“Check into a hotel then,” Alison said. “One of those Residence Inns. Or what about renting a place? That might be nicer—cheaper, too.”
Heather shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I said. “I’ve seen some great places online.”
Her face flushed and she looked away as she said, “It’s not about the place, it’s about the money. My cards are tied to Viktor’s accounts. Everything is in his name. Everything. He wouldn’t pay for it.”
I was stunned—I think we all were. I thought of all the times I’d seen her wearing a new outfit or off for another day at the spa and envied her financial freedom. I hadn’t realized it came with such tight purse strings and that she didn’t hold the purse. “You need to divorce him,” I said. “I can connect you with a great attorney. I’ll call her for you.”
“No!” Heather cried, before repeating it in a lower voice. “No. Thank you. But I already told you—I’m not leaving him, I can’t.”
“Don’t be so stupid,” I muttered.
“Sarah!” Julie was aghast.
“I’m sorry, but c’mon! We all think she should leave him.”
“It’s not our decision to make,” Alison said, but her voice was very sad. “It’s Heather’s choice.”
There was an awkward silence, and then Julie said gently, “Well, you’re always welcome to come and stay with me.” She smiled at Heather and took another sip of the green tea smoothies she’d made for everybody. I would have preferred some wine to help cut the stress we were all under, but apparently since Heather couldn’t drink, none of us would out of solidarity. I sipped my own smoothie, peering around at Julie’s house and wondering what it would be like to live there—probably like staying at a hotel, or a modern art gallery.
The first time I’d been to Julie’s, back when our older children were babies, I’d been intimidated by her ultramodern and immaculate house, a plaster-and-steel series of stacked cubes designed by an architect that she’d met when she’d sold him some investment property. “He studied with Philip Johnson,” she’d told me as she led me across pale hardwood floors enlivened here and there by colorful rugs that she casually informed me had been picked up when she and Brian vacationed in Turkey.
With the designer furniture and refined, minimalist décor, the house had not screamed kid-friendly, and I remember making a silent prediction that in six months the matching set of dove-gray modernist sofas and hexagonal glass coffee table would be covered with sticky little handprints and stains.
Fast-forward nine years and I was sitting on that same sofa, which Julie had recently talked about replacing, but only because she’d grown bored with the look; the dove-gray wool was still immaculate, the glass in the coffee table shining in a way that nothing ever did at my house. Of course, Julie’s secret weapon was the high-end cleaning service that came weekly.
“Thank you,” Heather murmured. “That’s very nice of you to offer.”
“You can stay with me, too,” Alison said. “Although given the clutter at my house I think I’d take Julie’s offer.”
“Ditto,” I said, an easy offer to make because I knew, we all knew, that Heather wasn’t going to accept.
We were silent for a moment, sitting around the gas fireplace, also ultramodern, a line of blue-tipped flames dancing above a row of smooth river rocks. A large abstract oil painting, done by some apparently “well-known” artist, hung above the fireplace, its violent red slashes always striking me as incongruous—as did the whole, cold house—with Julie, who was so warm, so down-to-earth, so bubbly.
“What if you told Viktor you need some time away to rest because of the baby,” Julie said. “Like you said, he wouldn’t want to hurt his own child.”
Heather looked up at us, mouth opening like she was going to say something, but then she closed it and looked back down, fiddling with the straw in her drink.
“What is it?” Alison said, and then her voice darkened. “Did something happen?”
Heather looked up, large tears welling in her eyes. “I haven’t told him.”
“About the baby?” I said, surprised. “Why not?”
“He told me he doesn’t want more children,” she said, swiping at her eyes. “He’ll want me to get rid of it.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not the case,” Julie said, rushing to embrace her. Alison and I exchanged a look as we joined them on the couch.
“You’re so kind,” Heather said, looking at each of us in turn. I’ll remember forever how she looked, leaning forward in her seat, her face luminous, hands clasped together on her knees, both intent and nervous, her lovely smile a little strained but sincere. “I’m so lucky,” she said, a word that was jarring given the circumstances. “I’m so lucky to have you for my friends.”
Again, she was the first to leave, making excuses that none of us believed. Daniel was engrossed in playing Hungry Hungry Hippos in the family room, and was so angry at being interrupted that he aimed a kick at the game, scattering the board and the pieces. I’m sure I wasn’t the only mother wondering if he’d inherited that temper from his father. And also just like Viktor, a few minutes later Daniel presented as a smiling and happy little boy, cheerfully trotting off to the car with his mother after she’d bribed him with the promise of a stop at the frozen yogurt shop if he came away quietly.
* * *
The specter of fear descended on us, our phone calls increasingly frantic, the litany of Heather’s injuries piling up: The black eye that she said she’d gotten running into a door. The cut on her lip that she insisted she’d done herself. The limp she had because she’d “tripped.” The series of spots on the inside skin of her forearm that looked suspiciously like cigarette burns. That last injury marked a turning point for Julie. She’d still believed that something could be done, that if Viktor “got help,” then everything would restore itself in that marriage, but no longer. Cigarette burns were so obviously and deliberately cruel; they were also impossible to explain away as an accident.
“They were right there,” she said in a tremulous voice, holding out her own arm and pointing with a shaking hand. “He isn’t going to stop until he’s killed her.” She looked so stricken that both Alison and I hugged her, the three of us holding on to one another for a long moment, helpless.
“Why doesn’t she fight back?” I said. “If she won’t leave the bastard at least she could defend herself.”
“She’s afraid of him,” Alison said. “He makes her feel powerless.”
“Then we’ve got to give her the power,” Julie said, taking the words out of my mouth and sounding surprisingly determined for someone who until recently had been eager to accept Heather’s excuses as reality.
“You’ve got to keep a record of what Viktor’s doing,” I said to Heather the next time we were all at Crazy Mocha. “Take photos of your injuries.”
“Shh.” Her gaze darted around the shop, anxious that someone might overhear our conversation. She whispered, “Viktor checks my phone—he doesn’t trust me.”
“Then use this,” Alison said, pulling a small digital camera out of her purse. Heather didn’t ask why Alison just happened to be carrying a camera with her, and none of us volunteered that we’d talked about it beforehand and come up with this idea. We’d anticipated that she might argue with us, give us some reason she couldn’t take the photos, or deny again that things were that bad, but she just took the camera from Alison and quickly shoved it in her purse.
We berated ourselves for the injuries that had gone unnoticed, like the broken arm from a year ago that Heather said came from a holiday skiing accident, which we now knew had been broken by Viktor. I thought of us all writing happy phrases on her cast and felt sick. Even worse was remembering how once I’d seen a huge bouquet of dark pink roses at her house and teased her, “Oh, look how sweet—someone must love you very much,” completely unaware that these were a guilt gift from Viktor.
Sometimes I look back and wonder how things mi
ght have been different if we’d just pulled up outside that enormous house on the hill and packed up Heather’s belongings, hers and Daniel’s, ignoring her protests, sedating her if necessary, and driving them away to Julie’s house, or Alison’s, or mine. But none of us did that. We were polite women living in a civilized society where people rarely did more than whisper about one another’s marriages. We tried reasoning with her and spent hours worrying about her, but ultimately we did nothing, watching from a distance like moviegoers at a disaster film, tense and expectant, waiting for the awful yet inevitable conclusion.
chapter ten
HEATHER
I think about leaving all the time, but where would I go? Back to West Virginia and coal country? Back to living at my mother’s house as if I’m fifteen again and not thirty? He’ll follow me there; he’s said he would. He likes to tell me that now that he’s got me he’s never letting go.
Sometimes when Viktor’s at work I take one of the large suitcases out of the closet in the guest room and open it on our bed. I bring out my clothes from the walk-in closet, folding them carefully, stacking them in as tightly as possible. I plan as I pack: I will take all the jewelry that he’s given me, the necklaces that weren’t my taste, and the rings he chose because he liked the stones. I will take the emergency cash that he keeps in a drawer in his desk and the money that he’s left for the cleaning people. I will call for a taxi and have them drive me to the bus station. Not in Pittsburgh, that is too close and he’d think to look there. I will have the driver take me to the bus station in Greensburg and from there I will board a bus for Georgia or somewhere that is warm, but not a tourist destination. A place he wouldn’t think to look for me.
But as I stand there packing I’m already seeing the flaws in this plan—there isn’t enough cash to get far. Even if I take the money in Daniel’s clown-shaped bank, I would have barely enough to afford the bus ticket to Georgia. That isn’t enough to begin again; I’d have to sell the jewelry first. Viktor might think of this, too. He might have the police put a trace on the jewelry, or claim that it wasn’t mine to sell since he purchased all of it. He’ll have the receipts to prove it because he’s a details person—meticulous, orderly, bothered by things that aren’t neat and tidy. Even if I did manage to sell to a pawnshop or a private buyer, how much am I really likely to get from all of it? It’s not nearly enough to live comfortably.
I can’t do it, I can’t leave. I unpack the suitcase and put it away before he gets home. The clothes are back in the closet, the money back in the drawer. His tires are snaking up the drive as I look around frantically to make sure that there is no sign that I was considering departure.
“You’re home early,” I say, trying to sound excited.
Daniel is at his grandmother’s. It turns out that Viktor has arranged this ahead of time—a special night just for us. “I want to spend time with my wife,” he says, speaking of me, as he often does, as if I’m a possession. He leads me to the bedroom where at his direction I put on the silk negligée he bought me, an ugly shade of salmon pink that was his choice, not mine. He is ready before I am, sitting there on the side of the bed in his briefs and socks, the dead-white skin of his chest stark under the full light that he likes. I imagine that it reminds him of an operating room. When he pats the center of the bed, I dutifully cross the room and climb on to it before presenting myself like a patient, because that’s what he wants, lying still on my back while he runs his cold hands over my body. He straddles me on the bed and I close my eyes, removing myself from this place, but he says, “Look at me, I want you to look at me.” So I open them, but I can’t meet his gaze, looking away from the intensity in his eyes to focus on a spot on his forehead. He examines me the way I imagine him checking his patients on the operating table, carefully perusing every inch of me through the reading glasses he sometimes wears, even in bed. I imagine what he would think if I suggested Botox for the thin trenches running across his forehead.
The bruise on my arm is an interruption in this fantasy he is enacting, a blemish on the blow-up doll beneath him. He runs a finger lightly across it, once, then again, watching my face, waiting for each wince. “How did this get here?” he says, but of course this question is rhetorical. He isn’t really asking, because he’s too busy erasing the mark, reshaping my arm mentally without it. But it won’t go easily, he can’t ignore it. He cups his hand over it—out of sight, now out of mind. It clearly disturbs him, this mark, and he keeps coming back to it, finally kissing the spot too hard several times. “There now, all better,” he says at last, like an owner soothing a pet he’s stepped on.
chapter eleven
JULIE
I’d always been a good sleeper, the person who takes forever to finish the book on the nightstand because she barely gets through two pages before nodding off. How many nights had Brian tugged a novel gently out of my slack hands and pulled up the covers, all without me waking? This changed after we found out about Heather.
Every night I’d lie there in bed, unable to stop my brain from cycling through Heather’s situation over and over again. I’m a planner and a problem solver—a keeper of daily lists that can be neatly checked off, a person who says yes where others say no, a certificate-bearing graduate of multiple, expensive motivational seminars. I’d fire-walked for goodness’ sake, practically skipping across the hot coals while fellow attendees with near-religious devotion chanted “Believe and do! Believe and do!” to the beat of a goatskin drum. But this was a situation that I couldn’t fix, and so I chewed at it in my mind, over and over, tugging and pulling, like a terrier with a rat, trying to conquer it.
“What’s going on?” Brian asked one night after weeks of my insomnia. In stereotypical fashion, it had taken him that long to notice something was up. He’s on the road so often, and when he is home, he’s got his head stuck to his phone or focused on his laptop. I once experimented with being a brunette and it took him five full days to realize that this change from red hair to brown was what had been throwing him off.
It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The holiday had passed in its usual bustle of shopping and traveling to Grandma’s house. It wasn’t over the river or through the woods, but my mother’s house was far enough away that I’d worried about what would happen if Heather needed me. My mother always insisted on hosting Thanksgiving dinner, even though her house was so small that we had to set up separate card tables in the living room to seat everybody. I’d endured the usual jokes from my aunts and cousins about being assigned to bring the store-bought rolls and drinks because “everybody knows that Julie doesn’t cook,” while ducking periodically into the privacy of my mother’s bedroom to check my phone.
“I’m fine,” Heather said, sounding impatient but unharmed when I’d finally reached her. I could hear some fast-paced, Eastern European–sounding music in the background. “We’re at his aunt’s house,” she said when I asked. And then she whispered, “It’s okay—he’s in a good mood.”
The way she talked about Viktor’s moods reminded me of a weather forecaster. I felt a momentary relief at hearing that things were fine, but of course he’d be on his best behavior out in public. Sarah had read some articles about how abuse could actually get worse over the holidays because of the additional stress. Christmas was coming and Viktor was likely to be around more.
I was worrying about this as Brian and I sat side by side in bed, when he looked up from the news he was scrolling through on his tablet and asked me what was going on. Apparently I hadn’t turned a page in my romance novel in a while. “How come you’re not conking out like you usually do? Is something wrong?”
I gave up any pretense of reading and tossed the book aside. “No, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“The McCormick sale?” he asked with understanding. He put his tablet aside and drew me into his arms. “You’ll get them to the closing table eventually, babe. You always do.”
I stiffened as his strong arms came around me, feelin
g slightly panicky as they wrapped around my midsection. Viktor grabbing Heather at the party, Viktor’s finger marks on her neck. “Hey, you really are stressed,” Brian said with surprise, feeling my resistance. “It’s just one sale, hon, you’ve got to let it go.”
If only it were about a sale. I could only look back with wonder at feeling so much anxiety over something so trivial. No one was going to lose his or her life over a house sale.
“It isn’t about the McCormick house or any other sale,” I said, turning to him in bed, thinking that this was it—he’d asked and I was going to tell him. “It’s about a friend—she’s being hurt—”
At that moment, we heard Aubrey cry out, a prolonged, high-pitched sound that startled both of us. She’d been waking from bad dreams recently and I’d wondered if she was somehow channeling the anxiety I was feeling. “My turn,” Brian said, throwing back the covers. “Back in a few—just hold that thought.”
Before he’d even made it out of the master bedroom, I knew that I couldn’t tell him. I’d made a promise to Heather and felt ashamed that I’d almost broken it, and for no better reason than my own fear, which was nothing compared to what she had to be feeling. There was nothing Brian could do about it anyway; there was no point in telling him. I switched off the lamp on my nightstand and rolled onto my side, closing my eyes and willing myself to be asleep before he came back. It didn’t work—I was as fully awake as I’d been every other night for weeks—but I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even as he got back into bed, feeling him hover over me for a second before his lips gently grazed my cheek. He was engrossed again in his tablet in a minute and missed the tears that I couldn’t stop from slipping soundlessly beneath my closed eyelids.
Just Between Us Page 8
