Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(16)

She was watching.





6


Hannah





June 2018


She glanced over at her husband, who was staring at the road, hands at ten and two. He drove the way he did everything else—well, carefully, with precision. The space between them was charged; they’d had words before Lou arrived, and after they’d gotten into the car. Not the way she wanted to start off this vacation. It was her fault. She needed to apologize. But.

“I—” she started, touching her finger to the empty coffee cup in the center console. But the words died in her throat.

He drew and released a breath, shifted in his seat.

“I get it,” he said, shooting her an apologetic glance.

“No,” she said. “I mean. It was wrong. Really wrong. I’m sorry.”

Last night while Bruce had been sleeping, after she’d checked on Gigi and heard his work phone buzzing in his office, she’d done something shameful. The pull of that buzzing phone was magnetic. She knew the window revealing at least part of the message would stay up on the home screen for a few minutes, so she quickly, without really even thinking, went into Bruce’s office, sat at his desk and took the phone from the drawer.

There was a message from someone entered into his contacts as Angel: R-61818200. If all goes as planned.

A password, a serial number, some kind of code? She felt her face flush. Who was Angel? It didn’t sound like a client name, and it wasn’t one she’d heard him mention. But obviously, it was work related? Right? It’s not like she stumbled on some sexting, or plans to meet. Why did she feel sick? She felt sick because she was spying on her husband.

“Hannah.”

She had practically flown out of his chair and gone through the window. Her husband stood bare-chested in sweatpants, filling the doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked mildly, almost amused.

She sat a moment, considered lying. “I, uh, heard your phone. And—”

“And.”

“And—you’ve been acting so strangely. I—”

She couldn’t read his expression, whether it was anger or disappointment. No there was something else there—a kind of careful stillness.

“Who’s Angel?” she asked. “And please don’t say a difficult client.”

His brow knitted. “We can talk about this. But can you put my phone back in the drawer and leave my office, please?”

So calm, so level. She felt like a schoolgirl caught smoking out by the dumpsters. Her face burned and her heart was in her throat.

“Who is Angel?” she asked, still clutching the phone.

“Hannah. I can’t tell you that, okay? You don’t want me to say it’s a client. And I can’t tell you who it is or what I am doing for them. I’m sorry.”

She put the phone back in the drawer and closed it. He moved aside to let her exit. She brushed past him and went to sit out by the pool with a glass of wine, her mind spinning and turning, creating scenarios, possibilities, imagining all the worst things she could think of. Eventually, having pulled on a T-shirt, he joined her.

“I thought we trusted each other,” he said when he pulled up a chair.

The water of the Intracoastal glittered, silver on black. Across the canal there were other houses, an eclectic blend like all Florida waterfront neighbors of small ranch homes, big new McMansions, small condo buildings, bigger, newer ones dwarfing the older ones, stealing views.

“We do,” she said. “But—something is not right with you.”

There. She said it. That was the truth—whatever the reason. She knew her husband and that was how she felt. She wasn’t some insecure, paranoid wife.

“Angel is a very difficult client. I cannot discuss it. I’m sorry. I wish I could. I’m just going to have to ask you to believe in me.”

What if she told Cricket about this conversation? Her mother? No woman would accept that as an answer, right? Months from now if she found out he actually had been sleeping with someone else, she’d look back and think: How could you have believed him?

But he hadn’t denied anything. Hadn’t asked her to believe him. He asked her to believe in him. That was different. She looked at him; his face was earnest, dark eyes holding hers. Fine lines had started a debut around his mouth, his brow. He twisted his wedding band.

“Okay,” she’d said.

He’d reached for her hand but she got up and walked away from him, went inside.

“Hannah,” she’d heard him say as she slid the door closed.

In the morning—really just a few hours later—they’d bickered about what to bring. She was overpacked; he wanted to travel light. She’d picked up the wrong toothpaste. He hadn’t gassed up the car on the way home last night and they’d have to stop. Gigi watched them from her high chair, confused, maybe picking up on their strained tone. She got fussy, started flinging oatmeal.

Lou arrived and they put on the happy family act. Hannah tried to make a quick exit, after kissing Lou and her baby. She tried not to cling, but Gigi got weepy as they moved toward the door.

Mamama. No syllables on earth could tug at her heart like those. Hannah almost canceled the whole thing then and there.

But Lou soothed and distracted like a pro. “Ooh! Gigi, what’s this?”