with a gold circle charm attached. I pulled it from the box and gasped.

  Tallulah took the necklace from my hand and looked at it and then at me. “Who’s YMB, Mommy?”

  Before I could find my voice, Jackson spoke, the lie coming smoothly off his lips. “They’re the initials of your mom’s grandmother, who she loved very much. Let me put it on for you.” He fastened it around my neck. “I hope you’ll wear it all the time.”

  I gave him a big smile that he would know was fake. “Just another reminder of how you feel about me.”

  He pressed his lips to mine.

  “Eeew!” Tallulah said, and both girls giggled.

  Bella had gone back to her pile of presents and was tearing through the rest of the packages when the doorbell rang.

  Jackson had agreed to let Amber come over and have dinner with us, since she was going to be alone for Christmas. It hadn’t been easy, but I staged the conversation in front of some of our friends, and he wanted to look like the Good Samaritan by including her.

  He greeted her like she was family, got her a drink, and we all sat around very agreeably for the next few hours, while the children played with their things and we made small talk.

  Amber gave us all lovely gifts—a book for Jackson that he actually seemed to appreciate; books for the girls plus some shiny jewelry for Bella, which she loved. When she handed me my gift, I was a little nervous, hoping she hadn’t spent too much. Nothing could have prepared me for the thin silver bangle, with two round charms engraved with the names Julie and Charlene.

  “Amber, this is so thoughtful and beautiful.”

  She held her arm up, and I saw that she wore the same bracelet. “I have one too. Now our sisters will be with us all the time.”

  Jackson was watching the exchange, and I could see the anger in his eyes. He was always telling me I thought about Julie too much as
it was. But even Jackson couldn’t take my joy away. Two gifts that honored my sister and the love I felt for her. I felt heard and understood for the first time in so long.

  “Oh, and one other little thing.” She handed me a small gift bag.

  “Another present? The bracelet was enough.”

  I pushed aside the tissue paper and felt something hard. My breath caught in my throat as I lifted it from the bag. A glass turtle.

  “I know how much you love them,” she said.

  Jackson’s lips curled into a smile, and delight shone in his eyes.

  And just like that, my feeling of being known and understood evaporated.

  Fifty-Five

  Meredith was throwing her husband a surprise fiftieth birthday party at Benjamin Steakhouse. Truthfully, it was the last thing I was in the mood for. I was still tired from all the Christmas preparations and we were leaving for St. Bart’s in two days, but I didn’t want to let Meredith down. She was insistent that the party be on the twenty-seventh, Rand’s actual birthday, since over the years it had always been underplayed due to its proximity to Christmas.

  I’d just arrived in the city; Jackson had asked me to meet him at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. That way, we’d be right down the street from the restaurant, and it would only take us a few minutes to walk there.

  Even as I put on the Dior dress, I knew I was making a mistake. It was a favorite of mine, but Jackson didn’t like the color. It was a pale gold silk, and he claimed it made my skin sallow. But it was a party for my friend, and I wanted to make a decision for a change. The moment I saw his face, the barely perceptible furrow of the brow, the small wrinkle worrying between his eyes, I knew he was angry. He stood to kiss me, and I took a seat on the stool next to him. He picked up the crystal tumbler and, with one flick of his wrist, downed the remaining amber liquid and flagged the bartender over.

  “I’ll have another Bowmore, and a Campari and soda for my wife.”

  I was about to protest—I’d never even tasted Campari—but I choked back the words before they escaped. It would be best to let whatever plan he had concocted play itself out.