by E. G. Scott
* * *
AFTER WE COMPARED our sad stories, there was a seismic shift in how we saw each other. Paul approached our affair differently. He was gentle and protective. The sex was still a part of our connection, but it took a back seat to something deeper. I felt less like I was sharing him with someone else and more like he and I had always been bound for each other. His marriage was just another hurdle to traverse before we could finally be at home with each other. We talked about a future together. I traded out my skepticism for hope.
“I want to build the home that neither of us got to have. I want us to plan it from scratch and make it together.” He wasn’t a big feelings guy, so I knew the weight of his words.
“I want that too.” I did.
We were sitting in his car on a back road in Cold Spring Harbor, one of the spots we escaped to when he’d been surveying potential properties. He was still married technically, but only technically.
“Give me your hand, Madoo.”
I didn’t expect it. Truly. I had hoped quietly, but that was it. And I’d certainly never asked for it.
The engagement ring was a small thing to him in the grand scheme of us. Paul knew it was important to me without my having to spell it out. That in and of itself was important. There were many things I wasn’t able to say about what I wanted, and he intuited so much. Once he slid the ring onto my finger, I felt that I was deserving of getting whatever I wanted in this life, for the first time.
Somehow, this piece of jewelry on my hand was the antidote to all the fears I had about love. All my potential to be someone other than my sad story wrapped in gold and topped with a diamond. It was proof of my worth. He was utterly charmed by my infatuation with the ring and the gesture.
Once it was on my finger, I vowed never to take it off for longer than was necessary. I knew if I did, the spell would be broken.
After
I hear the house phone ringing, but I’m unable to move. I’m belly down on the couch; at least I’ve rolled off my shoulder in the night. It was dark when I closed my eyes, and now it is painfully bright. Dreams of unbreakable locks burn off as my eyes adjust. My hands look strange. They are mine, as much as they are attached to my wrists and arms, but something is off. It takes a minute to connect that my rings are missing. I have no memory of taking them off.
My bottle of Oxy is on its side. One pill remains just out of reach. My shoulder throbs at the sight of it. I could have sworn that I had at least five pills left when I last checked. I need to start keeping better track. I can see a slice of the kitchen. Fresh air from the open door moves through the house. I can’t remember leaving the door open. A harpoon of pain shoots down my spine when I lift my head to see farther. I place my cheek back on the throw pillow.
“Duff? Come here, boy.”
I wait for the click of his nails on tile. I need the sound for comfort as badly as I need water.
Silence. A terrible feeling takes root.
I get vertical quickly, grabbing the bottle along the way. I toss the pillows from the couch and find my phone nestled between the cushions.
Unbelievably, there is a group text from our spin instructor letting everyone know about a candlelight vigil ride tonight for Sasha and a reminder to join the “Find Sasha” FB group that has been started, seemingly overnight. Everyone is responding in a flurry for people to bring photos of Sasha to put on her bike, which will be left empty in her honor. I think about the only photo I have of Sasha. It is a candid shot taken at the Rep of the Year dinner ages ago. The four of us were sitting at a table together. Mark is looking off into the distance beyond the photographer. I am looking down at my hands, frowning, about what I can’t remember, but it was probably that Paul had been ignoring me in favor of talking about high school memories with Sasha. And she is front and center, looking like she just stepped out of a magazine; Paul’s eyes are deadlocked on her.
It is the last thing I want to do, but for many reasons, I need to show up. I reply.
I’ll be there.
In the kitchen, everything appears to be in its place. I pull a bottle of seltzer from the fridge and chug the cold, fizzy liquid down fast. I look out the window and immediately avert my eyes. The morning sun hurts. A breeze flows through the open door and I pull the screen closed, leaving the glass open to inhale the fresh early spring air.
My phone vibrates on the counter. It is a blocked number so I reject the call. Almost immediately, the landline rings. I scoop the phone from the cradle and my hello is met with silence. This has been happening a lot lately. I start to call Paul but stop myself.
My naked ring finger motivates me to the sink to look in the soap dish, my go-to place, close by and in my line of vision. My wedding band sits alone. Visions of the diamond ring slipping down the kitchen sink and out to sea twist my heart into a knot. But the stopper is reassuringly where it was when I got home yesterday afternoon. The landline rings again and distracts me momentarily. I retrieve the cordless from its dock and hope for Paul’s voice at the other end in a surprising moment of tenderness for him.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
I can’t tell if the faint breathing on the other end is really there or if it is my own strangled breath that I’m hearing. I hang up and practically crack the hard plastic of the phone on the counter.
I slide the simple gold band onto my finger, which looks strange without its companion. I reach into a hiding place in the cupboard to pull out one of my pill bottles, but it isn’t there any longer. I can’t seem to keep tabs on anything lately. I scan through each room, looking, knowing, though, that I’m not going to find what I’m searching for. I’m not entirely sure which missing thing I am hoping to find. All of them. But mostly, the pills.
My phone vibrates to life.
Going through security at the airport. Is everything okay?
I’m about to respond when I see Duff’s leash hanging on the coat rack next to the door. Without remembering anything specific, I know I’ve done something bad. I respond.
Everything is fine. Love you.
As calmly as my emerging panic will allow, I walk through the back door and tell myself I’m going to find Duff asleep under the willow tree in the shady section of our yard. Logic and routine dictate that I let him out last night into the safety of the enclosure. But the yard is still as empty as it was earlier. I try to convince myself that the wide-open gate before me is just an optical illusion. As I move closer, I can’t deny it. The difference between slightly and completely open is not up for debate.
“Duff?!”
I feel tears coming and gulp them back. How did everything get so bad so quickly? I long for the life I had before. When I had a job and money and a husband I thought I knew. When I wasn’t out of pills. When I had my ring. When I knew where my fucking dog was. Behind me, coming from the house, is the sound of the phone ringing again, but I continue in the opposite direction. A few feet away something in the grass sparkles as the sun emerges from behind a cloud. I’m momentarily bolstered by hope. I move toward the light-emanating beacon. I bend down and take hold of the object.
As I strain to make sense of the silver tag in the shape of a bone, now unattached from collar and dog, an unseasonably cold breeze blows through me. A few inches next to the tag is a prescription bottle. The one previously hidden in the cabinet. Now empty.
ten
PAUL
Before
SOME PEOPLE JUST can’t understand when things have run their course.
Rebecca and I had barely made it back to the car following our encounter with Sheila when my phone started buzzing off the hook. I hadn’t had a chance to properly collect myself when the onslaught began. I somehow knew, as soon as my pocket began vibrating, exactly who was on the other end of those texts.
I had, of course, blocked Sheila’s number on my
call list, but here were a batch of messages coming in from an unknown number that could only belong to one person. Of that I was certain.
As he often had, Wes served as the perfect alibi. I was still shaky from the near run-in, and I was worried that I had somehow betrayed the situation to Rebecca. I could sense the change in myself following the incident, and I was afraid that my wife, as distracted as she’d seemed lately, had picked up on something. So when I drew the phone from my pocket and Rebecca asked if everything was okay, I at least had the presence of mind to blame Wes and the prospect of a new property on the market. The nature of the texts that were flooding my phone’s display was, of course, of a much different stripe.
Great to see you today. You look well.
What a beautiful wife! What a beautiful couple!
Gosh, she looked so contented. Poor thing. She must have no idea who she’s really married to.
You two really deserve one another.
* * *
I’VE ALWAYS CONSIDERED myself a reasonably savvy bullshitter, but even I could feel the lies oozing out of me like toxins. After returning home that day, I spent the rest of the afternoon between the office and the back porch, in an attempt to convince my wife of a lie that I could barely get my head on straight enough to try to sell. I made a big show of taking my laptop out back as I called Wes to cross-reference figures and whatever other professional-sounding nonsense I could think of. Thankfully, it was one of those mild winter days, although the adrenaline coursing through my body was making me largely impervious to the weather. I remember the experience being akin to what one describes when recalling an out-of-body event. And as soon as I hung up the phone and folded the laptop closed, Rebecca was all over me.
“Quite an afternoon of wheeling and dealing, huh? Wes really has you all worked up.”
“Yeah, he’s really hot for this property. Talked my goddamn ear off all afternoon. Sorry, babe.” I can’t remember being more thirsty.
“Hmm.” Her eyes seem to be staring through to the back of my skull.
“What’s that?” Calm the fuck down, man. Breathe.
“Oh, nothing.”
Something. Definitely a very big something. “You seem like you’re think—”
“It just . . .” The pause stretches out for an unbearably long time. “Doesn’t strike me as his style. Wes always seems so calm and collected.”
Fuck. “I know, it’s strange. He’s not usually like this. But this property really seems unreal.” I do my best to hold her stare, in spite of the fact that my eyes are burning terribly. I want nothing more than to blink. “But, you know, it’s usually with the customers that he maintains his cool. He can get a little revved up behind closed doors.” You’re overselling. Stop blathering, you fucking dummy. You’re going to blow everything. Stop. Talking. “Yeah.”
“Huh.” She seems to consider this. “I see.”
As the afternoon faded into evening, I was finally able to get my head on straight enough to relax into what I felt to be some sense of normalcy, or at least the appearance of it. By this point, I had texted Wes to let him know that I needed a well-timed phone call during dinner prep. As I had volunteered to handle cooking duties that night, I figured that I could leave my phone on the counter while I had my hands full, allowing Rebecca to see Wes’s name come up on the screen when the call came in. The timing worked out beautifully, and for a moment I thought I was in the clear.
Then the next wave of texts came in.
Paul, you really looked happy today. I’m happy for you. No hard feelings, okay?
I really do have fond memories of us. Let’s just leave things where they are.
Let’s let sleeping dogs lie, you lying dog. Enjoy your sleep, with your wife this time.
I didn’t remember tasting a single bite of the food I’d prepared that evening. There was a rage seething behind my eyes that rendered all other senses moot. I did my best to entertain Rebecca’s questions about the property that Wes had supposedly pitched me earlier in the day, but I was so distracted that the best I could do was to cobble together a template based on features from other houses I had sold. I was too deep inside my own head to notice if Rebecca actually bought into the yarn I was spinning.
The next thing I remember was the sex. There was a hunger to the fucking that I hadn’t experienced with my wife in ages. Suddenly, I was present again. She bit my earlobe as she coaxed me out of my pants and began working me with her hand. What followed was a tidal pull of raw, animal passion. I remember unleashing on her ferociously, as if I could exorcise my mistress by conquering my wife. I remember being terrified at catching myself and realizing how thoroughly I had given over to reckless abandon. But the thing that I remember the clearest—the thing that terrified me most of all—was that look in Rebecca’s eye; the look that encouraged me, that spurred me on, that delighted in the pain and the savagery and the madness of it all. I swear that in that moment I picked up on a flash of pure hatred lurking in her eyes, and I had no idea whom it was directed at.
That night, she slept like the dead.
When I was sure she was under, I swiped my phone from the nightstand and slunk out of our bedroom and into the hallway. I was ripe with the scent of sex, keyed up, and half-crazed. I should have left well enough alone, but I gave in.
Noticed you weren’t wearing your ring earlier. He finally left your crazy ass, huh?
As soon as I hit SEND my adrenaline spiked. I felt nauseous and lightheaded. I had to lean against the wall to balance myself. I waited for what felt like hours for her response.
Why are you so sure that HE left ME?
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, I was the first one up. I slipped out of bed and headed downstairs to put on a pot of coffee. I let Duff out and filled his food and water dishes. I found my phone and read the waiting text from Wes asking if things had shaken out okay the night before. After responding, I plugged the phone into the adapter to charge the dwindling battery before I let Duff back in. He darted right for the bowl and I took that as my cue to get going on the pile of unwashed dishes from the night before.
As I scoured the pans and set them in the drying rack, my mind began to wander back to the events of the previous evening. Images fuzzed in and out of my head like a hastily edited highlight reel. Just as I was zoning out, the vibration of the phone against the countertop snapped me back into the room. I reached for it, anticipating a response from Wes. What I got instead jolted me completely out of the remnants of my daydream.
A slew of images came through from Sheila’s new number. After a moment of hesitation, I opened the texts to find photos that she had taken when we were together. There were photos of me at the beach with the dogs, a shot of the dogs running around together in her yard, and a plausibly innocent selfie of her with me in the background.
The one that caught my attention, however, was a shot I hadn’t realized she had taken. It was in her home, post-sex, and it was an image of me walking to the bathroom, naked. My face was obscured, thank fuck, but I certainly recognized my own build. As my eyes took in the photo, my breath caught in my throat. My gaze reflexively darted toward the staircase, to make sure that Rebecca hadn’t come down the stairs at what would have been a very inopportune moment.
My brain began racing. What does this crazy bitch want from me? Why the photos, why now? She’s been sitting on them. He’s out of the picture. Maybe seeing us sent her off the deep end. Christ, how far down the drain has she gone? And how much is she willing to pull down with her?
As I was working through all of the permutations, my phone vibrated again. I opened a single text message from her, the last one I would receive, before she fell eerily silent.
You’ve made your bed.
* * *
I’M A REASONABLE PERSON. I find that most people are. But want to make a reasonable person behave irrationally? Just impose irrat
ionality upon them, and your work is done. Certain chains of events, once put into motion, are nearly impossible to stop. And there are boundaries that, once violated, serve to strip away any expectation of protection for the violator.
The way I see it, Rebecca never really had a choice.
eleven
REBECCA
Before
THE BEGINNING of us was one of the happiest times of my life. We belonged to each other.
For my first birthday that we were together, he’d brought me to a sweet little garden in Sagaponack for a picnic a few months into our affair. The garden was deserted, since it was the middle of the day during a workweek. On a blanket under the shady curtain of a massive willow, we sat close and watched the birds move to and fro on the grass as we sipped bourbon from a plaid thermos. We didn’t talk and I leaned hard into him and let the silent heat between us build until we couldn’t resist anymore. We made love, the smell of flowers and spring surrounding us. The feeling like we were the only two people in the world was intoxicating.
As we were leaving, I caught the name of the garden—Madoo—on a plaque near the entrance.
“Madoo—‘my dove’—sweet.”
“You are sweet.” He pulled me up against him from behind and wrapped his arms around me.
“Did you know that doves mate for life?” I kept reading as he was breathing into my neck and every inch of my body awoke. “I always thought they were just better-looking pigeons.”
“You are my beautiful dove. My Madoo.”
I blushed. I was not used to him being so romantic. I liked it. He turned me around. All of my happiness was showing in his face like a mirror.
“I love you, Madoo.” It was the first time he said it.
“I love you too. Always.”
