Rapid Falls(17)

I took a deep breath. “I forgive you, Anna. I forgive you for killing him.”





CHAPTER SEVEN

June 2016

“We need to talk,” Rick says as I come down the stairs. His face is serious and my stomach spasms. I just got Maggie to bed. The bedtime routine is one of my only chances to be with her alone, and it gives Rick a break. The moments we share at bedtime are beautiful: her drowsy smiles full of love and the warmth of her soft hand resting on my stomach as I sing her a lullaby. I tell Rick it is the best part of my day, and I want it to be true, but it’s a lie. The best part of my day is this moment, when work and childcare are both finished and I am no longer bombarded by relentless demands. I swallow annoyance that Rick wants to launch into a meaningful discussion the second that I have been released from every other obligation. I try to laugh it off.

“Uh-oh,” I say. “Is it really important enough to break the Code?”

Rick smiles, slightly chagrined. “Ha. Sorry. Let’s chat?”

“Better. Just give me a second.” I walk into the kitchen to refill my wineglass from dinner, taking a large swallow before I return to Rick so the pour seems closer to a regular serving. The Code is a guideline for our conversations. When Rick and I first got married, we could not stop fighting: about Anna, about how to handle our finances, about everything. We had been raised so differently. Once our lives began to meld together, I started to hate all the ways that he was better than me. During our housewarming party, I overheard Rick’s mom gently mocking the rugs I had spent hours unearthing at secondhand stores and the antique trim we had salvaged from a construction recycling place.

“It’s lovely, for a starter home,” she whispered to Rick’s dad, sipping champagne that cost more than any pair of shoes I owned at the time. “She’s tried so hard.”

Suddenly everything that had seemed so chic turned shabby in my eyes. I spent the rest of the party in the bedroom, feigning a migraine.

I told Rick’s parents that we wanted to live on the east side of the city to be closer to the art scene, instead of being honest about the fact that our mortgage, nearly twenty times what my parents paid for their home, combined with my student-loan payments left us with very little at the end of every month. The house felt incredibly luxurious to me, but I could never admit that having a garage to park our cars in made me feel like a millionaire. Rick wasn’t used to budgeting, and he was annoyed at me for tolerating Anna’s drinking. He began taking late meetings, and I stayed over at Anna’s a couple of nights a week, which led to even more arguments. One morning he discovered her passed out on our doorstep with her pants covered in urine. That night he told me he wasn’t sure we were going to make it, despite the fact that we had been married less than a year. I booked a meeting with a couples therapist. I could not risk losing him. He was the only stable thing I had to hold on to. He was everything I had dreamed of in a partner after Jesse died. I needed us to work.

The session turned out to be worthwhile, despite the therapist’s incompetence. The woman kept fumbling our names and was more interested in where I had bought my cardigan than our relationship. She interrupted Rick during his explanation of our issues to suggest we both buy copies of her new book. Ironically her lack of skill brought us together. When she sent us away with “homework,” we bolted like kids being released from detention and headed straight to a restaurant where we mocked the therapist’s self-serving approach while completing the assignment she had given us: a list of dos and don’ts for our arguments. Our joke became the Code, and to this day we work hard not to break it. Usually.

Rick came up with the first rule: never compare your partner to one of their parents. The second rule was mine: never insinuate that a person’s actions or statements are a result of being raised in a small town or as part of the working class. Common sense and respect dictate numbers three and four: do not damage property during an argument, and don’t go to bed angry. The last tenet of the Code had been gleefully cemented during our final drink of the night: don’t start any conversation with the words “we need to talk.” Now, after a grueling day at work, a series of Maggie meltdowns, and a run-in with Anna, Rick is beginning our discussion by breaking the Code. I feel tired before he begins speaking, but I try to hide it as I sit down across from him in a soft gray leather armchair and take a deep drink.

“Okay. Let the chat begin.” I try to keep my voice light, but Rick stares at me intensely. He seems to be preparing to say something difficult. I take another gulp of wine as he draws in a breath.

When he exhales, his words spill out. “It’s about Anna.”

Of course it is, I think. “Yes?” I say. My voice is sharp. I take another sip to try to soften it, but the first few slugs have loosened my movements. I knock the edge of the wineglass against my gums instead of my lips, and I taste blood.

Rick looks at me closely. “Your mother came over earlier this afternoon. She wanted to talk to me.”

I raise my eyebrows impatiently. “To you?” I knew my mother had been taking Maggie out to the park once a week or so to give Rick a break. She was nearing retirement from her job as an art teacher at a local college. We are grateful for her help, and I know she loves having a grandchild. It seems highly unlikely that Anna will ever have kids. Even if she did, my mom probably wouldn’t see them very often. Anna and my mom have become increasingly estranged despite the fact that they live only thirty minutes apart. Though Anna has never told me directly that she resents how quickly my mom remarried after leaving Rapid Falls, I think it’s always bothered her that she didn’t meet Ingrid before the wedding.