Dear Wife(84)

At the bottom, I ease across the pavement to my car, glass crunching underneath my sneakers. The heat out here is oppressive, the sun beating down on black asphalt, hot, humid air thick with exhaust from the highway on the other side of the building. Even today, a Saturday, traffic is a constant roar.

I arrive at the Buick, and there’s a hole where the driver’s window used to be. I lean my face into it, and there it is: further proof you’re here. It sits in the middle of the cracked dash, a bright yellow Hot Wheels car. The same toy I held across the aisle at a McDonald’s all those years ago. The one I gave you for your nephew. It sits atop a pink Post-it, the edges wilting in the heat. I reach inside and snatch it from the dash, my heart free-falling at the words slashed across it in dark blue ink.

Dear wife, I found you.

I drop the note and whirl around, my breath coming in raspy gulps, my gaze searching out all the places in the lot you could be hiding. By now I’ve walked this lot a dozen times, and I know where they are. The shadowy openings of the two stairwells, the dark corners by the shrubs, that narrow slit between the dumpsters and the wall. If you’re here, which you are, you’re well hidden. Watching. Waiting.

A door opens at the far end of the building, and I turn toward the sound. Terry, poking her head out of the office. “Want me to call somebody?” she yells.

We both know that by “somebody,” Terry means the police—an offensive word in a place like this one. But my fake ID and lack of valid driver’s license puts me in the same boat as my drug-dealer and hooker neighbors, who skitter into the bushes at the first sign of the law. I shake my head. Terry shrugs like she doesn’t care either way, then disappears back inside.

I stand here for another minute, considering my options. I could go back up to my room, but one way in means one way out, and for me there is no scarier sound than the clunk of a lock sliding into place and you standing in front of the door. I could get into my car and drive somewhere, but that would be only delaying the inevitable, moving the confrontation to a place where I don’t know the layout, haven’t walked the property and picked out all the shadowy corners. I could scream bloody murder, pray Terry makes good on her offer to call the police, and then what? Seven years with you has taught me not to trust someone just because they carry a badge.

I lean a hip against my car. “You can come out now, Marcus.” My voice sounds surprisingly normal, calm even, despite how I’m shaking inside. The fear is visceral and intense, and so is the anger.

Good. Anger is good. I think of Sabine, of my broken bones and heart, of the seven years you stole from me, all while claiming to love me. Anger will give me the strength to do what I need to do.

I hear you before I see you. The dull thud of your shoes on the pavement, that low chuckle I’d recognize anywhere. Last time I heard it was right before you pushed me down the stairs.

You step out from behind a white van, and I’m glad there’s a car behind me, supporting my weight, because I’m not sure my legs would hold me up. You’re just as handsome as ever. Scruffy cheeks, square jaw, dark hair just the right amount of tousled. And just like when I caught sight of you the very first time, something deep inside my head pounds. You’ve brought me so much pain over the last seven years that it actually hurts to look at you.

You come across the asphalt, stalking me like prey. I read once that abusers can pick out their victims by the way they walk. After that I spent more time than I’d like to admit walking toward myself in the mirror, analyzing my own gait. Was it the slump of my shoulders? A telling bounce in my step? What was it that made you pick me? How did you know I would be a willing victim?

I don’t have to pretend to be afraid of you, because I am. A scream builds in my head, but there’s no way I’m giving you that pleasure. You relish my fear. You feed on it like a vampire.

“Your hair,” you say, taking me in. You don’t sound angry but surprised, and maybe a little disappointed. “What did you do to it?”

I run my fingers down the strands behind an ear. “You like it?”

“It’s...different.” You smile, but it’s at odds with your tone. You hate everything about my hair, I can tell, but mostly you hate why I did it—to spite you.

“How did you find me?”

“What, you thought you could fool me with a bunch of twenty-dollar withdrawals? A background check for an apartment you never followed through on? This is what I do, Emma. I find people. I find criminals. You’re not half as smart as you think you are.”

This is the way it always starts, with insults. With a barbed putdown, with your lips curled in revulsion. You say you love me, but this isn’t love. This is you, pushing me down in order to build yourself up. You need my approval; you crave it. You think it will give you back your power.

I press my lips together and don’t say a word.

“Were you listening? Did you hear a word I said? I found the burner cell phones. I traced the check-ins to the boardinghouse, to the church, to here. You made this way too easy.”

“I thought...”

You cock your head and look at me. “You thought what?”

I thought you were a good guy. I thought you really loved me.

“I thought you’d find me eventually.”

It’s not the accolades you were fishing for, but my admission has the intended effect. You step closer, within an easy arm’s reach, and your expression doesn’t change, but your body language does. You shift forward on your toes, the stance a lot more aggressive. This is the part you like best, the part where you’re flexing your muscles and I’m shaking with fear.