A Flicker in the Dark(13)

“People just kept handing me things,” I say, picking up a piece of bacon and biting down. “I don’t even know what I drank.”

Suddenly, I remember the Xanax. Popping that little white pill seconds before being shoved drink after drink. No wonder I feel so terrible; no wonder the edges of the night are so fuzzy, as if I’m rewatching the events of the evening through the bottom of a frosted glass. My cheeks burn red, but Daniel doesn’t notice. Instead, he laughs, running his fingers through my tangled hair. His, in comparison, is perfect. I realize now that he’s completely showered, his face clean-shaven and his sandy blonde hair combed and gelled, his part a razor-thin line. He smells like aftershave and cologne.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“New Orleans.” He frowns. “Remember, I told you last week? The conference?”

“Oh, right,” I say, shaking my head, although I don’t actually remember. “Sorry, my brain’s still foggy. But … it’s Saturday. Is it over the weekend? You just got home.”

I never knew much about pharmaceutical sales before I met Daniel. Really, the only thing I knew about it was the money; specifically, that the position made a lot of it. Or at least it could, if you did it well. But now I know more, like the constant travel the job requires. Daniel’s territory stretches halfway across Louisiana and into Mississippi, so during the week, he’s almost always in the car. Early mornings, late nights, hours on end driving from one hospital to another. There are also a lot of conferences: sales and training development, digital marketing for medical devices, seminars about the future of pharmaceuticals. I know he misses me while he’s away, but I know also that he likes it—the wining and dining, the fancy hotels, the schmoozing with doctors. He’s good at it, too.

“There’s a networking event at the hotel tonight,” he says slowly. “And a golf tournament tomorrow before the conference begins on Monday. You don’t remember any of this?”

My heart lurches in my chest. No, I think. I don’t remember any of this. But instead, I smile, pushing the plate of breakfast aside and throwing my arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I remember. I think I’m still drunk.”

Daniel laughs, like I knew he would, and tousles his hand through my hair like I’m a toddler up to bat during a game of peewee T-ball.

“Last night was fun,” I say, diverting the conversation. I rest my head on his lap and close my eyes. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he says, the tip of his finger now drawing shapes in my hair. A circle, a square, a heart. He’s quiet for a second, the kind of quiet that hangs heavy in the air, until finally he speaks. “What was that conversation with your brother about? The one outside?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” he says. “The one I walked in on.”

“Oh, you know,” I say, my eyelids feeling heavy again. “Just Cooper being Cooper. Nothing to worry about.”

“Whatever you guys were talking about … it looked a little tense.”

“He’s worried you’re not marrying me for the right reasons,” I say, lifting my fingers up to make air quotes. “But like I said, it’s just my brother. He’s overprotective.”

“He said that?”

I feel Daniel’s back stiffen as he pulls his hand from my hair. I wish I could swallow the words back down as soon as I say them—again, it’s the wine, still buzzing through my bloodstream. Making my thoughts spill over like an overpoured glass, staining the carpet.

“Forget I mentioned it,” I say, opening my eyes. I’m expecting him to be looking down at me, but instead, he’s staring ahead, straight at nothing. “He’ll learn to love you like I do, I know he will. He’s trying.”

“Did he say why he thinks that?”

“Daniel, seriously,” I say, sitting up in bed. “It’s not even worth talking about. Cooper is protective. He always has been, ever since I was a kid. Our past, you know. He kind of assumes the worst in people. We’re similar in that way.”

“Yeah,” Daniel says. He’s still staring ahead, his eyes glassy. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I know you’re marrying me for the right reasons,” I say, placing my palm on his cheek. He flinches, the touch of my skin seeming to wake him from his trance. “Like, for example, for my tight Pilates ass and orgasmic coq au vin.”

He turns to me, unable to keep his lips from cracking into a smile, then a laugh. He covers my hand with his own and squeezes my fingers before standing.

“Don’t work all weekend,” he says, patting down the creases in his ironed pants. “Get outside. Do something fun.”

I roll my eyes and snatch another piece of bacon, folding it in half before sticking it in my mouth whole.

“Or get some wedding planning done,” he continues. “It’s the final countdown.”

“Next month,” I say, grinning. The fact that we booked our wedding in July—twenty years to the month from when the girls first went missing—is not lost on me. The thought flashed into my mind the moment we walked into Cypress Stables, the oak trees dripping over a gorgeous cobblestone aisle, white painted chairs perfectly aligned with four massive farmhouse columns. Acres and acres of untouched land spanning as far as the eye could see. I still remember setting my sights on the restored barn at the edge of the property that could be used for a reception space, giant wooden pillars decorated with string lights and greenery and milky magnolia flowers. A white picket fence corralling horses as they grazed across the pasture, the plane of green broken only by a bayou in the distance, winding gently across the horizon like a thick, blue vein.