Neighborly

by Ellie Monago

  Doug leaps up, replacing Sadie unceremoniously in her crib. She emits a protest cry that he doesn’t even dignify. He radiates guilt. “So great to see you, Nolan!”

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” Andie tells him. She gives him that same smile she gave me just a moment ago. Either she’s not guilty or she’s much better at concealing it than Doug is.

  “I wanted to surprise you.” Still in that same jovial tone, but Nolan’s eyes are hard. He rolls Fisher forward. “You’ve been spending so much time here. I thought you might be missing your son.”

  Nolan and I trade greetings. Then he bends down to release Fisher from the stroller’s bindings and, without another word, thrusts Fisher into her arms. She’s clearly startled but recovers well, smiling and cooing at Fisher.

  Nolan is watching her and Fisher with that same granite expression. For a second, I think that he could be capable of anything. He’s that angry with her. He’s not the type to allow himself to be cuckolded, not after all he’s overcome in his life.

  Nolan approaches Kat and pecks her on the cheek. “I’m so glad that Sadie’s better,” he says. I realize that he hasn’t looked at Doug at all, which seems more intense than if they’d been locked in a stare-down. He reaches into the area beneath the stroller seat and brings out a grocery bag. “I brought dinner for everyone. Are you hungry?”

  “I forgot to eat lunch,” Kat says, as if she’s just become aware of the existence of this thing we call food. “We were waiting for them to come and move Sadie, and then we waited some more, and now . . .” It’s four thirty. “So yes, I’m hungry. Thank you.”

  Doug approaches Nolan and claps him on the shoulder in manly appreciation. “You’re awesome, thanks.”

  Nolan just starts laying out the food like Doug hasn’t even spoken.

  Taking in Nolan’s demeanor, it’s clear that he believes something really is going on under his nose. I want Kat to think it’s true; I don’t want it to actually be true. Nolan loves Andie so much. He’d be destroyed.

  Doug fixes a plate and then brings it over to Kat in an attempt to prove he’s a nice guy. Well, wrong room, buddy. Neither Nolan nor I are buying it. But Andie might be, and she could be his actual target audience.

  Kat takes the plate without a word. That’s a good sign, from where I’m sitting. She’s picking up on what’s going on between Nolan and Andie, too, which validates my story. I had to tell a few lies in the texts about how everyone knows about Kat and Wyatt and about Andie and Doug, but it’s for a good cause.

  Nolan says to Andie gruffly, “Who’s eating first?” Then, to no one in particular, “Eating in shifts. You know how it is.”

  “You eat first,” Andie says. She’s on her feet, dancing with Fisher, moving him toward Sadie’s crib. “See, it’s Sadie. You know Sadie. She’s starting to feel better.” Fisher stares down at Sadie, and his fussing ceases. It occurs to me that it’s not very wise to bring their baby into a hospital. The place is a giant petri dish. Either Nolan is oblivious to that or too angry with Andie to care.

  Nolan sits with his plate on his lap, watching Andie and Fisher with little expression. “This is good,” I tell him, the mashed potatoes melting away on my tongue, and he registers it with the briefest of smiles.

  Andie gives him a sudden sharp look, at odds with the sweetly maternal tone she’s been using on Fisher. “Hurry up and eat,” she says. “I’m starving.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me to take Fisher first?” Nolan stands up and storms over to her. I flinch. I feel like I’m watching the homecoming queen and the captain of the football team devolve into domestic violence. Doug must have the same thought because he half rises, like he’s going to intercede if anything dicey happens. So chivalry is not dead; it’s just displaced, onto the other woman.

  Nolan maneuvers so that he takes Fisher from her and simultaneously thrusts his plate into her hand. “Here. Eat,” he commands over Fisher’s crying.

  “Give him back to me,” Andie says. “He’s calm with me.”

  “But you’re starving, remember?”

  Andie glares at him and then takes a seat, rapidly shoveling forkfuls into her mouth. I’ve never seen anything like this between them.

  So it must be true. Andie really is sleeping with Doug.

  I’m angry on Nolan’s behalf. There are men who deserve that, but he’s not one of them.

  Nolan is normally a good dad, but right then, he’s terrible at soothing Fisher. He’s rocking him and patting him on the back, talking in a higher register, repeating a lot of the same things Andie said but to the opposite effect. He’s getting increasingly frustrated, and then it seems like the rocking is a little too much like shaking and I’m afraid, because who doesn’t realize that you never shake a baby? Even though I’m definitely on Team Nolan rather than Team Andie, I’m glad when Andie takes Fisher back.

  I can’t take the tension another second. “Let’s get out of here,” I say to Kat, who’s also shoveled in all her food.

  “But . . .” Kat looks around, like she shouldn’t leave Nolan, Andie, and Doug alone, and then it seems like she gets my meaning: We should absolutely leave them alone. Let Nolan take care of whatever’s going on between Andie and Doug.

  She follows me up the hall. There’s an alcove with some seats in it, the walls painted in a woodsy nature scene, bright birds in the boughs.

  “I can’t leave Sadie for long,” Kat says. “She needs me.” A sudden smile. “She’s been drinking my milk like crazy today. I thought for sure all that milk would go to waste, but no, she drank, like, eight bottles.”

  “That’s great.”

  “That’s why I’ve decided that no matter what, I’m preserving her family.” She smiles again, like she’s happy about this decision. She’s not fooling either of us.

  “You saw what was happening in that hospital room, right?” I just need to make sure she hasn’t lost her faculties entirely, in the wrong direction. I mean, it’s OK if her lunacy causes her to flee the neighborhood but not if it makes her determined to stay. No matter what. You should never utter that phrase in your life, because you never know what’s going to matter.

  “Doug and I just need to get home and get back to normal.”

  “The way he and Andie were acting . . . it’s like they’re throwing their affair in your face.”

  “They’re friends.”

  “But the whole neighborhood—”

  “The whole neighborhood could be wrong. I need to get Doug’s side of the story.”

  “You mean you haven’t even talked to him yet?” Annoyance crosses her face. As in, she’s annoyed with me, not Doug. I lean in, infusing what I’m about to say with maximum meaning. “I’m your friend, and I’m telling you, you can’t let him treat you like this. You can’t go back to a house where you’re getting threatening letters, where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. You don’t know what someone’s willing to do.”

  She looks at me with mistrust, and I realize that I might have made a fatal error. I’ve pitted myself against her husband, leveraging a friendship that she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know who I really am.

  “I’m in a glass house,” she says, “and I shouldn’t throw stones.”

  It takes me a few seconds to know that she’s alluding to her and Wyatt, to what I helped orchestrate. That’s part of how she’s going to justify staying with her asshole husband? I can’t even speak. This is all blowing up in my face. Every rotten thing I’ve done has been in vain.

  No way. I’m going to finish the job, one way or another.

  CHAPTER 31

  KAT

  DON’T COME BACK.

  THIS IS A FRIENDLY WARNING.

  The e-mail address is a bunch of numbers at Gmail. Untraceable, to me. But maybe it’s time to get the police involved, instead of just taking the word of a neighbor who might have his own secrets to protect.

  That neighbor was the only man I’ve kissed other than my husband in the p
ast eight years. And I can’t even remember it. Not sure if that makes it better or worse.

  Is there any way that warning is really friendly?

  I glance over at Sadie. She’s in her hospital crib instead of that Plexiglas cube, and her sleep is that of a normal baby. She’s just a few hours from discharge. Whoever wrote this e-mail must know that.

  No, it certainly isn’t friendly.

  Doug’s not here. He said that since Sadie’s doing better, he needed to go to work today and start catching up. I still haven’t asked him about Andie; it’s just not the time or the place. We should be home for that.

  I am afraid to be back in the AV, but I spoke to one of the doctors about the potential poisoning, and it was clear from his reaction that that’s just impossible. So really, it all comes down to a bunch of notes and this e-mail. It’s all the work of a bully, plain and simple. A coward who has never dared show her (or his) face. Meanwhile, I’ve been tearing my hair out, which must be the point. That’s what the bully wants, right?

  The vast majority of the AV is filled with good people, and no one is going to run me out of town (especially since I have nowhere to go, not if I want to save my marriage and my family. And I very much do).

  The prevailing wisdom is that if you stand up to bullies, they cave. I’ve never tried that. The person who wrote those notes hasn’t heard back from me at all. It’s time to issue a threat of my own. They might think they’ve reduced me to a terrified wreck, but they need to know that I’m more of a cornered animal. A mama bear. I can strike back.

  I try to respond to the e-mail, but it bounces back, undeliverable. So I log in to GoodNeighbors and write a friendly warning of my own.

  It could just be the realization that my daughter is nearly healthy and I get to take her home; it could be post-stress euphoria. But I feel empowered for the first time in I don’t know how long. I feel like I’m the mother Sadie needs, like we’ve survived the worst and we’re only going to get stronger.

  They were just some notes and an e-mail. OK, and some ketamine. But what’s any of that compared to Sadie’s life, which I will protect with my own? I will fight to the death for that little girl over there.

  I look at the post with satisfaction, and then I curl up in the recliner, and finally, I sleep.

  I awake to Dr. Vreeland, the cold fish who I met yesterday and didn’t much like, though he did serve his purpose. He let me know that the idea of poisoning is nothing more than paranoia.

  “Sorry to wake you,” he says without a hint of a smile. But there is something odd in his manner, and it takes me a second to place it. It’s remorse. He rolls a stool over to sit beside me and lowers his voice. “I’m also sorry for how I treated you.”

  I blink at him. Am I dreaming this? A doctor actually apologizing?

  “I know I was dismissive of your earlier questions. But I’ve been thinking more about you, and about Sadie, and about her unusual presentation. When we spoke, I was in a rush, and I thought you were one of those people who just couldn’t take good news at face value. Sadie is on her way to a full recovery, all the usual tests and cultures came back negative, but you were still so bent on figuring out the cause. It even sounded like you thought someone might have tried to harm her.”

  “It crossed my mind, but really, I just don’t like unanswered questions.”

  “And honestly, I don’t, either. So I gave her case more thought and more analysis. A lot of Sadie’s symptoms actually correspond to a very rare bacteria called leptospirosis. But leptospirosis has a lot of symptoms, and like I said, it’s rare. So rare that to make an absolute determination, we have to send Sadie’s samples to the CDC in Atlanta. What I can say is that, based on her clinical presentation and by using microscopy to identify the spirochetes in her urine, leptospirosis may have been present.”

  I’m not exactly following him. “Does that mean she’s not OK? That she’s not being discharged?”

  “No, her prognosis is very good, fortunately. But leptospirosis is found in the urine of cattle, pigs, horses, wild animals, and, rarely, in that of dogs. You notice how frequently the word rare is appearing in this conversation.”

  I nod, feeling like I might be dreaming after all. Nightmaring, actually.

  “Humans can become contaminated through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected animal, or with water, soil, or food that’s been contaminated by an infected animal. You don’t have a dog, correct?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t live on a farm.”

  “No.”

  “Nor do your family members in Fort Bragg?”

  “No.”

  “The people at highest risk for this very rare bacterial infection are farmers or those who work in sewers, mines, or slaughterhouses. That’s why no one suspected leptospirosis in Sadie’s case. That, and the infection mimics many other more common viruses.”

  “So you’re saying that if it was leptospirosis, then Sadie was poisoned?”

  “I’ve sent the sample to the CDC for more conclusive results, and what I’m telling you is preliminary; it wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but . . . if it were my daughter, I’d want to know.”

  I feel like I might have a panic attack, but Dr. Vreeland seems oblivious. He’s still talking. “I should mention for the purposes of a time line, of sorts, that the incubation period is typically seven to twenty-one days, though it can be as long as thirty days. And it’s rarely—there’s that word again—fatal, if you get medical attention promptly, but sometimes it can cause permanent damage to the kidneys, lungs, and other major organs. In Sadie’s case, we’ve ruled all that out. But permanent damage was a possibility, is what I’m saying. Sadie is one lucky girl.”

  Luck is a relative term. “Thank you, Dr. Vreeland.”

  He stands up. “The nurse will be in with the paperwork in a few minutes.”

  Oh God. When I wrote that post on GoodNeighbors, I hadn’t known Sadie really was poisoned. I’ve gone and fired a warning shot at whoever tried to hurt her.

  With that incubation period, it could be anyone. Practically the whole neighborhood’s been through our home. I don’t know the method of transmission, but it feels like they all had their opportunities. They created them.

  I text Doug frantically. I need you.

  Come to the hospital now.

  We can’t go home.

  Fifteen awful minutes pass. This is inexcusable. He knows that I’m alone at the hospital with our sick baby. Yes, she’s on the mend, but people can take turns for the worse. He’s supposed to be making himself available to me. I didn’t tell him that when he left, because it seemed too obvious.

  Where’s the nurse? Not that I want her bringing me that paperwork. Then we’re supposed to vacate the room, and I don’t know where to go.

  I call Doug’s cell. He doesn’t answer. I call his work line. No answer. I go to his company website and look up his colleagues. I call every one of their numbers until someone answers, and then I say it’s an emergency, that I need Doug to call me immediately.

  “Doug’s not in. He hasn’t been in since your daughter got sick. It sounds like maybe you misunderstood . . . ?” The woman trails off, with obvious sympathy. She thinks what anyone would think in this situation. That he lied to me. That I’m a fool.

  The neighborhood rumors must be true. He is with Andie.

  I wanted him to talk to Dr. Vreeland and figure out what questions I’d forgotten to ask. I wanted us to call the police together. Then we could sell the house, and if we lose some money, so be it. It’s only money; it’s not Sadie’s life.

  But I can’t reach him, because he doesn’t want to be reached. He wants his privacy. He wants Andie.

  All those unexplained absences. The fights he picked so he could storm off.

  He’s been having an affair while his baby’s life was in danger. This is not the man I thought I knew. This is not a man I can trust.

  If we’d never moved here, would he have just found a d
ifferent woman in another neighborhood, or is it really something about the AV? Has this block destroyed us or just exposed us?

  We’re safe here, at the hospital. I don’t know how we can be safe at home, but I also don’t know where else we can go. To a hotel, maybe, just the two of us. We’d have to tell Doug where we were or it might be considered kidnapping. Whatever it takes, I will keep her safe.

  CHAPTER 32

  ELLEN

  I’ve seen Nils driving down the street really slowly on two separate occasions. Casing the joint, that’s what they would say in old movies. It weirded me out, even though I’ve never been of much interest to him. I’m sure Ilsa doesn’t know.

  They look more like brother and sister than most actual siblings—both so towheaded they’re practically albino, both so tall that they’ve developed the habit of stooping so they won’t intimidate. But that’s not why Nils was riding so low in the seat. He seemed, absurdly enough, like he was trying to appear inconspicuous. It might have helped if he wasn’t driving a Hummer.

  It’s just one more sign of the apocalypse—the walking dead returning to haunt the living.

  Here’s another sign: I barely sleep anymore, so this morning I saw (and heard) Gina and Oliver fighting in the street at the crack of dawn. “I was back before the kids woke up!” he was protesting. She grabbed his collar and screamed in his face, “That wasn’t the rule!”

  I’ve never seen that side of Gina before. Sure, tightly wound people can spring open, but I never thought Gina would be one of those. And as a couple, Gina and Oliver have always seemed rock solid. I’d assumed that being asexual had some sort of protective aspect to it, like an amulet that would shield her from jealousy. But maybe Tennyson getting it on with Oliver is just too much for her.

  I want to go outside and tell Gina it’s casual. I mean, she knows this. Everything with Tennyson is casual. She’s not much for intimate conversation. It’ll be short-lived, too. Tennyson and Vic are the best advertisement for why (and how) openness works. If they’re out in the street fighting tomorrow, it really will be Armageddon.