by Abbi Cook
"I saw it! They did a great job!" I say, feigning interest in the decorations. "You look fantastic, Pilar. Whatever you're doing, it's working. Keep it up."
The compliment about her isn't a lie. She does look fantastic, and even more, I know she loves to brag about what she does at the gym to look like that, so I won't have to talk much this afternoon. I'm not in the mood to pretend like I'm supposed to for functions like this, and the thought of my sister crawling deeper and deeper into a hole of depression makes me want to run away from my responsibilities.
I can't, though. It wouldn't look right to shirk my duty today at the tea not only as a member of the Avalon Preservation Society but also as Mrs. Adam Anchoff. It's only for a few hours, though, so as Pilar begins explaining how wonderful her free weight routine is now that her trainer has found the exact sequence needed to enhance her muscle growth, I silently make a mental note that on my way home I'll go to Claire's house and see her instead of trying to convince her to come to my house.
As I half listen to Pilar’s enthusiastic description of muscle building, I see a dark haired man with jet black hair and piercing eyes walk out from one of the rooms off the main hallway. Striking in a dark suit, his gaze meets mine, and instantly, I feel exposed. I’ve never met him before, so why does he stare at me like he knows my deepest darkest secrets?
"So Gunther told me about this new way of lifting weights that is straight from Europe. They're all doing it over there, and the results are amazing, don't you think?"
Pilar flexes for me, and I nod with as much enthusiasm as I can muster as the man disappears from sight. Distracted, I silently wonder about the attractiveness of a woman looking like a body builder, but then again, Amazons were supposedly quite athletic and people think they're sexy. Or maybe that's just in the movies.
"I better stay on your good side," I joke, forcing a chuckle and hoping she doesn’t sense how flustered I feel right now.
Who was that man?
She waves away my half-serious concern and takes my hand to give it another gentle squeeze. "Not to worry. I'm just trying to keep this body in shape so when I begin to age it doesn't just all go to pot."
Smiling because I have to, I mentally do the math on how old Pilar Kendall is. I search my brain for a memory of her telling me since I'm sure she has at one point or another, and finally after a few seconds, I remember her saying she’ll turn thirty this fall.
I've read enough women's magazines to know that birthday is a milestone and not one some women like. I suspect her concern about aging may have more to do with the rumors that her husband's political aspirations aren't the only reason he makes the hour long trip in traffic to D.C. at least twice a week. As she continues to happily explain her exercise routine, I secretly hope the gossip isn't true about Justin Kendall and that younger woman who works for a senator. Pilar may have a number of slightly irritating habits, but she clearly loves him and the life they've made in Avalon with their three children.
"So we're going to take a two-week trip. Or maybe we'll make it three. I'm not sure. Justin says he isn't sure he can be away from the office that long, but it's not like he's a doctor or anything. I mean, he's a lawyer, for God's sake. I'm sure he can just make sure none of his cases have court dates for that time."
I turn to look at Pilar, confused because I've been lost in thought about the possibility of her husband cheating on her with a younger woman. Before I can pretend I've been listening, a loud crashing noise behind me sends my body on red alert and I scream.
And then everything goes dark.
My eyes slowly flutter open to see people gawking at me like I'm some exhibit at a museum. Their gazes are fixed on my face, unnerving me. I look away and close my eyes to avoid the intensity of their stares.
"Natalie? Can you talk, dear?" a familiar voice asks in a high-pitched tone.
I open my eyes again to see Rosalyn Jenkins smiling down at me. Her dark brown eyes are filled with concern, betraying the lie the rest of her face tells. They remind me of my husband's eyes when he looks at me sometimes.
Dark and full of worry.
"What happened?"
Rosalyn's eyes soften as she sees I can at least speak with coherence. She leans down toward me and gently presses her hand to my forearm in that sympathetic way of hers.
"You gave us all a terrible fright when you screamed, and then you passed out dead away. I turned around to see you in a crumpled heap on the floor."
As she speaks, her naturally shrill voice inches higher and higher until even she can't hit the note her words require and the word floor just sort of floats out of her mouth with the rest of her statement, like the tail of a kite following merely because it's attached.
Pilar steps forward and smiles down at me. "Rosalyn is exaggerating just a little. It wasn't that extreme. You just passed out. How are you feeling now?"
"I'm fine. I'm sure I just didn't eat enough at breakfast this morning, and then when I skipped lunch because I knew I'd be eating here at the tea, that's what did it."
"I'll go get you a glass of water. I'll be right back," Rosalyn says before hurrying away.
As Pilar sits down on the couch near my feet, she rolls her eyes. "She really is a drama queen, isn't she? You'd think nobody had ever fainted before in the entire history of the world. I mean, there's an actual piece of furniture dedicated to the very action itself, for God's sake."
Her defense of me makes me smile. Although we wouldn't really be what anyone would call friends since Pilar and I have never done anything together other than Preservation Society events and have never once spoken on the phone, I think that if I were to say I had a friend, it would be her.
"Do you want me to get you anything other than water?"
Hating how vulnerable and helpless I feel lying there, I shake my head. "I think I just want to sit up."
This isn't the first time I've fainted, especially in the past few weeks, so I'm relatively sure I'll be able to sit up without falling back and causing even more of a scene. Easing myself up against the back of the couch, I straighten my spine and take a deep breath in. I had hoped I wouldn't have to deal with this in public.
"Are you dizzy?"
I smile so she won't worry and shake my head. "No. I'm fine. Thank you."
Rosalyn returns with a glass of water and hands it to me, eager to help. "I made sure I got you cold spring water. None of that water that's been sitting out on the tables."
Pilar looks at her dismissively, like she wants to say, "Thanks. We're good. Just bring the check." The thought makes me giggle and eases my embarrassment a little.
"Thank you, Rosalyn. I'm sure this is going to make me feel a hundred times better."
The water is cool and feels incredible as it rolls down my throat. I'm not sick, so it doesn't make me feel better that way, but the coolness calms me. The two women who've taken it upon themselves to make sure I'm okay make small talk about the tea and how they're both sure it will be a huge success as I drink my water and try not to let the worry filling my brain show in my expression.
This is the third time I've blacked out since it happened. That's how I refer to the events of that night. It.
I'd come into town for my five o'clock appointment at the salon I've used since we moved to Avalon nearly seven years ago. As usual, I needed just a trim of my long hair. I've considered cutting it shorter, maybe shoulder-length, but Adam prefers I keep it at least to the middle of my back. Even at that length, I still have to get it cut every few months, so in the third week of February, I made my usual appointment and was lucky enough to get one that very day, the last one of that Friday.
The sun had set and it was dusk as I left the salon, but the parking lot still had a lot of cars from customers visiting other nearby businesses. As I walked toward my silver Mercedes just three parking spots away from the light pole, I lifted the bottom of my hair to my nose to breathe in the coconut scent of the shampoo the stylist always uses. I'll never forget that beca
use at the very moment I inhaled that wonderful smell, I felt something slam into the back of my head. Everything went dark immediately, and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to see strangers staring down at me very much like the people from the Preservation Society were just a few minutes ago, but that time I was lying in a hospital bed.
A young doctor with a straight nose and chiseled cheekbones smiled sweetly at me and asked if I knew where I was. When I told him a hospital, he then asked, "Do you know who you are?"
It sounded like such a silly question. Of course I knew who I was.
"My name is Natalie Anchoff, and I live at 5498 Garrison Lane," I answered, hoping to prove through my showing off that I hadn't lost my marbles.
"Do you know why you're here in the hospital, Natalie?" he asked, softening his voice that time.
The throbbing at the back of my head told me that was the answer, but what had happened to me to cause the blinding pain I had no idea. So I answered, "I must have slipped and fell on the concrete. The last thing I remember was walking from the hair salon through the parking lot toward my car."
From behind the doctor my husband peeked his head around and I saw that worried gaze he so often wears when he looked at me. When we first met, I assumed he looked at me like that because I was so much younger and he worried about frightening me off. Fifteen years is a lot. Then after we married, I thought he stared at me with such worry in his dark eyes because he wasn't sure he'd made the right choice to marry me.
I still have no idea why he always looks at me like that.
"Are you okay, Natalie?" he asked in a voice full of sadness.
I nodded as much as I could without making the pain in my head worse and smiled. "I'll be fine. I'm sure I just have a giant goose egg, right?" I asked as I turned my focus back toward the doctor.
"I want to keep you here for observation for a few hours, but then I think you'll be able to go home. You have a concussion, and ordinarily I'd be happy to send you on your way right now, but you were unconscious for a little longer than I feel comfortable with, so you're going to stay with us for a little while, okay?"
Before I could ask how long I was out, Adam began peppering the doctor with questions about everything from if I'd have to take any medicine to if my eyesight would be affected. He really was the quintessential doting husband.
I left the hospital with him by my side a few hours later, and he hovered over me for the next few days as he took care of me and nursed me back to full health. The entire incident passed with a single visit from the police about what they called an attack and that one hospital visit. For the next week, I spent my time calling my credit card companies to alert them that my wallet had been stolen and our bank to ensure no one drained our accounts.
And I assumed that would be all the effects from the night someone mugged me. I was wrong.
The nightmares began a few weeks after the attack, nightmares that tore me from my sleep in pure terror. Each night, I awoke in a panic and covered in a cold sweat. At first, it was all I could do to just calm myself and not burst into tears. I had no idea what terrified me in my sleep, but every fiber of my being was just that.
Terrified.
Then, slowly I began to remember pieces of the horrible visions that filled my mind each time I tried to sleep. A small child with big eyes full of fear staring at me. Me running across an enormous field at nighttime. None of the pieces made sense, but they terrified me for reasons I couldn't fathom.
Thankfully, my husband is a very sound sleeper so he knew nothing of the nightmares that afflicted my sleep each night. I never told him about them because he'd just worry.
But this morning as I chose a dress for the tea, I lifted the hanger holding my blue and yellow flower print dress from the closet rod and suddenly felt like I'd seen something right there in front of me. I'd never had anything like that happen to me, and I can only call it a vision since I was wide awake. Unsure of everything, all I know is that what I saw in that closet made my blood run cold.
A little girl staring at me in a mirror as I stood looking at her. She smiled and had long brown hair much like mine. I didn't recognize her, but something about her made me more frightened than any of my nightmares.
"Natalie, did you hear me? Adam said he's on his way and he'll be here in a few minutes."
I turn to look at Pilar as her words register in my brain. "Okay."
"Are you really okay?" she asks. "You look strange."
If she only knew how strange I feel and how every day it gets worse and worse because now I don't seem to know what's real anymore.
Chapter Five
Natalie
Adam sets down the tray of food on the dresser and turns to face me with that usual worry in his eyes. "I brought you something to eat. The doctor told me you could have anything, so I brought some of your favorites."
There really isn't a more thoughtful man in this world. I believe that with all my heart. When he first asked me to marry him, I have to admit I wasn't sure. Fifteen years is a big age difference, especially to a young woman who was just eighteen. How much he must have already seen of the world that someone like me knew nothing about. What could we possibly have in common since I'd experienced little other than private tutors and the world of my mother's home up until that point?
Even more, I'd never even dated a man, much less slept with one. Just the thought of how many women he'd known that way before ever meeting me made saying yes to his proposal difficult. I wrestled with that for days, unable to sleep as I turned over the thought of him with others night after night as I lay in bed knowing I had to give him an answer and knowing how much my mother wanted me to marry Adam.
In the end, I buried those needless concerns deep down inside me and said yes nearly a week after he asked me to marry him. To this day, I still have no true idea of how many women he knew before me. All I know of my husband is who he has been since the moment I met him.
A kind and devoted man who has never given me any real reason to believe he's like Pilar's husband with his twice weekly trips to D.C.
"I brought some orange juice too," Adam says, rousing me from my thoughts about that time so long ago. "The doctor said it would help you keep your strength up if you had something other than just water, even though I know you like to have your water most of all."
I smile and think about what my mother always said. "Water doesn't have any calories and works to keep your system free of problems. It also keeps your skin smooth and the wrinkles at bay. It's nature's wonder drink."
The way she repeated that every day with such enthusiasm, you'd think she was working for one of the bottled water companies. The only drink she liked as much was two percent milk. Whenever any of us was upset or worried, my mother was right there with a glass of warmed milk with nutmeg sprinkled on top. She used to claim the spice was guaranteed to make us feel better, and there's never been a time when she gave me a glass of milk that it didn't work.
Her favorite drink was water, though. A true believer, she practiced what she preached and always had some within reach. Her skin shows the benefits too. As smooth as a baby's, it doesn't have a wrinkle on it or any hint of sun damage since she never went out of the house without a coating of that special cream of hers on her entire body.
Looking down at my bare arms, my gaze immediately fixes on my right forearm. Two weeks of sitting in the passenger seat one summer when I was a teenager, thinking I was so cool to rest my arm up on the window and let the breeze blow through my hair as we rolled down the road, and the result was the cluster of freckles that never failed to attract my mother's attention whenever she saw me in any clothes that showed off my arms.
Instinctively, I rub my left hand over the area and avert my attention away from it.
"Here," Adam says with a gentle smile as he hands me the glass of orange juice. "Take a drink."
I do as he instructs, and the moment the tangy juice hits my tongue, I remember how much I love the taste o
f oranges. The sweetness swirls around my mouth as I hold the juice there for a moment before swallowing, making my taste buds crave that tang again. I know I shouldn't be enjoying the empty calories, but I take another sip and love the sweet taste of citrus as it washes over my tongue.
Two is enough, though, so I hand him the glass, inhaling as it passes under my nose to enjoy one last bit of that delicious orange scent before it disappears.
"How do you feel now?" he asks as he sits down on the bed beside me. The deep frown permanently etched into his face seems deeper than usual at this moment.
I don't know how to answer him. My head still hurts, but if I tell him that, he'll worry. The nausea from earlier has subsided, thankfully, but I really don't want to mention that at all.
"I'm fine. No need to worry," I answer, making sure to smile so he thinks this is the truth.
My husband studies my face, his gaze moving from my mouth to my eyes to see if I'm lying. I open my eyes to insinuate that my happiness can be seen in them too, but if he looks too closely, he'll see the truth.
When he finally decides I just might be okay, he sighs. "I took the rest of the day off, so I'll be here for you if you need anything."
I know why he's hovering over me. He thinks I'm pregnant.
Lowering my head, I quietly say, "I'm not pregnant, Adam." I stop and then add, "I'm sorry."
I hear nothing but silence and the sound of him breathing softly next to me for so long that I begin to question if he heard me. Looking up, I see the disappointment in his dark eyes.
"I didn't think so. You would have told me if you were."
Hope clings to each word, making the truth even worse. I hate that I can't give him what he wants. The one thing he wants more than anything else in this world. A baby.
No, not just a baby. A son.
He gives me everything I ask for, although I never ask for much. That doesn't matter, though. I have a beautiful home, beautiful clothes, and the safety and security any woman could want from the man she loves. And all I need to do is give him one single gift to make him the happiest man on Earth.