A Good Marriage(71)

I’m starting to worry Daddy doesn’t want money. That he came to Brooklyn because he wants to drag me back to St. Colomb Falls, to prove he owns me even now. But I won’t let him. I will not.



When I sat up, the journal slipped through my fingers and bumped Sam’s shoulder. Amanda’s father was there in Park Slope? It was him stalking her. It had to be.

Sam startled awake as if from a bad dream.

“Oh, it’s you,” he exhaled, relieved, then wrapped an arm tight around my hips. I bristled. So much for letting things go. “What are you reading?”

“It’s a journal.”

“You’re reading somebody’s journal?” Sam mumbled. “That’s not very nice.”

“It belongs to a woman who was killed in Park Slope.”

“What?” Sam asked with a half laugh. “In Park Slope? When?” He sounded much more awake now.

“Center Slope. It was over last weekend, when we were away,” I said.

“That’s awful.” He was quiet for a moment. “Where was it?”

“Montgomery Place. She had a son. Ten years old. I’m representing her husband.” It was a jab—see all the things you don’t know about me. I couldn’t help it.

“Representing her husband?” Sam asked. “I didn’t think Young & Crane handled cases like that.”

“They don’t. I do. We were friends in law school. Until it got … complicated,” I said, intentionally suggestive. “I think he’s innocent.”

Sam rose up on his elbows. “You think? Who is this guy, Lizzie? What’s going on?”

He sounded wounded. And I was the tiniest bit glad.

“His name is Zach Grayson,” I said. “We were friends, but then he wanted to be more than friends. I didn’t want that, so we weren’t friends anymore.”

That dinner where I’d told Zach about my imaginary boyfriend had ended politely. But, I now remembered, it had also been our last. The next time I’d seen Zach, at the law school’s library, he’d smiled and said hello, but didn’t stop to chat. Two weeks later and he was no longer even saying hi. I didn’t push for explanations either. I figured Zach would be back in touch with me eventually. When he was ready. Instead, he’d disappeared permanently. Not from the law school, but from my life. And I’d been relieved. It made me feel guilty at the time. Maybe that was why I’d agreed to see Zach in Rikers in the first place.

“And now you’re representing him?” Sam sat up. “This guy who wanted to date you?”

“Yes. I went to see him at Rikers.” Another jab.

“Rikers?” he asked. “You hate Rikers. You told me you’d never go back there. Anyway, you’re supposed to be doing corporate law.”

“Yes, thanks to you I am doing corporate law.” I yanked the blanket back and swung my feet to the floor, trying to stay calm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked.

Oh, no, Sam didn’t get to play dumb about that. Not after everything he’d put me through. Suddenly, all the anger I’d been pushing down for so long was about to blow.

“That means just what I said: that it’s your fault I’m working at Young & Crane. That the career I worked so hard for is ruined, thanks to your accident. Isn’t that what you’re always apologizing for?”

Sam’s eyes widened. “So because of the accident I’m not allowed to have an opinion about anything you do ever again?” He was shouting, but he sounded more hurt, which only made me more enraged. “How is that going to work, Lizzie?”

I jumped out of bed and turned to glare at him in the shadowy halo of my booklight.

“You can have an opinion. Right after you tell me whose fucking earring I found in your bag.”

Sam recoiled, then froze. Only silence followed. Too much of it. Fuck.

Finally, Sam sucked in some air like he was about to launch into an explanation. Instead, he flopped back down on the bed. Eyes up on the ceiling, he exhaled loudly. Then he lay so flat and motionless. In the cold, endless silence, my stomach tucked into a fist.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I don’t know whose earring it is,” Sam said at last, his voice small and scared. “That’s the truth.”

Denial or defensiveness, clumsy lying, maybe even anger, I was prepared for all those things. But not fear.

“You don’t know?” Take it back, I wanted to say. Take it back.

“I wish to God that I did know. I’ve searched and searched and searched my memory. I’ve tried to picture the earring. Tried to imagine who it might belong to or how it might have gotten into my pocket. That’s where I found it, in the pocket of my sweatshirt. But there’s nothing, Lizzie. Nothing.”

In another marriage, this would have been a ridiculous excuse. But in ours, lost time was a shameful fact of life.

“When?” I whispered. “When did you find it?”

“The night I hit my head. I found it in my pocket before we left for the hospital.”

I swallowed. “Where did you go drinking that night?” I’d specifically avoided asking this the day after. I’d avoided asking it in all the days that followed.

In my defense, there’d been an emergency to attend to. I’d found Sam bleeding, called the ambulance, then dealt with the EMTs in our apartment. Once they’d realized that all that blood had been from just the one cut—apparently heads bleed a lot—they’d recommended we go on our own by taxi to Methodist Hospital, a much cheaper option than the unnecessary ambulance. After that there was the waiting in the ER, and then the stitches and the ride home and cleaning up. When all that was done, I needed to head in to the office before we left for the weekend.