Confessions on the 7:45(94)

Will blew out a sigh. She could tell that he was driving by the echo of his voice. “They had to let him go, just about an hour before they identified the body. They’re looking for him now. Where are you?”

“I’m home,” she said. “At our house.”

“Just—get out of there, Selena. Go home to your mom. I’ll meet you there.”

Yes, that was right. She had to go home to her mom. Her father and her husband were monsters. She was being stalked by some woman she thought was a stranger on a train, but who was really her sister. She had to go with Will to Detective Crowe and tell him everything. That was the only way out. The truth. Whatever hard consequences might follow. Problems didn’t just go away. You had to face them down and solve them. Every grown-up knew that.

There was a sound from downstairs, the familiar creak from the hallway floorboard. The noise moved through her body like electricity.

“Will,” she whispered into the phone.

But the cell had gone dead in her hand. She hadn’t charged it since—she didn’t even know when. She moved over to the bedside and rifled around in the drawer for her charger. Found it. She plugged it into a wall socket. The red battery icon appeared on the screen. It would take a while to come back to life.

More noise from downstairs, footfalls, something dropping, the squeak of the door into the kitchen. Graham. It must be.

She should run; she knew that. She should do exactly what Will said she should do—go home to her mom. Right now, with him in the kitchen, she could race down the stairs and get to her car and drive. Even if he tried, he’d never be able to catch her.

Some clanging in the kitchen, the opening and closing of cabinets. He was hungry, rifling like a bear through cupboards looking for food. Or booze.

She could get out of there and never look back. Go to Will, go to the police, come clean about everything. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

Because even through all the lies, there was something there. Her husband—he’d loved her, she’d loved him. Graham was a better father than her father had been. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved the boys and they loved him.

And maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t a monster. It was possible, wasn’t it, that this whole thing had been orchestrated by Pearl—that she’d kidnapped Geneva, that she’d killed Jacqueline Carson? She was a destroyer. She was doing what she did best, taking a wrecking ball to Selena’s life. Why? Because Pearl hated Selena for being a happy, normal person, when life had treated her so unfairly.

Selena took her phone and charger with her. Downstairs, she plugged it into the wall by the hallway console table. Then she pushed through the door into the kitchen to confront her husband.



THIRTY-NINE

Selena

Graham was sitting at the table, an open bottle of bourbon before him, an empty glass in his hand. Another on the table, as if he knew she was there and he was waiting for her. In the dim light, he was just a shadow.

She drew closer and saw the darkness of his gaze.

“What have you done?” she asked him.

“Nothing,” he said, looking up at her. “I swear to god. I never hurt her. I never hurt anyone.”

The refrigerator dropped ice cubes into the tray, causing her to jump.

“That’s a lie,” she hissed. “The woman in Vegas.”

“The stripper.” He poured more bourbon in his glass, and in the other. He took a deep swallow.

She tried to remember the man she met and fell in love with. He made her laugh with his charm, connected her to the wild, adventurous side of herself. But that guy, the one she married, he was a con. This man before her someone blank, someone dangerous, he was always inside, waiting to get out. Bait and switch.

“I was drunk.” He looked into his now empty glass, then up at her. “I lost control.”

“She’s a person—someone’s daughter,” she said. “And drunk is not a free pass.”

“I have a—”

“I know.” She raised a hand, cutting him off. She felt the heat of anger rising. “You have a problem. You’re getting help. Guess what, Graham? Obviously it’s not working.”

He sank his head into his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was muffled. “I never hurt Geneva.”

She wanted to believe that, desperately.

“And what about Jaqueline?”

She saw his body stiffen, but he didn’t say anything.

“Detective Crowe told me the real reason you were fired, Graham.”

Still no words, but his shoulders were shaking. Yes, he’d start to cry. He always did when he ran out of excuses.

She should stop talking, leave, get as far away from him as she could. But she just couldn’t do it. There was that burning rage, something volcanic, that thing she pressed down and pressed down. After her father’s lies, she pressed it down, blamed her mother because it was just easier to do that somehow. After Graham’s sexting, she pressed it down. After Vegas. After she watched him fuck Geneva in the boys’ playroom, she pressed it back.

All these women—her mother, herself, the girl in Vegas, Geneva, Jacqueline, even Pearl—fucked over by terrible men. They were lied to, cheated on, beaten, killed because of male whims, male problems, their loss of control. Her father, her husband.

Why were they so broken?