Confessions on the 7:45(61)

Will rose after a few moments of silence. “I’m going to change the sheets on my bed,” he said. “I’ll take the couch.”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“No way,” he said. “No arguing.”

In bed after Will had fallen asleep in the living room, she didn’t answer Graham’s calls, but it didn’t stop him from texting her until nearly 3:00 a.m.

Please come home. I’m so sorry.
I just need space and time to think, Graham. You have to give me that.
Can you ever forgive me?
Could she? Could she ever forgive him? She didn’t have an answer.

  “Paulo’s calling for breakfast,” said Oliver now.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll call as soon as school’s over. I love you, buddy.”

“I love you, too.”

“It’s okay,” she said. How many times did you say that as a parent? “Everything is okay.”

The silence was heavy on the line; she sensed he wanted to say something else and she waited.

Then: “Mom, you hang up first.”

“Love you,” she said again. “Give Stephen a hug for me.”

“Love you, Mom.”

She ended the call with a weight on her heart. What a mess her life was. Just a year ago, if anyone had asked, she’d have said it was close to perfect. She thought Graham’s issues were behind them. She was home with the boys, her husband happy at work.

This too shall pass. Even the good times.

Her phone pinged. Graham.

So how was your night with Will? Everything you remembered?
He slept on the couch, of course.
Really.
I’ve never cheated on you. Not about to start now.
I know that. I’m sorry. You never answered me. Can you ever forgive me? Is there a way forward for us?
Another question without an answer.

She saw herself moving on...selling the house, moving back to Manhattan. Working, forging ahead into the unknown of the future. Then, she thought of Oliver and Stephen, the devastation of their happy lives, and she was kneecapped. She was her mother, enduring the abuse, the bleak humiliation of it, for the sake of her children, withering under the pressure of maintaining a facade.

Her phone pinged again. Graham again.

Oh, shit.
What?
The cops are here.
If it was a ploy, which he was not above, it worked. She dialed his number but the call went to voice mail. Her throat was dry, belly clenched.

Why would the cops be there so early?

She put the phone down and walked into Will’s beautifully appointed kitchen—where coffee had already been brewed in a gleaming machine that cost about as much as a used Volkswagen. Grabbing the remote, she flipped on the television, then felt the room spin and pitch as the bottom dropped out of her world.

On the screen was a picture of Geneva—smiling and lovely, her wheat hair whipping around her face. The pretty image was made ominous by the red type beneath it reading: Missing Nanny.

“Twenty-five-year-old Geneva Markson didn’t turn up for work yesterday, after her sister reported her missing this weekend,” said the svelte, heavily coiffed newscaster. “On Monday, police discovered her abandoned car in the well-heeled neighborhood of her employers. Though there is no immediate indication of foul play, neither is there any clue as to her whereabouts. Two local men are being brought in for questioning, police say.

“If anyone knows the location of this young woman, police are asking that they please call this tip line.”

Will came up behind Selena. “Oh, shit. Someone called the media.”

“The police are at the house now,” she managed, though she felt like she was sucking air through a straw. “Graham just texted.”

“I’ll get dressed and get over there.”

She heard his voice, felt his presence—just before she passed out cold, knocking her head on the marble countertop on her way to the tile floor.



PART 2

ALL OUR LITTLE LIES

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac



TWENTY-FIVE

Selena

There was a kind of midafternoon light that Selena associated with illness. The way the sun had filtered through the gauzy pink drapes in her childhood bedroom when she was home sick from school. There was a special rosy hue to it, a hush to a house kept quiet so that she could rest. Maybe she’d hear her mother in the kitchen. Her father would be at work, her sister at school, and in that special glow it was as if time had slowed.

Today, in the living room of her own home, the light that came in through the drapes was a cruel white. There was a sickness, to be sure. The world outside was waiting, a wolf at the door, huffing and puffing.

Geneva was officially missing. Her husband, Graham, and Erik Tucker, her former employer, had both been brought in for questioning.

Selena sat on her couch with Detective Crowe across from her. His hair was wild, suit rumpled, purple fatigue shadowing his eyes. She was numb, head throbbing. She held an ice pack to the lump on the back of her skull. She’d just passed out cold. Who did that? What if there was something seriously wrong with her?

Her husband was going to prison.

Her children would be all alone.

Reign it in, she told herself. Pull yourself together.