Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)
Wendy Corsi Staub
PART I
The worst thing in the world
is to try to sleep and not to.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter One
Glenhaven Park, Westchester County, New York
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Her husband has suffered from insomnia all his life, but tonight, Allison MacKenna is the one who can’t sleep.
Lying on her side of the king-sized bed in their master bedroom, she listens to the quiet rhythm of her own breathing, the summery chatter of crickets and night birds beyond the window screen, and the faint hum of the television in the living room downstairs.
Mack is down there, stretched out on the couch. When she stuck her head in about an hour ago to tell him she was going to bed, he was watching Animal House on cable.
“What happened to the Jets game?” she asked.
“They were down fourteen at the half so I turned the channel. Want to watch the movie? It’s just starting.”
“Seen it,” she said dryly. As in, Who hasn’t?
“Yeah? Is it any good?” he returned, just as dryly.
“As a former fraternity boy, you’ll love it, I’m sure.” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him.
Might as well: “And you might want to revisit that Jets game.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“They’re in the middle of a historic comeback. I just read about it online. You should watch.”
“I’m not in the mood. The Giants are my team, not the Jets.”
Determined to make light of it, she said, “Um, excuse me, aren’t you the man who asked my OB-GYN to preschedule a C-section last winter because you were worried I might go into labor while the Jets were playing?”
“That was for the AFC Championship!”
She just shook her head and bent to kiss him in the spot where his dark hair, cut almost buzz-short, has begun the inevitable retreat from his forehead.
When she met Mack, he was in his mid-thirties and looked a decade younger, her own age. Now he owns his forty-four years, with a sprinkling of gray at his temples and wrinkles that frond the corners of his green eyes. His is the rare Irish complexion that tans, rather than burns, thanks to a rumored splash of Mediterranean blood somewhere in his genetic pool. But this summer, his skin has been white as January, and the pallor adds to the overall aura of world-weariness.
Tonight, neither of them was willing to discuss why Mack, a die-hard sports fan, preferred an old movie he’d seen a hundred times to an exciting football game on opening day of the NFL season—which also happens to coincide with the milestone tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The networks and most of the cable channels have provided a barrage of special programming all weekend. You couldn’t escape it, not even with football.
Allison had seen her husband abruptly switch off the Giants game this afternoon right before the kickoff, as the National Anthem played and an enormous flag was unfurled on the field by people who had lost loved ones ten years ago today.
It’s been a long day. It might be a long night, too.
She opens her eyes abruptly, hearing a car slowing on the street out front. Reflected headlights arc across the ceiling of the master bedroom, filtering in through the sheer curtains. Moments later, the engine turns off, car doors slam, faint voices and laughter float up to the screened windows: the neighbors returning from their weekend house in Vermont.
Every Friday, the Lewises drive away from the four-thousand-square-foot Colonial next door that has a home gym over the three-car garage, saltwater swimming pool, and sunken patio with a massive outdoor stone fireplace, hot tub, and wet bar. Allison, who takes in their mail and feeds Marnie, the world’s most lovable black cat, while they’re gone, is well aware that the inside of their house is as spectacular as the outside.
She always assumed that their country home must be pretty grand for them to leave all that behind every weekend, particularly since Bob Lewis spends a few nights every week away on business travel as it is.
But then a few months ago, when she and Phyllis were having a neighborly chat, Phyllis mentioned that it’s an old lakeside home that’s been in Bob’s family for a hundred years.
Allison pictured a rambling waterfront mansion. “It sounds beautiful.”
“Well, I don’t know about beautiful,” Phyllis told her with a laugh. “It’s just a farmhouse, with claw-foot bathtubs instead of showers, holes in the screens, bats in the attic . . .”
“Really?”
“Really. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. That’s why we love it. It’s completely relaxing. Living around here—it’s more and more like a pressure cooker. Sometimes you just need to get away from it all. You know?”
Yeah. Allison knows.
Every Fourth of July, the MacKennas spend a week at the Jersey Shore, staying with Mack’s divorced sister, Lynn, and her three kids at their Salt Breeze Pointe beach house.
This year, Mack drove down with the family for the holiday weekend. Early Tuesday morning, he hastily packed his bag to go—no, to flee—back to the city, claiming something had come up at the office.
Not necessarily a far-fetched excuse.
Last January, the same week Allison had given birth to their third child (on a Wednesday, and not by scheduled C-section), Mack was promoted to vice president of television advertising sales. Now he works longer hours than ever before. Even when he’s physically present with Allison and the kids, he’s often attached—reluctantly, even grudgingly, but nevertheless inseparably—to his BlackBerry.