Forget You Know Me

by Jessica Strawser

  “Oh, you didn’t have to go out of your way to return that.” Rick took it into his hands with an odd reluctance. “But thanks. Was it helpful at all?”

  Daniel nodded. “Very. Got a minute?”

  Rick gestured for him to enter. The living room was a mess, the cushions pulled off the couches and piled in the center of the floor beneath a mound of blankets. Stuffed animals and doll clothes were strung through the room, and an empty rocks glass was sweating onto a cocktail napkin atop the piano. “I’d offer you a seat, but Rosie was really into fort building today,” he said, perching on the edge of the piano bench. “I’m under strict instructions not to take it down.” A gold metallic light illuminated the sheet music open on the tray, and his eyes shone glassy in the adjacent shadows. Daniel wondered how many drinks he’d had and whether they might work in his own favor or against it.

  “I’ll stand,” he said.

  “Some race, huh? You’re probably beat.” Daniel nodded. His leg muscles were taking on that jelly quality, reminding him that he’d been right about training, at least—it wasn’t overrated. “Molly did great,” Rick added. “Nori was cheering her head off.”

  Daniel nodded. “Molly’s tougher than she thinks.” He slid his hands into his pockets and leveled his eyes with his neighbor’s. “That night the intruder entered our house, I know she thought it was you.”

  The shadows across Rick’s face deepened. “It’s not what you think. It was such a stupid thing.…”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Just let me—” He sighed, then started again. “That afternoon, the girls were playing on the deck. We came in to get them a snack and I turned on the TV, just for background noise. We weren’t even really watching, but it was some low-budget movie, and there was this over-the-top scene where the love interest posed as a burglar. The main character was into it.” Daniel tried to keep his breath even as he pictured his wife watching any sex scene—even a campy one—with another man. With this man. “We were laughing at how masochistic it was, and Molly made this joke in defense of the movie, about how she could see the appeal.”

  Daniel’s mouth dropped open, but Rick rushed ahead. “She was joking! But the break-in happened that night, so that’s what she thought of, and—she assumed I hadn’t taken it as a joke. She assumed I had taken it as an invitation.” Rick averted his eyes, and Daniel considered him for a long moment.

  “Was it an invitation?” he asked quietly.

  “I swear to you, I have never laid a hand on your wife.” He was telling the truth. Daniel could tell by how proud he seemed. As if this were a great achievement: mind over matter.

  “But you’re in love with my wife,” Daniel said. It wasn’t a question, and Rick didn’t answer. He merely stared down at the piano keys as if they might play themselves.

  “Here’s the thing,” Daniel said. “Molly has convinced herself that this intruder was not random. She’s genuinely afraid someone is out to get her. And it’s your fault. Because if she hadn’t had reason to think it was you, she would have urged the police to pursue it. She would have come to me, right away. But instead, she ran scared, thinking she was going to get caught on the verge of an affair.”

  “She wasn’t on the verge of anything,” Rick insisted. “She knows it wasn’t me.”

  “She knows that now. Point is, she missed her chance to see it through then, and couldn’t explain her way into bringing it back up. So now she’s miserable, terrified. She thinks they’re going to come back. She’s gone paranoid, and she doesn’t even know that I know any of this.”

  Rick did meet his eyes then. “Well, now that you do, you can bring it back up, let her off the hook. The police can look into it again—”

  “Absolutely not. It’s old news by now; I think they’re satisfied that they’ve looked into it plenty. They were here, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look, I’m not worried. If someone was out to target us, they would’ve been back by now. And people don’t come much more innocuous than Molly. But you know as well as I do how relentless she is with this stuff. How unhealthy it can be for her, once she gets something into her head, some unsolvable problem to solve. We’re finally working through a lot of things, and I’ll level with you: This is the last big hurdle. This, and you. Two birds, one stone.”

  Rick looked longingly at his empty glass. “What do you mean? What’s the stone?”

  “Convince her it was you. Let her let go of her fear, close this chapter, and move on. Her first guess was right, end of story. And you and I never had this talk. I know nothing.”

  “I would never—”

  “It’s like the saying,” Daniel interrupted. “‘If you love something, set it free.’” His words were icicles: pointed, cold. “It was never yours to begin with.”

  Rick shook his head. “I’m not sure you understand what you’re asking. You wouldn’t believe how far my daughter has come with Molly and Nori’s help.”

  “Exactly,” Daniel said. “She’s going to be fine. I heard she even talked in front of Liza.” Rick looked so bereft he almost pitied the guy. “Look, you did me a solid lending me that book, and now I’m doing you one. You can’t find a partner when you’re hung up on someone else’s.”

  Rick was quiet for a long moment. “She’d never forgive me,” he said finally.

  Daniel raised an eyebrow, holding his eyes until Rick looked away.

  “You might have the wrong idea about me, but make no mistake, I love my wife. I would never give her up without a fight, and I’ve sat by and let this continue long enough. It’s over, one way or another. As far as I can tell, you’re getting off easy. I’ve heard of jealous husbands doing far worse.”

  The man was deflating before his eyes, until he was flat enough to see through. Barely an obstacle at all.

  Daniel forced a smile. “All settled, then. Proceed at your earliest convenience. As long as it’s first thing tomorrow.”

  32

  Grant always waved at Molly for as long as he could see her when the school bus pulled away, and this morning was the same, only different. It was better, because there was a new affirmation between them, in his bright eyes, in his wide smile—that she had not, would not, let him down. And it was worse, too, because she couldn’t claim the same where Daniel was concerned—and by the end of the day, her husband would know that she had failed, would fail, them both.

  She hated the thought of endangering this new softening between her and Daniel. She hated it so much that she’d let herself be glad he stepped out last night while she was on the phone with Liza. She’d never meant to tie herself up with a call, but then there her friend was, on the line, and Molly’s heart had been filled with the kind of gratitude that only came with redemption. How could she put Liza off, when they’d finally reached this point of repair?

  The conversation with Daniel couldn’t wait any longer, though. The hat man had given her a week, but pulling her rescue hatch would take only moments. As of yesterday, telling Daniel about the still-to-be-tabulated cost of the secrets she’d kept had officially become less scary than continuing to keep them. And as of yesterday, she’d glimpsed some reason, however small, to hope that maybe, just maybe, this did not have to be their breaking point after all.

  That he would forgive her had seemed such a far-fetched possibility. But then again, his coming around to some understanding of her pain, his admission that he could have done more, his willingness to put her first even when the heat was on at work—those had seemed long shots, too, yet they’d materialized.

  As had Liza’s phone call. It seemed like a sign—to never assume someone was lost for good.

  She was amazed she’d slept at all last night, but the race had leveled her, and she’d drifted off still waiting for Daniel to come home. She’d barely come to when he left for the office this morning, early to compensate for yesterday, but he’d already called once—just as they were filing out to the bus stop—sim
ply to say he loved her. If only she’d been able to hear it without the deafening roar of trepidation crashing down around her—at all she’d put in danger, at his blissful lack of awareness that they were in so deep. Tonight, she would sit him down and tell him everything. Unburdening herself would be no small relief, come what may.

  “Mommy, can I have another waffle?” Nori tugged at her pant leg as the bus disappeared from view, and Molly tried not to grimace as she shifted her weight. She was all soreness from the hips down and pining for an anti-inflammatory her stomach couldn’t handle.

  “Well, you can’t have any more syrup,” Molly said, summoning a mischievous smile. “I saw you licking it from your plate.”

  “But I’m still hungry. And waffles are yucky without syrup.”

  “Remember that next time you’re slurping up a syrup puddle.”

  Nori laughed and skipped up the walk ahead of her. “Slurping syrup slurping syrup slurping syrup … Mommy, can you say that five times fast?”

  Molly was laughing her way through an exaggeratedly botched attempt when she caught sight of Rosie’s tricycle turning out of Rick’s long driveway. Nori’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, can I ride my bike, too, until school? Please? Please?” They’d done this a few times in the fall, but the mornings had been too chilly since. Funny how Molly hadn’t even stopped earlier to appreciate the novelty of no longer needing a coat, to drink it in and be grateful. Some warmings were so slow you didn’t notice them until you found yourself sweating. It was too easy to skip right over the midpoint when, if you’d stop to think about it, you’d realize you were quite comfortable. Rick appeared behind Rosie and guided her onto the street, headed this way.

  “Sure,” Molly said. “Let me just run in and grab some coffee.”

  Moments later, she and Rick were sipping from steaming mugs in companionable silence on the front stoop, watching the girls trace figure eights with their wheels on the flat end of the driveway. Toby’s obnoxious sister with the equally obnoxious dog power walked past, calling out a greeting even as she eyed them with outward suspicion. Molly registered her own uneasiness that until this very moment a stranger might have been right to wonder about her and Rick’s closeness. But the current between them was noticeably absent today—finally, she supposed, one or both of them had succeeded in switching it off. Just as well.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” Rick said. She glanced at him to find his eyes fixed on his mug, his knuckles white around the handle.

  And then, he rewired that current. For a few horrible moments, while he talked into his coffee and she listened, speechless, the live wire flailed between them, shooting off sparks of revelation that reached her beyond the buzz, above the noise. “It was me” and “stupid idea” and “I panicked” and “I was wrong” and “didn’t want to lose you” and, finally, obviously, “I know this changes everything.” Her mind spun in protest, flashing confused images of the man in the Panama hat disappearing into the crowd, and of Toby smirking behind the desk, but what about and is this true and could it be losing their power before she could voice them. By the time he was finished speaking, the wire was grounded and the space between them, once electric with forbidden possibility but also compassion and friendship and gratitude and respect and affection, was nothing more than just that: space. Deeply singed space.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” she whispered. They were so exposed here, everything about it wrong, from the sunshine down to the girls’ giggles. Rosie had pulled up alongside Nori, and they were trying to synchronize their pedaling. They would, too. They’d always been in sync, and she couldn’t even claim they’d been fueled by any energy generated by Molly and Rick. The girls’ bond had come first, right on the other side of this yard, before their parents had spoken more than a couple of harried sentences over the din of the tree cutters another lifetime ago. But now their bond would come last. Thanks to those same selfish parents, it would have to be broken. And as much as Molly wanted to lay the blame on Rick, scream at him, even flail her fists at him, they both knew she was at fault, too.

  “All I can say is … how embarrassed I was. And how furious with myself. Not only had I misread the situation, but—if I’d ever have imagined the possibility of someone else seeing me, I’d never have taken that risk. Not for you, having to deal with the fallout, and not for Rosie and me, losing you and Nori both. I guess I thought if I denied it, everything could go back to normal.” Rick’s eyes were pleading, as if there might still be some way back, though they both knew there was not. “You assured me you thought it was random, so I figured the anxiety I’d caused would fade when nothing else happened. I didn’t realize, though … Daniel mentioned how terrified you’ve been, that you haven’t been convinced you weren’t targeted, and I felt awful. If I’d known, I’d have come clean earlier.”

  She scooted over on the stoop, putting more distance between them before turning to him with narrowed eyes. “Daniel mentioned it?” She tried to recall Daniel ever speaking to Rick for longer than thirty seconds. But that aside, how had her relatively imperceptive husband perceived her fear, even a hint of it? Up until yesterday anyway, she’d been so careful to brush this off as nothing. Had that bastard Toby said something to him after all?

  Rick’s jaw muscles twitched, his eyes shifting away, then down. “Just in passing. I don’t think he suspected me or anything, don’t worry.” The last syllables warbled, and she realized she’d never had occasion to witness what a horrible liar he was. Rick had always been honest with her.

  Until now.

  She peered at him in confusion. Why this of all things to be untruthful about? And again, why now? Had Liza been right that Molly was guilty of stringing him along, and he’d gotten tired of it? Or, worse to contemplate somehow, could Rick have been the one with her on the hook? And now that Rosie was improved, he was reaching for a way to release her, just like that?

  The migraine saw its opening; the aura slipped inside. She needed Rick to leave before it took hold of her, so she could take a pill and think this through. If this was what he wanted, for whatever reason—if he was sacrificing himself for the good of them both—maybe it was better not to stop him, screaming instincts be damned.

  “Nori and I are going to miss Rosie,” she said quietly.

  He held her gaze for a long minute before giving a somber nod. “And Rosie and I are going to miss Nori,” he said. His voice broke in place of the name he did not say—her own—and something in Molly did, too. Would they have been better off without each other all along?

  She got to her feet, every aching muscle crying in protest, and called to her daughter.

  In spite of everything, she didn’t like to think so.

  In spite of everything, she wouldn’t.

  33

  A pair of coffee mugs sat forgotten on the edge of Molly’s front stoop, the shallow dredges inside beginning to curdle in the glaring sun, and Liza gathered them up as she made her way to the front door and knocked curtly, three times. She dismissed the fleeting memory of the last time she’d stood here in the morning light, of the vague sense of dread that still accompanied any hint of that day. This time was different.

  This time, Molly had asked her to come. In fact, her request had seemed almost ordinary, as if they’d never stopped consulting each other over every crisis du jour.

  And this time, Molly looked relieved to see her, opening the door with a genuine, grateful smile, even though she’d sounded numbly distressed on the phone, saying only that some “interesting developments” had occurred and she was wondering if Liza might be up for putting their heads together after Nori’s preschool drop. Liza assumed it was about Daniel—Molly had told her last night about her steeled resolve to come clean about the debt, and it must not have gone well. Liza was glad she’d scheduled herself for the closing shift today and her morning happened to be free. She’d stopped at Servatii’s bakery on the way, planning to grab some of Molly’s favorite cheese Danishes, but the
smell of sugar and dough filled her with such regret over how she’d treated Henry that she turned right around and left empty handed.

  “Come in, come in!” Molly caught sight of the mugs and her smile wavered, then recovered as she rushed to take them from her. “So glad you could come. I was just thinking I should’ve asked you to bring some cheese Danishes. I’m kind of in the mood to eat my worries.”

  Whoops. Well, what Molly didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  “You’ve earned the calories after yesterday,” Liza said, following her to the kitchen. Molly moved with visible effort, as if tethered to the ground with resistance bands, but she voiced no complaint. The kitchen was a mess, the fixings for what Liza guessed to be Grant’s packed lunch and Nori’s breakfast still spread on the counters, but Molly seemed not to notice.

  “Coffee? I could reheat you some.”

  “Sure.” Liza crossed behind her and began putting things back together. The lid on the peanut butter. The twist tie on the bread. The cap on the syrup. “So tell me about these developments,” she said. “Is it Daniel? Did you tell him?”

  Molly shook her head. The microwave beeped, and she extracted a steaming mug and brought it to the table with a carton of half-and-half. She slid into a chair and gestured for Liza to leave the mess and join her. “Allegedly the mystery is solved. About who you saw on camera that night.”

  “What?” This was the last thing she’d expected. She thunked into the opposite chair. “How? Who?”

  “I remember hearing this detective say on TV that his first, most obvious theory is often the correct one.…”

  “Rick?”

  Molly nodded, and Liza tried to ground her thoughts, landing somewhere between skepticism and disappointment. “But I thought he insisted it wasn’t him?”