The Watcher Girl(15)
“Kitchen’s in the back.” With baby Grace on her hip, Campbell takes me to the room where she prepares meals for Sutton and pulls out a chair at the head of the table, pointing for me to take a seat. Next she places her daughter in a high chair, gives her a handful of goldfish crackers, and retrieves a first aid kit from a cupboard by the fridge. “Oh. We need ice.” She’s talking to herself, mostly, buzzing about a tidy kitchen so clean I could eat off its polished tile floor.
She returns with her kit and an ice pack and settles into the seat beside me.
Her vanilla-clementine perfume—my vanilla-clementine perfume—blankets the air between us.
She slips a pair of latex gloves over her hands before laying out packets of antiseptic ointment, gauze, and bandages.
“This might sting for a sec,” she says as she starts with my knee.
And it does. It stings like hell. But I focus on the happy baby in the corner. Then the silver coffee maker on the counter—the one Sutton uses every day. A built-in desk is next to the fridge, where a bulletin board hangs on the wall, scattered with cards and family photos.
This life he’s built with her—it’s real, but it isn’t.
How many other heartbroken people in this world catapult an entire life off someone who merely qualifies as the next best thing? A knockoff of what they really want? How many children are born from these unions? How many lives are lived half-fulfilled? How many spouses know the truth? Do they ever learn to love, really love, the one they’re with? How many people take these secrets to their grave?
There’s an old song my grandma used to sing about loving the one you’re with.
Is that what he’s doing? Loving the one he’s with because he can’t have the one he loves?
“There you go. Good as new.” Campbell gathers the waste, snaps off her gloves, and tosses them in a nearby trash can.
It’s then that I spot a set of bruises on her left forearm—small and round. Fingerprint-sized. Though they could be anything.
“Thank you so much.” I examine my bandages, the inner fabric brushing across my scrapes with each move, making them sting worse than before. But I appreciate the act of kindness. It’s rare in this world. In my world.
“You know, I don’t think I caught your name?”
I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.
I clear my throat and avoid making eye contact with her child.
“Grace,” I say.
Her eyes widen.
“No way.” She grins. “That’s our daughter’s name. But we call her Gigi. I mean, we used to call her Grace, and then my husband started calling her Gigi, and it just stuck.”
Did he stop calling her Grace because it got too weird for him?
Did it feel wrong?
Did it make him think of me?
“Are you from around here?” she asks.
“Sort of,” I say. “My dad lives a few blocks from here. Just visiting. You?”
“Connecticut originally,” she says. “A little town no one’s ever heard of not too far from the Rhode Island border. You want something to drink? You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t get a lot of company these days.” She pops up and heads to the fridge. “Bottled water? Coffee? Milk? Apple juice? I’ve got the good kind . . . Martinelli’s.”
She winks, and her humble show of kindness makes me forget for a moment what I’m doing here.
I don’t want to be rude. “Water would be great. Thank you.”
Campbell serves me an uncapped bottle along with a pale-pink tea glass filled with ice. I can’t help but get the sense that she’s trying to impress me. I also can’t help but wonder if she’s always going the extra mile with Sutton.
Acts of service—that was his love language. Mine was quality time. Words like “I love you” never came easily to me, so I gave him the only currency I had—my attention.
She fixes a glass of water for herself—careful to diligently wipe away a rogue splatter on the countertop—and sits down beside me once again, settling in like we’re about to have some girl talk. Maybe she’s lonely. Maybe she’s stuck in the house all day with a toddler, and this moment right here is about to become the highlight of her week.
“So you’re married?” I ask a silly, obvious question because the ring on her finger is quite noticeable, but I need to know where Sutton is, and it’s the easiest way to steer the conversation in that direction. The thought of him blasting through the back door, grocery bags in tow, sends an anxious flush of ice through my veins. I’ve had enough surprises for one day.
“I am.” Hopping up from her chair, she grabs a framed photo from the built-in desk and hands it to me. “That’s Sutton.”
My reality tilts sideways for a moment when I hear his name on her lips, as if I’m being told about a stranger. As if the years-long history we shared was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
If she only knew.
“He’s in Baltimore for work this week,” she adds.
Thank. God.
I exhale, letting my shoulders fall with the relief that he won’t be waltzing through the door anytime soon.
The pulsing sting in my palms subsides, and I hand the photo back. Does he know how vulnerable his wife and child are right now? Entertaining some random woman off the street? I think about the key fob in conjunction with this new tidbit of information, and I shudder.