“Martin started staying in the city again. I finished the restoration of this house.” She paused for a long time, dabbing at her eyes again. “It was Molly’s seventh birthday when Martin came home late. He told us the traffic had been horrible and apologized to Molly with an extravagant present. A little boat, for the lake out back. Martin and Molly loved to fish off the pier together, and Martin explained that with a boat, they could fish in the middle of the lake. And he would help Molly paint the boat, whatever color she wanted. And she could name the boat.
She announced that she wanted to name the boat The New York, so every time her daddy was home, he’d already be in The New York and wouldn’t have to leave again. She was so clever. She blew out her candles and went to bed, and Martin and I began to argue.”
She stopped, lifting her eyes to mine. “Do you remember the day Cal left? When he told you he was having an affair?”
I nodded quickly. “Very clearly. I was just thinking about it today, in the parlor. I don’t know why.”
She nodded. “We don’t forget days like that. Days that change our direction. Days that change who we love and why. That was the day Martin told me about Liza.”
She spat her name out like poison.
“Liza was ten years younger than me. She had red hair. Blood-red hair. Like Lana’s. I used to think red was a beautiful color. I have red in my own hair, but I dye it as blonde as I can to keep the red out. Red used to be my favorite color. But I hate red now.”
I listened and thought of my heroine in my book series. I understand.
“I’m sorry. I know how you feel.” I patted the back of her hand in the same way that she had patted mine that morning.
She smiled gratefully, sniffing. “I know you do. That’s why I felt so close to you the moment you arrived. You make me feel like I’m not alone in the quiet world.”
I smiled in return, though being the introvert I was, I wanted to retreat. Fast. Even though I empathized with her deep depression, she was creeping me out.
A lot.
“I helped Molly cope with it all. I did my best to do all the right things. But Liza killed my daughter, Lizzie. She drove off the road. She was an alcoholic, did I tell you that? She thought one or two beers didn’t count. She’d make jokes about drinking and driving. That only the professionals could do it. ‘Professional’ alcoholics,” she sneered.
Virginia’s voice deepened with her rapid words.
“When an animal, a goddamn animal, crossed the road in front of her, she swerved and went off the road. And they were suspended. On a cliff, over a ravine. It took the police too long to get there, did you know that? Too long. They could have gotten there faster. They could have saved her. The car went over the ledge. Liza jumped out, but Molly was tied up in her seatbelt. Around her neck. And Molly died. They said it was quick, and Liza watched. She lived and Molly died!” She was seething with rage, and spittle touched her lips as she began to shout. “My Molly died. My Molly. Because of his drunk whore and a fucking animal!”
SIX
Holy shit.
I gasped for air.
Virginia was still. Too still for a person who had just raged the way she had.
I couldn’t feel my fingers. The air was cold. Arctic. As though the furnace ceased to find the energy to push its heat all the way up the narrow staircase. The winter cold seeped through the windows, reminding me of Virginia’s words to Lana.
There are no ghosts here. Only memories.
My heart fluttered with an adrenaline rush. I pressed my icy fingertips to my chest, shaking my head. “She killed her.”
Virginia mouthed the words with me, anticipating them as I spoke them. She said the words with me like a mantra. A chant reserved for two witches with one common enemy.
“She killed her,” Virginia repeated. “She took the only man I’d ever loved and killed the only child I ever had.”
Too much. It was all too much. I shot to my feet, pressing my fingers to my temples at a wave of lightheadedness.
“I am so sorry. Those aren’t even the right words. There aren’t even words.” I rambled my condolences, though all I wanted to do was run down the stairs and find Jake. Ask him to hold me. Beg him to hike six miles to the nearest residence with me so we could get the fuck away from this house of grief.
She stood as well, slower than me, and a bit more composed. She patted her blonde head, reaching to adjust the buttons on her white sweater.
“I haven’t shared the story with anyone until now, Lizzie. Please forgive me. I never expected to be so angry. How bad-mannered of me.”
“Please don’t apologize. I can’t imagine going through what you went through.” I shook my head, automatically reaching for her.
I was a hugger, and the movement was so natural that I almost forgot Virginia was a stranger.
She wrapped her arms around me, and our hug lasted as long as it took for her to exhale all the breath that she’d been holding.
“You’ve had your share of heartache, sweet girl. I can see it in your eyes.”
I backed away.
“Lana sounds a lot like Liza,” I admitted, though I wished the words back immediately.
When I’d met Jake, right smack dab in the center of my tale-as-old-as-time drama, he’d become my confidant. My best friend. He’d been through two divorces, and I quickly realized we were both the same type of person who married the same type of people.
Moths to flames.
Though Jake had also been cheated on, repeatedly, he had a different perspective.
He listened when I ranted and cried. He acknowledged me when I talked about the two decades I’d spent with my husband. He shared his own stories, and this part was important: he spoke of his past relationships with respect, no matter how justified he felt he was in his anger. I was in tune to this. I was older and wiser and knew there were three sides to every story by now, so the last thing I wanted to hear from any man was “my ex is a crazy bitch.”
Not this man. Never once did he say anything disrespectful, which only attracted me more.
He had moved on from his divorces. He was more introspective, believing that people wandered when their needs weren’t being met. He accounted for himself.
I felt differently. I told him about a type of person who’s needs could never be met. The grass-is-always-greener girl. The man who used people like pawns and lived for self-gratification.
The iron shackles of abuse.
I met Jake after a rum-soaked night of tears on my friend Trina’s couch. All three of the kids were with Cal for the first time because I read the Handbook for the Recently Divorced and decided I should support a healthy environment.
Even if it meant Lana would be there.
The online dating site had been Trina’s idea, though no one else seemed to think that it was a good idea for me to be dating except for Trina. Trina had been carrying on an affair herself before I found out about Cal and Lana, but I didn’t hold a grudge. She told her husband she was going to sleep with other men, and he didn’t seem to give a shit.
They had a special relationship.
I opened a browser window and searched “best dating site,” clicking on the first ad that came up. I snapped a selfie with my hair pulled back, no make-up on and a sepia filter to pretend I wasn’t January in Ohio white. I was in a take-me-as-I-am mood, though I really didn’t want anyone to take me at all. I’d only been with Cal. And, since I was apparently a self-masochist and also knocked up, I married him at nineteen.
I met three men on the app and dated each one of them over the course of three weeks. Every date went the same; talk, talk, drink alcohol, laugh at things that weren’t funny, then cry all the way home. I’d work on a numbing buzz from the rum and Cokes he’d inevitably buy me when I would reveal that I hated beer, knowing with absolute certainty that the moment my buzz began to dissipate, I’d be fighting back the tears.
The first guy I’d gone on a date with in the many years since
I’d met and married my husband was a widower. I had no idea what I was looking for and knew exactly what I was looking for, all at the same time.
Someone to talk to.
Make me feel better?
Take away the pain that I was feeling. Please.
Be the dream husband I’d fantasized about meeting as a starry-eyed teenager.
It took less than ten minutes for me and Mr. Widower to both to realize that neither one of us was ready to date when our “meet up for drinks” turned into a two-hour therapy session.
Baggage. Finding myself in my late thirties, I had the most expensive baggage I’d ever purchased in my life. Matched luggage by the names of Leah, Clay, and Lilly. A carry-on named Cal.
Widower had baggage.
Everyone on the dating app had baggage. Also, they had poor grammar and wanted to send me unsolicited pictures of their scary penises.
I’d cried all the way home.
It was when I was trying to deactivate my account that I noticed Jake’s message in my inbox. His greeting was simple.
Hi, how are you?
Simple. Not “hey, sexy, you have beautiful eyes.”
Oh, yeah? You dig sepia eyes? Huh.
Not “I’m totally into single moms.”
Because, to a single mom, being totally into single moms isn’t a big pedophile flag embroidered with the pedophilic symbol from the country of Pedophilia.
Just “Hi, how are you?”
I was waiting for Trina to meet me for a movie, and I couldn’t deactivate the account on the app anyway, so I bit.
And we chatted.
Then texted.
Then we couldn’t get enough of each other. Jake was everything Cal wasn’t, and I wanted everything Cal wasn’t. Masculine, with a deep voice that only deepened in the morning, right after he woke up. Sexy. A slow hand, just like the song. Pensive words that clearly had time to form themselves in his mind before they were spoken. I was used to diarrhea of the mouth with Cal, words direct from brain to noise, without a thought or care about what the words meant or who they might harm.
Jake was there to tell me the kids would survive this. That I was being a good mom, even when I wasn’t. That maybe, just maybe, my marriage wasn’t all bad and Cal wasn’t all bad and I should try to focus on the good to start to heal.
Devil’s advocate. My advocate.
Jake was wise when I was stupid, and I was wise when he was stupid. Our Yin and Yang relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was perfect for us.
But I wasn’t the same naïve, eighteen-year-old girl that I was when I met Cal. I was a woman when I married Jake.
I was older. Approaching forty. Broken enough to be afraid of love but smart enough to know I deserved it.
Jake taught me how to be loved.
When Lana took Cal, it was time. I’d set him on the shelf and run an emotional advertisement in the universe.
Man here! Free to a home! Guaranteed to charm the hell out of you and then choke the life out you. So affordable! Costs only your dignity. Enjoy.
It was like selling a car as soon I realized the transmission was slipping. I recognized the signs. Fluid leaking. Gears not shifting right. But I had no money and needed to get from point A to point B, so I turned up the radio as loud as it’d go and hoped the Stone Temple Pilots would fix the problem.
Cal and Lana worked together. It was so easy. Cal had even mentioned Lana at home so much that once I commented, “you sure do talk about this Lana a lot.”
“She’s just so stupid,” Cal had replied. “She can’t even form sentences. I like telling you about the stupid things she says. That’s what I love about you. You’re a writer. You’re so smart.”
Dodge. Deflect. Flatter. Distract. It worked.
I didn’t have a jealous bone in my body, but deceive me, and the woman scorned was a force to be reckoned with.
I didn’t see it coming because I didn’t believe he’d actually do it. I was angrier at myself for his affair than with him. That I’d tried so hard. That I’d wasted so many years of my life trying to fix the unfixable.
But the kids, I’d remind myself. If it weren’t for him, I’d never have my precious babies.
And it was the kids who kept me sane. If I’d gone after Lana, I’d face legal ramifications. If I’d lured her to a remote farm somewhere to talk about forgiveness and then pushed her into a pen of hungry hogs, how would I live with myself? Would I go to jail? How could I protect the kids? What would they think of me?
And was Cal really worth that?
Nope.
I didn’t think Virginia had checks or balances. And maybe she believed Martin was worth it. And Molly was gone.
How she kept her sanity was beyond comprehension.
“We should go downstairs and check on Jake! I’m sure he’s worked himself up an appetite by now,” Virginia said.
I just followed her, gripping the mahogany bannister. There were so many things to say, but nothing seemed appropriate.
When she stopped at the bay window that overlooked the lake out back, I sighed deeply. “Cal and Lana are alcoholics, too. Lilly spent some time over the summer at their house, against my better judgement. Just a few consecutive weeks. It was enough for her to have a breakdown.” I thought of those awful months that culminated to her being admitted to the hospital. “They fight, and they had a huge fight in front of Lilly. Cal hit Lana. He even pulled out his gun. Later, Lana told Lilly it was all her fault. Lana’s fault. For making Cal angry. Her fault. For making him angry. And poor Lilly was so confused. She loved her dad so much... and she started having panic attacks.” I shook my head. “We spent the night in the hospital with her, monitoring her heart, making sure there wasn’t something neurological or cardiac-related to her episodes. Even then, after our divorce, after I was away from Cal’s constant stream of bullshit for more than a year, I couldn’t fathom the damage that Cal caused people in his life. Psychologic. Physical. Emotional.” I stared at the snow-covered water.
“And Lilly still sees Cal and Lana?” Virginia asked.
I spread my fingers over the cold glass, wanting Virginia to look at me. I wanted her eyes on me. “Lilly doesn’t go over there anymore.”
Virginia listened silently, never breaking eye-contact with the lake.
It felt strangely freeing to tell Virginia about Cal. Different from my shrink, or my mother, or Jake. I thought, of all people, she would understand.
She remained silent, unmoving.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she spoke.
“Nothing you said compares to losing a child.”
I stiffened.
I narrowed my eyes, taken-aback. “Of course not. I... I was just sharing, I guess. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, rolling her shoulders back and straightening her posture. “Yes. Well, a good mother wouldn’t let her child associate with abusive alcoholics. Why your daughter still spends any time with them, at their home or otherwise, is beyond me.”
My jaw went slack. I’d never been reprimanded by a stranger.
My mother had said the same thing, repeatedly, but that was my mother. Of course, she wanted to protect her grandchildren. Of course, she knew I was bound by shared parenting agreements and lawyers and Child Protective Services. I’d involved them all and they all determined there wasn’t enough evidence to keep Lilly away from Cal and Lana. Of course, the government agencies were too busy with “real” domestic crises, like the hundreds of parents overdosing in their cars with their kids in the backseat. Of course, I’d leave the country with my children to protect them, if I wouldn’t be breaking the law.
Even when something awful happened. Something awful had to happen.
But this woman, a woman I’d known for barely twenty-four hours, had decided she could judge me.
“If only it were that simple,” I murmured, trying desperately to remember that she was our hostess and we were stranded. I also tried to keep in mind that she’d just shared a very tr
aumatic experience for what might have been the first time, and there were many emotions attached to that act of divulging such personal suffering.
“It is that simple, Lizzie.” She shrugged, patting her hair. “If your child is being harmed, you don’t allow her to be harmed. If your child is murdered, you seek retribution. You do whatever is necessary. No matter what the cost.”
I pressed my lips together and ground my teeth.
“She doesn’t go over there anymore,” I finally said, non-committal.
She turned away from the window and proceeded toward the second stairway. I nearly bumped into her as she stopped dead in her tracks, turning her face just slightly my way. “I’m going to show you the master chamber after all. Fuck Cal and Lana and their privacy.”
I narrowed my eyes but grinned, surprised. “Um. Okay.”
Yeah, fuck them, I thought, marveling in what must have been the original mahogany door. The ornate design in the wood reminded me of a scene in the Bible.
The Garden of Eden.
“Eve had everything, but she just had to have that apple,” Virginia murmured as though reading my mind. She opened the door.
Their room was messy. I was embarrassed for them. Clothes strewn about. A wet spot on the carpet where they’d left their snow-covered shoes to melt. Fast-food garbage. Had they brought food from the car inside with them? A melting, wax cup on the antique dresser, no coaster.
Trash.
“Here now. I’ll show you, but only you, Lizzie.” She led me across their room. I smelled garlic. The kid’s clothes always smelled like garlic when they returned from their house. They explained that Lana cooked all the time and always used garlic.
Every time they told me Lana cooked all the time, it felt like a jibe. I hated to cook, she loved to cook. Who cares.
“Is that...”
I marveled at the way the wainscoting clicked apart from the wall as Virginia touched the candelabra fixture above it. “Yes, a hidden staircase, like you’d asked about. These stairs lead down to parlor, behind one of the bookcases.”
ABOUT HER Page 6
