“Noah-”
I’d thought nothing could scare me as much as Dulcie’s disappearance the other night, and probably nothing could. But the expression on Noah’s face was ripping at my heart, leaving ragged edges that I knew were going to hurt me for days. For weeks. Maybe forever. I couldn’t do this.
“Noah-”
“No. Don’t interrupt me. Let me say this, and when I’m done you can talk. We’ll take turns. We’ll pretend we are utterly civilized and sophisticated even though what I feel like doing now is getting up out of my seat, taking you by the shoulders, and shaking you until your brains rattle back into place. So can you-you who always has something to say and who loves to control everything-be quiet long enough to let me talk?”
He didn’t understand. I needed to explain. To stop him before-
Before I could answer, the waiter arrived with our food. The iridescent black shells glistening in their fragrant broth should have been tantalizing, but suddenly I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. Noah, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be affected, and popped a steaming mussel in his mouth.
“I don’t want to go backward, Noah.”
“With me? With Mitch? What do you want, Morgan?”
I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to break any promises. I didn’t want my daughter to become a stranger. I missed Dulcie so much my eyes hurt when I got home at night and I couldn’t see her, my arms ached at not being able to hug her before she went to bed.
I played with the mussels, tried to eat a few, and then gave up.
When he was halfway done with his food, he pushed his plate away, took a long, slow drink, sat back in his seat and said: “I can’t believe we’re here again. But we are. Listen, I’m not a hard-ass, Morgan. I understand that this fight with Dulcie is torturing you and that you’ll do anything to make it right again. I’m not even going to suggest that if you do get back with your ex-husband that it won’t help your relationship with Dulcie get better. Because I don’t know that. It might. It just might.”
He stopped to drink what was left of his martini and then waved the waiter over and ordered another for each of us, even though I hadn’t finished mine.
I started to say something but he put up his hand. “I don’t have a lot more to say, so if you can, I’d appreciate it if you could continue not interrupting me till I’m done.”
I didn’t want to. I hated seeing him in any kind of pain. But this was so complicated. There were too many questions on the table, along with all the forks and spoons and knives.
“You should see your face. This is hurting you like hell. Well, it’s hurting me like hell, too. But you know what? It’s too complicated. So let me make it easy.” He smiled sarcastically. “Go do whatever it is you think you have to do. But understand, I don’t believe for one goddamn second that you are really doing this because it will solve everything between you and Dulcie. She’s thirteen, she has to rebel. She has to argue. She has to want things you can’t give her. It’s a rite of passage for both of you. Hell, you know that. You are a goddamn shrink. That’s why you know you wouldn’t be going back to Mitch for any of the right reasons, but because it’s the path of least resistance. It’s goddamn easier.”
This was a mess. Like the stupid roux. It had gone from golden to burnt and I hadn’t even known where along the way I’d screwed it up. Reaching down, I grabbed my bag off the floor, prepared to leave. I couldn’t quite see where I was going because of the stupid tears. I wanted to hold Noah and tell him how I felt about him. Instead I said, “You can’t know what my reasons are. The presumption behind everything you just said is astounding.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the couple next to us were listening. It was too late to care.
“You’d be right if I was wrong. But I’m not wrong.” Noah shook his head. “I’m not the one who you want to hear this from, but I’m the one who is sitting here and I’m the one who is crazy about you and I’m the poor fucker who is going to lose out here. What you’re doing is wrong. It’s not that it’s wrong for me, or Dulcie, or Mitch. It’s wrong for you, Morgan.”
Fifty-Two
The apartment was not only empty but it was cold. Too cold. It wasn’t until I went into the den that I found out why. When I’d left in the morning, in a hurry to meet Alan Leightman early, I’d forgotten that the window was cracked open from the night before, and now there was a small pile of snow on the carpet.
For some reason this, of everything that had happened, overwhelmed me. I shut the window, then kicked at the mess with my bare foot, not caring that it was freezing or that it was wet or that I was only making a bigger mess. Snow did not belong inside. It was an intrusion in my home.
Down on my knees, I rubbed at it, freezing my fingers until it melted and the rug wicked it up.
After that I took a bath, went into the kitchen and made some tea. I picked up the phone and dialed Mitch’s number so I could talk to Dulcie, but I hung up before it connected. Instead I punched in Nina’s number. She wasn’t home either and I didn’t bother leaving a message.
It was quiet in the house and I kept hearing Noah’s words in my head. I didn’t want to think about what he’d said. He didn’t know me that well. He had no idea what he was talking about. I had been married to Mitch for fourteen years. It had been good with him. With us. It would be again. Dulcie would have her family back. It was a happy ending.
No. It wasn’t a happy ending. It was a happy beginning. That was even better. A new start.
Then why did I feel as if I were in mourning?
Thursday Eight days remaining
Fifty-Three
Dearest,
One more candle has been lit to commemorate one more death. One more step closer to full retribution and one act closer to fulfilling my promise to you. There are only eight days left and then I’ll be done with the fun and the blood and the guts and the gore and nothing will matter because you are still gone.
I am so tired. Tired from being careful and from keeping track. I have so much to do, to monitor, to control. There are a million details, just like the millions of men out there addicted to Internet porn. Addicted to watching women, women who are not women. I pity the men who come up against them and, more than the men, I pity the boys who have had their first sex on screen. Watched virtual women undulate and whisper to them and them alone long before they’d ever approach a real young woman. All during their developing years, the Web lifts its shirt and flashes these spoiled boys the prettiest breasts and tightest vaginas and never ever asks them to give anything back. Not a word, not a thought, not compassion and not caring, no, none of those, just a credit card number that their parents give them, or they steal.
No one, not therapists, not lawyers, not teachers, not parents, has the experience or the knowledge to deal with our troubled children because they are a mutation-the first generation who have been suckled by twenty-four-hour, easily accessible and practically free instant gratification. Twenty-four-hour poison.
The more I watch what you watched, the more sacred this quest, the more critical these rituals and important this cleansing. We need to burn every one of them at the stake until there are none left to tempt, lure, entice, bait and seduce. To set the devil’s examples that young women follow into hell.
It was frightening to watch that girl cutting herself and watch the razor blade slice open her skin and see the blood rise so quickly to the surface and to think you once watched her cutting, too. This time she made fourteen cuts until her skin was ribboned with thin, sad lines of blood.
When she was done cutting the computer did not go black and she didn’t realize what was happening. She never went for the phone and no one came to her aid.