“You are welcome.” The system chimed.
“Ugh, so friendly. Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a snowpocalypse? I could use a little more horror and doom in your voice to reflect the current state of my affairs.”
“Noted.”
A wry laugh split my lips as I went to the pantry where I remembered seeing a mounted control panel, hoping it was the one she was referring to. When I opened it, I found rows and rows of plugs, each labelled, along with another small touch-screen mounted in the corner. I tapped it once and it came to life with the SmartSystem logo I’d seen in the top corner of the main screen. A tiny dot blinked next to what looked like a small battery trap door. I opened it with my nail easily, and a tiny row of batteries lined the edge beside a separate row of electronic computer chips.
“This place is so creepy.” I popped one of the small flat batteries out and cupped it in my palm before heading back to the main control panel.
*
Plumes of smoke curled like a corkscrew into the clouds as I leaned deeper into the oversized pillows at my back, eyes tracking the midnight skyline. I sat with my knees perched up and back against the wall in the loft, the floor-ceiling windows unveiling the mountain range that surrounded me.
Tav was crazy to think he could ski out of our winter Hell.
He was probably dead.
Or worse, eaten alive by a wild animal or...local?
I imagined tracking down that mountain and into the valley to ask my nearest neighbor if they’d seen my fiancé.
Skiing was out of the question, but maybe I could find myself a sled. I grinned, imagining myself dodging evergreens all the way down the mountain on a toboggan.
I swirled the last drops of wine in my wine glass and then set the empty glass on the floor near my feet.
I stood from my place on the floor, taking long moments to stretch. I squinted into the silver moonlight, thinking this place wouldn’t be half bad with the internet and an unlimited supply of takeout food. My life had become so simplified at home, I could take everything I needed with me to be happy. But without the internet this smart house was Hell.
I wondered if Tav went to the small cabin in the valley like he’d said he would if the car was gone.
I began to wonder if it would be safe if I tried hiking out of the car in the morning, just to see if it was there or not. But then, what if I twisted an ankle or worse? Tav had taken the only survival pack with him and I figured if I started rationing my food now I would foreseeably have enough between the canned goods and rice to last me into Spring if necessary.
Would I stay that long?
I hoped not.
But if it came down to me and this mountain, I’d go down fighting. I only hoped I wouldn’t have to figure out exactly what that meant. Growing up in flat Lancaster left me with little experience of mountains. Mom always had us volunteering for local community projects like the volunteer dog park or after-school daycare programs. I spent almost every Christmas scooping macaroni and cheese for the kid’s line at the church potluck. My mother believed in service first, fun later. Or never.
I collapsed onto the king bed, angling my eyes to the stars hanging over the mountains.
What other surprises did Tav have? And what did his family do exactly that allowed them Christmastime in a luxury ski resort every year? Based on his new brawny physique and his admission that he’d been to the gun range with the guys more than a few times, I was beginning to think he could be undercover for all I knew. Maybe the contracts with the department were a cover. But then, how did this house fit into the story?
Tav had bundled me up here thinking he was making my dreams come true, but maybe this was his dream. With his boarding school charm and the athletic cut to his jaw, he looked right at home on a set of skis. In fact, the only thing that would look more natural on him would be a tall, blonde model to match his rugged, professional athlete-good looks.
I fell asleep imagining Tav with a sparkly Hollywood siren on his arm, double agents like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with a football field full of secrets between them.
Fourteen
I watched her somber form take the steps down from the chalet, each step measured and with a stroke of sadness. It wasn’t easy, what I assumed she’d done within those imposing walls. But she’d known what she had to do. She’d taken it a step too far. It was time.
She plopped onto a bench at the sidewalk and broke down into torrents of tears. Dark hair fell around her shoulders, obscuring her from my view, but I was rooted. I couldn’t take a picture if I tried. No one deserved to have the very moment when the life they thought they knew fell out from under them captured on film. If she only knew the real story.
It’s only the tip of the iceberg, baby.
My instincts told me to go to her, hold her in my arms and offer her some sense of comfort, but then I laughed with ironic spite, realizing how unwelcome my comfort would be.
I was the man that would soon be responsible for taking her life apart one perfect piece at a time.
Fifteen
I counted exactly twenty black beans and slid them across the plate. I gave the rest in the bowl a stir, and then replaced the air-tight lid and returned it to the refrigerator shelf.
Tav had been gone for three days.
My ninth day here.
I’d started seriously rationing my intake yesterday morning. It felt good to exercise power over something. I fingered the stack of unopened tortilla wraps, wondering if I dared give up one for dinner tonight.
I sighed, closing the door and then scooped the last of the rice I’d made for dinner last night onto my plate.
I’d come across an old National Geographic hardcover in the small study off of the main hallway. The book detailed the highest mountains in the Northeast. I’d taken a shot at guessing which my mountain top was, but it didn’t matter, the short paragraph said that these peaks regularly saw snowstorms into the month of June. While I’d been imagining lockdown until Spring, the mountain may have other plans.
I ate my beans two-at-a-time, remembering the last time I was this careful about what I put in my body when my group of closest girlfriends had challenged each other to a week-long fast before junior prom. I’d give anything to have my boring old self back with boring regular problems like gaining too much weight before a big event.
Three small beeps echoed around the room then. The screen near the door blinked once and off. I wondered if I could turn that damn thing off, the distraction it provided nowhere near worth the convenience. I crossed the dining room to see what it was beeping about now. The only indication was a tiny red dot in the corner with what looked like a camera icon.
Like the house was recording.
“Hello?”
No answer. Of course no answer.
I’m losing my mind.
My eyes trained to the distance out the window, heaps of sugary white powder as far as the eye could see.
I swiped the binoculars from the side table and brought them to my face, focusing on the tiny cabin in the valley in the distance. It looked no bigger than a dollhouse from here, but if I focused long enough I swear I could almost see a figure working in the backyard.
Two figures?
My vision blurred before I pulled down the binoculars and looked out again. I couldn’t tell anything from this distance and it creeped me out.
Whoever lived in that cabin could see everything of me, and all I could see of him was the little wisp of woodsmoke he created.
I never thought the top of the world would feel so eerie.
“When will the snow stop?” I asked the smart system.
“The weather forecast for the next ten days is snow showers with a chance of freezing rain.”
I groaned.
The screen blinked again, and this time I slid my fingertips across the glass. I swiped to what looked like a gaming dock with app options like virtual workouts and arcades and the relaxing sounds of a fireplace or rainy day. I
tapped the workout option and jumped back when the entire screen became a virtual mirror of me. A tiny animated figure jogged in the corner as a timer counted the seconds. “This is so weird.”
I cut the app and the screen went dim.
I turned, crossing the kitchen to finish my beans when my toe hit the edge of Tav’s laptop bag. I’d just assumed he’d taken his laptop with him, the fact that he left the bag behind probably made sense since he was low on room in his rucksack.
I yanked the bag up to the table and the contents sprayed around my feet.
Paperwork. A wireless mouse. An extra charger and earbuds for his phone. His wallet.
Tav’s wallet?
Without thinking I opened it. The slot that normally held his identification was empty, and his main bank card was missing. Tav rarely carried cash, so the lack of paper money wasn't surprising, but the picture that smiled back at me through the ID viewing window gave me a shudder.
A picture of me, mother, and Chuck scrunched together in front of the church steps. I wore a white cotton dress with eyelets across the yolk and sleeves. Chuck’s thick palms crushed me to his side, and my ten-year-old face gleamed with the willingness to please. Mom stood under Chuck’s other arm, her palm spread across his chest and a happy smile filling her face.
I remembered this day well.
Another Sunday, this one after he’d been gone for months. She’d tried calling his usual phone number from the payphone in town because our little trailer didn’t have a working phone line. Mom liked it that way, but that’s only when Chuck was visiting often. The longer he stayed away, the cagier her eyes grew. Tension rocketed through the corners of the house when she realized he’d changed or lost his phone number and she may never see him again.
But it wasn’t long after that he’d sauntered up our front porch steps and gathered mom in his arms. She cried tears of happiness that Saturday night, and bright and early Sunday they made sure I was at church, my bottom in the pew while they clung to each other in sweaty sheets at home. I hated Sundays because they always picked me up from the church with hair rumpled by lovemaking and the scent of each other on their skin.
Mom was happiest when Chuck came around, and I was castoff like last night’s takeaway containers.
I didn’t know why Tav liked this old picture of me. He’d found it one day when I was digging through my mom’s boxes after her belongings had been shipped home. I was surprised to find she kept everything from my childhood. I was more shocked to find so many pictures of her and Chuck—some from when I was only a toddler through to my early teens, and then the pictures ended. I read through old letters he’d sent her, and imagined her writing longhand back to him. For the first time, it’d become clear that Chuck was the only man my mother had ever really loved. What was lacking in all of her belongings was any reference to my father, whoever he might be. I’d been hung up on the answers she’d buried with her, and Tav had snatched this photo and proclaimed I was the most adorable kid he’d ever seen.
I think it was the sad smile that struck him.
He knew I hated Sundays.
He just never bothered to ask why.
Sixteen
The First Sunday
“I know the baby isn’t mine.”
I woke up gasping, the feeling of Tav’s words choking the air from my lungs as well as if his hands were around my neck.
I blinked into the darkness, the first soft pink tinges of sunrise creeping over the mountains.
Not another nightmare.
I pushed my hands over my face, a night of tossing and turning, sending aches of exhaustion through my bones.
I know the baby isn’t mine.
I cupped my stomach like I often did, wondering what might have been.
I blinked back tears, the memories of the months surrounding the loss of my mother were a blur. Tav’s support lifted me up then, his willingness to drive me to first therapy appointments and then to my obstetrician made him a hero in my eyes. But I still couldn’t forget that one night. The night before I got the call that my mom had passed, Tav ordered our favorite takeout and held me on the couch while we watched an old romantic comedy on silent and talked about baby names.
We were deciding between Melody and Mason when he traced his lips down the underside of my arm, making love to me slowly as he dotted kisses along my jawline and temple.
I know the baby isn’t mine.
Had I made up the words? Had paranoia filled the holes in my memory with lies like the plaster between cracks? I didn’t think so. Was it possible? Maybe.
In the months since, I’d woken up to that one singular nightmare-memory so many times that my mind no longer distinguished reality from the frightening fiction.
The following morning was another Sunday I grew to hate.
My cell phone rattled us awake, our limbs tangled and the scent of us mingling when the officer in California informed me that my mother had been in an accident. Someone was required onsite to identify the victim.
Every memory after that one is hazy.
Tav arranged for the officer to talk to me over video call, and with his help I was able to confirm my own worst nightmare. The woman I loved, the only person who’d loved me enough to stay and raise me, was gone. A house fire, an unfortunate passing.
In the days following, we arranged for mom’s remains to be brought home, and exactly one week after her passing, we suffered another blow.
A first trimester miscarriage, the tiny star of hope left shining in our lives was snuffed in an instant. The therapist explained that trauma and post-traumatic stress can trigger spontaneous miscarriages. I was doubly distraught, their losses triggering in my mind a cascade of conflicting anxiety and emotion. Was I at fault for the death I was drowning in? My willingness to leave the house fizzled to nothing, my ability to focus deeply and single-mindedly on only one project at a time faltered as my codependent habits and unhealthy triggers fired day and night.
Tav was my rock, until the four days of the week he was gone. It was then he ordered regular deliveries from the market to our front step, a regular cleaning company to dust around me while I worked distractedly on my business. We shared takeout dinners together over video calls and he was the only reason I had in the world to smile. I looked forward to his calls, if he didn’t call to talk to me, no one would.
But still, I remembered that night.
I know the baby isn’t mine.
I’d given him no reason to think there’d ever been anyone else. Or had I?
I gnawed at my bottom lip.
The story I’ve told myself might be my downfall. The memories. Or the nightmares. However I chose to see them, they haunted me. They kept me walking the hallways at night, or my eyes glued to a computer screen in a desperate bid to keep them at bay. I’d come to rely on Tav more than ever through the worst moments, but I’d come to wonder which fragments of my memory were real and which not. My days spent dreaming of him far outweighed the moments he was in my arms, now with my vague memories playing tricks, I struggled to wonder what of us was love and not the cobbled fragments of my imagination. So much of Tav and I was intense but sporadic, did one outweigh the other? Had the dreams for our future just been shattered irrevocably in one fell swoop? I’d been waiting to tell my mother in person about the arrival of her future grandchild, but she’d been taken before I could share the surprise. Had my own ability to be a mother been stolen from me in the same horrific way?
Tav rarely spoke of marriage after the loss of the baby.
I’d been grappling if his only reason for asking was because we were pregnant, and now that we weren’t, maybe that future had vanished too.
I rose out of bed and with the blanket wrapped around my chilled shoulders, I went to the window. Shadows played along the tall banks of powder, evergreen boughs heavy with sugary frosting-tipped leaves.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“What was that?” Anxiety tightened like a ball in my throat.
<
br /> I struggled to see through the spray of frost that clung to the window.
“Is someone there?”
I watched in silent horror as a man, shoulders hunched and snowshoes strapped to his feet, rushed away from the chalet.
Seventeen
I hope you’ve settled in. I have a few surprises for you. Don’t disappoint me.
I’ll be watching.
x Yours.
I reread the words. Fear charging on a loop through my bloodstream. What did the letter mean? Why now? And who was watching?
I stood at the front door, winter boots on my feet and a kitchen knife clutched in one hand. I must have looked like a mess, I felt it, hand trembling as I read the words over and over.
Who was watching?
I dropped the folded scrap of notepaper the letter was scribed on and kicked at the cardboard box at my feet. Inserting the tip of the knife along one taped corner, I lifted the edge and then opened the top fully.
Food.
Mostly salted meats and sausages, but there were mason jars of pickled vegetables and tomato sauce. I dug deeper, hands curling around a still-warm jug of what looked like goat’s milk. It felt like a feast for a king, even if I would never eat any of these things at home.
I dragged the box of food into the house, kicking the door closed and locking it securely behind me.
When I came down the stairs earlier, I hadn’t known what to expect, only wishing I’d known where that gun was hiding when I saw a stranger walking away from my front door. But it didn’t matter, the contents left tears of joy brimming at my eyelids. Maybe Tav had found his way out, maybe he’d arranged this until he could get a helicopter to me. Hope beat through my chest for the first time in days. I pushed the exhaustion from my brain, a nightmare long forgotten as I went to work unpacking the new rations and adding it to my stash in the pantry.
The Sunday Wife: A Lockdown Thriller Page 6
