Neighborly(76)

“The world’s a germy place.”

“Sadie had never been sick before. Then we go away for a few nights and when we come back, bam.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Maybe someone snuck into our house while we were away and did something. Like they contaminated her crib sheet or her changing table, something like that.” I pause. “I know how it sounds, but it’s not just notes. A package went missing, and something got slipped in my drink at girls’ night; I’m sure of it. And now this. We’re dealing with a psychopath here.”

The more I say it out loud, the more plausible it seems. Maybe that’s in part because of her expression. She’s really considering the possibility. And she’s a denizen of the AV. She knows those people way better than I do.

“What would you do if it were your daughter?” I say.

“I don’t know . . .”

“I can see that you do know.”

She meets my eyes. “I wouldn’t go back to that house.”

“Because Sadie’s life is worth more than a house, right? How can Doug not see that?”

“He must not believe that Sadie’s in danger.”

“What does he know that I don’t?”

“Or what do you know that he doesn’t?” She gives me a meaningful look. “About the world we live in. Maybe he’s the naive one.”

“Maybe he is.”

I’m getting an eerie feeling. Like she gets me a little too much.

“Listen,” she says, “you’re a mother. If you need to protect your daughter, you’ll find a way.”

Leave my husband, is that what she’s saying? Give up on the only family I’ve known?

“Can I tell you something, and I think in your heart, you’ll know it’s true?”

I take a deep breath and nod.

“There might be another reason Doug doesn’t want to move. I think there’s something going on between him and Andie.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask. She’s echoing my own suspicions from earlier, when I saw Andie and had this feeling like something wasn’t right. The question I’d been posing for weeks—why is she pursuing me?—now has an answer. She was pursuing Doug.

“It started on girls’ night out.”

“The first one? Or the second?” But I can answer my own question. “The second, while I was passed out.”

“Yes.”

“Andie’s more his type,” I say.

“More his family’s type, you mean?”

“Why, what did you see?”

“They were getting on like gangbusters in the waiting room. They practically adopted her.”

He’s got all the money. His name’s on the deed. He’s in control. I’m in debt, and I haven’t even returned to work yet. I’m not getting paid while I’m on leave.

I’m trapped.

But I can’t leap to conclusions. Just because Andie came in here and brought me body wash and body lotion that made me smell like her . . . just because she talked like she knew my husband’s emotions better than I did . . . just because my alarm bells were ringing, telling me that this woman could even be the one writing the notes because she wants me out of the picture and she wants my husband . . .

I can’t jump to conclusions. I have to talk to Doug. But he’s been avoiding me, like a man with something to hide.

“I thought I was giving Sadie such a good family,” I say. “But maybe I never really knew what a family was.”





CHAPTER 28

ELLEN

On my drive home, I pass by the park. I’ve always liked that place, even before it got so ridiculously over-the-top fancy. I liked when it was just swings, a slide, and a climbing structure on top of concrete rather than wood chips and mats, back before everyone was so afraid of lawsuits and children’s boredom. It makes me remember the early days of motherhood, when it was all promise and expectation.

Really, it couldn’t have gone better today. Kat seemed to just take my word that Doug was having an affair. She might never come back to that house of hers. Who names their house Crayola, anyway? She’ll be better off without that guy. I’ve done her a favor.

But I’m not happy, not at all.

She used the word psychopath, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I have crossed lines no normal person would cross, because she crossed all sorts of lines. She caused me so much pain. But what if she’s right, and I really am a psychopath?

I’m just stressed out, that’s all. Operation Kat has taken over my life. Maybe it’s that I’ve been missing so much of my own family. I know I can be a better mother than I’ve been lately—so consumed by my own history, with the latent hatred of Katrina roaring back to life. Since she moved in, I’ve been fighting the memories. The nightmares have returned. Then there’s the anger I’d tried so hard to extinguish. That’s why I know I need to get Kat out of the AV. I need to be the best mother I can. But sometimes I feel like I’m just using Kat as a reason to avoid things at home, that she’s a convenient excuse for the mess I’ve made of my own life.

Soon, this will all be over. I’ll be free of Katrina, and my past will be back where it belongs. I’m doing this for my family, for their future as much as my own.