Before She Knew Him(72)
“I’m not suggesting a vacation, Hen. I’m suggesting that you and I go away to protect ourselves. And while we’re away we can figure out what’s going on between us.”
Hen noticed Vinegar on the couch, licking a paw and cleaning an ear while they argued. He saw her looking at him and stopped what he was doing, stared back at her, then yawned.
“I have work,” Hen said. “I have deadlines still for this book, and I need to get to my studio.”
“Fuck that,” Lloyd said.
“You can go if you like. In fact, I think you should. It would make the most sense. Besides, it would be good for us to spend some time apart.”
“I’m not—”
“Lloyd, I don’t know if I even want you here. At all.”
“You can’t make me leave, not with him living next door. I’ll move into the guest room if you want. I don’t need to talk with you. I get it that you’re pissed at me. I’m pissed at me. But I’m not leaving, not till he’s behind bars.”
“Who knows if that will ever happen?” Hen said. “I’m not a reliable witness. Neither are you. He has an alibi. He’s our neighbor, for better or for worse, right now.”
“Then we’ll move,” Lloyd said.
Hen was suddenly exhausted. Just the thought of it—the thought of trying to save this marriage, the thought of trusting Lloyd again, the thought of looking for a new place to live, a new studio—it all exhausted her beyond comprehension. “What do you think, Vinegar?” she said to the cat. “Want to move?”
He started cleaning his other ear, flattening it back against his skull with his paw.
“I’m not talking about moving right now, but eventually, if he’s never arrested. But I still think we need to leave and go on a trip. Right now. It’s too dangerous. You’re coming with me, Hen. I don’t care if you don’t want to do it yourself. You need to do it as a favor for me.”
“As a favor for you?” Hen said, laughing. “Okay, this conversation is officially ended. I need to go to the studio and get work done. You can stay here, or you can go to work, or you can drive up and watch the leaves change in Maine. I don’t care either way.”
“If you’re going to the studio, then I’m going with you.”
“That’s not going to happen, Lloyd. Sorry, it’s not. You’re going to be in a lot more danger staying here than I’m going to be in at my studio.”
Lloyd lowered his brow. “What do you mean by that?”
“I just don’t think he’s going to hurt me. We’ve gotten to know each other. Trust me on this.”
“I actually do think you’re losing your mind, Hen. I think there’s something seriously wrong with you. Are you taking your meds?”
“Fuck you, Lloyd. Why don’t you go to Joanna’s house and stay there. Call her up and have her come get you. I’m going to the studio because I have work to do.”
She walked into the kitchen and grabbed the car keys off the wall. Then she stood for a moment, thinking about what Lloyd had just said about her losing her mind. So many of the large emotional moments of her life related to her mental health, but this wasn’t one of them. Even though some of the symptoms were the same—racing thoughts, paranoia, a sense of dread—she knew what she knew. This is real, she wanted to tell Lloyd. I know exactly who Matthew is, and my condition has nothing to do with it.
She went back out to the living room, wondering if Lloyd would try to physically stop her, but all he said as she passed by him was “I’ll be here when you get home.”
As Hen went out the door, she said, “I really hope you’re not.”
Chapter 34
With Lloyd’s strand of hair still in his chino pocket, Matthew drove toward Country Squire Estates. It had been a long, miserable day of teaching, but he had gotten through it. One thing about spending your day with teenagers was that they were so consumed by their own internal dramas that they were oblivious to the fact that the adults had problems of their own. There were exceptions, of course. Katrina Benedict, motherly before her time, told him that he looked tired. “There’s something going around, Mr. Dolamore. Are you achy?” And Jason Khoury was the only one who noticed the red welts toward the back of Matthew’s neck, just under the hairline. He asked Matthew if he was okay.
“I woke up with it,” Matthew said. “Probably had a nightmare and scratched myself.”
It wasn’t rush hour yet, but the traffic was heavy along Route 2A. He’d already swung by Gifford’s Farm, the closed ice-cream stand where he’d buried Michelle’s keys and phone. He knew how reckless it was to visit there in daylight, let alone go back to Michelle’s apartment complex, but he was determined to leave evidence that implicated Lloyd Harding, even if it didn’t stick. He’d pulled his car in behind the shuttered ice-cream place, relieved that there was no one else there, and after twenty minutes, he found the spot where he had buried Michelle’s keys and phone. It took him so long to find them he began to worry that maybe he’d imagined the whole thing, that he truly was losing his mind, but then he found the slightly loose rock and unearthed the keys. Holding them again, his stomach twisted, and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick again. But the feeling passed and he got back into the car, the palms of his hands sweating and his mouth drying up.