by Lisa Unger
“Your mother says she’s going to stay with you awhile,” Dr. Nash says. “Until you find your footing.”
“Great.”
“I know the relationship has its challenges,” says Dr. Nash. “But I think it’s wise. Can you handle a week?”
“Maybe.”
She gives me an approving smile.
* * *
Detective Grayson comes to see me later that day. I should decline to talk to him without my lawyer present. Instead I allow myself to be escorted to the sunroom, more out of boredom than anything else. The place they’ve put me, Dr. Nash, it all has the mark of Layla and Mac. It’s more like a spa; my room is as well-appointed as a suite at the Ritz. I have not seen another patient since my arrival.
Grayson is standing by the window when the nurse opens the door for me. She slips away quietly and I stay by the door. Why did I agree to see him? I don’t even know.
“I’ve never seen a hospital like this one,” he says, still standing.
I just watch him, stay silent.
“There’s no smell,” he goes on. “You know that institutional undercurrent—bedpans and medication, fear—”
“Who killed Jack?” I ask, interrupting him. “What happened to my husband?”
He draws in and releases a breath. “I don’t have the answers yet. I wish I did. I’m sorry.”
I had wanted to stay standing, but my legs won’t hold me against the weight of my fatigue, which is the only thing I feel. It’s settled into my bones and joints, my eyelids. Must be the meds. I honestly don’t even know what they’re giving me.
“I wanted you to know that you’re no longer a suspect.”
I guess I should be relieved. Instead, I’m just annoyed.
“Also,” he says. He moves closer, takes a seat in a huge wingback chair. Against the rich, plumb fabric, beside the lavishly framed oil landscape painting, Grayson looks like a down-at-the-heels encyclopedia salesman. He has a mustard stain on his jacket; his slacks are wrinkled. “I was hard on you, on the worst day of your life. It’s my job, but—”
I lift a hand, not interested in apologies. “Detective. Just find the person who took him from me.”
He leans forward and bows his head for a moment.
“I have to be honest, Mrs. Lang.” I doubt anyone has ever accused him of not being honest. “I’ve got nothing. No leads. No witnesses. He had no debts. There were no affairs, secret addictions. You had a thriving business. By all accounts, a happy marriage.”
A happy marriage. Did we have that?
“Is there anything you’re not telling me, Mrs. Lang?”
“Poppy.”
“Poppy, do you have any thoughts on who might have wished your husband harm?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Otherwise, I’m going to have to treat this like a random street crime. And, unless I catch a break, that’s going to be a lot harder to solve.”
“What are you doing here, Detective?”
Layla stands inside the door. She has a bouquet of tulips; they droop prettily in her arms.
The detective stands and walks toward her.
“I’m doing my job, Mrs. Van Santen.”
He glances back and forth between us, maybe waiting for me to say something. But I just look away from him.
“Get out of here,” Layla says. “You talk to her through her lawyer.”
“She’s no longer a suspect.”
“Good,” she says. “Then get out.”
I marvel at what a fierce bitch she is, always has been.
“I won’t stop, Poppy,” he says. “I promise.”
Layla moves away from him, dismissive and cold. She comes to sit beside me and doesn’t even look at him as he exits.
“Why did you see him?” she asks, resting a hand on my arm.
I shrug. “I wanted to know if he found anything.”
Something shadows her features. “Has he?”
“No.”
She lays the tulips on the table, puts a strong hand on my shoulder. “You look better,” she says. “Rested.”
“What is this place?” I ask. “It’s not a hospital.”
I stand and walk over to the drapes, finger the heavy silken fabric. It was my mother who taught me how to feel fabric, the difference between polyester and silk, between wool and cashmere. Silk is like water through your fingers, so soft it might drip away. Polyester scratches, even when it’s soft. Wool is always stiff; cashmere flows.
Layla looks around, runs a hand over a chenille throw, an oversize pillow.
“No,” she says. “It’s more like a retreat, a private place where wealthy people come to rehab from whatever—drugs, alcohol, breakdowns. Strictly confidential.”
“And Dr. Nash?”
“She’s my therapist,” says Layla. “She’s helped me work through all my shit. Well, some of it, anyway. She can help you through this.”
“Should we have the same shrink?”
She shrugged. “Why not? We’ve shared everything else.”
“I can’t afford this place,” I say.
She pats the couch beside her, and I sink into the spot. I feel small, a wreck next to Layla. Her skin glows, and her hair, golden in this light, is clearly blown out. Everything—her nails, the cut of her simple clinging maroon dress, exudes style, wealth, ease. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t be out of place on a street corner, holding a cup and begging for quarters. Not that I care.
“Do you remember the night that you and your dad rescued me from my father?”
“Of course.”
How old were we? Sixteen. The phone rang late, a single note. My dad and I were in the kitchen, bent over the table while he tried to help me with my trigonometry homework—which, PS, addled my brain and has yet in life to reveal its practical application. My dad got up to answer, but the line was dead. He peered at the caller ID screen.
“Layla,” he said.
My heart did a little stutter, even though I couldn’t say why. In gym that morning, I’d seen wide black-and-blue marks on her arm, fingerprint bruises where her dad had grabbed her.
“I’m going to drive by her house.”
My dad wore a worried frown, rubbed a hand over his thinning dark hair.
“I’ll ride with you.”
Easy. It was always easy with him.
I picked up the phone and dialed, hanging up after one ring.
This was not a thing we had planned or discussed. But I knew what that single ring meant: I’m in trouble. In her house, she knew the meaning of mine: I’m coming.
My dad and I pulled in front of Layla’s house, her neighborhood a lot like mine—low ranches mostly, built in the sixties, some newer, bigger homes. Working class, middle class, some nice cars but mainly old-model Chevys and Fords. Towering oaks that shed mountains of leaves, bikes tilted in driveways, uninspired landscaping featuring weedy flower beds and anemic shrubs. Trash cans at the curb, sprinklers ticking on summer nights. My first photo of Layla, she sat frowning on the top step of her brick stoop, chin in hand—a teen, suburban Thinker.
God, I hate this fucking place.
You’ll leave. We both will.
You bet your ass.
My dad and I sat, waiting. Voices carried—her father’s anger a blue streak, a flame. Her mother’s: shrill, hysterical. Something smashed, the sound reverberating. Then—quiet.
“We need to call the police,” said my dad, growing anxious.
“No.” I spun to him, grabbed his arm. “They’ll take her away.”
“Poppy,” he said slowly. “She’s not safe.”
“She can live with us.”
He blew out a breath. A sixteen-year-old thinks she understands the world. There’s only black and white, right and wrong. Life hasn’t taught the impo
rtant lesson of gray. Shades and shadows elude.
I flashed the lights, just once. And then I held my breath, body tense, waiting and waiting. Finally, she slipped from the side of the house, duffel over her shoulder, climbed into the back seat as casually as if I were picking her up to go to the mall.
“Hi, Mr. Jackson,” she said. Her eyes were rimmed red, her face still and set.
“Layla,” he said. “Everything okay?”
I moved into the back seat with her and let my dad take the wheel. Layla rested her head against my shoulder; I stroked her hair.
“What do we need to do here?” my dad asked.
“Take her home,” I answered. “We’ll call the police there.”
“She won’t press charges, though,” said Layla. “She never does.”
“She doesn’t need to,” my father answered. “The police will do that.”
“They won’t,” she said softly. “They don’t. And it will just be worse for her.”
None of us said anything. It was all true, no point in arguing.
“Some people don’t want their problems solved,” Layla went on into the silence of the car.
“That’s true sometimes.” His voice was solemn in the dim light. “But sometimes they just don’t have the right tools in their toolbox to fix things.”
Layla didn’t live with us after that—not officially. But mostly. She had clothes in my closet, a toothbrush in my bathroom, a place at our dinner table.
* * *
“You saved me that night,” she says now, so many years later. “You and your parents have saved me a hundred times.”
She laces her fingers through mine. “Right now, let me be here for you. Let me do what I can for you.”
We’re sisters, more than that. We’re soul mates. I let her help me, let her wrap me up, take care of everything. I have no choice. I am flotsam, tumbled in the tsunami of grief. Without her, I might go out to sea.
* * *
Those days come back in fragments. There are still pieces missing. But part of that black space recedes, revealing my memories; I know who I was, what I did—mostly. There’s a deep sense of relief, like a thorn has been removed from my heart. I am grasping my way to wholeness.
26
Now...
The sun streams in through the narrow window as I come to sit with a jolt, startling Noah, who is in the chair by the fireplace. I am soaked through with sweat, the sheets damp, my heart still racing. But my entry into this day is crisp and bright, no fog in my mind, no heaviness around my eyes. I remember it all: the apartment ambush, how I fled Layla and Tom, my date with Rick, the altercation on the street. I remember the choice Noah offered me, that bottle of pills in his hand, the choice I made.
Images from my dreams cling: I hold a baby in my arms, then I’m running up a dark street, pursued, then I’m lying in Jack’s arms whispering I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But on this morning, I am clear on where I am, where I’ve been. What’s real and what isn’t.
The misery of the last few days is close and present in my mind—the raging and sickness of detox—but now I am light, as though after a period of long illness I can breathe again. Noah is watching me.
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Two and a half days,” he answers.
There are dark gullies of fatigue under his eyes; I think he’s been wearing that same shirt since I got here.
“I had a dream,” I say.
“Another one?”
“Yes,” I say, though it’s fading fast. “I had a baby. He was so beautiful. I can still feel him.”
I can. I can feel his weight in my arms, smell the shampoo in his hair, hear his sweet voice, feel his fingers wrapped around mine. My heart aches with it, wanting to hold him again. But he was just a dream.
Noah comes to sit beside me, folds me into his embrace, though I am not fit for embracing. I realize that I’m weeping; it’s a cleansing, a letting go.
* * *
I take a shower so hot it’s almost scalding. I drink a gallon of water. Noah cooks for me, and at the table he’s made with his own hands, we eat as though we’re starving. Which maybe we are; I can’t remember the last time I had a meal, a real meal at a table.
After we eat, we sit by the fire. Outside a light snow falls. I am tucked beneath his arm and I can feel the rise and fall of his breath. He is solid, a grounding force. We are the only two people in the world.
“Why did you do this for me?” I ask him. “Why would you put yourself through this?”
He doesn’t answer right away and I think he’s fallen asleep. I look up at him and his eyes are closed, but he’s wearing a slight smile.
“Don’t you know?” he asks.
He met me at a nightclub—Morpheus—when I was another version of myself. Still, a year later, I haven’t quite stitched myself back together. I’ve run away from him, forgotten him completely, blown him off, asked him to help me find answers to the dark question at the center of my life, led the cops to his door.
“I guess I don’t.”
He draws in and releases a breath, looks down at me.
“Life, you know, it can feel like a war. Like you’re fighting battles inside and outside. Once or twice, you meet someone and you see through all the layers, recognize an ally. Do you know what I mean?”
I think of Layla, my lifelong ally and friend, my sister. I think of Jack, my love, my partner, the only one who knew my desire to hold the world in my lens, to find the beauty and truth in a moment and share it. I look up at Noah, into the jewel facets of his eyes. I know exactly what he means.
“Some people are worth fighting for,” he says.
He laces his fingers through mine, and we stay like that a long time, watching the fire cast dancers on the wall.
“I have questions,” I say. “There are things I need to understand.”
“Of course.”
“When I last talked to Detective Grayson, he told me things about you. He said that you were following your girlfriend the day she was killed, that you were stalking her. He also told me that you followed another woman, raged at her, sent her orchids. He had a theory that you were the one who sent the flowers. He suspected already, even though I didn’t remember, that we met during those lost days—or maybe earlier—and that you’ve been following me ever since.”
He bows his head, and is quiet. I move away from him so that I can see his face.
When he looks up at me again his expression is stoic but there’s sadness there—and shame.
“He’s right,” he says. “It’s true. I’ve made terrible mistakes in my life.”
I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“The day Bella died, I was following her. We’d had a terrible fight and she’d left. I couldn’t let her go, so I went after her. I certainly never tried to force her off the road, or to hurt her. I just—didn’t want her to leave so angry, so sad. Or maybe, I didn’t want her to leave me so angry and sad.”
He pauses, his eyes searching my face.
“She was furious with me, crying, yelling at me on her cell phone. Leave me alone, Noah, she was screaming. I don’t love you anymore. A few minutes later, she collided with that drunk driver.”
The air in the room is thick with sorrow, with tension. We’re both silent for a moment.
“Was her death my fault?” he says finally. “Yes, I think in a way it was. I didn’t kill her. But maybe if she hadn’t been driving so upset, if she wasn’t so mad at me for following her. So yeah, I blame myself and I always have, maybe I always will.”
Maybe I always will. I’ve heard him say this before. He’s told me this.
“Have we talked about this before?”
“We have. Should I go on?”
I nod to indicate that he should.
“Th
e other woman Grayson told you about. Her name was Amy. She and I dated a couple of times, then she blew me off. I liked her, sent her flowers. She kind of played around with me a little. She’d ask me to meet her, then not show up. She called me once in the middle of the night, asked me to come to her place—you know, that kind of call.”
He gets up, walks over to the fireplace and leans against the hearth.
“I went—I mean, of course I did. What guy isn’t going to answer a midnight call from a hot girl he likes, even if she had blown him off a couple of times. But when I got there, she wouldn’t let me up. I lost it in her lobby, my outburst caught on film. She took out a restraining order against me. But no, I didn’t stalk her. After that night, I never tried to see her again. It starts to look bad, though. More than one suspicious incident with women.”
Maybe I shouldn’t, but I believe him. He has the aura of a man who’s learned hard lessons and grown stronger for it.
“And what about us?”
“You and I met, yes, the first time during your breakdown.”
The man in the bar, his arms on me, his lips on me. The image on the bartender’s phone, that dark form enveloping me, the mascara trails down my face. Noah. I realize of course that I knew it all along, that scent of fire and linseed oil, the heat of him.
“I realized quickly that something wasn’t right with you, that you were in some kind of trouble. I asked you if you needed help. And you said you did. Right or wrong, I brought you back here.”
I remember—the walk through the snowy woods, all the things we talked about, the burning fireplace.
“I let you rest here, get well. I fed you, took you for long walks, let this place heal you like it healed me. I never touched you, though, I promise you that. I never took advantage of you.”
It’s all coming back, a river, a deluge—just like Dr. Nash said it might. But it’s not unsettling, it’s freeing, like I can breathe again after being submerged in dark water, swimming, swimming toward the light, not sure if I’ll ever surface.
