Off the Deep End (59)
Except that he was.
He was bent over the laundry tub, pouring our laundry detergent down the drain. Our seventy-five-dollar bottle of specialized detergent that I had to order in advance and make sure I bought enough to last us for months. The only kind that didn’t bother Katie’s skin. I listened to the glug glug glug as the liquid poured out. There was a lot of it since I’d only just ordered it, and it felt like it took forever before it was empty. He pulled out a garbage bag and tossed the empty jug inside. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except watch as he reached underneath the sink and pulled out a bottle of Clorox. My eyes were glued to him as he poured bleach down the sink just like he’d done with the detergent.
I took one last look at him as he sat hunched over the tub, then started inching my way back through the house, being just as careful to be quiet the second time. My heart pounded as I tiptoed my way upstairs and into our bedroom. I hurried across the room and quickly slid underneath Katie’s arm the same way I’d gotten out. I pulled the covers up to my chin and tried to still my racing heart. My pulse thrummed in my temples.
Why didn’t I say anything to him? What was I doing? What was I thinking? I should just get up and go back down there. Confront him. Ask him what he was doing. Make him tell me what he knew. Demand an explanation for why he was getting rid of the detergent. But I couldn’t bring myself to move or do anything except wait.
I was wide awake, and every second dragged until I finally heard him on the stairs. I quickly flipped over to my side and pretended like I was asleep. My mind screamed at me to do one thing—the right thing—but the rest of me wouldn’t cooperate. I just lay there motionless and mute.
He made a stop at the bathroom before crawling underneath the covers on the other side of Katie. I told myself to turn around. To just roll over and ask him. It was that simple. Whatever it was. It couldn’t be that bad. There had to be a reasonable explanation because Mark would never hurt Isaac. Never. He was the least violent man I’d ever met. That’s what drew me to him in the first place. I’d watched my mom fight her way out of domestic abuse with my stepdad, and I vowed never to make the same mistake. I put every man I dated, including Mark—especially Mark—through all types of different tests to see if I could get a rise out of them. See if I got him upset enough, whether he’d hit me. Immature, sick stuff on my part, but that was before I grew up and worked through all that.
But if he hadn’t done anything, then why was he worried about the detergent? That only left one other explanation—Isaac—which didn’t make any more sense than Mark.
And that’s when I heard it. The muffled sounds of him crying. Short jerky sobs that he tried to suppress so he wouldn’t wake me or Katie, but he still shook the bed. Ones I’d only heard him make twice in our whole life together. Once when he got the call that his father had passed away, and the other time when Katie couldn’t be resuscitated at birth and we thought we’d lost her. Everything felt like it was spinning. I gripped the side of the bed to steady myself.
What had Mark done?
SEVENTEEN
AMBER GREER
I didn’t sleep at all last night. Not one minute. My eyes were burning, and my thoughts were still heavy and cloudy despite the three cups of coffee I’d already drunk. I’d never felt so worn down from sleep deprivation and worry. I hadn’t stopped staring at Mark since coming downstairs.
I listened to him cry himself to sleep last night. It took forty-five minutes. Every time I thought he was finished, that he’d let out his last sob and pulled himself back together, they would start all over again.
He felt even more like a stranger in my house moving through the kitchen. In and out of the bathroom. He’d struggled with IBS for years, and in recent ones, it’d worked its way into full-blown colitis. His colitis was synonymous with Katie’s eczema: both triggered by stress.
As if on cue, she interrupted my thoughts. “Is it okay if Paloma comes over today?”
“Are you sure you want to see her?” I asked, then quickly realized what a stupid question it was. She and Paloma had been best friends since first grade. They were practically inseparable. Theirs was the kind of friendship I’d always wanted but never had growing up. They went through a brief stint in sixth grade where middle school girl drama almost split them up, but they’d come out of it stronger than they were before.
“I do, Mom,” Katie said hesitantly. It was how she spoke these days. There was an uncertainty to everything she said. A timidity to her voice and her posture because of all the uncertainty swirling around her. I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed tight. I breathed in the scent of her lavender-mint shampoo. We held on for a second before loosening our hold but not completely letting go of each other.
“I really miss her, and I haven’t seen her in almost two weeks. I haven’t seen anyone,” she said.
Eleven days without any real contact with her friends was an awfully long time in the world of a thirteen-year-old girl, and I gave her another squeeze. “Has she talked to her mom? Is Cindy okay with her coming over here?”
It’d been so interesting watching who showed up at our door during all this. I had been shocked by the number of people who’d never given me the time of day who made their way to my front porch. They were always insulted when I didn’t let them inside, as if I would want perfect strangers with me at my most intimate and vulnerable moments. Then there were those who showed up in full makeup with outfits that looked brand new so they’d look good for the cameras. Sally Higgins dropped off flowers in heels and a short miniskirt like she’d just come from the club. The reporters had flocked to her, and she’d soaked up every last bit of attention they’d lavished on her.