Every Vow You Break(27)

She was relieved that Bruce was still by the fire with his drink. It was hard for her to imagine having sex right now. She turned onto her stomach, the position that she usually fell asleep in, and pressed her face into the too-firm pillow, prepared to pretend she was sleeping.

As far as she could see, there were two possible scenarios. In the first, Scottie really did believe that the two of them had fallen in love in California, and he wanted a moment to try to convince Abigail of this. Why he had decided to try this on their honeymoon was another question, but in this scenario, she imagined that Scottie was more or less sane, just acting out of true infatuation. If this was the case, then Abigail thought there was a chance, a slim one, that she could convince him to leave her alone. The other scenario—the more likely one—was that Scottie was unwell, maybe even delusional, and that simply talking to him wasn’t going to work. If that was the case, then Abigail knew that the smartest and safest move would be to tell Bruce about Scottie right away, to alert the authorities (where were the nearest authorities, anyway?), and throw herself on Bruce’s mercy. There were two ways to do this, Abigail thought. She could tell Bruce the entire truth, that she had slept with this man in California. Tell him she’d been drunk, and that she regretted it the next morning, and beg for his forgiveness. But Abigail knew that if she told Bruce the whole truth, the marriage would be over. He felt so strongly about his mother’s infidelity that there’d be no chance he’d forgive her. The other option, of course, was to tell him half the truth. Say that she’d met this guy on the night of her bachelorette party. She’d been drunk, and maybe she’d flirted a little with him. He’d tried to kiss her, and she’d rebuffed him, but maybe not strongly enough.

And now he was here, stalking her. Of course, he could tell his side of the story to Bruce, but it would be his word against hers, wouldn’t it? He couldn’t prove they’d slept together.

Abigail thought this option—she was calling it the half-truth solution—was the best. The problem was that she’d have to do so much lying. In a strange way, she believed that she hadn’t lied yet to Bruce. She’d cheated on him, of course, but it wasn’t like he had asked her directly if she’d ever been unfaithful to him since they’d met. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d asked her during the lunch they’d had at that midtown Mexican restaurant after she’d gotten back from California. She’d assured him, hadn’t she?

Or had she just made some sort of joke? Either way, if she went with the “half-truth solution” there would be a lot of lying involved.

Not only was Abigail a terrible liar, she knew that it would be a fatal way to start a marriage. And would Bruce ever really believe that this man, after simply talking with Abigail at a vineyard, would stalk her all the way across the country?

She listened as Bruce went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, then emerged. He was moving quietly, and Abigail was hopeful that it meant he wouldn’t try to wake her once he was in bed, but after he got in beside her, he gently placed a hand on the small of her back, making circular rubbing motions with his thumb.

Abigail shifted, mumbled into her pillow, then said, “Good night, honey,” in what she hoped sounded like a sleep-slurred voice.

“Good night,” he said, but moved his hand lower down so that it rested at the rise of her buttocks.

“Sleepy,” she said into the pillow, and he took his hand away.

She lay as still as she could, breathing the way she imagined she did when she slept, and after twenty minutes Bruce flipped onto his side and began to snore.

On the veranda in the morning, not having slept at all, she realized she still hadn’t decided exactly what her plan was. In case of the “psychotic stalker” scenario she had decided to not go down to the pond and confront Scottie. She did know she would have to speak with him eventually, and she was counting on there being a time when that could happen without Bruce knowing about it. She would make it as clear as she possibly could that she had zero interest in him, and if he didn’t believe her, or if it was clear that he wasn’t going to go away, then she would go to Bruce and confess.

She still hadn’t decided whether she’d confess the whole truth, or the half-truth, but she’d figure that out later. Either way, the thought of that sickened her, not just for what it would do to their marriage, but for how much it was going to crush him. “When in doubt, tell the truth” was something her mother used to say to her, and she knew that if the time came, she would have to do that. She’d made her decision and now it was out of her hands.

There was a strange wavering cry that came from the pond, followed by another, similar cry. She thought it was probably loons, even though she’d never heard one before. But somewhere in her past—or in a book she’d read—she’d heard that their cries were ghostlike. She watched the sliver of the pond that she could see.

Its surface was glassy in the early morning light, and a hazy mist was rapidly dissipating.

The doors behind her opened and Bruce stepped out onto the veranda. “You’re up early,” he said.

“Temporarily up,” she said. “No guarantee I’m not going back to bed. Did you hear the loons?”

“No,” he said.

“I think they were loons. Either that or the pond is haunted.”

“What do you want to do for breakfast?” he asked.