Stranger in the Lake(32)
I cup my hands around my mouth and holler down the stairs. “Chet! Too loud!”
Right on cue, my phone rings, a shrill clanging coming from a pile of mail by the microwave.
Diana tips her head at the sound. “Dixie Cup.” Her lips spread into a thin smile, a victorious one. “Paul’s security password is Dixie Cup.”
Of course she knows. Because if nothing else, these past four years have returned Diana to her post as the most important woman in Paul’s life. Swooping in when he lost his beloved first wife, filling his freezer with individually portioned meals, patting his hand and promising him things would get better. That he would find another, that he would love again.
Except not me. She never meant he should fall in love with me.
And so that look on her face right now? That smug little grin? It’s why instead of answering the phone, I hear myself say, “I’m pregnant.”
15
I fall asleep, unexpectedly and deeply, my eyes popping open sometime around four. I roll over and catch a whiff of Paul, the smell of his skin and aftershave, and I reach for him before I remember. Paul’s side of the bed is empty, his scent caught inside the fabric of the T-shirt I salvaged from the hamper. It was the only way I could get settled in this big bed all alone.
I stare at the ceiling and the worries return, nicking at my consciousness, shimmering in the dark air of the bedroom. I worry about Paul tumbling down some gorge or freezing in his hammock under the trees. About Diana a few miles down the road, screaming into her pillow at the news she’s going to be a grandmother. About the lies that keep piling up like Jenga blocks, only a matter of time before a sloppily placed tile sends the whole mess toppling down.
Without warning, a wave of nausea pitches up my throat. I lurch out of bed and sprint to the toilet, barely making it on time. My last meal was hours ago, pasta that comes up in a series of sour waves. I throw it all up, over and over, until all that’s left is bile. I flush the sick down, but the dizziness, the shock of it, doesn’t pass.
I brush my teeth and pull on some clean clothes, leggings and an oversized sweater because no way I’m going to work today. On the other side of the window, the ground is white with snow, a good coating this time, a couple of inches at least and more coming down. Even if I could get to the office, what would I tell Paul’s staff? He never misses work, and everybody there has access to his calendar. I’d really like to not have to pile on yet another lie.
On the way out of the bedroom, I lift my cell phone from the charger and awaken the screen. No missed calls. No texts. No nothing.
Paul is an experienced hiker, and the area around Lake Crosby is remote enough that service, if there is any, would cut in and out. How long does an iPhone battery hold a charge in snow and sweat and freezing temperatures? If he’s smart, and he is, he’s powered it down and is saving the battery in case of emergency.
Emergency. My heart pinches, and I start catastrophizing. Broken bones, unconscious at the bottom of a cliff, frozen to death in that ridiculous hammock of his, ripped to shreds by a bear.
“Alexa, what’s the weather?” I say on the way into the kitchen.
Her smooth voice cuts through the morning silence. “In Lake Crosby, it’s currently twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of thirteen. Today you can look for lots of snow.”
I don’t have to look very far. The windows are white with it, swirling snowflakes pelting the glass like insects around a light. At the bottom of the hill, the crime tape is still strung in a wide arc around the dock like party streamers, a slick yellow ribbon dancing in the wind. I hope the police took whatever they needed from our backyard before it got buried.
At the view, my stomach growls, not from hunger but from habit. A lingering reflex from all those times the roads were too slick for the school buses to pass, and Chet and I would have no other choice but to stay home. Trailer-park kids don’t wish for snow days like normal kids do, and we don’t spend all spring counting down to the first day of summer. Not when the free school lunch is our biggest, most nutritious meal of the day.
Even now, even in a house full of food, the scars still sting—and I’m not the only one.
Krissy Hinkel from two trailers down is banned from the Piggly Wiggly for life, after the umpteenth time getting caught shoplifting candy bars. Johnny Winger from across the yard never goes anywhere without food, his pockets bulging like a squirrel’s cheeks. I have secret piles of junk food, Doritos and Twinkies and industrial-sized boxes of Little Debbies, stashed under every bed and at the back of every closet in this house. Chet now wants to spend all day every day working with food. We all have our coping mechanisms from a constantly rumbling belly, some of them healthier than others.
In the pantry, I climb on the stepladder, remove the lid from the slow cooker on the top shelf and pull out a fistful of Slim Jims. I stare at the bouquet of gas station sausages, and I can already taste them on my tongue, the salt and meat and preservatives, can feel the smoke tickling my sinuses, that delicate tension before my teeth puncture the skin. Empty calories, Paul would call them, but he’s wrong. When you grow up starving, there’s no such thing.
The doorbell rings, and I toss them back in the slow cooker and scramble down.
The front yard is empty, all but a mishmash of fresh footprints that stomped down the snow by the front door, then moved in long strides around the left side of the house. I lean my head out the door and follow their path, my gaze landing on the word written across the snow in a series of angry red slashes.