The women swapped phones again; this time Veronica nearly dropped both in the exchange. The caller ID read: “Central Carolina Home Security.”
“What the hell,” she whispered under her breath, bringing the phone closer to her face, squinting, sure she was reading it wrong.
“What? Everything okay?” Gillian asked, growing anxious.
Veronica didn’t have the mental energy to respond or even care what the purple-and-red blur in front of her was saying. Sometimes the alarm got tripped if her mother forgot to turn it off when she got home from a walk with Sophie or when Veronica ran the vacuum into the wall by the front door with too much force. But she’d never gotten this call. The alarm had always been disarmed with the special code: Sophie’s birthdate.
There had been too many rings. If she didn’t pick up soon, then it would go to voice mail. With a quivering finger, she pushed the “Talk” button.
“H-hello?” she stuttered out.
“Hello, Mrs. Shelton. This is Dennis from Central Carolina Home Securities. I’m just calling to make sure everything is okay in your residence.”
“Um.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not home. Maybe my mother forgot the code when she got home with my daughter. I can text and remind her.” Veronica sighed. They’d had to up the entry-delay time twice already in an effort to avoid these kinds of calls.
“Okay. Would you like me to hold? You know, just in case?” Dennis asked with a total lack of urgency that calmed Veronica rather than irritated her.
“Sure,” Veronica responded quickly before she pulled the phone away from her ear and typed a quick message to her mom, explaining the situation and reminding her of the code. When the gray dots popped up immediately, the bubble of fear that had been slowly inflating inside Veronica started to empty. Her message appeared immediately.
Still at the store. I already set the alarm and of course I remember the code.
I’m not senile—yet.
Why? Are you okay?
Veronica stared at the screen for a second, not sure what any of it meant. Her mind reeling and her hand shaking, she put the phone back up to her ear, the anxiety bubble that had started to deflate ballooning again instantly.
“Uh . . . It’s not my mom,” she whispered, her mouth dry and heart pounding.
“Okay, Mrs. Shelton, no need to panic. The alarm was triggered first on your back door. No code was entered . . . Wait . . . Do you have a dog?”
“No . . . What are you talking about?” she blurted, leaning against her car, foot tapping to a nervous rhythm. This was not what she needed today.
“Well, it wasn’t just the rear door that I see lit up. The sensor in your back bedroom was also tripped, just before the internal alarm sounded. It says here it was the fourth bedroom. Sometimes if a dog gets overanxious, they mess with the motion sensor and . . .” He paused as though he could read Veronica’s confusion and annoyance in her silence. “Listen, we have to make this call before we can contact local authorities. Do you have the safe word, or do you want me to contact the police, Mrs. Shelton?”
Then it all came together in one magnificent whoosh.
The back bedroom.
Upstairs.
Oh my God. Veronica pressed the phone against her face. The trembling in her fingers spread to her arms and shoulders, making her voice wobble in her near scream. “Call the police. Now. Now!”
That was Sophie’s room.
CHAPTER 6
A single squad car was waiting outside Veronica’s house when she finally pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes after hanging up from her call. No lights and no one in the back seat of the vehicle. It should’ve been comforting to see the police car in front of her house, to know that someone was there to search her home and protect her and her family, but it also brought back memories from the day of the accident. The packed emergency-room hallways, the taste of vomit in her mouth, the flickering lights of the morgue, the shoes sticking out from under a sheet. No, she couldn’t let herself remember that moment; she’d been running from it ever since. That day it had been a somber police officer who drove her home when she was too distraught to do it herself. It brought back those swirling, nasty words that had sent her world crashing down. “Drunk driver . . . accident . . . so sorry . . . not everyone made it . . .”
Veronica tapped her foot and swallowed a few times after putting the car in park. This time would be different. This time it really was just a horrible misunderstanding. This time she wouldn’t lose someone. Before she could open the car door, a shadow passed by the passenger side and there was a loud knock on the window. Veronica let out a half-stifled scream.
“Are you okay?”
It was Gillian. Veronica wanted to actually scream this time. Half-stooped, the well-meaning but impossible-to-escape woman squinted in through the closed window.
“God, did you follow me here?” Veronica asked, a sense of outrage barely controlled. The idea of this random woman from her therapist’s office now knowing her home address seemed . . . unwise. Unsafe. They were both in therapy for a reason, but what if Gillian’s reason was that she was an ax murder with a propensity to single white females she met in public places?
“No, I mean, yes. I mean . . . you seemed so upset, and I was worried about you, so I thought I’d make sure you made it home okay.”
Veronica got out of the car, ignoring Gillian for a moment and cringing against the loud wailing coming from the house alarm. She scanned the front of the bungalow, the door, windows, front porch. Nothing seemed to be out of place besides the incessant scream of the alarm.
Crazy Gillian or no crazy Gillian, she needed to find out what was going on and if her house was secure. Her mother had answered on the first ring when Veronica called on the way over, which gave her some comfort. She was still out shopping, and Sophie was safely in her car seat. Sophie was having a hard time falling asleep, so they went for a drive. She told her mom to stay out until she talked to the police and got a handle on the situation. At least they weren’t home. Veronica would be breaking down the front door and running headfirst into danger if they were.
An officer in full uniform came around the corner of the house from the backyard. He had his hands on his belt and was scanning the upper windows. He didn’t look fierce or even like he was following a big lead, more like he was confused. The officer’s mouth was turned down on one side, and his eyes shifted over every inch of the exterior of the house. Veronica bristled. This was not what she’d imagined would happen if her high-tech, top-of-the-line system was triggered. In her mind, she’d seen men in SWAT uniforms storming the house and then tear gas rolling out of the broken-down front door. Goodness, if there had been foul play, then a casual stroll around her house wasn’t going to help catch someone inside it.
“I’m okay. You can go now,” Veronica said to Gillian, walking away from the car. She took long strides toward the officer, wishing she looked more professional than the white tank top and khaki shorts she’d thrown on that morning when the news said it might edge into the nineties by noon. The young officer didn’t even seem to notice her approach. If she’d been an intruder, he’d be on the wrong side of the exchange.
“Hey!” she called out, thinking it was smart to announce her presence, since he didn’t seem to be at the top of his game. The officer’s head whipped to the side, and he looked her over from head to toe, his hand on his gun. She put up her hands slightly and shouted over the alarm, “This is my house.”
He flashed a glance at Gillian, still trailing behind Veronica but puffing with each step, and then back at Veronica. His hand dropped from his weapon, and he patted the air in front of him.
He said something as though a siren louder than a jet plane weren’t blaring through the neighborhood. She could barely make out any of the sentence.
“What?” Veronica shouted, stepping closer.
“Your ID,” he yelled this time. “I just need your ID.”
“Oh, damn it,” s
he cursed, mad at herself for not thinking of that necessity. “Hold on! My purse is in my car.”
“Sounds good,” the officer replied, returning to his very cursory examination of the exterior of the house.
As Veronica turned around to head back to the car, she slammed into Gillian. She was breathing heavily, and some of the sweat from her arms rubbed off on Veronica’s skin. She had that eager-to-please puppy look on her face again.
“I’ll get it!” She turned immediately, not waiting for permission, and rushed back to the Prius. Veronica stiffened but faced the officer and smiled as though Gillian was her BFF and had every right to grab her wallet from the car.
He took his eyes off the house for a moment and placed his hands back on his belt, this time keeping them off the gun. As they waited the officer continued to survey the house, the sun beat down on Veronica’s back, and the sweat between her shoulder blades made her skin sticky. The wandering officer, in his stiff black uniform, seemed to be suffering even more, though he was trying hard not to show it. Sweat poured down the sides of his face and neck and then soaked into his collar, and his forehead flushed red all the way up to his receding hairline. Veronica knew that if she felt as though she were in an oven, then he must feel as if he were in the fiery furnace itself.
There used to be a pair of oak trees in the front yard when she moved in back in February, but the wood was diseased and rotted, and the home inspector had suggested they be cut down before it spread to the rest of the oaks in the backyard. She had only recently gotten around to the chore and couldn’t believe how the light in her house changed when the trees were gone. Instead of the soft, quiet shade of the oak trees blanketing the house in a comforting coolness all hours of the day, the front of the house was warm in the winter, hot in the spring, and stifling in the summer, no matter how high the air was turned up or how thick the blackout curtains were. She’d yet to spend a fall there, but no doubt there would be some uncomfortable temperature issues when the time came. She shuffled her feet and wiped at her own forehead. What she wouldn’t give for a little shade right now.
“I got it!” Gillian half ran, half stumbled across the dried-out grass, nearly crashing when she reached the cement walkway that stood between the women and the officer.
Veronica tugged the bag out of Gillian’s outstretched hands and quickly found the small bifold wallet that held her credit cards and a few loose dollars folded behind the clear window that displayed her driver’s license.
“Sorry,” she shouted, “I thought I just needed to give a code word or something. Here’s the ID.”
The officer examined her driver’s license carefully, checked something briefly on a notebook he pulled from his chest pocket, and then held the card out to her again.
“That’s just for the alarm company, ma’am.” He jotted a few illegible things on the pad and put it back in his pocket, seemingly satisfied. “All of the doors and windows seem secure. No evidence of a break-in. I can go inside and look around if you like, just to be sure.”
“Yes, I mean, yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind. But the alarm isn’t just from one of the external doors or windows. There is an internal door to my daughter’s bedroom . . . ,” Veronica responded, her words colliding with his. She stopped short when the officer gave her a raised eyebrow. She cleared her throat. “Uh . . . I mean, yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind, Officer . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Burdick, miss.” The young officer with dark hair and a medium build looked at her with a little more softness now that he knew she was the frightened homeowner and not a criminal. “I’d be happy to take a look around.”
“Um, okay, thank you, Officer Burdick,” Veronica added, desperately trying to regain some form of politeness. Between the way she’d spoken to and thought of Gillian to her annoyed demeanor with the officer, she was getting worried that she really was as unlikable as she feared.
Veronica removed her house key from her purse and headed toward the front steps, with Officer Burdick close behind. This time Gillian didn’t follow. She stood alone on the front lawn, her blue Civic parked in the street. She seemed to be waiting for an invitation.
Veronica cringed internally. She didn’t want to invite this strange, needy woman into her life any more than she’d already forced herself in. If this was “pre-Lisa,” Veronica would’ve turned off any feelings about Gillian and focused on the alarm, the officer, and the house, but after getting asked thoughtful questions continually in session, she’d started to ask some thoughtful ones of herself. It was becoming an annoying and enlightening habit.
Like, why did she continue to push away kindness? Maybe she didn’t feel like she deserved it, because she was such a horrible mother? Probably it was because she was worried that if someone got to know her, they’d find out how bad she was, how her mind was full of sad thoughts nearly all the time.
But Gillian, standing on the lawn with a hopeful twitch in her cheek, might be safe. Veronica looked her over again, remembering the frayed shirt. Her hair was soaked through with sweat and looked as though she’d taken a shower, but she wasn’t scowling. She didn’t even look annoyed. Drenched and red, she was smiling. Veronica handed the keys over to Officer Burdick and half whispered, half shouted the code for the alarm into his ear. Then she met Gillian on the lawn.
“Um, he’s going to make sure it’s safe. Do you want to sit in the car? We can put on the air.” Veronica swallowed hard, her heart beating as if she were asking out a boy on a date or something.
“Yeah,” Gillian said, her smile broadening, “that’d be great.”
CHAPTER 7
When they reached the car, the two women sat down in unison. Veronica pressed the power button twice, turning on the middle console. She flicked on the AC, and it went from stifling inside the car to pleasant almost instantly. Once comfortable, she kept her eyes trained on the front door, wondering if the officer had called for backup or was facing the unknown inside her house alone.
“That feels amazing,” Gillian said, leaning forward, her eyes closed to the cool blast of air pumping out of the vents. Her comment diverted Veronica’s attention.
“Yeah, it gets cool fast.”
“I’ve never been in a Prius. Christopher always wanted one. He used to consider himself quite the environmentalist.”
A mournful burning grew between Veronica’s shoulder blades at the mention of Gillian’s dead son. Whenever people spoke of the dead so easily, she wanted to hold her breath to get rid of the burning that made her wonder why she couldn’t talk about the losses in her time on earth.
“I don’t know.” She attempted to sound interested in Gillian’s life. “I’ve always wondered if having AC in a car that was supposed to help save the environment was an oxymoron.”
Gillian laughed, which made Veronica feel accomplished in some way. Her little internal therapist was giving her a big thumbs-up for finding ways to relate to someone outside herself.
“I know what you mean. When Christopher was in junior high, I went with him on a field trip to this nature center. This hippyish director got on the bus when we got there, and he lectured all fifty school kids on the dangers of air-conditioning. He told the kids, ‘Put your windows down—now, that is nature’s air-conditioning!’ Christopher wouldn’t let me run the air for that whole summer.” Gillian laughed as if they had just been on that bus five hours ago. “He liked to think of himself as a little conservationist back then too.”
“Well, wish I could say I got the Prius because I’m that noble. It was 20 percent to save the environment and more like 80 percent to save on gas money. Your son probably would think I’m just a hypocrite.”
“Nah, I’m sure he’d give you a free pass. You are saving his mama from heatstroke.” She talked about him so fluidly, as if he were at home, waiting for her to make dinner and pull cookies out of the oven. Veronica couldn’t even say “Nick.”
Impressed envy swelled inside her. She took her ey
es off the front door and only half noticed that the alarm had finally turned off, and she stared at the side of the almost stranger’s face, wondering how Gillian could do something so strong when she seemed so weak.
“I live to serve,” Veronica said, attempting a joke, and Gillian snorted a little laugh, adjusting her neckline so the air could get better access to her skin. A thin gold chain was glued to her flesh with sweat, and a large locket about the size of a silver dollar hung low on her chest. “Is that a picture of Christopher?” It was strange to say his name, knowing he was gone.
A sweet half smile pulled up the corner of the woman’s mouth. It seemed to be a mouth that had liked to smile at some time in her life. The creases that cascaded up her cheeks were well defined and made Veronica’s stomach fill with a hollow ache. Her own cheeks were smooth and unpracticed when it came to smiling. It had been so long since she’d felt a real smile on her face, an eternity since her cheeks ached from overuse and laughter. That locket held a picture of Gillian’s son, but the smile said that, for her, it held the last remnants of him as well. Her fingertips fiddled with the latch.
“Sure is. Wanna see?” But before she could get the metal circle open, a loud tap on the windshield made Veronica let out a loud “Eep” and Gillian drop the locket back into place and shout, “Oh my heavens!”
The officer stood outside the Prius, arms crossed as though he’d been waiting. Veronica had no idea how she got so distracted that she’d almost forgotten about the reason she was sitting in her driveway with a woman from her therapist’s office. With a sharp shake of her head, she popped the car door open, already talking before she was at full height.
“So what did you find? Were we robbed? Was it the baby’s room? Should I get a hotel? Is it safe?”
“Ms. Shelton, everything is secure, but let’s go for a walk through the house to see if anything is out of place.” He gestured for Veronica to follow him.
The Waiting Room Page 5