The New Husband(75)

Simon hit Mute.

“Tell her to stop asking for you. I’m sick of it.”

Unmute.

“You’ve got to stop, Maggie,” Glen said, sensing if Maggie pushed too hard, Simon might push back harder. Now … he had to say something now. But what? First Simon’s demands, he thought. Make sure she understands. Protect her. Save your daughter. “You can’t keep asking me to come home. Do you understand? Make it better at home. If that means making peace with Simon, then you do it. If you do, then we can talk again. That’s a promise. I love you so much, Bunny. I—”

Simon hit the button that ended the call. And that was it. It was over. He had failed to alert Maggie to the family’s peril. He had let them all down. A crushing sorrow overcame Glen as he slumped to the floor of the box. Simon fished out a tissue from his pants pocket and handed it to Glen, who was crying now. From the same pocket he produced a scalpel, tweezers, and a test tube that might have come from the school science lab.

“Okay, good job,” he said, giving Glen’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “This should work nicely. I expect to see a new and better Maggie and a happy, more content Nina. But there’s still more to do, much more, starting with turning you into a monster.”





CHAPTER 41


Simon went alone to dinner with the superintendent and his wife and arrived back home at close to nine o’clock in the evening, carrying a newly purchased plumber’s snake he had bought while running errands after school let out. The pesky clog in the bathroom sink had not cleared after earlier attempts with boiling water, baking soda, and salt. He slipped on a pair of gray sweats and went to work on the clog while Nina folded clothes on the bed.

Again it hit her, how strange it was: a scene as normal as could be, but with a new cast member in place, as if Simon were Glen’s understudy.

“How’s the drain coming?” Nina asked as she laid one of his polo shirts flat on the bed, folded the sleeves back, smoothed the fabric with her hands, carefully folded the sides, and then folded it in half, trying to match the way Simon did it, remembering the instructions on the YouTube video she had watched. Admittedly, she felt a bit insecure, oddly territorial about domains that had once been entirely her own. She had never felt this way with Glen—a need to keep a spotless kitchen and an organized, tidy home, now that the chaos of moving was long gone. But for reasons unclear to her, Nina felt a silent judgment from Simon at times. There was nothing ever spoken, no quip to make her prickle, but a glance, a look that implied unmet expectations.

Any little thing out of place—a picture hanging crooked, a shoe not on the shoe rack, a salad not made, a bed left rumpled—he would tend to it with a resigned air, as if to say this little fragment of disarray had everything to do with her job, their main source of contention.

And so, Nina found herself researching the best ways to fold a polo shirt, if for nothing else than to chip away at the doubts building up about her domestic abilities. This business of messing up Simon’s dinner with the superintendent had rattled her. It wasn’t like her to forget a plan. She didn’t even remember hearing about it until it was too late to alter her schedule, all because she’d been preoccupied with work—or at least that’s what she told herself, echoing Simon’s words.

If Simon held any lingering resentment about the dinner, he masked it well. Upon his return home, he’d talked glowingly about the school, support for his curriculum, additional money for the robotics team, and the improving test scores across the district. He also shared his worry about the growing epidemic of vaping among young people, another topic that had come up at dinner.

“Have you talked about vaping with Connor and Maggie?” Simon asked from the bathroom.

“No,” Nina said, feeling guilty because she had become well-versed on the issue thanks to her clients.

“It’s really a massive problem,” he said. “The THC in the oils these kids are using is way more concentrated than the stuff we had, and a single JUULpod has about the same nicotine level as a pack of cigarettes. Can you believe that?”

Nina could, because she had read up on it.

“You really should talk to the kids about the dangers,” Simon said.

Nina heard: You’re not being a good mother.

“Or I can,” he added. “If you’d prefer … at least to Connor. You wouldn’t believe all the ways that kids hide this stuff. You have to keep an eye out for behavior changes—moodiness, slipping grades, asking for money.” Simon laughed to himself from the bathroom. “Look who I’m telling, an expert.”

An expert who hasn’t talked about it with her own kids, thought Nina.

“Speaking of behavior changes, have you noticed anything strange about Maggie?” Nina asked.

Half of Simon’s body appeared in the bathroom’s open doorway. He rubbed a hand dry on his sweats.

“Besides acting like I’m the worst person in the world? No.”

“She’s been … different lately,” Nina said. “There’s something up with her.”

“Talk to her about it,” Simon suggested, as if Nina hadn’t considered that possibility.

“Yeah, I know, and I will, I’m just asking if you’ve noticed any changes.”

“She still hates me, Nina, and I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon.”