Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(36)
Hell, Mack was an insider and in the end, she wasn’t very likable to him, either.
But those people would talk about her as if she’d been some kind of hero or martyr.
Strange how sudden death brings instant celebrity to the victim and to those left behind. Especially a death as spectacularly horrific as Carrie’s.
“You must have been devastated when it happened,” Zoe tells Mack, who nods, because that, at least, is the truth.
He wishes somebody would show up to rescue him. Turning his head, he spots Allison’s friend Sheila and her husband, Dean, standing nearby but keeping to themselves, looking somewhat glum.
Allison told him that they’re in the midst of infertility treatments—at Riverview, the very same clinic Mack and Carrie used.
Not surprising, really. The place came highly recommended; some of the best fertility specialists in the city—perhaps in the entire country—are on staff there.
Mack carries a lot of memories of those days at Riverview, located in a Washington Heights brownstone that struck him as charming the first time he ever saw it, yet gloomily foreboding ever after.
The only happy scene he recalls unfolded in a sun-splashed room at the very beginning of the journey, when Dr. Hammond told him and Carrie that she could help them conceive. On that day, parenthood was tantalizingly within their reach.
As time marched on, though, things went downhill. Mack certainly didn’t relish his regular treks to the clinic’s windowless room—stocked with sticky, outdated porn—to leave sperm deposits. The former altar boy in him couldn’t help but find the experience somewhat humiliating. But it was nothing compared to what Carrie went through, and she never missed a chance to remind him of it.
The hormonal drugs wreaked havoc on his wife, and weight gain was the least of it. Always somewhat moody, she became downright impossible. Not a memory he particularly wants to revisit.
And so, a day or two ago, when Allison suggested, over a hurried breakfast in their kitchen, that he give Sheila and Dean a little pep talk about the infertility experience, he flatly refused.
“Nothing I have to tell them is going to make them feel any better. If anything, it would be the opposite. My experience at Riverview didn’t exactly have a happy ending, remember?”
Now, he quickly looks past Sheila and Dean, avoiding eye contact.
Ben is nearby, talking to the lead guitarist of the live band. They’re on a break at the moment—a most welcome one, as far as Mack is concerned.
His father had worked for a record label, and he’s enjoyed music—particularly live music—for as long as he can remember. But tonight, the amped guitars and relentless percussion made him cringe, and he’s not quite sure why.
All he really wanted was a quiet Saturday evening on the couch. But here he is, because this is his best friend’s party and Allison, who’s stuck home with the kids every day, really wanted to come. They even actually have a sitter for once, having borrowed Greta, Ben and Randi’s au pair, for the night.
“Don’t worry about anything,” Randi told Mack and Allison when she offered Greta’s services, since both her own children were conveniently invited to slumber parties. “You know she’s great with kids. And if it’ll give you peace of mind, you can borrow my nanny cam for the night.”
“You’re still using that?” Allison asked, and looked at Mack.
How well he remembered when the Webers first installed the surveillance equipment that allowed them to spy on their childcare providers, back when their children were young. Ben walked him through the house and showed him the tiny cameras hidden in every room.
It didn’t sit well with Mack at the time—though of course, that was before he became a father. Now that he is, he knows how hard it is to leave your precious children with a virtual stranger. He can’t blame the Webers for wanting to keep an eye on things. And, as Ben pointed out, this is the world they now inhabit.
“There are cameras everywhere you go, Mack. Seriously. Big Brother is always watching.”
“In public, that’s true.” He’d read somewhere that since 9/11, monitored surveillance cameras are able to zoom in on anything in the city, right down to a square inch on the sidewalk. “But at home . . .”
“Wait till your kids are older,” Ben told him. “Yesterday, I walk into my son’s room to tell him something, and I’m wearing a towel, and then I realize that we’re not alone—Josh has a video chat open on his iPad and there’s some kid in there who can see and hear everything that goes on. There’s no privacy anymore, anywhere—even in your own house. You never know who’s watching and listening. A nanny cam is the least of it.”
As a perpetually worried mom, Allison would have gladly accepted the use of the nanny cam for tonight, but Mack talked her out of it.
“It’s just a few hours,” he reminded her. “And Greta is trustworthy. If she weren’t, the Webers wouldn’t use her.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Now he wishes he hadn’t been so gung-ho on the sitter.
As Zoe talks on, speculating about what September 11 must have been like for him, Mack looks over at Allison, who—as if sensing he needs her—turns her head to meet his gaze head-on. She’s lost a few pounds lately, and she looks spectacular in her own little black dress.