The Sleepwalker(71)

I closed the datebook and took a step away from the desk. Even if he hadn’t seen Annalee Ahlberg that day—even if for some reason either he or my mother had canceled, and my mother had done something else that afternoon—they had been in contact. His insistence that he hadn’t heard from her in years? An absolute lie.

And it seemed to me, if you are capable of one lie, you are capable of two. Or three. Or many. The first lie is the hardest. The rest, I had learned myself since I had started dating Gavin, came rather easily.

I turned and watched him sleeping. I thought of what had happened last night and what he had told me of his history. How much of it was the truth and how much of it was fabrication? It occurred to me that he and my mother might in fact have been lovers, a realization that sickened me, but far worse possibilities crossed my mind as well. I recalled what the coroner had stipulated as the cause of my mother’s death: A subdural hematoma. A violent head injury.

I told myself that I needn’t be frightened. I had been alone with Gavin a lot since we had met. But I was scared, I couldn’t deny that. I went to shower as I had planned, hoping to clear my head there and decide whether to confront him with what I had learned. When I closed the bathroom door, I locked it.



I dressed in the bathroom. When I emerged, he was in his kitchen making coffee; it smelled heavenly. He was wearing an old rugby shirt he liked and a pair of baggy gym shorts. He turned to me and looked a little sheepish. The sky out the window was a flat sheet of gunmetal gray. The lake was choppy.

“I woke up and was…” he began, his voice trailing off awkwardly. “Did something happen last night?”

I nodded.

He put the black plastic scoop back in the canister. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against him. I let him, but I was reserved. I could tell he thought it was because of the sleep sex. “I am so sorry,” he murmured. “Was it awful?”

“No. It was strange. You were a little rough—”

“But only a little?”

“Maybe a little more than a little.”

“Tell me the truth: Did I hurt you?”

I thought of the bruises I had noticed in the shower, but I answered, “Not really. No.”

“Can you talk about it? I need to know what I did. I need to know how upset you are.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I care about you. I don’t want to lose you.”

I pushed him away and took a step back.

“If you had to testify under oath in court,” I said, speaking carefully because I knew how much I was risking, “could you honestly say you had not seen my mother in years?”

“What in the world does that have to do with last night?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what’s going on here? Was I talking in my sleep, too? Did I say something about her?”

“No. You were only moaning.”

“Well, I guess I should be relieved. But clearly you were pretty disgusted. You are pretty disgusted.”

“You left out your datebook,” I told him.

His face went a little blank for a moment while he tried to understand what I was referring to. Then he leaned back against the counter and shook his head, annoyed with me. He knew what I was talking about. He knew what I had seen. “Do you make it a habit of going through people’s things? Did you rifle through my wallet, too?”

“No.”

“Kind of a violation, don’t you think?”

“Kind of a lie, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The fact I saw your mother two days before she disappeared is part of the record. Everyone who needs to know knows. I told them.”

“But not me.”

“Nope.”

“Why not? Explain. Haven’t I earned that?”

“Earned that? This isn’t about recognition or achievement. It’s not like you’re back at college and you’ve passed some test.”

Does anyone ever fight reasonably? Perhaps. But I’ve never met that person. It would have been reasonable for me to respond by reminding him that we were lovers or we were dating or, maybe, that I had a particularly vested interest in the status of the investigation. A reasonable person wouldn’t have risked her life by antagonizing him. But the combination of my love for my mother and the fact he had lied to me trumped all of that. I was almost delirious. “You fucked me last night without my permission,” I hissed.

“We’re back there now, are we? Are you going to play the consent card? Claim I raped you? Or is this really about why I didn’t tell you that I saw your mother two days before she died? Pick one and let’s begin there,” he said, exasperated.

“All right, why did you lie to me?”

“Because it’s an ongoing investigation and you’re not a cop. I told the people who are involved. But you and me? We’re not partners in this, Lianna. It was—and I am being brutally honest here—none of your business.”

“Why? Because you were fucking her, too? Did you have some kinky sleep sex club? Was ‘bakery’ a creepy euphemism for fucking?”

“Why are you using that word?”

“Because it’s violent and nasty. Because I’m really pissed off. And because you lied to me.”