Open House(49)

“But Dad would never hurt anyone,” Elliot said, the words choked by his sobs.

“I know that,” Priya said. I know that now, at least. She felt it in her bones that Brad had told her the truth today. For years she’d told herself she was absolutely sure he hadn’t hurt Emma, but there was always the tiniest kernel of doubt. How had she allowed so many transgressions in her marriage, so many things she never thought she would tolerate? How foolish could she ever be to think a marriage built on lies could survive? For God’s sake, Elliot was born two days after Emma disappeared. What kind of karma had she and Brad incurred, for standing by and never going to the police with what they knew?

“I’m scared,” Elliot said, pulling back to look her in the eye. His T-shirt was stretched around the collar and damp from where snow had found its way beneath his scarf. His pale skin was so delicate, and Priya gently touched the spot where his pulse reminded her how alive they were, how vibrant.

“I know, Elliot. Me, too.” Honesty was what she always tried to give him, but she couldn’t remember another time when it had been this hard. “Dad didn’t hurt that woman, so there’s nothing we can do but wait until the police realize that, too, and let him go.”

“But how will they realize that?” Elliot asked, too smart for his own good.

It’s what Priya wanted to know, too. The only person who could exonerate her husband was Josie, which made her the very person Priya needed to get to.

“Sit tight for just a second, okay?” Priya asked Elliot. “How about I make you a mug of warm milk?”

Elliot looked unsure but nodded, so Priya carefully extracted him from her lap and set him down on the soft leather cushion, tucking the afghan around him. She crept into the kitchen and found her phone. She opened up her texts and typed a message to Josie.

Will you see me if I come to the hospital? Brad was just arrested, Josie, but he wasn’t the one who hurt you today. Which means the person who did is still out there.





THIRTY-NINE

Emma

Ten years ago

Noah and I sit together on the cold, hard dirt high above the river. Below us the water carves a winding course, and the melting snow has made the current faster than usual. I watch the white, frothy waves cut through the night, thinking about the slippery creatures beneath and what it would feel like to only ever hear the sound of rushing water.

“What are you thinking about?” Noah asks, his voice soft. He’s been so quiet sitting next to me and breathing in the same night air. Our phones illuminate the night enough so that I can see his face, his gaze taking in the river. It’s a straight drop down to the dirt from where we’re sitting, maybe four stories or so. There are paths the runners take down to the water, but those are a ways away, in places where the decline is much more moderate. The cliff we’re perched upon feels like a metaphor for the precipice Noah and I are hovering on, for what I’m about to tell him and how everything that comes after will be different. But maybe I’m just being dramatic. Maybe it’s just rocks and dirt and nothing more.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask, turning the question around on him.

“I’m thinking about everything,” Noah says, “and how messed up it’s all gotten.” His words are slurring a bit, and I stay quiet because I know the beer will make him give me a more honest answer. “The tension between you, me, and Josie isn’t good,” he finally says, and the words shoot through me like a warning. Noah’s not good at picking up on moods and imperceptible shifts, and it makes me wonder if they’ve hooked up, if that’s what he really means.

I swallow hard. Noah links his fingers through mine, and his touch brings tears to my eyes. I have the awful sense that something may need to break for a new thing to survive. I don’t dare say it out loud because it feels too morbid, and I’m so full of life in this moment that I really don’t want to put words to the sense of doom I get every time I think of Noah, Josie, and me: the impossible threesome.

We watch the river for a beat longer, and I think about what I really want to say. More than whether he hooked up with Josie, more than even the baby, is the question of him and me, and that’s what I need to know first, before telling him everything else. The night air swirls around us, the smaller saplings swaying with the weight of it. I gather my courage, and then I ask it:

“Who do you want, Noah?”

My voice sounds thin in the wind, insubstantial. And when Noah doesn’t answer right away, I feel that way, too. “Noah, please?” I ask. “Tell me the truth.”

He turns and takes me in. “Don’t you know?” he asks, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. I’m quiet, unable to speak, not wanting to be the one who says it. “You,” he says, and that single word has never meant something so big. “I want you, Emma, and only you.”

The tears spill over my cheeks. Noah puts his hand against my face and tilts my chin so he can look at me. I smell beer and cold winter air, and then he leans closer like he’s about to kiss me.

“Wait,” I say, my breath coming faster. “There’s something I need to tell you.”





FORTY

Priya

Come.

Josie had texted that single word, and now Priya was racing toward the hospital with her pulse pounding in her throat. As soon as she’d gotten the text, she called Brad’s mother, who adored Elliot and was the only person Priya could leave him with under the circumstances. Priya had explained the situation briefly, and by some miracle Brad’s mother didn’t ask too many questions. A case of mistaken identity, she’d announced, as though this kind of thing happened all the time. Priya had settled Elliot by assuring him she’d be right back after a quick trip to the hospital to talk to the woman who’d mistakenly put the blame on his dad. She knew it was the only way to get his blessing for her to leave.