The Wife Between Us(81)

“You think it was him?”

I nodded. “I’m sure it was.”

The guard sighed. “Breaking and entering, destruction of property . . . that’s pretty serious. You girls should start locking your doors.”

I looked back at our house. If someone came in and climbed the stairs, my room was the second one on the left.

Maybe being questioned by the police would inflame Jason even more. He might blame me for that, too.

After the police came and took photographs and collected evidence, I put on shoes so the glass from the smashed lamp wouldn’t cut my feet and helped my sisters clean up the mess. As hard as we scrubbed, we couldn’t remove the ugly words from the wall. A few of us went to the hardware store to pick up paint.

As my sisters considered the various shades, my cell phone rang. I reached into my pocket. Undisclosed number, the screen said, which probably meant the call originated at a pay phone. In the instant before the dial tone sounded in my ear, I thought I could hear something.

Breathing.

“Vanessa, what do you think of this color?” one of my sisters asked.

My body was rigid and my mouth dry, but I managed to nod and say, “Looks great.” Then I walked directly to another aisle, the one containing locks. I bought two, one for my bedroom door and one for my window.

Later that week, a pair of police officers came to the house. The older of the two officers informed us that they had questioned Jason, who’d admitted to the crime.

“He was drunk that night and he’s sorry,” the officer said. “He’s working out a deal to get counseling.”

“As long as he never comes around here again,” one of my sisters said.

“He won’t. That was part of the arrangement. He can’t come within a hundred yards of this place.”

My sisters seemed to think it was over. After the officers left, they dispersed, heading to the library, to classes, to their boyfriends’ places.

I stayed in our living room, staring at the beige wall. I could no longer see the words, but I knew they still existed and always would.

Just as they would always reverberate in my head.

You killed her.


My future had seemed bursting with possibilities before that fall. I’d been dreaming about cities where I might move after graduation, considering them like a hand of cards: Savannah, Denver, Austin, San Diego . . . I wanted to teach. I wanted to travel. I wanted a family.

But instead of racing toward my future, I began making plans to run away from my past.

I counted down the days until I could escape from Florida. New York, with its eight million residents, beckoned. I knew the city from my visits to Aunt Charlotte’s home. It was a place where a young woman with a complicated past could start anew. Songwriters composed passionate lyrics about it. Authors made it the centerpiece of their novels. Actors professed their love for it in late-night interviews. It was a city of possibilities. And a city where anyone could disappear.

On graduation day that May, I donned my blue robe and cap. Our college was so large that after the commencement speeches concluded, students were divided up according to their majors and awarded diplomas in smaller groups. When I walked across the stage of the Education Department’s Piaget Auditorium, I looked out into the audience to smile at my mother and Aunt Charlotte. As I scanned the crowd, someone caught my eyes. A young man with red hair, standing off to one side, away from the other graduating students, even though he also wore a shiny blue robe.

Maggie’s brother, Jason.

“Vanessa?” The dean of our department thrust my rolled-up diploma into my hand as a camera flashed. I walked down the steps, blinking from the light, and returned to my seat. I could feel Jason’s eyes boring into my back for the rest of the ceremony.

When it ended, I turned to look at him again. He was gone.

I knew what Jason was telling me, though. He’d been biding his time until graduation, too. He wasn’t allowed to come within a hundred yards of me at school. But there were no rules about what he could do after I left campus.

A few months after graduation, Leslie emailed a newspaper link to a few of us. Jason had been arrested for drunk driving. The ripple effects of what I’d done were still spreading. A tiny selfish burst of relief went through me, though: Maybe now Jason wouldn’t be able to leave Florida and find me.

I never found out more—whether he went to jail or rehab or was simply let off with a warning again. But about a year later, just before the doors of my subway car closed, I saw a slim frame and shock of red hair—someone was hurrying through the crowd. It looked like him. I burrowed deeper into the cluster of people on my subway car, trying to hide myself from view. I told myself that the phone was in Sam’s name, that I’d never changed my driver’s license to a New York one, and that since I was renting, he wouldn’t be able to find a paper trail that led to me.

Then, a few days after my mother surprised me by placing an engagement announcement in my local Florida paper that listed my name, Richard’s name, and where I resided, the phone calls began. No words, just breathing, just Jason telling me he’d found me. Reminding me in case I’d forgotten. As if I could ever forget.

I still had nightmares about Maggie, but now Jason entered my dreams, his face twisted in fury, his hands reaching out to grab me. He was why I never listened to loud music when I jogged. His was the face I saw the night our burglar alarm blared.