Wish You Were Gone(69)

After debating the temperature outside for a few minutes, Lizzie threw on her down parka and went out to the garage. In the middle of the space was not a car, but a dining table—an antique piece she’d found at a garage sale and had been restoring for the past couple of weeks. She grabbed a sanding block and tackled the left side. Someone had allowed their children to use it as an art table, and it was going to take hours for Lizzie to remove all the dried paint and glue stains, but it would be worth it. She was still debating whether to sell the finished product or keep it for herself. But there would be no point if she ended up selling the house. She was sure that wherever she was going, she wouldn’t have enough room for a table this size. Besides, it should be displayed in some grand dining room somewhere, a conversation piece. She’d be doing the original craftsman a disservice by hauling it off to some boxy apartment building never to be seen by anyone other than Willow and her friends.

The longer Lizzie worked, the more of a rhythm she got into, the more her pulse began to slow. At least Emma had told Gray off. At least it seemed like she was starting to see the woman for the control freak she really was. But Lizzie was still bothered that Emma didn’t believe Darnell could be dangerous. Gray had just proven herself to be the worst sort of liar, so why was that the only lie Emma continued to believe? What sort of freakish mind control did Gray have over her?

Emma didn’t know about the tracking app Gray had on her phone. But maybe she should. Maybe that would prove to Emma that even Gray didn’t totally trust her supposedly perfect husband.

Lizzie had to do something. She had to prove to Emma, especially now, that she was the better friend—that she was the one who was there for Emma no matter what. That, at least, would be a start.





EMMA


That night, she woke up with a start, heart pounding, the desperate tenor of her nightmare still ringing in her ears. James had been falling and she had been grabbing for him, but she couldn’t hold his weight even though he begged and begged, and she’d finally had to let him go. She could still hear his scream: guttural, terrified. Catching her breath, Emma whipped off the covers and put her head between her knees.

He was going to leave you. He was going to betray Darnell and everything they’d built. He was going to take that woman on the other end of the phone, move to California, abandon his kids and never look back.

Emma let out a wail, then covered her mouth, hoping her kids hadn’t heard. There was no chance of her falling asleep again, and she knew, suddenly and with absolute clarity, what she needed to do. She threw on sweats and sneakers, wrote a note to her kids, and left the house.

At first she kept the car quiet, listening to the clicking of the turn signals and the shooshing of the leather steering wheel through her fingers, but as soon as she hit the parkway, she turned on ’90s on 9 and cranked up the volume. A few songs she sang along to. A few others made her cry. One made her scream at the top of her lungs, the rage coursing through her hot and unexpected.

“Don’t hate me for saying this,” Lizzie had whispered on the way home from the memorial, “but I think you need closure.”

She was whispering because Kelsey had fallen asleep in the backseat. Willow had gone in Hunter’s car, and Emma felt as if she and Lizzie were two parents of a newborn baby, driving around in an attempt to keep the kid asleep.

“Closure,” she’d said.

“I know it’s going to be hard to get, what with the person you need to hash it out with being gone, but all this anger and resentment you’re holding on to… it’s not good for you, Em. It’s going to eat you alive.”

“I’m not pissed at Gray because I need closure with James. I’m pissed at Gray because she’s controlling and thinks she always knows what’s best for me and it’s enough already.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be pissed at Gray,” Lizzie had said. “But I think it’s time to let James go.”

“Lizzie, I appreciate the advice, but you don’t know what it’s like. James and I… we used to be happy. We really were in love. I have to at least hold on to that, or my whole life becomes one big mistake. Just because the older he got, the more he became an unmitigated dickhead doesn’t mean I’m not handling this in a healthful fucking way.”

There was a pause. Kelsey stirred.

“Okay, and maybe I also need closure.”

She was there before she knew it, turning off at the exit for Point Pleasant Beach. Record time, James would have said. But of course she’d made record time, it being October and the middle of the night and all.

Emma parked at the closest spot to the boardwalk that wasn’t a handicapped spot and checked around to make sure no erstwhile police officers were lurking. She had no idea whether it was illegal to be on the beach at 3 a.m., but she didn’t particularly want to explain what she was doing there to anyone—not even a stranger. She held her coat tightly to her chest, bracing herself against the cold ocean wind as she walked the boards. The lights were on, at least, and there was not a soul in sight. For half a second she was gripped by fear, realizing that no one knew exactly where she was, but then the rhythmic crashing of the waves soothed her. Nothing bad was going to happen to her while she was on this particular mission. That would have been so wrong on a karmic level it would have made the earth turn inside out.