The House Across the Lake(28)

The blow is hard.

So hard I think I hear it from the other side of the lake, although more likely the sound is me letting out a half gasp of shock.

Tom, looking more surprised than hurt, releases Katherine’s arm and stumbles backwards onto the couch. She seems to say something. Finally. No yelling from her. No pleading, either. Just a sentence uttered with what looks like commanding calmness.

She leaves the room. Tom remains.

I nudge the binoculars upward to the second floor, which remains dark. If that’s where Katherine went, I can’t see her.

I return my gaze to the living room, where Tom has pulled himself back onto the sofa. Watching him hunched forward, head in his hands, makes me think I should call the police and report a domestic dispute.

While I can’t begin to know the context of what I saw, there’s no mistake that some form of spousal abuse occurred. Although Katherine was the one to strike, it was only after Tom had grabbed her. And when our eyes briefly locked, it wasn’t malice or vengeance I saw.

It was fear.

Obvious, all-consuming fear.

In my mind, Tom had it coming.

It makes me wonder how many times something like this has happened before.

It makes me worry it’ll happen again.

The only thing I’m certain of is that I regret ever picking up these binoculars and watching the Royces. I knew it was wrong. Just like I knew that if I kept watching, I was eventually going to see something I didn’t want to see.

Because I wasn’t spying on just one person.

I was watching a married couple, which is far more complex and unwieldy.

What is marriage but a series of mutual deceptions?

That’s a line from Shred of Doubt. Before I was fired, I spoke it eight times a week, always getting an uneasy laugh from audience members who recognized the truth behind it. No marriage is completely honest. Each one is built on some type of deception, even if it’s something small and harmless. The husband pretending to like the sofa his wife picked out. The wife who watches her husband’s favorite show even though she quietly despises it.

And sometimes it’s bigger.

Cheating. Addiction. Secrets.

Those can’t stay hidden forever. At some point, the truth comes out and all those carefully arranged deceptions topple like dominoes. Is that what I just saw in the Royce house? A marriage under pressure finally imploding?

In the living room, Tom stands and crosses to the sideboard bar. He grabs a bottle of honey-colored liquid and splashes some into a glass.

Above him, a light goes on in the master bedroom, revealing Katherine moving behind the gauzy curtains. I grab my phone when I see her, not thinking about what I’ll say. I simply call.

Katherine answers with a hushed, husky “Hello?”

“It’s Casey,” I say. “Is everything okay over there?”

There’s nothing on Katherine’s end. Not a breath. Not a rustle. Just a blip of silence before she says, “Why wouldn’t things be okay?”

“I thought I—”

I barely manage to stop the word about to careen off my tongue.

Saw.

“I thought I heard something at your house,” I say. “And I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. See.”

My body goes numb.

Katherine knows I’ve been watching.

I guess I shouldn’t be this surprised. She’s been in this very same rocking chair, looking at her house through the same pair of binoculars now sitting next to me.

I’d totally watch my house, she said, subtly indicating she knew I was watching, too.

But there’s nothing subtle about this. Now she’s outright telling me to look.

The sheer curtains in the master bedroom part, and I scramble for the binoculars. At the window, Katherine waves. Because she’s mostly cloaked in shadow, I can’t see her face.

Or if she’s smiling.

Or if the fear I noticed earlier is still in her eyes.

All I can see is her still-waving silhouette until that, too, stops. Katherine’s hand drops to her side, and after standing at the window for another second, she backs away and leaves the room, hitting the light switch on her way out.

Directly below that, Tom has finished his drink. He stands there a moment, staring into the empty glass, looking like he’s considering having another.

Then his arm rears back and he flings the glass.

It hits the wall and shatters.

Tom storms back to the sofa, reaches for the lamp, and, with a flick of his fingers, an uneasy darkness returns to the house across the lake.





I’m startled awake by a sound streaking across the lake. With my eyes still closed, I catch only the last breath of it. An echo of an echo fading fast as it whooshes deeper into the woods behind my house.

I remain frozen in place for half a minute, waiting for the sound to return. But it’s gone now, whatever it was. The lake sits in silence as thick as a wool blanket and just as suffocating.

I fully open my eyes to a gray-pink sky and a lake just beginning to sparkle with daylight.

I spent the whole night on the porch.

Jesus.

My head pounds with pain and my body crackles with it. When I sit up, my joints creak louder than the rocking chair beneath me. As soon as I’m upright, the dizziness hits. A diabolical spinning that makes the world feel like it’s tilting off its axis and forces me to grip the arms of the chair for balance.