Lies She Told(83)
“Hey, there’s no reason for you to be sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have told you everything. You weren’t ready. It made you want to run to David and try to make things right with him, or something.” She twists her hair and then releases it. “He could have killed you.” Again, she looks at the tiled ceiling, trying not to cry. “Some friend I am.”
I grasp her hand. It feels cold compared to mine, which has been wrapped beneath the hospital blanket. “You are the best friend anyone could ever ask for. You’re my family.”
“Yeah.” She offers a little smirk. “Well, I guess I’ll have to stop bitching about George now since you clearly win in the asshole husband department. Like, hands down. No competition.”
She’s trying to make me laugh, to smile, but I can’t. I think it might be a long time before I feel anything.
“I was going to head to my apartment and get some food. A change of clothes.” She pulls at her pant legs, expanding them like a striped tent. She’s wearing the same pajama bottoms that she had on when I last saw her. I may be imagining it, but I see sand on the thighs. “Can I get you anything?”
What do I still have? My marriage is over. My husband is dead. I won’t ever have a baby. After what I did, I won’t ever have peace of mind.
I think of an aspirin bottle and how close I came as a teenager to cutting my life short. That’s not how I want my story to end. I am a fiction writer. I can imagine a new beginning for me. I have my freedom. I have my family. I have Chris. Trevor. And Beth. I’ll always have Beth.
“Would you bring my laptop?” I ask. “I have to finish a chapter.”
Chapter 19
The stroller mafia is out in full force on this sunny afternoon. I push my carriage toward the rows of Bugaboos, Stokkes, and City Selects lining the children’s playground area. Before I come within shouting distance, I veer onto the lawn with my carriage. I can’t run into anyone from my moms’ group right now. I must talk to Jake.
He’s sitting beneath the cherry tree where we ate sandwiches last spring, months before I’d given birth to Vicky—perhaps before he’d started cheating. The summer sun has turned the tree’s leaves bright green. In a few months, they will morph to burnished orange, and come spring, pale-pink petals will again cover the bark as they did during our picnic. The flowers will break free when the wind whips off the water and drift down in a tinted snow of petals. Vicky will get a kick out of that. I’ll have to tell Jake to make sure he takes her out and snaps pictures so I can see. If he won’t talk to me, I’ll ask my mother to do it. She won’t cut off contact with me, her only daughter, just because I’m in prison.
Victoria coos at me as I take her from the bassinet and sit down with her beside Jake. The Hudson River sparkles aquamarine in the sunshine. It’s a beautiful day to say good-bye to my daughter.
Jake believes I will start talking. Explain myself. I can sense his expectation in his gaze. But what can I say? He has the flip-flops. Somehow, he knows that they’re hers. Undoubtedly, Colleen’s DNA and mine are embedded in their rubber soles. True, a clever defense attorney might be able to blame the presence of my genetic material on an unwitting transfer from Jake. But I don’t see how anyone could convince a jury that there’s an innocent explanation as to how the shoes came into my possession.
I lift Vicky up and down, making her eyes flutter and mouth open with excitement, hoping that Jake takes his time calling in reinforcements. He’s probably already dialed his police buddies. Undoubtedly, the officers that appear to be lazily patrolling the lawn to make the moms feel secure in their million-dollar apartments are actually here to arrest me.
Jake rubs a hand over his head. “I bought Colleen those flip-flops off a street vendor. She was always complaining that her toes hurt by the end of the night from the high heels she wore. When I saw you shove them in the stroller, I thought they looked familiar, but I also thought that maybe I was imagining things because of my shock that Colleen had been murdered. Still, I followed you to see where you were going that you needed two pairs of shoes. When you tried to hide them in the diaper before throwing them away, I knew.”
Tears tumble down my cheeks. I keep focused on Vicky, trying to commit every detail of her little face to memory. I imagine how the nondescript features before me will grow into a combination of Jake’s face and my own. Surely she’ll come to visit sometimes. My mom will bring her.
“I know why you did it.” Jake’s voice is as raw as a skinned knee. “You were suffering postpartum depression. You probably followed me, saw us make love in her apartment through the window, and then went to confront her. She mocked you, right? And with the depression and sleep deprivation and all the emotion from the betrayal, you just grabbed something and started hitting her.”
Sadness rips through my arms, making it too difficult to keep bouncing my baby while supporting her neck with my fingertips. I hold Vicky close to my breasts and brush my palm on her fuzzy bald head, smell the sour milk on her neck. I must memorize the feel of her in my arms. This is what will carry me through whatever is to come.
Jake wraps his arm around my shoulders. “It’s not your fault.” His voice is barely more than a whisper. “It’s mine. I knew you weren’t well, and I pushed you past the breaking point. I am so, so sorry, baby. I am so sorry.”