Mad River Road Page 20

  And while it might have been true that she didn’t know her husband very well, the bigger truth was that he didn’t know her at all.

  She hadn’t meant to lie. The stories she’d told about her privileged upbringing, her scholastic accomplishments, her acceptance into Princeton—she’d just said those things to impress him. And then, when he was beyond impressed, when he was head over heels and they were husband and wife, well, what choice did she have but to continue the charade? Soon it was easier to lie than to tell the truth. And it was becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two.

  “Are you ashamed of me?” he asked shortly after their marriage.

  “Of course not.”

  “I mean, I know I’m not as smart as you are. I didn’t get accepted into Princeton.…”

  “So?” Emma asked. “I didn’t go, did I?”

  “Only because your mother was so sick.”

  “Please don’t talk about that in front of her. She gets very upset.…”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t bring it up. But why’d you have to tell her I went to Yale? I just about fell off my chair.”

  “I didn’t hear you deny it.”

  “I was too stunned to say anything.”

  Emma shrugged off his concerns with a toss of her long, dark hair. “I told her you went to Yale because I knew it would make her happy. She’s impressed by stuff like that.”

  “Well, we have to tell her the truth.”

  “Why?” Emma asked.

  “Because the truth will out,” he told her.

  “The truth will what?”

  “The truth will out,” he repeated.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does.”

  “What does it mean? That the truth’s been hiding in a closet, like it’s gay or something?”

  He smiled self-consciously. “You know what it means.”

  “All I know is that I married the handsomest, sexiest man in the world,” Emma said, wrapping her arms around her new husband and grinding her hips against his. He smiled and buried his head in her neck. Somehow he had no trouble swallowing that whopper, she thought. So much for outing the truth.

  And the truth was that he was withdrawing more every day. He repeatedly accused her of lying to him. She countered with accusations that he was cheating on her. Their sex life dwindled, then disappeared entirely after she announced she was, indeed, pregnant. After their son was born, her husband started sleeping on the couch. On those rare nights when he bothered coming home at all.

  At first, she’d tried rekindling their romance, buying exotic lingerie, and even handcuffs, in an effort to entice him, but all such efforts proved futile. One night, she’d confronted him as he stumbled in drunk from a night with the boys. “Who is she this time?” she’d demanded.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not ridiculous,” she countered. “And I’m not stupid either.”

  “Then stop acting that way.”

  “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been all night?”

  “I went out with David and Sal. You know that. Look, I’m tired.…”

  “So am I.”

  “Then go to bed.”

  “Alone? Again?”

  “Look, we’ve been through this. I can’t give you what you want.”

  “What I want is a little attention. Am I so awful that you can’t even touch me anymore? Come on,” she cried, slapping at his arm with her closed fist. “Touch me.” She began pummeling the sides of his arms, swatting at his face with her open palm. “Pretend I’m David or Sal.”

  “Stop that,” he told her, grabbing her arms and pinning them to her sides.

  “You’re hurting me,” she cried, and he released her.

  She slapped him hard across the face.

  He slapped her back.

  It went from bad to worse.

  “You told your friends I beat you?” he demanded, incredulously, the following week.

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “You wouldn’t know the truth if it fell on your head.”

  “Serves you right,” Emma muttered now, flipping onto her side in bed. Everything that happened after that was your fault. All I asked for was a little attention. All I needed was a little love.

  “What?” Dylan asked groggily, his little body tensing against her own. “Are we going away again?”

  “No, baby. Everything’s okay. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you too.”

  Lily was dreaming of ice cream. She was standing outside a 1950s-style diner, eating a small cone of strawberry ice cream, and the ice cream was dripping onto her clean, white shirt, leaving a long, pink stain that stretched lazily from the middle of her breasts to the bottom of her blouse. Beside her, Jeff Dawson stood nursing a monstrous sugar cone wrapped in rich, dark chocolate. Suddenly he leaned forward, as if to help himself to some of her ice cream, but instead he grabbed her hand and began licking her open palm. A motorcycle sped by as her mother came running out of the diner waving an American flag and nattering on about tax returns. Seconds later, a giant coconut fell from the sky, and someone yelled, “There’s been an accident.” Lily looked down at the front of her white blouse. The pink stain had turned bright crimson. Blood was leaking from her heart, as if she’d been shot.

  Lily bolted up in bed, the front of her pink, cotton nightshirt soaked with her sweat. “Dear God,” she whispered, her eyes searching through the dim light for the clock. Ten after three in the morning. “Wonderful.” She climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom, applying a cool compress to her neck and toweling off the sweat. “Okay, so that wasn’t too hard to figure out,” she muttered, even as the dream began to fade, its images smudging, as if someone were rubbing at them with an eraser.

  Obviously she was feeling guilty about how much she’d enjoyed her date with Jeff tonight, and her subconscious was warning her.… What? What exactly was her subconscious trying to tell her? That Jeff was potentially dangerous to her health? Or that she was dangerous to his? That if she allowed him to get too close, a large coconut would come falling out of the sky and kill him as surely as it had killed Kenny?

  Except that a wayward coconut hadn’t killed Kenny.

  She shook her head. It was just a stupid dream. A bunch of unrelated images that didn’t add up to anything. How else to explain her mother running around waving an American flag and ranting about her latest tax return? If dreams were supposed to serve as some sort of portent, it would be nice if occasionally they made sense.

  “Now, strawberry ice cream makes sense,” Lily said, heading for the stairs. It was strange being alone in the house without Michael. The small space felt so empty without the sound of his voice, the raucous peal of his laughter, the steady rhythm of his breathing. She caught sight of the many finger paintings and watercolors covering his bedroom walls as she passed by, and she took a few steps back, entering his room and flipping on the overhead light, amazed, as she always was, by what talent he possessed. And she didn’t feel this way just because she was his mother. Everyone else thought so as well. His teacher, Ms. Kensit, had told her that Michael was the most artistically gifted student she’d had in her nine years of teaching. She’d even taken one of his paintings, a watercolor of a group of deer munching wildflowers at the side of a stream, to the school principal, who’d stuck a gold star in the top right-hand corner and told Michael he was going to be a famous artist one day, and the principal would be able to say, I knew him when. That painting now hung proudly on the wall opposite Michael’s bed, between a chalk drawing of a boy and his mother running hand in hand through a field of tall grass, and an abstract finger painting of lime green swirls that almost danced off the page.

  Lily moved from one wall to the other, studying each picture as carefully as if she
were visiting the Louvre. There was a painting of a vase filled with purple and red flowers, one of a boy jumping out of an airplane, the boy twice as big as the plane, his parachute opening wide behind him. Beside it was a charcoal sketch of a young boy and his mother standing proudly in front of a small, triangular-shaped house. Another picture, this one taped over his bed, depicted a mother tucking her young son into bed, the full moon smiling at them from outside the window. There were no stick figures in Michael’s artwork, as there were in the drawings of most young children. The people who inhabited Michael’s world were fully formed, if dubiously proportioned. Some had huge heads, others had heads no bigger than a pillbox. Some had enormous hands, while others had legs that stretched clear up to their necks. Lily noticed something else. There were no men in any of Michael’s paintings.

  That was her fault.

  Lily grabbed her son’s pillow from his bed and raised it to her nose, inhaling his sweet scent. “I’ll make it up to you, Michael,” she whispered. “I promise.” She fluffed out the pillow and returned it to his bed, then flipped off the light and headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where she helped herself to a large bowl of ice cream and sat down with it at the kitchen table. “I can’t believe I’m eating again,” she said. Hadn’t she told Jeff she was so stuffed, she doubted she’d ever look at food again. “Sure. Fat chance of that.” So much for losing five pounds, she thought, deciding to hit the gym the next day, although tomorrow was her day off and she’d promised to take Michael to a movie. Maybe she’d ask Emma if she and Dylan would like to join them. Or even better, she’d offer to take Dylan and give Emma the afternoon off. The poor woman looked as if she could use the break, and it was the least she could do. It was hard raising a child all by yourself. Especially a boy. Especially when you didn’t have a clue what went on in their little heads.

  Not much, Jan would probably say, then rumble with laughter. Jan had never had any children, although she had a nephew in California with whom she spoke regularly.

  What would Michael be like when he got older? Lily wondered. Would he still look up to her the way he did now? Would he still love her once he was in possession of all the facts, when he was old enough to understand the unimaginable? Or would he resent her, blame her for his not having had a father during his formative years? Would he run away to Europe at the first opportunity, call her only rarely from parts unknown, think of her less and less while blaming her more and more?

  Lily helped herself to another scoop of ice cream, thinking that there wasn’t enough ice cream in the world to mitigate her guilt, that all the double chins in the world couldn’t provide enough folds for her to hide behind. Although she could certainly try, she decided, continuing to spoon the ice cream into her mouth, relishing the cold on the insides of her cheeks.

  She reached for a pen and a piece of paper, began doodling a series of interconnecting hearts down one side. She used to draw when she was a child, she remembered, although she was never very good at it. No, her talent was with words. She loved making up stories, creating a character out of nothing and then watching that person take shape and grow. Yes, she was going to be a writer, just as her teacher had proclaimed. “I’m going to be a writer,” she’d told Kenny proudly, and for a while, he’d seemed proud as well. Of course, then she got pregnant, and that pretty much took care of her writing career. The pundits all advised writing about what you know, but what did she know, after all, when she didn’t even know enough not to get herself knocked up? as Kenny had so eloquently shouted at her that fateful, rain-filled night. “It’s easier to write about what you don’t know,” she said now, pushing herself away from the kitchen table. What she didn’t know could fill volumes.

  Although Jeff seemed to find her interesting enough.

  “He was just hoping to get lucky,” Lily said, slowly mounting the stairs. He did get lucky, she thought with a chuckle. Lucky she hadn’t invited him to come inside.

  Why hadn’t she?

  It would have been so easy. The opportunity was there. She had the house to herself. Who knew when that would happen again? And she found him attractive. No, more than attractive. Desirable. And it was pretty clear he felt the same way about her. They’d had a wonderful meal, then gone for a drive to the new RiverScape Park, at the sight where Dayton’s five rivers meet—Twin Creek, Wolf Creek, Great Miami, Stillwater, and Mad—then walked along one of the well-lit paths.

  “Did you know that Dayton is the number one city in the U.S. for inventors?” Jeff had asked, pointing out the many gold stars honoring these inventors that were set into the concrete.

  “Really? What kind of inventors?”

  “Well, it was in Dayton that the Wright brothers, who owned a printing and bicycle repair shop over on South Williams Street, worked on and refined their famous Flier.”

  “That’s right. I remember reading that. What else?”

  “Well, you probably don’t know that parachutes, office building mail chutes, stepladders, cellophane tape, ice cube trays, parking meters, cash registers, movie projectors, gas masks, as well as a host of other indispensable everyday items were invented in Dayton,” he enumerated, pausing to catch his breath. “Not to mention chocolate-covered potato chips.”

  “Chocolate-covered potato chips?”

  “You can buy them over at Kroger’s.”

  “No, thanks. I’m so stuffed, I don’t think I’ll ever look at food again.” They continued walking for another ten minutes, stopping to admire the whimsical Wright Brothers weather vane of a metallic paper doll clinging to a pole and blowing sideways in the breeze. “That’s how I feel most of the time,” Lily confessed.

  “Then you’d better hold on tight,” Jeff said, taking her hand.

  His touch was electrifying. It was all Lily could do to stay upright as her hand disappeared inside his and he led her back to the car. How long had it been since she’d held hands with someone who wasn’t five years old?

  “Have you been to the Art Institute yet?” he asked as they drove past the warm stone building with the beautiful red tile roof just north of exit 54B, seemingly oblivious to the chaos he’d unleashed inside her body just a few moments ago.

  “No, not yet,” Lily managed to sputter. “I keep meaning to take Michael.”

  “Your son likes art?”

  Lily nodded proudly. “He’s very talented.”

  “I’d like to meet him. Maybe one day you’ll introduce us.”

  Lily smiled and said nothing. For the rest of the drive home, she concentrated on the lingering feel of his fingers interlaced with hers, wondering what she would do if he tried to kiss her good night.

  “I had a wonderful evening,” he said as he walked her to her front door.

  “Me too.” She felt as nervous as a teenager on her first real date.

  “I hope we can do it again sometime.”

  “I’d like that.” She fished inside her purse for her keys. Is he going to kiss me now? she wondered. Or is he waiting for me to invite him inside? That’s what I should do. I should invite him inside. “Thanks for the tour of RiverScape Park. If you ever decide you don’t want to be a policeman anymore, you’d make a great tour guide,” she said instead, unlocking her door and stepping over the threshold, the screen door a convenient barrier between his lips and hers.

  “It was my pleasure.”

  And then he was gone. She waited until his car had disappeared down the street, then locked the door behind her and headed straight up the stairs to bed.

  And now it was after three a.m. and she was back where she had started. She reached the top step and stopped. Outside, the evening’s soft breeze had picked up, become wind. It carried the threat of rain. Lily walked into her room, crawled back into bed, and brought her covers up around her head to protect herself from the ghosts and shadows blowing against the window, trying to get in.

  SEVENTEEN

  “Quick, what’s the code?” Brad hissed over the shrill, flat-line, warning sound of th
e alarm.

  Jamie vaulted toward the keypad on the wall just inside the door and tapped in the four-digit code. Please be the right numbers, she was praying, her hands shaking so badly she could barely feel the pads beneath her fingertips. Please don’t have changed the code. Please let this god-awful noise stop.

  And suddenly the house fell silent.

  “You did it, Jamie,” Brad whispered, taking her in his arms and spinning her around, kissing her cheek before releasing her. She stumbled back, losing her footing, and almost crumbling to the small patch of tile floor. “Whoa, there, careful,” Brad said, reaching out to grab her arm before she crashed into a nearby closet.

  Jamie’s heart was racing so fast and beating so loudly, it was several seconds before she understood their break-in had gone undetected. They were safe. No harm had been done. They could walk away now and no one would be the wiser. “Brad, let’s get out of here,” she pleaded, pulling on his arm.

  “Ssh.” He raised his fingers to his lips and cocked his head to one side, listening.

  The house was completely still. No wary footsteps padded around overhead. No hushed voices were making frantic 9-1-1 calls. Everything appeared to be calm and peaceful, as it should be at just past three o’clock in the morning. The goddamn middle of the night, she was thinking, when sane people the world over were sound asleep in their beds.

  What were they doing here? How had this happened?

  And could Laura Dennison really have slept through that dreadful warning wail? Or was she even now sneaking stealthily toward the front door, her cell phone pressed tightly to her lips, giving the police a detailed description of the blue Thunderbird parked just down the street? My former daughter-in-law drove a car just like it. Surely she couldn’t still be asleep. Although the woman had always been a remarkably sound sleeper. How many times had Jamie heard her boast of being “dead to the world” the moment her head hit the pillow? No, no sedatives for her, she’d declared smugly when Jamie once complained of not sleeping well and asked if she had any Tylenol PMs. And Mrs. Dennison did sleep with her door closed, Jamie remembered, the only time closed doors were permitted in the house on Magnolia Lane. So it was entirely possible she hadn’t heard the warning wail of her alarm after all.