Trespassing(21)

Right. A hard blink prohibits my rolling my eyes.

“I might offer an opinion or two, but I’ll never judge you.” Her gaze travels to my hip, where my daughter is securely stationed, and I know it’s killing her not to lecture me about allowing my perfectly capable three-year-old to walk.

I challenge her stare with silence.

“The police said . . .” She momentarily glances away. “Micah didn’t come home?”

“He’s at God Land,” Elizabella pipes in.

I lower my daughter to the floor. Some magnetic pull takes her attention directly to the robotic children standing half in my hallway, half in my kitchen. Suddenly, I want to pull her back, keep her separated from them, as if she might catch their overly obedient tendencies like a disease.

“Why didn’t you call?” Claudette persists.

The best response I can come up with is a sigh. I sniffle over tears I’m choking back.

“Why don’t you draw a hot bath? I’ll straighten up and get dinner going.”

Before I can take a breath to respond, her finger points in Bella’s direction. “Take Crew and Fendi to your table. Keep busy until I call you.”

Crew and Fendi are already glancing at the child-size table in the great room, their eyes wide with disbelief that Elizabella didn’t immediately jump to their mother’s orders. Quite the contrary, she sidles up against me and wraps her little arms around my right leg.

That’s right, I assure her with a glance and a smoothing of her hair, it’s you and me now. You and me against the world.

She tightens her grip.

“I don’t want to take a bath,” I tell my neighbor, “and I don’t want you to straighten up. There’s a method to my mess here, and—”

“Then let me help you sort it. But you’ll feel better after a shower.”

“Would you feel better if I showered?”

“Kids.” Claudette gives her two a stern look. “Give Mrs. Cavanaugh and me some privacy.”

Crew and Fendi hesitantly walk toward the great room. Bella watches them for a few paces, then rips herself from my side to join them. Traitor.

“Listen,” Claudette says in a low-volume voice. “Brad pulled this once. It happens more often than you might think.”

She thinks Micah chose to leave, that he didn’t come home because he’s been keeping secrets from me. But I know better.

I catch a tear on the tip of a finger. “He isn’t screwing around.”

“Maybe not screwing.” Claudette turns her back on me but only to preheat my oven. “But playing. Let me tell you something no one knows.” Now she’s straightening the papers on my island, organizing them into little piles. “A few years ago, right after Fendi was born, Brad had an affair. One of those skinny bitches—you know the type, willowy, like an underwear model, and with a name that sounds like one of those candles from Bathworks. Misty Morningside. Can you imagine?”

“I’m sorry to hear, Claudette, but Micah isn’t—”

“The moment I figured it out, I was hysterical. Just like you. But once I calmed down, I realized something. This wasn’t a statement about my shortcomings. It’s a message about his. Truthfully, it’s the best thing that could’ve happened to us. The guilt is nearly overwhelming for him, and he’s been a model husband ever since. The key is to make this work to your advantage. Don’t let him off too easy. Put him in purgatory for a while.”

I look at her for a few seconds, to make sure she’s done with her dissertation.

She’s not.

“So much depends on this consequence. I know you’re hurting, and the first thing you’re going to want to do is throw your arms around him—because you miss him, you love him, you’re worried about him—but what message does that send? It tells him you understand what he’s done! That all is forgiven. But you don’t, do you? And it isn’t, is it? If you welcome him home, by the time you’ve managed to send the right message, it will be too late. You must make it clear that this behavior is unacceptable.”

When she’s attentively staring back at me, one eyebrow peaked in an arc, lips pursed as if she’s just tasted something tart and can’t decide if she likes it, I speak: “Micah isn’t having an affair. He’s missing.”

She answers with a slow blink.

“He left to take some executive on a trip to New York, and I haven’t heard from him since.” My voice breaks a little, but I swallow my grief and continue. “The company he works for . . . they’re pretending they don’t know who he is, but I have proof. Pay stubs. The company policy handbook. If they don’t know who he is, why would they have been paying him every other week for six months?”

“That’s really what you think?” She crosses her arms over her chest and leans a thin hip against my island. “There’s something bigger going on here?”

“Yes.” I dab at my eyes with an already moist paper towel I find in my hand.

“Then why didn’t you call me? There’s no shame in Micah’s being in an accident.”

“I’m not ashamed. Something’s happened to my husband! Why would I be ashamed of that?”

“If that’s really what you think, you would’ve called me.” She pushes away from the island. “Where do you keep the glasses?”