The Night Before(55)

Laura: So my father wasn’t the bad guy? My mother wasn’t the victim?

Dr. Brody: You told me a story about something you overheard. Something your father said to your sister the night he left. It’s the only story that doesn’t fit with that narrative, and yet it stands out enough that you told it to me.

Laura: I was listening at the door. Rosie was mad at him for leaving. Yelling at him. And he said to her—and this I know is exactly what happened—he said, “Your mother is no saint.”

Dr. Brody: Something happened, Laura. Something no one told you or Rosie. But I have a feeling you knew inside even as a little girl, that your father was the one who was broken.

Laura: The one I tried to fix so he could love me? I learned all of this from my father?

Dr. Brody: It’s almost always the case, Laura. With women who seek men who won’t love them, and turn away the ones who can, and do.

Laura: I think I hate him even more now.

Dr. Brody: Except you don’t. And you need to find out why.





THIRTY-TWO


Laura. The Night Before. Friday, 12:45 a.m. Branston, CT.

“So about that hangover situation,” I say to Jonathan Fielding.

I’m dressed but still feel naked. It’s Rosie’s dress. I hate dresses. I hate the way the air feels against my legs. How it creeps beneath the hemline and makes its way up as far as it pleases, sometimes all the way to the sleeves. I hate my bare feet and loose hair, falling around my face and sticking to the back of my neck.

I hate a lot of things right now.

Jonathan hands me a glass of scotch from the other side of the kitchen counter. I am close to the door. My purse is right in front of me. I left my shoes in the small foyer, but they are gone now. Probably moved to a closet where I can’t find them without more delay. More chances to work his way into my brain. No matter. I don’t need shoes to get home.

Home, I think now. Rosie and Joe and Mason. My cozy space in the attic, hiding beneath the fluffy comforter.

Home, I think again. Only, it’s not my home. It’s Rosie’s and Joe’s and Mason’s. And the attic is where I found the last of the three notes. Not so cozy after all.

I have no home. That’s the truth. But that still doesn’t make this a place I want to stay one minute longer.

I take the drink and swallow it down.

“So what is this about the hangover?” Jonathan asks. He’s smiling like we are lovers and I suppose we are, technically. The way that phrase is used. Lovers. Home. Just words. Stupid, meaningless words.

“Yeah…” I begin. I’ve swallowed the rage and turned it to steel. “So I thought I’d preempt it with something more medically sound than more alcohol.”

“Oh?” he asks. And I see a trace of concern.

That’s right, Jonathan. It’s your turn to worry.

“I figured some Advil might be in order. Luckily, I found some!” My voice is cheery.

He seems relieved. “Oh, good. I’m glad. I don’t have a lot of medicines in there. I don’t really like to take things and I haven’t been sick for a long time. God, my ex used to keep everything!”

“Funny you should mention her,” I say.

“My ex? I’m sorry—I guess that is a little insensitive after the night we’ve had.”

I study his eyes then, as he studies mine. He is looking for clues about what’s inside my head. I have the upper hand because I know.

I lift up my left hand and turn it backward so the palm faces me and the bright gold ring on my finger faces him.

“Did you want to put this back on before you go home?”

Jonathan freezes. He’s so still that I wonder if I should check for a pulse. He freezes like he’s been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

I say nothing. I do nothing.

Rage is steel and it makes me feel strong. I haven’t felt strong in a very long time, and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t like it. I would be a liar just like Jonathan Fielding.

“Laura…” Finally he speaks. But only this one word makes it past his lips.

I pull the ring off my finger and place it on the counter.

“It’s not what you think,” he says. His defrosting face is forlorn but not regretful. It’s not guilty, either, and this lets confusion slip past the steel gates.

“I know you’ve noticed a lot of things tonight. You’ve been polite not to bring them up. You’ve been trusting and forthcoming and I feel like a complete shit.…”

“Your car,” I say, now that he’s opened the door.

“Yes, the Toyota that looks like a throwback to the 1980s, only it’s brand-new.”

“And your job…”

“Right again. I don’t work in Branston. What forty-year-old divorced hedge fund manager would work out here when he could be in Manhattan? Right again.”

“The bare apartment, the woman from the bar…”

He looks away to take a long drink of scotch. He sets the glass back down on the counter. Then he picks up the ring and twists it between his fingers.

“The woman from the bar is who I said she was. A crazy stalker who bothered my ex-wife after I stopped seeing her a few weeks ago. That was the truth.”

“And the…”

“The apartment is new. I moved in at the end of the summer.”