She backed away. “Don’t stir the pot, Sadie.”
Philip remained locked away in his office and refused to come out for supper, so she made a quick meal of hotdogs for Sam and a salad for herself. She left a plate of the past night’s leftovers—ham, potatoes and vegetables—on the counter for Philip.
Later, she gave Sam a bath and dressed him for bed.
“Auntie Leah came over today,” she said, buttoning his pajama top. “She told me to say hi to her favorite boy.”
There wasn’t much else to say, other than she had finished writing the bat story. She wasn’t about to tell him that she had ordered his birthday cake and bought him a bicycle, which she had wrestled into the house by herself and hidden in the basement.
“Want me to read you a story?” she asked.
Sam grinned.
She sat on the edge of the bed and nudged her head in the direction of the bookshelf. “You pick.”
He wandered over to the rows of books, staring at them thoughtfully. Then he zeroed in on a book with a white spine. It was the same story he chose every night.
“My Imaginary Friend again?” she asked, amused.
He nodded and jumped into bed, settling under the blankets.
Sadie snuggled in beside him. As she read about Cathy, a young girl with an imaginary friend who always got her into trouble, she couldn’t help but think of Sam. For the past year, he’d been adamant about the existence of Joey, a boy his age who he swore lived in his room. She’d often catch Sam smiling and nodding, as if in conversation. No words, no signing, just the odd facial expression. Some days he seemed lost in his own world.
“Lisa says you should close your eyes,” she read.
Sam’s eyes fluttered shut.
“Now turn this page and use your imagination.”
He turned the page, then opened his eyes. They lit up when he saw the colorful drawing of Cathy’s imaginary friend, Lisa.
“Can you see me now?” she read, smiling.
Sam pointed to the girl in the mirror.
“Good night, Cathy. And good night, friend. The end.”
She closed the book and set it next to the bat signal clock on the nightstand. Then she scooted off the bed, leaned down and kissed her son’s warm skin.
“Good night, Sam-I-Am.”
His small hand reached up. With one finger, he drew a sideways ‘S’ in the air. Their nightly ritual.
“S… for Sam,” she said softly.
And like every night, she drew the reflection.
“S… for Sadie.”
Together, they created an infinity symbol.
She smiled. “Always and forever.”
She flicked off the bedside lamp and eased out of the room. As she looked over her shoulder, she saw Sam’s angelic face illuminated by the light from the hall. She shut the door, pressed her cheek against it and closed her eyes.
Sam was the only one who truly loved her, trusted her. From the first day he had rested his huge black-lashed eyes on hers, she had fallen completely and undeniably in love. A mother’s love could be no purer.
“My beautiful boy.”
Turning away, she slammed into a tall, solid mass. Her smile disappeared when she identified it.
Philip.
And he wasn’t happy. Not one bit.
He glared down at her, one hand braced against the wall to bar her escape. His lips—the same ones that had smiled at her so charismatically the night they had met—were curled in disdain.
“You could’ve told me Sam was going to bed.”
She sidestepped around him. “You were busy. As usual.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
She cringed at his abrasive tone, but said nothing.
“You’re not going all paranoid on me again, are you?” He grabbed her arm. “I already told you. Brigitte is a co-worker. Nothing more. Jesus, Sadie! You’re not a child. You’re almost forty years old. What the hell’s gotten into you lately?”
“Not a thing, Philip. And I’ll be thirty-eight this year. Not forty.” She yanked her arm away, then brushed past him, heading for the bedroom.
Their marriage was a sham.
“Doomed from the beginning,” her mother had told her one night when Sadie, a sobbing wreck, had called her after Philip had admitted to his first affair.
But she’d proven her mother wrong. Hadn’t she? Things seemed better the year after Sam was born. Then she and Philip started fighting again. Lately, it had escalated into a nightly event. At least on the nights he came home before she went to sleep.
Philip entered the bedroom and slammed the door.
“You know,” he said. “You’ve been a bitch for months.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“A frigid bitch. And we both know it’s not from PMS, seeing as you don’t get that anymore.”
Flinching, she caught her sad reflection in the dresser mirror. She should be used to his careless name-calling by now. But she wasn’t. Each time, it was like a knife piercing deeper into her heart. One of these days, she wouldn’t be able to pull it out. Then where would they be? Just another statistic?
Philip waited behind her, flustered, combing a hand through his graying brown hair.
For a moment, she felt ashamed of her thoughts.
“Are you even listening to me?” he sputtered in outrage.
And the moment was gone.
She sighed, drained. “What do you want me to say, Philip? You’re never home. And when you are, you’re busy working in your office. We don’t do anything together or go any—”
“Christ, Sadie! We were just out with Morris and his wife.”
“I’m not talking about functions for the firm,” she argued. “We don’t see our old friends anymore. We never go to movies, never just sit and talk, never make… love.”
Philip crossed his arms and scowled. “And whose fault is that? It’s certainly not mine. You’re the one who pulls away every time I try to get close to you. You know, a guy can only handle so much rejection before—”
“What?” She whipped around to confront him. “Before you go looking for it elsewhere?”
He stared at her for a long moment and the air grew rank with tension, coiling around them with the slyness of a venomous snake, fangs exposed, ready to strike.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, defeated. “Maybe if you gave some of the love you pour on Sam to me once in a while, I wouldn’t be tempted to look elsewhere.”
He strode out of the room, his footsteps thundering down the stairs. A minute later, a door slammed.
She released a trembling breath. “Coward.”
She wasn’t sure if she meant Philip… or herself.
Brushing the drapes aside, she peered through the window to the dimly lit street below. It was devoid of any moving traffic, just a few parked vehicles lining the sidewalks. The faint rumble of the garage door made her clench the drapes. She heard the defiant revving of an engine, and then watched as the Mercedes backed down the driveway, a stream of frosty exhaust trailing behind it. The surface of the street shimmered from a fresh glazing of ice, and the car sped away, tires spinning on the pavement.
Philip always seemed to get in the last word.
She watched the fiery glow of the taillights as they faded into the night. Then the flickering of the streetlamp across the road caught her eye. She frowned when the light went out. One of the neighbors’ dogs started barking, set off by either the abrupt darkness or Philip’s noisy departure. She wasn’t sure which.
And then something emerged from the bushes.
A lumbering shadow shuffled down the sidewalk, a few yards to the right of the lamp. It was a man, of that she was sure. She could make out a heavy jacket and some kind of hat, but she couldn’t distinguish anything else.