Scared to Death

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Oh, I’m finished for today. I’ll dig up the plants over the weekend. The ones that didn’t get crushed, anyway.”

  “Yeah? Where are they now?” he asks as casually as possible.

  “Right over there.” She points to a small garden plot along the dividing line between their two yards—almost directly adjacent to Renny’s bedroom window.

  Brett nods thoughtfully. “Well, if you do see anyone around, let me know.”

  “And you do the same, there, Mr. Brett.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  Glenhaven Park is one of those picture-perfect, leafy suburban towns that look like the set of a television drama series. Even a lifelong city girl like Marin is wistful, driving past big old houses with front porches and hanging geraniums, set back along brick-paved streets that are shiny from this morning’s rain.

  What would it be like to live here?

  For a brief, deluded moment, she imagines that things would be different now if she and Garvey had chosen a simple, low-key life here, because nothing bad could ever happen in a place like this.

  Oh, come on. Who are you kidding?

  Look at what happened to Lauren here.

  Anyway, Garvey is who he is. He would have been a monster anywhere. Married to him, no matter where she lived, her life would have eventually been disastrous.

  She turns onto Elm Street and looks for the painted lady Lauren described over the phone. There it is, about halfway down the block: a tall mustard-colored Queen Anne Victorian with brick red gingerbread trim.

  Her heart pounds as she pulls up in front. She can’t help but think of Garvey, pitilessly shattering the lives of the children who live here, just as he shattered his own children’s lives, and Marin’s.

  I shouldn’t be here. I need to go.

  But before she can act, she hears someone calling her name through the open car window. Looking up, she sees Lauren waving from the wraparound porch.

  The few times they’ve come face-to-face, it’s been over lunch in the city—private booths in restaurants where no one would recognize either of them. Lauren has worn skirts, jewelry, makeup. Today, she descends the porch steps in sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt, her long, reddish-brown hair caught back in a casual ponytail.

  Marin immediately relaxes a bit, despite feeling overdressed.

  “Hey, you made it!”

  “Yeah—after a narrow brush with the paparazzi,” she tells the one person she knows who’s also been there, done that.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope. Someone snapped my picture on the street. I don’t think it was really the paparazzi, though—just someone who recognized me.” Not that that’s much better. Plenty of amateur photographers sold candid shots to the press last summer when the news first broke.

  “Oh, Marin—I thought that had died down. It has here.”

  “Well, you don’t run into thousands of people when you step out your door.” Marin gestures at the quiet street.

  “Not usually, no.” She smiles.

  Marin reaches back for a Saran-wrapped platter on the passenger’s seat. “This is for you.”

  “Cookies? Are these homemade?”

  “Yes, but I can’t take credit. My daughter Annie loves to bake. Now that school is out, we’ve got cookies coming out of our ears, so…”

  “Ryan will devour these in five minutes flat. I think he’s about the same age as Annie.”

  “She’s almost fourteen.”

  “Ryan’s thirteen.” Lauren leads the way up the porch steps, adding somewhat stiffly, “Lucy’s fifteen. Sadie’s only five. She’s at Splashdown today; Ryan and Lucy are at school. So you won’t get to meet any of them yet.”

  Marin hopes her relief doesn’t show. Not that she has anything against Lauren’s kids. But she doubts she’s ready to handle meeting them so soon, and she’s willing to bet they feel the same about her—if they even know she’s here.

  The conversational ball is in Marin’s corner, and she tries to think of something to say. What happened to the easy conversational flow she and Marin share over the phone, and whenever they meet on neutral ground?

  At last, she asks, “School is still in session?”

  “Just finals. Public schools go later than private. So your older daughter is…?”

  “In private school. So is Annie.”

  “No, I meant her name—is it Caroline?”

  “That’s right. Very good!” Marin tries for a light tone, deciding maybe she’s just uncomfortable talking about the kids—hers, and Lauren’s.

  Maybe Lauren is, too, because there’s an awkward silence as she opens the screened wooden outer door. Marin can hear rainwater dripping from the gutters above the porch.

  Stepping into the high-ceilinged foyer, she’s greeted by the smell of vintage wood and fresh paint. She takes in the old-fashioned wallpaper, the floral draperies, and the ornate woodwork on the stairway, crown moldings, and half-closed pocket doors off to one side.

  It’s magnificent; the kind of house you often see preserved in touristy New England towns, with guided tours and a brass plaque by the door.

  This one looks lived-in, though—kids’ shoes scattered near the doormat, a baseball cap draped over a newel post, and a pile of books and spiral-bound notebooks on the bottom step, obviously waiting to be carried up.

  “You’ll have to excuse the clutter,” Lauren tells her, bending to scoop up a stray tennis ball. “Between the kids emptying out their desks and lockers now that it’s the end of the school year, and being under construction, I can’t seem to keep it under control.”

  “You’re under construction?”

  Lauren doesn’t reply immediately, and when she does, Marin realizes that it’s going to be impossible, here on the Walsh family’s home turf, to avoid awkward moments and the subject of what happened last summer.

  She shouldn’t have come. Why is she here? Why didn’t she at least take something for her nerves before she left home? That’s what Heather would have advised, had Marin told her where she was going.

  But the pills can make her sleepy, or loopy—in no condition to drive. It’s been long enough, as it is, since she was behind the wheel.

  “I had the kitchen gutted,” Lauren tells her.

  The kitchen. Of course. That’s where it happened—the final bloody showdown.

  “Want to see?”

  Marin really doesn’t, but she says, “Sure,” anyway.

  Maybe it’ll be cathartic, she tells herself as Lauren leads the way toward the back of the house.

  “It’s been a long time coming…we really needed a renovation. Old houses, you know…”

  “Right,” agrees Marin, who doesn’t know at all. She’s never lived in an old house, not even growing up in the Back Bay, where her nouveau riche parents were content living in a modern condo—a far cry from the stately Quinn mansion just a few blocks away.

  Lauren’s kitchen is large—by Manhattan standards, anyway. She gestures at a stepladder pulled up to a window, drop cloths draped on the floor beneath it. “When you called this morning, I was about to paint the woodwork.”

  “And I interrupted you. Sorry.”

  “Oh please, it was a welcome interruption. I think I chose the wrong color. Here…” Lauren pries the can open with a screwdriver and holds it out. “Autumn Mist looks more like dog poop, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I was being polite. Definitely dog poop.”

  Lauren joins her in a laugh, and Marin feels a little better.

  It isn’t so bad, being here, in this house, in this kitchen. She’d been expecting a rush of emotion, or at the very least, an aura of bad vibes.

  Maybe it would be different if she’d visited before, or if the place hadn’t been renovated. As it is, she’s merely a bit uncomfortable. But really, she feels that way everywhere she goes these days—which is why she really doesn’t go anywhere anymore.


  “Guess I need to go back to the paint store.” Lauren replaces the lid and pounds it down with the screwdriver handle.

  “So you’re doing all this yourself? Choosing colors, painting?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Lauren looks more closely at her. “You’re not kidding. Trust me, it’s not that big a deal.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a project like this.” She and Garvey have always used professional decorators, professional painters, professional everything. Now that he’s gone…

  “When you move into your new place, I can help you, if you want.” Seeing Marin’s expression, Lauren quickly adds, “Not that I’m any good at it. I mean, don’t feel obligated. I just thought—”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just—the move. Every time I think about it, I get a little worried about doing it alone.”

  A little worried? She’s scared to death. But somehow, seeing what Lauren has accomplished, she feels almost ashamed to admit it.

  “Hey, if I can do this”—Lauren sweeps a hand around the kitchen—“you can do that. You can do anything. You’re stronger than you think.”

  “I’m not so sure. I mean, I know I’m an adult, but I’ve never really been on my own. I went from my parents’ house to college to Garvey.”

  “Well, I was on my own, for years before I got married, and I was terrified when Nick left. Half the time, I’m still terrified.”

  “You don’t seem like you are.”

  “Neither do you.” Lauren pats her arm. “But you’re going to be okay. Just think…the worst is over.”

  “I wish I could believe that. Right now, I wake up every day feeling helpless—and sometimes, I get overwhelmed by this sense that something horrible is going to happen any second, and…”

  “That’s probably a panic attack, Marin—due to post-traumatic stress. Are you seeing anyone?”

  “No! I’m still married to Garvey, even if—”

  “No.” Lauren is smiling faintly. “That’s not what I meant. Listen, my kids went through this after—you know.”

  She knows. After her husband had them kidnapped, and commissioned their father’s cold-blooded murder.

  “Panic attacks—a constant feeling of impending doom—that’s what you’re feeling, right?”

  Marin’s instinct is to deny it, and yet—isn’t that what she just said? That she feels as though something horrible is going to happen?

  “Seriously—you need a good shrink.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…”

  Because why? Because everyone in Manhattan knows who she is? Because she can’t bear the thought of admitting the truth about these frightening episodes to a total stranger? Because Garvey didn’t believe in shrinks?

  “There’s nothing wrong with needing outside help, Marin. My sister lives in Manhattan, and she got me a bunch of names there back when I was looking for a family therapist who could treat all four of us. I wound up sticking with someone here, but if you want, I could—”

  “No. No, that’s okay. I’m okay. Really.”

  She hates the way Lauren is looking at her, as though she can read Marin’s mind. Maybe she can, because she says, “A shrink isn’t the only place to find peace after what you’ve been through, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can lean on your friends, or you can go to church…”

  “Church? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’ve been going lately, with Sam. It helps.”

  “That’s great, but…I don’t think it would help me.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought it would help me, either. But then I realized I never prayed so hard as I did when my kids—when their lives were hanging in the balance. And those prayers were answered.”

  That might very well be true.

  But how many others—including Marin’s own—haven’t been?

  “I’m fine,” Marin tells her. “Trust me, I don’t need a shrink, or church. All I need is time, and everything will be just fine.”

  Case closed.

  I may not be able to pay my cable bill next month, Meg thinks as she settles on the couch in her basement family room, but at least I’ve been home to watch Oprah every day this week.

  Not only that, but the kids aren’t even around to drive her nuts. Feeling vaguely guilty for not missing them, she reaches toward the decidedly guilt-free array of healthy snacks she prepared for the occasion. Low-fat Pringles, reduced-fat Oreos, mini rice cakes spread with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, and a bag of Jelly Bellys, which she recently discovered have always been nonfat, same as marshmallow fluff.

  “That stuff’s not good for you,” her teenage know-it-all daughter—who clearly knows very little—would probably say.

  Grabbing a stack of Pringles from the can, Meg waits for the endless array of commercials to give way to Oprah. Floor wax, support pantyhose, line-reducing face lotion…

  And I can’t buy any of it, even if I wanted to.

  Munching moodily, she thinks about the stack of overdue bills sitting on the kitchen counter. She’s managed to pay the most important ones this month—the mortgage, the electric bill—but most of the others, like the orthodontist and her life insurance policy, will have to wait. As she told one of the girls at work last night, it’s not as if Dr. Lichtman is going to come over here and rip the braces off her youngest son’s teeth, and it’s not as if Meg’s going to drop dead tomorrow.

  Sooner or later, she’ll get her regular hours back. That, or she’ll win the lottery. She plays Power Ball every chance she gets, fantasizing about all the things she’ll do if she wins even a small jackpot.

  First and foremost, of course, she’ll have the bunion surgery. It’ll be covered by insurance, but she can’t afford to be laid up for all the time it’ll take to heal unless she has some other source of income. Then—

  “Today, on Oprah…”

  Meg sits up expectantly. It’s about time. As she reaches for a rice cake, a shadow crosses the small window high in the wall behind her. She looks up, startled, just in time to see a pair of denim-clad legs stride past.

  One of the kids, she thinks absently—before remembering that the kids are out of town with their father.

  Her next thought is of her trampled herb garden, and it’s enough to make her put down the rice cake and jump up off the couch. She hurriedly climbs the steps to the kitchen, licking the peanut butter and marshmallow goo off her fingers, and goes straight to the door overlooking the side yard.

  Sure enough, someone is there, apparently having cut through the Cavalons’ yard and into her own. A kid, obviously, wearing a big black sweatshirt with the hood up.

  “Hey!” Meg calls, determined to give him a piece of her mind.

  He goes absolutely still, but doesn’t turn around.

  “What are you doing?” She descends the steps to the yard, careful not to trip on the flats of herbs she bought from the nursery, or the shovel leaning against the rail.

  Why is he keeping his back to her?

  He must be someone she knows—maybe one of her oldest son’s friends. He’s fallen in with a couple of troublemakers lately.

  “I can call the police on you, you know,” she tells him as she strides across the grass toward him. “You’re trespassing on private property!”

  At last, the figure turns toward her.

  The face isn’t familiar after all.

  This isn’t going to go well, is Meg’s first thought when she sees the look in the stranger’s eyes, and she braces for a tense verbal confrontation.

  Then she spots the cold glint of the blade as it arcs toward her, feels the burning pain as it slices into her neck, chokes on the sudden hot gush of blood in her throat.

  Meg Warren’s final stunned, helpless thought, as she falls to the wet grass, is of her lapsed life insurance poli
cy.

  Lauren might not have known Marin Quinn for years as she has other friends, like Trilby, but she knows enough about human nature to realize something is seriously wrong today. The way Marin keeps chewing on her lip, toying with her hair, checking her cell phone messages…

  She obviously isn’t going to bring up whatever it is that’s bothering her. Lauren has given her plenty of conversational openings as they sit in her living room sipping coffee and eating chocolate chip cookies.

  Well, Lauren eats them. Marin has been nibbling the same one for the better part of an hour now, picking it up and putting it down, often without even taking a bite.

  She’s saying all the right things, but her mind isn’t entirely focused on the conversation, which has meandered from kitchen renovation to kid-friendly summer movies to Lauren’s upcoming meeting with the estranged former mother-in-law she never met.

  Nick’s mother had left him and his dad when he was just a kid, and he never heard from her again—nor did he want to. But after he’d gone missing last summer, Lauren was afraid his mother, wherever she was, would hear about it in the press. With her blessing, the detectives on the case managed to track her down in Hawaii, where she’s been living for years.

  Now Nick’s mother wants to meet her grandchildren. She’s flying in tomorrow morning on the redeye, before Lucy and Ryan leave for sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks.

  “Sounds like it’s going to be an intense visit.” Marin fiddles with one of her gold earrings.

  “I just hope it’s a positive experience for my kids. They don’t need any more stress in their lives right now.”

  “Maybe you should keep this woman away, then. She hadn’t even seen Nick in years.”

  “She’s still his mother—their grandmother.” Lauren changes the subject. “How are your girls doing with the move and everything?”

  “We haven’t talked much about it. I guess it won’t seem real until this place is officially on the market.”

  Remembering the media encampment in front of the Quinns’ apartment building last year, Lauren can just imagine the barrage of nosy strangers—and even worse, undercover reporters—likely to descend on the Quinn household, posing as buyers.