It darts away before I reach the glass door. I unlock and slide the door open and search my backyard for the cat, my head twitching this way and that like a caffeinated dog searching for a squirrel. Nothing but grass and crisp morning air and the whistling of birds.
Maybe they’re sending out that rumor on purpose to see who squirms.
Did I imagine the cat? My skin flashes hot. It’s possible.
“What is it, Mom?” Wyatt says.
I realize I look crazy. No, you are crazy. I slide the door shut and lock it.
“Nothing, sweetie. Eggs or Cheerios?”
53
FISHBOWL GLASS GEMS GO FLYING
Next afternoon, it’s Nate’s turn with the kids.
I feel better than yesterday. Warm, faint, and a little weak. Like I nursed two shots of vodka. Not great, but not bad. I schedule an appointment three days from now with my gynecologist.
I am sitting at the kitchen table, paying bills. Mail. Forgot to get the mail today. I walk out my front door and into the heat and harsh sun, the screen door flapping behind me, and Ethan Boone is marching diagonally across my lawn.
Just a hallucination, Grace. Relax. It’s only a hallucination. Sun is blinding. Your eyes will adjust.
But my reflexes take over and I back up slowly toward my garage. Garage door’s open. Why is my garage door open? Oh, that’s right. Chloe was playing with glass gems, the round, flat turquoise ones people put in fishbowls. You can buy them at the dollar store or you can pay ten times more at the pet store.
Ethan is coming at me and he looks so real, right down to the coffee stain on his plaid short-sleeve button-down, the wrinkles in his khakis, and his jaundiced eyes. Just a hallucination. Breathe.
“Grace Wright,” he says, his teeth clenched, my name coming off his tongue like a curse.
Not a hallucination.
Panicking, I scan the street, left and right. No one’s out. No one’s walking their dog. No kids are riding bikes. Where is everyone? I can’t make it to my front door; he’s blocking my way. If I run through the garage, he’ll catch me. It’s better to stay in the open. Besides, my muscles are stiff with terror. I’m not sure I could run if I tried.
He growls, “I know you, Grace Wright. I know where you live. I know where you work. I know where your kids go to school. You fucking bitch. How do you like it?” He is close. The pores on his nose are large. His tongue is yeasty white. His stale breath stinks of beer. Does he drink on the way home from work? Maybe he stopped at a bar.
He pokes my chest hard.
I stumble on the uneven border between my driveway and garage. I lose my footing and fall back. There’s a certain age where falling becomes terrifying. I’m definitely at that age. My butt hits the cement, and pain shoots up my spine. My arms stop me from rolling. Ow. Ow. Fuck. I’m on the ground in my shaded garage.
He’s still coming at me. Leaning down awkwardly. He’s too old to be in this back-straining position, too out of shape, yet his hands grab my shoulders and he’s squeezing.
Oh my God, he’s going to strangle me. I can’t believe this is how it’s going to end.
In my maple tree, the birds are chirping. They sound so damn happy. Sun is brilliant. The atmosphere is all wrong for murder.
“You crazy bitch. You harassed my wife. Told her I killed someone? How dare you? Do you even know what you’ve done?” Up close, in the shaded garage, he is monstrous. Despair has infected his face like a virus. His skin is gray-toned, his nose is oily and blotchy, and his eyes are bloodshot.
His grip slides toward my neck. I try to pry his hands off, but I’m in such a weak position. I have no leverage. My words tumble out in a rush, hoarse and pathetic. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t kill him. I know that now. I thought I saw Ava, but I was hallucinating. Seeing things. It was my medication. It was the drugs.”
His grip eases and falls away clumsily. My vision adjusts to the shade in the garage. He stumbles back a few steps until he’s standing in the sun-soaked driveway, his shoulders slouched. Like a gorilla. Like Leland stood. Tears slide down his thick cheeks, his face scrunches in fury, and he kicks Chloe’s little bucket. Dozens of fishbowl glass gems go flying. Turquoise pebbles sparkle and shine as they sail across the driveway and into the garage. So beautiful. They fall, plinking like a million raindrops on the cement.
That’s gonna be a bitch to clean up.
“Fuck,” he yells, strangely yelling louder at the end of the word. He must have stubbed his toe on my driveway. It’s pitted and terribly uneven.
His body falls in that slow, frozen manner men fall when they get hit in the balls. Controlled, stiff, trying not to move too much. He catches himself and rolls into an awkward sitting position near me. Curling up, he wraps his arms around his knees and lowers his head. Like a kid. He’s crying so hard. “Fucking drugs. Stupid fucking drugs.” His clothes reek of yeasty beer and body odor.
“I’m sure you can help him,” I say. “He’s not in too deep.”
“Huh?” He’s lost.
“Mason,” I say. “He’s so young. He can get clean, I’m sure of it. Kids, their brains are still so flexible and healthy. They’re so different from us.”
“Mason?” he says again, his eyes wet. “You saw Mason doing drugs?”
“I’m sorry. I saw him dealing in the parking lot. Walmart.”
The corners of his mouth tremble, jerking downwards. He clears his throat. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I say, pressure building in my forehead and behind my eyes. I’m so sad for him. “Wait, you didn’t know?”
He doesn’t answer. He blinks and stares ahead at the driveway. His back is shaded in the garage, his legs are in the sun. A carpenter ant is making its way towards his shoe. He squishes it.
“It’s all my fault,” I say, tears slipping away from me, down my cheeks. “Everything. Please tell your wife I’m sorry. I won’t ever drive by your house again. Ever. I’m going to fix my medication dose.”
Am I?
Yes. Yes, you are. You have to. You thought Ethan Boone was a hallucination. You can’t go on having hallucinations, dumbass.
“Mason,” he says, shaking his head. He’s staring at the ant carcass, half smooshed, half smeared, but its round head and fine antlers are still intact. “Ava loved Mason so much. She used to sit on the floor in his room and listen to him play his guitar. She loved when he’d let her sing along. She’d make the silliest faces, trying to get him to laugh.” Ethan laughs. It’s breathy and he chokes up. “He thinks it’s his fault. He feels so much guilt. He thinks him posting that video lured some creep. Even though she was always begging him to record her. Even though she begged him to post it. She’s such a pushy one, Ava.”
He stares at me, tears dried on his cheeks, his lower lip swollen and quivering. “He thinks it’s his fault and that makes me want to cut my heart right out of my chest and stomp on it.” His face tenses, angry. “What am I supposed to tell him?” he asks me.
I shake my head. I don’t know.
He buries his face in his elbow, crying again, his back vibrating, and says, his voice squeaking, “What can I fucking tell him?” He sucks back his tears and wipes his face on his sleeve. He nods and looks at the ant carcass again. “We have to learn to live with our mistakes,” he says. “We have to hold it together. We have kids to raise, family to take care of.”
He stands up slowly. Like a man who’s gained weight quickly and isn’t familiar with the heavier version of himself. He stares down the street, his face long and empty. His voice hoarse, he says, “That toy you found? It’s not Ava’s.”
He turns and walks down my driveway. I want to ask what he means by that, but I promised him I would leave him alone. He digs in both pockets for his keys. He drives away fast, ignoring my neighbor’s Slow Down, Kids Playing sign.
On my hands and knees, I pick up little blue gems. I don’t find all of them—I’m sure some of them are under Wyatt’s pile of Nerf bul
lets or Chloe’s small mountain of chalk—but I get the ones I can see.
I grab my mail, drop it on the kitchen table, and put my mouth under the faucet.
I have the saddest, most awful feeling I know what happened to Ava. I’m also pretty sure I killed an innocent man.
There’s no such thing as an innocent man. We’re all guilty of something.
Yeah, but some of us much more guilty than others.
Leland had a child’s sock under his mattress. He followed Lou’s daughter home from school. There’s nothing innocent about that.
I’m still at the faucet, splashing my face with water, when James calls from the porch, “Hello.”
“Come on in,” I call.
Snap out of it.
He walks in and looks at me. My eyes red and puffy, my face pebbled with water, my shirt soaked at the neck from drinking at the faucet. “You OK?” he says.
“Yeah, just hot. I was pulling weeds. Allergies.”
“I thought I saw some guy leave your house.”
“Huh?”
“Five minutes ago. I was parked down your street, taking a call. I saw a guy leave.”
Huh. Could he be spying on me?
“Oh. Delivery. Something I ordered.” I point to a padded envelope on the table in my pile of mail.
He looks at it and nods slowly at the coincidence that I
would drop a delivery in the same pile as I dropped my mailbox mail. Dating a detective: impossible.
Snap out of your funk. Compartmentalize. I smile. “Do you think I’m cheating on you?”
Eyes uncertain, he shrugs.
Ariana suspects you.
“Let me tell you something, Detective Mahoney.” I raise my eyebrows, force a playful tone, and walk toward him, putting my body between him and the padded envelope. “I never once cheated on my ex and I can barely handle you. I simply could not manage two relationships.” I stop a foot away, close enough to breathe in his scent.
His face and body loosen.
“Why do you always wear a gray T-shirt?” I say playfully.
“I’m a uniform guy. I don’t get sick of things. I can wear the same thing over and over and over.” His face cracks into a smile and he laughs.
“Yeah, me too.”
He brushes a finger down the slope of my nose. “I stopped at the hardware store and got the parts to fix your disposal. Let me grab my toolbox.”
If they were getting ready to make an arrest, he wouldn’t be here fixing your disposal. Must have been a rumor.
I say, “Sweetest words I’ve ever heard.”
54
WIGGLING HIS FINGERS INTO LATEX GLOVES
The high-powered, gravel-whisking, and water-glugging noises direct warmth and blood to my crotch, which is unexpected. Thunderous, mechanical, hazardous rotating blades have never aroused me before. It appears as if the pleasure centers in my brain shorted out and have been rewired by an electrician with a sense of humor.
James turns off the garbage disposal and faucet, and returns his tools to his toolbox.
Sweaty, weak, and horny, I turn the faucet and garbage disposal on again and watch the water disappear into the black hole. The rubbery, Venus-flytrap teeth are crusted with food. From now on, I will keep you clean. I am going to take good care of you.
Refrigerator suction pops open behind me. Uh-oh. I have two sealed sandwich bags of toilet paper laced with seminal fluid stashed in the crisper.
James and I turn to face each other simultaneously. He’s holding a sandwich bag of slick toilet paper. “What’s this?”
For a moment, I’m struck speechless.
Best way to explain this?
“Put it back. Believe me. I’ll tell you later.”
At my warning, he makes a disgusted face and puts it back like he’s holding a bag of dog shit.
“Hungry?” I say. My arousal has gone cold.
“Thirsty.”
“Water bottles are on the top shelf in the back.”
He maneuvers around the sour cream and yogurt and comes out of the refrigerator fisting a bottle of water. He puts it to his forehead. A pinched, focused expression creeps into his face, and I worry he’s going to bring up another reason Ariana has me pinned as the prime suspect.
He looks past me, his expression becoming urgent, intense, and says, “Is that your neighbor’s cat?”
He steps past me and grips the edge of the counter. He’s staring out the small window over the sink.
“What?” I say, following his gaze. Leland’s cat is in the same tree as before. It looks like it’s staring at us. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure I even knew he had a cat. Lots of people let their cats out in this neighborhood.” You’re talking too much. Guilty, dumb people talk too much. I close my mouth.
He is pulling latex gloves out of his pocket and moving out the sliding glass door.
“Do you always carry those around?” I say, following him out into the yard.
“Mostly,” he says, wiggling his fingers into the gloves and slowly approaching the tree.
How much evidence can they pull off a cat anyway, especially a cat that’s been living outside for days? Then again, I’m no forensic scientist. Sweat pops along my forehead.
“You should leave it alone,” I say, trying to steady my trembling voice. “What if it has rabies?”
He ignores me. He stands at the base of the tree and sweet-talks the cat. The cat wears a collar. Stupid of you to mention rabies. Owners who bother with collars also typically vaccinate. The small tag twitches and jingles, seeming to wag at me. Shame on you, you rotten woman. The cat turns away, climbs higher, jumps to the neighbor’s maple tree. James tracks the cat, moving slowly, trying to cajole it. The cat maneuvers swiftly through the tree, leaps to the ground, and flees.
James doesn’t bother running after it. He walks toward me, peeling off his gloves.
This relationship will never work. The thought strikes me quickly and painfully. The heart-palpitating uncertainty of getting caught will be incessant. I am not disillusioned enough to convince myself I have nothing to hide.
55
HIJACKING OUR BEHAVIOR
James has been sleeping three hours when he wakes up and, squinting against the eerie blue glow of my laptop, mumbles with confusion and contempt, “What are you doing?”
“I can’t sleep.”
He squints in the direction of the clock, but can’t make anything of it. “What are you doing with your laptop? What time is it?”
“2:17.”
“What? Why?”
“Did you know an infection with the toxoplasmosis parasite can cause aggression and risk-taking and schizophrenia in adulthood?”
“What?” He’s uncoordinated and mostly asleep, but trying to sit and open his eyes.
“It’s a parasite you can be exposed to from undercooked meat, unwashed vegetables, cat feces, and just digging in the soil. It lives in the soil,” I say, annoyed with his inability to catch up, as if he were plagued with a shameful IQ. “If you get infected with it, it forms these cysts in your body and your brain and, well, you’re fine, you don’t know you’re sick, but you end up with an increased risk of schizophrenia, aggression, and risk-taking.” I can almost feel the weight of the hammer pulling my hand, feel my palm sweaty inside my nitrile glove against the hammer’s wooden handle. “I remember eating dirt as a kid. I literally ate dirt all the time. And it was my job to change my cat’s litter box.” My voice cracks. “Fruity Pebbles. I loved that cat.”
He smacks his cheeks with his palms and rubs his face like he’s washing it. He looks like a raccoon cleaning itself. “So you’re OCD,” he says like he knew I seemed too good to be true. He used the same tone when he found out I take amphetamines.
“Frankly, I don’t think I could have OCD with my house looking as shitty as it does.” I angle my body slightly toward his. With his large, slouched shoulders and his thick hands resting on my comforter, James looks too big for my bed. My laptop scr
een bathes the room in a dreamy, eerie glow. I say, “Just because you haven’t heard about something doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
“I don’t understand what we’re arguing about? I’m waking up.” He turns toward me and sighs. He has decided to work with me. “I believe you. I believe whatever news you read, but think of how many people have schizophrenia. Maybe one percent? Less than that. And think, Grace, think. Every kid eats dirt. This, it’s not a,” he hesitates and says, “logical concern.”
“It’s not about eating dirt,” I say, trying to pinpoint the root of my worries, reaching into my dark, fractal mind, fingering sharp, crooked, yet fragile branches, and probing for the base of the trunk, “it’s the unknown.” My hand goes to where the bats scratched me. Thin lines of scabs have flaked off, and the skin is smooth. “How many other parasites and viruses we don’t know about are hijacking our behavior? Could be dozens.”
He is wide awake, his posture upright and stiff, but now he’s staring straight ahead toward the bathroom. “Aren’t you tired?”
“My body is tired, incredibly tired, it wants to fall away, but my brain is something entirely different.”
“Well,” he sighs again, “you’re too old to develop schizophrenia.”
He’s right. It usually sets in during adolescence. “Thank you.”
“And even if you’ve had these cysts in your brain since you were a kid,” he says calmly, sleepily, “and the cysts changed your behavior from what it would have been, you’ve never known what you’re missing so who cares?” He turns toward me, his face lit blue from my open laptop. “I like you. Maybe the cysts gave you a more interesting life.”
Maybe a little too interesting.
My heart is still fluttering, but I am thankful for his responses because he isn’t writing me off. “You are a good person, James Mahoney.”
He closes my laptop, sets it on the floor, and pulls my backside into the curve of his body. His groin pushes against me.
“Not up for it,” I say.
“Me neither,” he says, so incredibly full of shit. Males. Always primed, rain or shine, awake or half-asleep, in sickness and in health, outside or inside, half-dead, whenever. After a few minutes of moderate humping, his body stills around me. My mind continues to reel. I’m also having mild abdominal pain.
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