At the school I’d even made some friends. Sure, they were crazy, drugged-up friends. But they were friends nonetheless. Dr. Chang had a staff of young doctors working with him, most of whom rotated out each semester. But they were all bright, and had the energy of camp counselors. I remember a lanky young man in his twenties, and a girl with red hair who smiled a lot. But there were so many of them over the years and they stayed for such a short time, I can’t recall many faces or names. I think you try to forget a place like that.
I lost touch with all my nutty friends, too. No one wants to remember crazy school. Once you’re out, you don’t admit you were ever there, and you think about it as little as possible. But for some reason, as I was crouching there at the attic access, it was coming back.
It was something about Luke’s hideaway, his bags of candy and weirdly inappropriate reading material. Something Rachel had said about how he manipulated the other kids with candy. Something buried deep inside me was crawling its way back up through those layers.
My brilliant plan: as soon as I saw the figure come up, I would go down. I would race down the stairs, grab my bag, and flee out the back door into the woods. That was one advantage to being small. I was fast as lightning when I wanted to be. I was going to go straight to Dr. Cooper. I needed to talk to her. I was going to tell her everything. I was going to ask for her help. I could tell Jones Cooper everything I’d figured out; he’d get the police to go into the woods. Maybe they’d find Beck. But the minutes ticked by, and no one came. I waited, and waited, then finally I decided to go for it.
I pushed the hatch down hard and the ladder crashed to the landing with a bang. And I scrambled down quickly. I landed lightly on the floor and ran. I was already downstairs by the time I heard the reaction, a crash, a sudden storm of footfalls.
I ducked to grab my bag as I passed the kitchen counter in one lithe maneuver, but on an upturned corner of the area rug, I lost my footing. I fell, sprawled, spilling the contents of my bag. The footfalls were on the stairs now as I gathered up my things-a notebook, my cell phone… leave the pens. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. As I hit the back door, I realized it was locked. The dead bolt, the one I had locked myself. I needed the key.
I fished in my pocket, panic rising up my throat, adrenaline making me clumsy, butterfingers. Fumbling with the lock. Then I was bursting out into the cold, racing for the woods. I dared to look behind, where a dark form lurked in the doorway.
I froze at the edge of the woods, staring. For a moment, just a moment, I thought I was looking at my father.
26
Dear Diary,
I’m here again. Even though I promised myself that I wouldn’t visit with you anymore. But I honestly don’t have anywhere else to turn. I can’t stand to burden my mother. I know she worries about me so much already. And my sister? Well, the ugly truth is that she’s just so goddamn perfect, I can’t handle the idea of losing face in front of her again.
I mean, I look at her, and envy just curdles all the love I have for her inside. She seems to grow ever dewier and more youthful, even as the years drain me of whatever beauty I once possessed. Her marriage is strong and healthy. Sure, she and her husband argue all the time, she insists. He’s a slob, thinks she’s a micromanager of everything in the house. He’s too lenient with the girls, says she’s too strict. She doesn’t like to cook; he feels they eat out too much. Really, I think, that’s what you argue about? I would love to argue about things like that, normal, meaningless things that only prove your foundation is rock solid.
Meanwhile, she’s a natural mother, never seeming beleaguered or overwhelmed by it all. Even when the girls were small, there was none of that wild-haired, stained shirt, exasperated impatience that seems to characterize motherhood for so many. She was the one milling baby food and breast-feeding for years. She was carrying her girls around in slings, quitting her job, making gingerbread cookies. (Sure, they tasted like shit. She really was a terrible cook-her one personal flaw. But still, she baked.) She was the kind of woman who said she was grateful for her life and her children and her husband. And she meant it. And she had really great taste. I mean she always looked amazing and her house could have been in a magazine. Seriously.
How could I tell her that I thought my husband wanted to kill me? That he was perhaps plotting to kill me? I could imagine the look on her face. Open at first. Then wondering if perhaps I’d lost my mind. Then, stern. She’d have an action plan, and would hover until it was implemented. She’d save my life probably, and still get home in time to order Thai takeout. And all the while she and I would both be aware of her vast superiority, how well she ran her life. How she had recovered after “what Daddy did” and how I never really did. How I floundered after that and never quite found my footing, not really. And she’d have to take a certain kind of pleasure in it. Because for a time it seemed like things would be quite the opposite. While she grieved and was nearly crushed beneath the weight of our shame and tragedy, I ran wild. She disappeared into school and books, spent years in therapy. I lived it up, skating through school, enjoying my role as the pretty one, the popular one, the one that boys liked.
And my husband was rich and handsome. While hers-well, everyone agreed that John was a good guy, stable and reliable, everything her own father wasn’t. But he was a bit of a geek, wasn’t he? A computer nerd. He wasn’t dark and mysterious, not one to whisk her off to Paris. And her ring was lovely, but well within his means. No one really got that he was a fucking genius and that he’d invent some piece of hardware that would revolutionize computers. No one expected him to get crazy rich. I didn’t anyway.
So-really. How could I call her up and say, Sis, I’m in trouble? Again. I couldn’t; that’s how. I won’t. From all outside appearances, things have normalized. Our son is doing well in school, has some friends. If he’s a bit bookish, a bit girlish-well, he goes to an artsy, progressive private school that is well supervised, so there is no playground torturing. And the kids seem to accept him. So that’s a big deal and I’m happy for him.
My husband has finished his novel and he’s found an agent. It’s gone out to publishers, and it looks like he might actually sell it. So the surface picture of us looks fine to my family, and I’d like to keep it that way. And to think I was actually feeling pretty good about things.
And then I realized that my husband was having an affair. It was not a fling or a one-night stand, but a relationship that had spanned the better part of the last five years. He tried to call it off when we moved to Florida. When I told him I needed him and we thought we were in love again. But it started up again soon after. I wonder: Did we not make it because he loved someone else? Or did he go back to her because we couldn’t make our marriage work?
His flaming, torrid e-mail correspondence (of which he has studiously saved every single miserable missive) with her is pathetic and full of all the old clichés. You deserve so much better than this. But I can’t leave them. My son can’t handle it. Or: Just be patient, my love. We’ll find a way to be together. Or: A love like ours that has survived so much, will survive. We’ll have our day. I know: Barf. It doesn’t bode well for his novel.
The worst part is that there’s a child, a boy. My husband steals visits for birthdays, sends gifts charged on a card he doesn’t think I know about. He sends money. The child is small, just five now, I think. I feel bad for that kid. I really do.