by Shari Lapena
But on Thursday afternoon, she sees the little blue dot on the move, heading to Newburgh. She’s overcome with rage. At him, and at herself for not confronting him. At home they continue to act as if nothing is different. He’s pretending he’s not having an affair, and she’s pretending she doesn’t know about it. They could both win Oscars.
She arranges for her mother to pick Henry up from afternoon preschool and keep him until she returns. And then she takes to the highway, seething. When she arrives at her destination, she parks across the street again, and then spots her husband’s Tesla in the parking lot. She wants to take a sledgehammer to it.
Instead, she sits in her own car and waits, her eye on the front door of the building. Eventually, Niall comes out, alone. She waits for him to get into his car and drive away. She takes a deep breath and gets out of the car, walks into the building, and presses the buzzer for apartment 107. She wants to see this homewrecker for herself.
When Nancy hears a woman’s voice on the intercom, she suddenly doesn’t know what to say. What if she refuses to let her in? At that moment, a man comes out of the lobby and Nancy slips past him and inside, without speaking into the intercom.
Nancy walks down the corridor until she finds apartment 107. She stands there for a nervous moment. Will the woman who’s sleeping with her husband answer the door, or look out the peephole and figure out why she’s there—the angry wife? She steels herself and knocks.
The door opens. “Yes?”
Nancy stares at her. She’s not as young as she was expecting, but she is certainly beautiful. Blond, where Nancy is dark. Anne O’Dowd was blond too. Nancy wonders at her husband’s sudden penchant for blonds. She feels envy, insecurity, and anger in equal measure, looking at the slim, shapely woman in black leggings and a clingy T-shirt.
“What do you want?” the woman asks.
“I want to talk to you,” Nancy says firmly. “Can I come in?”
The other woman gives her a bemused look. “Who are you?” she asks.
Nancy glances past the woman to the barely furnished apartment. She pushes her way in.
“Excuse me . . . who are you?”
Nancy glances down at a small table piled with mail. She sees the name Erica Voss on one of the envelopes and looks up. “I wanted to meet you, Erica. You’ve been sleeping with my husband—I just saw him leave—and you are going to stop.”
“Ah,” Erica says, and smiles. “You’re the neglected wife—I thought so. You’ve been following him, have you? How pathetic. And you think you can come here and tell me what I’m going to do.” She adds, “How very . . . confident of you.”
Nancy can tell that Erica thinks her confidence is misplaced. “Consider this a courtesy call,” Nancy says in a hard voice. “I’m going to tell my husband that I know all about you and he will break it off immediately.”
“What makes you so sure?” Erica asks, folding her arms under her perfect breasts.
Suddenly Nancy’s not so sure. This woman is different from Anne O’Dowd. She’s no pushover. “Just stay away from him,” she warns.
“Or what? What are you going to do to me?” Erica looks at her, arching one eyebrow. Then she adds, “He’s a big boy and he can make his own decisions.”
Nancy throws her a look of contempt and turns away, reaching for the door. “You’ll see I’m right.”
“Drive carefully,” Erica calls after her.
* * *
• • •
NIALL STAYS LATE at work to make up for the time he took in the middle of the afternoon to see Erica. He knows his wife won’t be happy, but she doesn’t complain too much about his working late. She knows he works hard, and she’s proud of his success. They have a good lifestyle. Long hours are the price you pay for that.
When he gets home, he parks in the driveway and enters the house. Nancy doesn’t greet him at the door like she normally does. Maybe she’s in the kitchen, he thinks. She’s probably kept something warm for him, she always does. He realizes he’s starving. But the house is unusually quiet. He walks through the house on the way to the kitchen, calling, “Nancy, I’m home.”
He stops suddenly when he sees her sitting quietly in the living room on the sofa. “Hey,” he says.
But she’s looking at him in a way that makes his insides collapse. Her face is grim—reproachful, furious, hurt—and he knows she knows. She’s found out about Erica, she must have. All at once he’s furious. Has she followed him? Can he have no freedom at all? But those feelings are gone in an instant, a momentary burst of childishness, and then reality washes over him. He’s been a fool. He’s going to lose her. . . . He feels his face fall. Still, neither of them has spoken.
Finally he says softly, “Where’s Henry?” He doesn’t want their son to overhear what happens next.
“He’s at my mother’s,” she says. “He’s staying there tonight.”
She’s going to ask him to leave. He feels light-headed with disbelief. How could he have been so stupid? He’d promised her. And he’d broken his promise. She won’t give him a second chance. She already has, and he’s blown it.
“Nancy . . .” he says, his voice halting. She’s waiting for him to tell her, but he can’t.
“How could you?” she hisses. “How could you, after last time?”
He comes slowly into the room, as if he’s approaching his own funeral, and sinks heavily into an armchair across from her. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m so sorry. Nancy, I love you. Only you. I’ve only ever loved you.” He looks back at her, abject and pleading.
“That’s what you said last time,” she says angrily.
“I know. But it’s true.”
“I went to see her today,” Nancy says.
He feels sick. He never meant for this to happen. It was meaningless, a bit of excitement. He didn’t mean to hurt her. He doesn’t want to lose everything.
“She’s very attractive,” Nancy says bitterly.
Oh God, not this again. “Nancy, please. You know how attractive you are. I mean, look at you! It’s not about that.”
“Oh no?” She waits a bit and then says, “Then why do you do it? Why do you sleep with other women? Why am I not enough for you?”
He almost wishes she would cry and throw things, but she’s so angry, and so cold, he’s certain that she’s already made the decision to kick him out. He can’t explain it. He’d tried, in marriage counseling, but had failed. He wants to explain it now, but he can’t find the words.
“I’ve had enough, Niall. I think you should leave.”
“No!” It comes out as a strangled protest. “No, Nancy, please. Please give me another chance.”
“You can move into that cheap little apartment in Newburgh, with her. I’m sure you’ll both be very happy. Or not. I don’t care.”
He lurches off the armchair and sinks to his knees in front of her. He’s shaking his head. “I don’t want her. She’s nothing to me. I want to be here, with you. I love you, Nancy. I want to be here with you and Henry. Please don’t ask me to leave. I’ll never see her again. I swear.”
Then she begins to cry, and he does too. Afterward they sit in silence for a long time. Darkness falls.
Finally Nancy says, “I want you to call her, now, and tell her you’ll never see her again.”
“Sure, of course,” he says eagerly. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket and calls Erica. His heart is pounding loudly. He holds the cell phone up to his ear.
Erica answers. “Hello.”
“Erica,” Niall says. “It’s Niall. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to see you anymore.”
“Afraid of your wife, are you?” her voice is scathing.
“I love her.”
“Sure you do.”
He disconnects the call. He can tell his wife has heard it all. He looks at her tentatively. “Wha
t now?” Niall asks.
“I’ll think about it,” Nancy says. She stands up and adds, “You can sleep in the guest room for now—until I decide what to do.” She exits the room, leaving Niall holding his head in his hands.
* * *
• • •
ERICA WANTS to throw her cell phone against the wall. She stops herself just in time. She’s just been humiliated. She didn’t see that coming, not until Niall’s wife showed up at her door this afternoon. Of course she knew Niall wouldn’t want to disrupt his family. What she hadn’t expected was for his wife to find out about them, at least not so quickly. How had he let himself get caught? How had he allowed himself to be followed? How stupid can a man be? Did the idiot want to get caught?
Now she can’t get money from him for her silence.
Lately, nothing is going the way she expected. She tells herself that she must have patience. These things take time. But patience has never been her strong suit.
27
Patrick keeps playing his last conversation with Erica—late that night in her apartment—over and over again in his mind. Sometimes, these days, his hands shake. Stephanie has noticed. She keeps asking him if he’s all right, if he’s keeping anything from her, if he’s heard any more from Erica. But he hasn’t, and neither has she. He’s not foolish enough to think she’s simply given up and gone away—not anymore.
Stephanie is a wreck too. Her face is drawn and she drags herself around the house as if every movement is an effort. He’s seen her start at every unexpected sound, even something as innocent as the mail dropping through the slot at the front door. She’d told him what Hanna said—that Erica had been looking at the house for sale on their street. It has unnerved her. It has unnerved both of them, which he’s sure was her intention, but they both know she can’t be seriously interested in the house—can she?
They’re both going a little stir crazy. Patrick realizes that they haven’t been out of the city much at all since the twins were born. Before Stephanie was pregnant, they used to hike the trails on the weekends and cycle regularly. Then, when Stephanie was pregnant, they’d talked about attaching baby seats to their bikes and cycling through the Catskills, as if having babies would be a mere hiccup. They’d had no idea how profoundly their lives would change. The idea of cycling with the twins in infant bicycle seats had been unrealistic. They hadn’t realized what having twins would be like, and they hadn’t expected colic, which has knocked them both sideways. Now all they want to do is sleep when they get the chance.
“Stephanie,” Patrick says at breakfast on Saturday morning. “Why don’t we pack a picnic and leave the city like we used to? It’s going to be a gorgeous day. We can at least all get some fresh air and a change of scenery.”
She tilts her head at him, considering it. He can tell she’s torn: it sounds lovely, but she’s likely thinking of the work involved—organizing the picnic, making the food—and losing the naptime because the twins will probably sleep in the car on the drive back.
“I’ll do everything,” he coaxes. “I’ll pop into the deli and get everything ready-made.” He smiles at her. “Potato salad. Those Italian sandwiches you like. That fizzy lemon drink, and some cookies. We’ll drive up to that spot in the mountains we used to go to—where we used to make out.” He smiles at her, and earns a brief, weary smile in return. “We can relax a bit. And you can sleep in the car on the way back.” Her face lightens a little, and she looks more like herself, he thinks, than at any time since Erica slithered into their lives.
“That sounds tempting,” she agrees. “Okay. I’ll pack a bag for the twins while you go to the deli.”
“Great.” He kisses her on the lips and grabs the car keys, humming as he goes.
* * *
• • •
STEPHANIE LEANS BACK in the passenger seat, lulled into a sense of ease as they leave the river behind and climb the road into the Catskills. With the deepening forest all around, she feels a familiar peace come over her. The sun is glorious. The twins are babbling happily in the backseat and Patrick, driving beside her, looks over at her and smiles. He reaches out his right hand and places it on top of hers. In a sudden burst of joy, she remembers how happy they are—just before memories of what they’re facing flood back. Light and dark. Can you have one without the other? Looking at Patrick’s profile, the sunlight flooding the car, the cooing of her daughters behind her—she knows what happiness is. With a jagged tug of fear, she also knows that a dark shadow has been cast over their lives. She turns away from Patrick and looks out the window. She watches the landscape pass by, peering into the forest, thinking about all the fairy tales she looks forward to reading to the twins, the ones she loved so much as a child—“Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
“Almost there,” Patrick says, turning off the highway and onto a rutted road to the secluded spot they had discovered a couple of years ago and thought of as their own. They haven’t been here since the twins were born, Stephanie reflects. Patrick pulls up and turns off the car. They’re all alone up here; it’s so quiet she can hear the ticking of the cooling engine. They get out of the car. Patrick comes close to her and they stand together looking down. From here the view is magnificent. Then Stephanie turns away and sets about laying the blankets on the grass while Patrick gets the infant seats out of the car.
Soon they each have a baby on their lap and they’re enjoying their meal, drawing in lungfuls of fresh air. Their problems seem further away here, Stephanie thinks, as she bites into her sandwich and smiles down at Jackie, who is reaching for her hair. They’re far away from everything. If only they could stay here, she thinks fancifully, where Erica could never find them.
“Do you want to go for a walk in the woods?” Patrick asks after they’ve eaten. “I brought the baby carriers.”
Stephanie, drowsy now after lunch, thinks about it and shakes her head. “I’d rather just sit here.”
“Whatever you want,” Patrick agrees. “This is your day.” He leans over and kisses her on the mouth, and she kisses him back, hungrily, the way she used to.
After a couple of lazy, almost blissful hours, they pack their things and think about returning home. Stephanie notices that a cloud has passed across Patrick’s mood. He seems to have become withdrawn, tense. Perhaps he’s thinking about what’s ahead. Their little escape is over. She imagines they’re both worried about the same thing as they load the car. When will they hear from Erica again? What happens next? She appraises him as they finish securing the babies in the back. “You look really tired,” she says. “Maybe I should drive.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. I’ll drive.”
“You did all the driving up. I’ll drive home.”
He looks at her across the hood of the car. “No, really, I’m fine. You should nap on the way back.”
But she won’t take no for an answer. She walks around the front of the car to the driver’s side and says, “I’m driving. Look, you’re actually trembling. Believe it or not, I think you’re in worse shape than I am.”
28
A week has gone by since Patrick visited Erica’s apartment in the middle of the night. Erica finds herself growing more and more impatient. Nothing is happening. Specifically—nothing has happened to Stephanie, and she doesn’t like fucking around. She steps into the independent bookstore in downtown Aylesford. It’s a charming place, but Erica didn’t come here to be charmed. She knows what she wants. She spots the children’s section and heads there.
It’s time she brought a gift for the twins. She’s spent so much time thinking about them, she feels like she’s almost part of their little family now. She peruses the shelves, searching for something specific, something she remembers from her own childhood. It might even be her favorite story. For a moment she’s worried she won’t find it—that she’ll have to order it online som
ewhere, and she really wants to give it to the twins today. Patrick needs a nudge.
Ah—there it is. She recognizes the little book and plucks it from the shelf. She finds a chair and sits down and reads it all the way through. It’s just as she remembered it, and in spite of herself she is charmed by it, finds herself smiling as she reads, enjoying the familiar words, the illustrations, the moral. It’s perfect.
* * *
• • •
PATRICK SEES IT FIRST, the small gift-wrapped package topped with a bow, sitting at the base of their front door. They’re returning from an evening walk around the neighborhood with the twins. He feels Stephanie come up behind him. She sees the package, wrapped in pale yellow paper dotted with little lambs, and gives a cry of delight.
“A present!” she says.
Stephanie has always loved gifts—choosing them, wrapping them, giving them, and receiving them. With a jolt, Patrick realizes that he hasn’t given his wife any thoughtful gifts lately, not even flowers. He must make amends. He’ll get her something soon.
Stephanie comes up the porch steps with him and reaches down to pick up the package, while Patrick unlocks the door. “Let’s get the babies inside and see who it’s from,” she says.
They make their way in and set the babies down in the living room. “There’s a card,” Stephanie says. “To Jackie and Emma. I wonder who it’s from?” Stephanie says, sitting down on the sofa and opening the card.