by Shari Lapena
“We have to talk,” Audrey said—so softly that she was almost mouthing the words.
“Okay,” he whispered back. She could tell that he was humouring her.
“We have to think of Harold,” Audrey said.
“Right.”
“We made a mistake.”
“Agreed.”
Encouraged, she said, “Regardless of what the test results are, Harold can never know.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you there,” Tom said.
“Why the hell not?” Audrey said, forgetting to whisper.
“Don’t you think Harold should know if Dylan isn’t really his kid?”
“No, I don’t,” Audrey said crossly. “You never cared about it when you were alive, why do you care now?”
“I’m thinking of Harold too.”
“No, you’re not,” Audrey protested. “You never really did think about Harold—how could you when you were always thinking about yourself?” Audrey had understood, if Harold never had, Tom’s essential character. “You didn’t think about Harold when you were with me.”
“Neither did you.”
“That was temporary insanity!”
She could feel him grinning. Really, the man’s ego was enormous. But that was what had attracted her to him in the first place, damn it all. “Do you have any idea how fragile Harold is right now?” she demanded.
“Harold’s not as fragile as you think.”
“What do you know about it?” Audrey cried. “You haven’t been around for the last fifteen years, at least!”
“And who’s responsible for that, Audrey?” he shot back. When she didn’t answer, he added, “I could have gone on as if nothing had happened. You’re the one responsible for coming between me and Harold, and you know it.”
Although his I could have gone on as if nothing had happened remark stung, what really hurt was the truth of Tom’s accusation that she was the one who’d come between him and Harold. Of course she’d found ways, afterward, to avoid getting together with Tom and his wife. Tom hadn’t pushed, and Harold’s general passivity had made it easy. She’d hardly considered that she was robbing Harold of his best friend—she was so terrified that Tom would tell him the truth. Which would have been bad enough, but there she was, pregnant, and it could have been by either one of them.
So she’d allowed Harold to believe that Tom was too busy, too successful. All these years.
When she thought of how sad it all was, she could cry.
• • •
HAROLD WASN’T, IN fact, still asleep. Audrey’s scream had pierced right through the Sleep-Eze and jerked him out of rem sleep and into the reality of his bedroom—the bedside table light still on, the closet door wide open, and Audrey’s place empty beside him. The strangeness of the closet door being wide open and Audrey gone was enough to nail him to his place initially, but eventually Harold got up his nerve and crept tentatively to the top of the stairs. He heard voices coming from the living room.
It was Audrey, whispering—and Tom!
Gripping the handrail, he descended partway down the stairs, even though he knew—had always known—that curiosity is a terrible thing. The things one learns when partway down a dark staircase can chill the blood.
He paused, swallowed, and listened. He unstopped his ears, heard it all. And hearing it, sagged down on a stair, and wondered how he’d ever been so blind. Wondered how he’d keep on going now, betrayed by the two he’d loved most in the world.
“Let’s just see what the test says,” Tom was saying now. “Maybe I’m not the father.”
“Then will you go away?”
“I suppose.”
“And what if you are Dylan’s father?”
There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”
Harold heard all this and started to move. He was leaning heavily on the handrail with one hand, but the other was stretched out in front of him. He stumbled down the stairs and into the living room.
It was a strange tableau: in the dark, Audrey, standing alone, turned a horrified face upon him. He saw the Ouija board on the coffee table, glowing wanly in the dark, roughly the same colour as Audrey’s ghastly face. “Tom?” he said. “Tom!”
But Tom didn’t answer.
Instead, there was a sudden chill, as if the temperature had just dropped twenty degrees. The curtains billowed gracefully as if a gust of wind had blown through the room.
Audrey and Harold stared at each other.
Then the Lladró on the bookshelf behind the La-Z-Boy went spinning across the room and exploded against the brick fireplace.
“The Lladró!” Audrey shouted.
Next, the Ouija board was ripped in two and tossed up in the air; the plastic triangle fell to the floor with a clatter. Then it was raining debris—the magazine basket by the sofa had been flung high up into the air. Harold was knocked in the head by a descending magazine. An end table was pushed violently over; its lamp careened off and smashed to pieces on the hardwood floor. The painting centred over the fireplace hurled itself across the room and upended itself against the side of Harold’s La-Z-Boy.
It was a terrifying display.
“The demons of hell!” Audrey gasped.
It was a matter of seconds, and then it was over. Audrey and Harold, stricken dumb, surveyed the wreckage in the dark. It was as if a small, localized hurricane had begun and ended in their living room.
No one could sleep through all that, and the boys came racing barefoot down the stairs. They arrived at the bottom of the stairs in their pajamas and stood there, stunned.
“What happened?” Dylan asked.
“It’s nothing, honey,” Audrey said, not wanting to alarm them, scrambling for a plausible explanation. “We were just having a fight.”
There was enough palpable tension between Audrey and Harold to support her explanation. And Harold was speechless.
John looked upset, like he was fighting back tears; Dylan, who normally had something to say, for once was silent, his usually sunny face gone dark.
• • •
IF THIS WERE anything like a normal household, either Audrey or Harold would be sleeping on the couch, perhaps for weeks. But neither one of them, once the broken china was swept up and the ransacked room put back in order, ever wanted to be alone in the living room at night again, or the basement either. There was no guest room, so they were forced back into their bedroom
Audrey, the guilty party and a natural martyr, pulled out the extra pillows and blankets from the top of her closet and made herself up a bed on the floor. Every one of the lights in the bedroom was on. Harold took the bed, but it might as well have been a bed of nails for all the comfort he found in it.
That Dylan might not be his own son!
That Audrey, his wife, had slept with his best friend!
That Tom, his best friend, had slept with his wife!
That Audrey had kept Tom from him—all these years!
Harold, who asked for so little from life, had never expected anything like this.
He heard Audrey sobbing from the floor, even with her face buried in her pillow. Stubbornly, he ignored her. He was afraid the boys would hear her. They would take her side, he thought; they would imagine he had done something terrible.
John would never ask. But Dylan would, and Harold wouldn’t be able to tell him the truth. And for sure Audrey wasn’t going to tell him.
Harold wondered bleakly what the chances were that he was, in fact, Dylan’s father. Dylan was nothing like him, he knew that. He might be a throwback to Harold’s own father though, whom Harold remembered as confident, independent-minded, and optimistic. Or he might be Tom’s.
But even if he was Tom’s, Harold realized—with wonder and a tightly constricting heart— it made no difference to how he felt about his son. He loved Dylan.
It made a hell of a difference to how he felt about Audrey, though. Could he ever forgive her?
He would stay home in the morning and w
ait for the mail, every day, until the test results arrived. He couldn’t trust her to tell him the truth.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Audrey was in shock; she wasn’t used to having everything out in the open like this. Well, not everything. The boys didn’t know what was really going on, thank God. But Harold was so unpredictable these days—she didn’t know if she could count on him to keep it to himself.
Also, he wasn’t talking to her, which was making her very nervous.
Right before her eyes, her family—her life’s work!—was disintegrating. She knew she had only herself to blame, which sure didn’t make it any easier.
This morning, to escape the open hostility between their parents, the boys had skipped breakfast altogether and run off to school without waiting for their lunches, leaving her alone in the house with Harold.
Harold hadn’t left for work, which was a little surprising at first (he couldn’t want to spend the day with her) until she remembered the test results. Of course he would stay home and wait for the mail. It wasn’t as if she could shred the damn results and then when he came home from work, announce, “Good news! You’re the father!” and expect him to believe it.
Now Audrey sat alone—Harold hadn’t come down—her toast untouched, and wondered if she was headed for divorce—after all these years!—her most significant legacy to her boys a broken home. She’d failed them all. All that work for nothing.
And her with no means of supporting herself.
• • •
JOHN, MAKING HIS way morosely to school, was troubled on many fronts.
That his parents could go from being blandly settled to throwing the furniture around was alarming. He wished Dylan had kept his mouth shut, instead of coming into his room last night while their mother wept in the bedroom down the hall. John had sat biting his nails—he couldn’t stand the sound of his mother crying; it was like the house coming down around his ears.
Dylan said, “I think I know what this is all about.”
John didn’t want to know, but Dylan was going to tell him anyway. He could tell when Dylan had something too good to hold back. Just once he’d like Dylan to not know everything.
“Are you ready for this?”
John shrugged sullenly. He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to admit it to his younger brother. Even if he did, Dylan would hit him with both barrels anyway.
Dylan was sitting in the chair across from the bed. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and said, “I was using the computer a while ago, and discovered something interesting.”
John waited. He had no idea what was coming.
“Someone in this house has been using the Internet to look into paternity tests.”
“How could you possibly know that?” John asked in disbelief.
“Easy—I know how to check the most recently accessed websites.”
John hadn’t known such a thing was possible. “What do you mean, paternity tests?”
Dylan grew impatient. “I mean, you dummy, that one of us might not be Dad’s kid.”
“No way,” John scoffed, when he thought about what that meant. It was bad enough to imagine your parents having sex with each other, but imagining one of them having sex with someone else was even worse.
“Well, why the hell else would someone in this house—and it wasn’t you or me—look up how and where to do a paternity test? Hmm?” Then Dylan said, “It wasn’t you, was it?”
John shook his head. This was almost more than he could stand. He squashed his pillow to his chest.
“It must be you,” Dylan said heartlessly.
“Why me?”
“Because you were born first. They probably had to get married.”
“I don’t believe it!” John said, but he wasn’t sure what to believe.
“Can you think of any other reason Mom and Dad might be smashing the furniture?” Dylan added.
So now John feared that life as he knew it was about to change irrevocably. He wanted to put his head in the sand, but the world wouldn’t let him.
Also, the pending lawsuit had him completely freaked out. He didn’t understand lawsuits. His father had told him not to worry about it, that the insurance company would defend it for them—that’s what they paid such ridiculously high rates of insurance for. John would have to show up for the discoveries though, and answer questions put to him by lawyers, and he was already losing sleep over it even though it was months away. Also, he was worried about his careless driving trial, which although also months away, would happen first. It was more important than ever that he not be convicted, because of the civil suit. He imagined his parents losing everything, because of him.
And Nicole—he was feeling very uneasy about Nicole. Things weren’t as uncomplicated as they were before. It used to be just excitement and sex, and pretending to be someone else—it was perfect—but now she seemed to be on to him. He thought she might be losing interest, and he was terrified she would dump him.
His cell phone rang just as he reached the school grounds. It was Nicole.
“Hi baby,” she said, sounding as hot and sexy as ever. She didn’t sound like she was losing interest, not at the moment anyway, and John was reassured. He relaxed.
“Hey,” John said, very cool.
“A wonderful opportunity has just come up,” Nicole said.
“What?” John wasn’t sure his idea and Nicole’s idea of a wonderful opportunity were the same. She had some pretty crazy ideas. Like shoplifting. Which was just crazy, because as far as John could tell, she had pretty much unlimited funds. She had her own credit card. She didn’t need to steal. She did it for kicks. The first time he’d been with her when she stole some CDS, he thought he’d pee his pants in fright. But he’d had to act as if he stole things all the time. Now he was always trying to avoid going to the mall with her.
So he held his cell phone to his ear anxiously, worried about what might come next.
“My mom’s out all day. We’ve got the place to ourselves.”
“Really?” This was definitely what John would call an opportunity.
“Yeah, so come over,” she invited. “Unlimited liquor, choice of beds.”
John only hesitated a moment. He had a science test; the teacher might call his house. But it wasn’t until the afternoon—maybe he could be back by then. He hoped his hesitation played like he was considering it, like maybe he had something more important to do.
“Come on, John, live a little.” There was a decided edge to her voice; she was flexing her feminine muscle.
“Take your clothes off,” he said roughly. “I’ll be right over.”
He snapped his cell shut.
This, he could do. She loved him in bed. They were terrific together, absolutely mindless. As long as he got out of the house before she got all dreamy and scheming on him, afterward. That was always the dangerous part.
When he arrived at her front door, he was feeling pretty excited, so it didn’t intimidate him, the grandness of the house, its isolation from the others on the street. It was very different from his own neighbourhood, with all the semi-detached houses crowded together on top of each other. He rang the doorbell and waited, impatient to see her.
She answered the door buck naked.
He gave a low whistle, looking her up and down in gratified surprise. John felt like all his dreams had come true, all at once. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, deliberately. He reached for her, but she twisted away, eluding him.
He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the floor, staring as she went to the bar. Her backside was mesmerizing. He was used to being with her in the woods—usually in the dark, but not always— and they were usually in a hurry. Now, getting a really good look at her naked, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was.
She turned to face him from across the bar, her perfect breasts pointing at him. She obviously knew how much power she had over him, and she was playing it to the hilt. She poured them each a drink. He saunt
ered over and she handed him one.
“We have all day,” she said, clinking her glass against his.
He took a drink, felt the liquor burning down his throat. “I don’t think I can wait all day,” he said, his voice low and manly, giving her the look. He’d mastered the look quite easily; he was playing his role beautifully.
She leaned over and kissed him, wetly, on the mouth. He put his drink down somewhere. He could taste the liquor in her mouth, feel her round breasts in his groping hands.
Finally, she pulled him over to the sofa. She pushed him playfully onto it, one hand against his chest, and straddled his lap. She was still holding her drink; he’d lost track of his. He could smell her, her dampness. He’d never wanted anything in his whole life as much as he wanted her right that second. And he was going to get her, but not yet. For now, there was more kissing. It was like a form of heavenly torture.
“I want you to do something for me,” she said caressing his face, looking into his eyes. He wanted to bury his face in her breasts, to hide, but her eyes held his.
He was starting to pant. He really was going to lose his mind.
“To prove your love.”
Uh-oh. This sort of talk usually happened after they had sex. He was so screwed. “Sure baby . . . can we talk about it later?”
She slithered off his lap, putting her drink down on the floor beside her. She kneeled on the carpet, undid his jeans—he raised his hips helpfully—and pulled them down.
“I want to talk about it now,” she purred.
He didn’t care what she asked. Her mouth was on him and it was just too good to deny her anything. He groaned.
She stopped, lifted her head, and said, “I want you to steal a car.”
“Whatever you want,” John gasped, not really caring what he agreed to at this point. He’d agree to anything.
Nicole, he’d learned, was a girl who got bored easily, who liked a thrill. She was the kind of girl who expected a guy to prove his love. He should have known—right from the time she lifted her dress at him from inside her parents’ car—that she was dangerous.
