The Woman Next Door

by Barbara Delinsky

  She lay nervously in the dark, glancing at the clock every few minutes from ten o’clock on. It was after eleven when Graham came in. She heard him come up the stairs and waited for him to come into the bedroom. Instead, he went into the den and turned on the television. At midnight, she went to the door and looked in. He was sleeping.

  Wake him up, part of her cried. But she couldn’t. If he was in the kind of mood he had been in on the phone, he wouldn’t be receptive to seduction. That would leave her feeling foolish and more unwanted than ever.

  So she crept back to their bedroom and lay in the dark trying to clear unhappy thoughts from her brain, sleepless until sheer exhaustion finally took its toll.

  She was awake at six-thirty the next morning, when Graham came into the bedroom. He went to the closet, took out clean clothes, removed the ones he had slept in and tossed them in the hamper, then headed for the bathroom. She listened to the sound of the shower and for a split second thought to join him there—then lost her nerve.

  ***

  “Hi, cutie,” Maddie said when Amanda walked into her office.

  “Hi, cutie,” Amanda said right back, but went straight to her computer and e-mailed Graham. “Are you there?” She knew it was the coward’s approach. But if it worked for the most reticent of her students, it might work for her.

  After one student session and ten minutes wandering the halls looking for Quinn, she got a reply. “I’m here,” he wrote. “What’s up?”

  “We need to talk,” she wrote back, sent the message, then spent thirty minutes in the teachers’ lounge talking with Quinn’s English teacher. The boy had been in her class that morning looking for all the world as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Had he been prepared? The teacher wasn’t sure. The assignment had been parts of King Lear, and they had watched a theater video during class.

  Graham’s answer was waiting when Amanda returned to her office. “Fine. Talk.”

  “Are you angry?” she typed in.

  His response came in as little time as it took for him to receive, read, and reply. “Yeah, I’m angry. This isn’t the way our marriage was supposed to be.”

  “Our marriage has been great,” she wrote back, underlining and bolding the “great.” “This is our first problem.”

  “Are you referring to the baby thing or the trust thing?”

  “Both,” she typed and had barely started reading transfer reports when his answer came back.

  “But there is no issue of trust in the baby thing.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  “How?”

  She thought about how to answer while she wandered the halls during a break in class. Some of her best student contacts had been made during this kind of wandering. Visibility was important. Availability ran a close second.

  There were no breakthroughs in the halls this time, though she did see Quinn. He was laughing with friends and seemed fine. He didn’t look her way but then, she didn’t expect him to. He was avoiding what he couldn’t handle.

  Was she? She prided herself on being older and wiser than her students, but being evasive with Graham was not terribly mature.

  So she returned to her office and wrote him her deepest fear. “What happens if we can’t have a baby? Can I trust that you’ll still want to be married to me?”

  “I love you,” Maddie said.

  Smiling sadly, Amanda gave the bird a treat. “You’re a sweetie.”

  “Treat, sweet?” the bird asked.

  “Treat, sweet,” she answered and offered another treat. Then she went back to her computer.

  Graham’s answer came within minutes. “That’s such an insulting question,” he wrote, underlining and bolding the “such.”

  “But I know how much you want children,” she typed back. “I know how much your family does. Your family means the world to you. I’m not sure I do.”

  “It’s the choice thing again, then?”

  “No. Just me needing reassurance. I haven’t been feeling very feminine lately.”

  “Well, I haven’t been feeling very manly. It doesn’t help when you sleep in the den. Makes me feel like you don’t want me.”

  “Who slept in the den last night?” she wrote back, then sent an instant follow-up. “E-mail sucks. That’s going to come across the wrong way. I’m not accusing you. It’s just that I don’t know what you’re feeling.”

  “Rejected,” he wrote back.

  Her heart ached. “Can we have dinner tonight? I’ll pick up steaks and a salad, and we’ll talk.”

  While she waited for his reply, she met with another student, then ate lunch in the cafeteria with a group of juniors she was advising on a community service project. She spent an uneasy thirty minutes back in her office making notes on the student meetings she’d had that morning, before Graham responded to her invitation.

  “You don’t talk. You accuse and withdraw.”

  “That’s what I learned,” she wrote back, and nearly erased it. She could blame her parents all she wanted, but that wouldn’t help her own marriage. At some point, she had to take responsibility for her actions. That said, what she’d written did help explain why she did what she did. So she left it and added, “Help me change, Graham.”

  His response came within minutes. “I’ll be home for dinner.”

  ***

  Graham resisted thinking the word “divorce,” but having been through it once, it was an irrevocable part of his vocabulary. If his marriage to Amanda fell apart, that would make him a two-time loser. Coming from the family he did—coming from the religious background he did—it would be an emotional blow from which he might never recover.

  Besides, divorce was so far away as to be laughable. He loved Amanda. They had hit a rocky stretch. That was all.

  He wished he knew what to do. Everything about her said that she wanted to be left alone, so that was what he had done. If she wanted to sleep alone, fine. He was giving her space. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He wasn’t demeaning himself by crawling to her, especially if she was having second thoughts about their marriage. Maybe she wanted out like Megan had. Maybe there was something wrong with him in the husband department. Maybe there was something wrong with him in the man department.

  What had she said—that e-mail sucked because things came across the wrong way? Lately when it came to Amanda, that was the story of his life. He could talk about anything and everything with his brothers without worrying about who was taking him how, but with his wife every word counted—not only counted, but came out too harsh. So much was at stake.

  Now they had a date. They would talk over dinner. He wished he could take a crash course on communicating with his wife before then. He wished he was better at marriage.

  He was good at work. He had more of that than he could handle. Had Amanda been pregnant, he would have refused the Providence job. As appealing as it was—as professionally challenging—it was going to be time-consuming.

  But Amanda wasn’t pregnant, so he was grateful for the demand on his time. He worked at the office until late Friday afternoon, then went home because, when all was said and done, he wanted to hold Amanda. But she wasn’t even there yet.

  He was of half a mind to go back to the office. He didn’t want to look overeager, didn’t want to open himself up for disappointment if she wasn’t on the same page he was. But he loved the house, and there were things to do here.

  He was washing the truck when Jordie Cotter walked over. “Need some help?”

  “Sure.” Graham tossed him a cloth. “Wipe close around the edges of the lights. Dirt gets stuck there. I got most of it with the hose, but if you want to check, that’d be great. Hey. Isn’t there a game today?” Local parents came out in large numbers for Friday afternoon baseball games. Graham often stopped by the field himself, particularly now that he knew the players through Jordie.

  Jordie’s mouth went flat. “Today was just practice. The game was yesterday. We lost.”
>
  “Bad?”

  “Twelve–three.”

  Graham grimaced. “Ouch.”

  “It’s because we lost Quinn,” the boy charged. “Edlin should’ve considered that when he suspended him. Did Amanda go along with the suspension?”

  Graham wasn’t committing Amanda one way or the other. “I don’t know. But something had to be done. Kids can’t just be showing up at practice drunk. So the team’s pretty bummed out?”

  “Yeah.” Jordie wiped the taillights with a passing effort. “The tower lost more rocks.”

  “I know. I was out there the other night.” He and Jordie shared a love of the woods that had started soon after Graham and Amanda moved into the house. Jordie had been ten, eleven, even twelve, leading Graham to the tower, sitting with him at its base. Together, they had speculated on its origin and created more than a few outlandish theories.

  It had been a while since they had gone into the woods together. More than once, though, Graham had seen Jordie head in there alone.

  “Think it’ll fall?” Jordie asked now.

  “It hasn’t so far.”

  “Do you know about Gretchen’s baby?”

  Scrubbing at crusted dirt on the running board, Graham shifted gears. “Actually, yeah. Found out the other day.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s cool.”

  “I mean, like, who was she with? Who’s the father?”

  “It could be anyone. We don’t know who Gretchen sees.”

  “She doesn’t see anyone. I heard my mom talking. She thinks it’s my dad.”

  Graham stopped working and looked at the boy. “Who’d she say that to?”

  “Herself. She talks out loud when she’s angry. You know, kind of slams around, muttering. I heard her this morning. She was making the beds. They were arguing about it the other night. She didn’t accuse him to his face, but she came close. Do you think he did it?”

  “No,” Graham said as he knew he should. Jordie talked to him in ways that he didn’t talk with many adults, perhaps because Graham was always honest. But this was Jordie’s father they were talking about, and nothing had been proven. “He loves your mother.”

  “That hasn’t stopped him before,” Jordie muttered, and it struck Graham just how far he had come from the boy who had gone with him into the woods. He was leaning against the back of the truck now with his eyes on the widow’s house. “She’s lookin’ out at us right now, y’know.”

  “No. Actually, I didn’t know that.”

  “She stands in the dining room looking over the curtains.”

  “Maybe she feels you looking at her.”

  “What does she want with us?”

  “Same thing anyone wants from a neighbor. Or a neighborhood.”

  A small red BMW came down the street. Jordie took one look and was transformed. “Oh wow,” he exclaimed. “Look at that car!”

  Graham looked. He saw a kid who looked too young to drive, in a car that he sure as hell hadn’t bought himself. “Who is that?”

  “Alex Stauer. Hey, I gotta run.” He passed the cloth back to Graham, and did just that. Within seconds, he had squeezed into the backseat of the car, and the car had swung around the circle and zoomed off down the street.

  Graham was looking after it when Lee Cotter drove up. “Was that my kid?” he called out the window.

  “Yup,” Graham said and returned to his work.

  Lee parked and walked over. “That was quite some car.”

  “Driven by Alex Stauer. Wasn’t he one of the boys suspended from the team along with Quinn?”

  “Sure was.”

  “Think that was his parents’ idea of a consolation prize?”

  “It’s his mother’s car. She has a little wild streak,” Lee said with a smirk that was a bit too familiar.

  “How do you know that?” Graham asked and, in the next breath, held up a hand. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to know. Then if the wise guys get me and hold a flame to my balls, I won’t have anything to say.”

  Lee chuckled, then sobered. “Speaking of which, I’d appreciate it if you’d downplay any talk about me and the widow.” When Graham shot him an innocent look, he said, “Karen’s making noise about it. She thinks I fathered that baby.”

  “Did you?”

  “Would I tell you and give the wise guys a weapon?” Lee asked. “Just stand by me on this one. It used to be that I could show Karen I loved her by having another baby or two ourselves, but the last time I tried that, we ended up with three.”

  “You could’ve stopped at the twins.”

  Lee grimaced. “There was a small thing after the twins. I had to do a little more convincing.”

  Graham felt a wave of dislike. “Karen deserves better.”

  Lee chuckled. “All women do, but, hey, that’s how it goes. She’s got her house. She’s got her kids. We do the vacation bit twice a year. She does pretty well in the overall scheme of things. So cover me with Gretchen? Ask Amanda to get Karen off my back on this?”

  Graham wasn’t doing any such thing. Even if he approved of what Lee was doing, which he didn’t, he had many more important things to discuss with his wife.

  ***

  Amanda stopped in the center of Woodley for food on her way home from work. She picked up two filet mignons at the meat market, a head of fresh Bibb lettuce, a huge beefsteak tomato, one fresh pepper in each red, orange, and green, and the makings for Graham’s favorite raspberry vinaigrette. When she drove down the street of the cul-de-sac, she didn’t do more than glance at Gretchen, who was watering her flowers again, or wave quickly at Karen, who was on her front porch. Her eyes gravitated to Graham, who looked so normal and lovable, polishing his truck with a towel, that she actually felt shy.

  She caught his eye when she climbed from her car.

  “Need help with the bundles?” he asked.

  She shook her head, gave him a quick smile, and went inside. She set the dining room table using the fine china, crystal, and silver they had received as wedding gifts. She rinsed the steaks, patted them dry, and put them on a platter. She made the salad, then the dressing. She was about to go to the bedroom to freshen up and change clothes when the phone rang.

  Fearful that it was a business call for Graham, which would be totally unwelcome at this juncture, she picked up and said a rushed, “Hello?”

  “Amanda? It’s Maggie. We have a suicide.”

  Chapter Ten

  Suicide. Amanda sucked in a breath. “Who?” she asked, but she knew. She was already conjuring up Quinn’s face. When Maggie Dodd confirmed it, Amanda exhaled loudly. She closed her eyes and pressed a fist to her forehead, as though that might erase the images there, but she wasn’t being spared.

  “He hanged himself in the locker room,” Maggie said. “The janitor had run into him there earlier, right after the team finished practice, and told him he ought to go home, too. Quinn asked if he could stay there for a little while to do his homework; he said it was where he concentrated best. Mr. Dubcek felt sorry for him after the hullabaloo over the suspension, so he allowed it. He left and went about his business. When he got back an hour later, he found Quinn. He tried to revive him, but it was way too late.”

  Way too late. The words echoed with a finality that chilled Amanda to the bone. Yes, for her the failure to conceive a baby was a kind of death, but it was nothing like this. Quinn Davis was fully formed. He was a living, breathing human being. He had a name, a face, a personality. He was totally viable in the world, and given his athletic prowess and leadership skill, was a productive member of the community.

  “Dead,” Amanda whispered, aching with impotence. “I knew he wasn’t what he seemed, but I didn’t imagine this. Are you sure it was deliberate?”

  “It was deliberate. He left notes for his parents and his girlfriend.”

  Amanda let out another loud breath. Suicide was as bad as it got. “To feel that kind of pain ...”

  “We didn’t
know, Amanda. None of us did. But right now we have to think ahead. He was known and loved. Even students who weren’t his friends will feel this. For most of them, it’ll be their first brush with mortality.”

  Amanda was the psychologist. She knew what Maggie was talking about and should have been the one saying it. But she was in shock.

  “Fallout,” she managed to murmur. That was the concern. Extreme fear, deep depression, even copycat suicides—they were the nightmare of a school psychologist. That thought brought her to her senses. “Who knows about it?” she asked Maggie.

  “His family. His friends. Two of them were waiting for him at the house when we called. They’ll have told others by now, and word will spread fast. What do we do?”

  Amanda allowed herself one last stunned exhalation before pushing aside thoughts of Quinn himself and focusing on those he had left behind. “Get the crisis team together. This is what it’s for.” As she said it, she was pulling her Filofax from the briefcase she had dropped on a kitchen chair. The list was there, with phone numbers. “We need to meet to discuss how to deal. Whatever students the grapevine doesn’t reach tonight will hear about it in the morning. Can Fred stay?”

  “He’s planning on it. Send everyone to his office.”

  Amanda’s mind was in operational mode. “There’s a grief counselor I’d also like to call. She led a seminar on school suicide that I attended last fall, and she doesn’t live far from Woodley It’s usually better for kids to be with people they know at times like this, but she’s a wonderfully warm and approachable person. I’d like her on hand. I’ll call her after I’ve called the others.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Call the heads of the departments and have them call their teachers. If they can all meet with us at school tomorrow, say at nine, we’ll be able to fill them in on the meeting tonight.”

  “When will you be here?”

  Amanda glanced at the clock on the wall, only then seeing counters strewn with the makings of a romantic, conciliatory dinner for Graham.

  But a student was dead. Work crises didn’t get any worse. He would have to understand.

  It was nearly six. “Give me a few minutes to call the team. How does seven sound?”