He Started It(53)

I’d also know if Mom and Dad were really going to get divorced. I don’t know if it would matter, but I still want to know.





4 DAYS LEFT


If I were the tortured soul of this story, I’d wake up screaming because of a nightmare. Inevitably it would have pickup trucks, cigarettes, evil tree carvings, and a dead grandfather wearing a Clemson shirt. Instead, I sleep through the rest of the night and wake up feeling pretty darn refreshed. Invigorated, even.

My morning gets even better when Felix takes a shower. I take the opportunity to steal his cigarettes and replace them with a different brand. Even though I’m tired of this, it’s like I have to stick with it.

You’d think I’d have better things to do with my time right now, given all the weird things that have happened, but Felix deserves this. If he’s going to lose his job because of smoking, he might as well lose his mind along with it.

That’s how aggravated I am with him. Not just because of the smoking, but because he can’t figure out why he keeps misplacing his own things. Here I am, making it as obvious as possible, and he doesn’t have a clue.

When I’m in the shower, I imagine Felix finding that pack and wondering if he’s losing his mind.

This is exactly what happens. I can see it on his face when I come out of the bathroom. “You okay?” I say.

He looks at me, blinks his glassy eyes. “What happened last night? What was that car you were chasing?”

“I wasn’t chasing anyone,” I say. “That music woke me up and I was trying to tell them to turn it down.”

“You ran out there barefoot.” He says this like I ran out there naked.

“I was mad. They woke me up.” I sound much calmer than I feel. In reality, I am freaking out about what happened. In a good way.

Felix looks like he’s going to argue but decides against it. Interesting. Usually he doesn’t even get that close to arguing.

This morning there is no music outside, no minivans in the parking lot. Just a cold morning in northern Wyoming and a few people who need more sleep. Felix is the only one who makes small talk. He does it as we pack up the car and he does it again when we stop for breakfast.

Since no one else is talking, Felix launches into a description of a true crime documentary series he watched just last month. It involved girls that had been kidnapped, dismembered, and sprinkled around the cornfields in Oklahoma.

No one interrupts.

Felix babbles on, maybe trying to convince himself he’s not losing his mind. He describes the whole documentary, episode by episode. Eventually he gets to the point, which is that the police knew who did it but pretended they didn’t have a clue.

“Totally shocking,” he says. “I didn’t know until they revealed it. Up until they made the arrest, the media had zeroed in on this one man, a teacher, but it wasn’t him at all. It was a totally different guy.”

“Wow, honey,” I say. “That sounds like an amazing story.”

Yes, I’m patronizing him. And I’m wondering if he was like this when I met him. It was a couple of weeks after I returned from Georgia to see my mother in prison. I just remember that he was kind and easygoing and different than everyone in my family. But maybe he had always been this annoying and I never noticed.

Eddie pays for breakfast because I paid for the motel. Portia doesn’t even bother offering anymore unless it’s just for coffee or snacks. And gas—she has paid for gas.

Felix talks about work as we walk back to the car. Sherry got promoted, Allan got demoted. Hortense the cow (their department mascot) was stolen by finance, who then traded it to marketing in return for an as-yet-to-be-named favor. Oh, and our numbers looked pretty good this month, but not great.

A month ago I would’ve been right there with him, trading stories and gossip and wondering how the company was doing. A month ago, I went on morning walks with Felix every day before work. A month ago, I was thinking about bills, my weight, my health, and the likelihood of having time to run errands on my lunch hour. A month ago, I had a husband who didn’t lie to me.

Now I know that not having kids with Felix was the right decision. Is the right decision.

That’s not what I’m thinking about, though. What I’m actually thinking about is more important than my marriage.

The pickup truck was one thing, along with the flat tires and stolen starter. Even someone coming into our room at a sketchy motel to look at my phone wasn’t that unbelievable. All of that could be explained. It wasn’t like the guys in the truck actually hurt us. They never even tried. It was just weird, like the year carved into the tree. Anyone could’ve done that. Even Krista’s sudden disappearance was easy—and no one was complaining she was gone.

Last night was different. Or rather, everything looked different, like seeing a room through a peephole and then seeing the real thing.

Not because of the van. A lot of people knew what kind of van Grandpa had. Plus it was all over the local news when Nikki disappeared.

The location was a little weirder. Wyoming was a desolate, sparsely populated state. What are the chances?

The song was what did it. Eddie, Portia, and I knew that song. We could sing it word for word, even now.

“I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage was blasting out of that van.

The only people who know this are sitting right here. Plus Nikki.