The Watcher Girl(31)

Sutton.

Gigi.

Heat creeps up my neck in tight little vines, and I almost choke on my spit.

For the first time in eight years, Sutton Whitlock stands before me.

Ten, maybe twelve feet away, he plays peekaboo with Gigi, eliciting giggles so big she almost drops her pacifier on the dirty grocery store floor. He catches it with one swift move, pops it back into his pocket.

Her eyes, dark like his and round like Campbell’s, are only for him. She’s entranced. In love. A total daddy’s girl.

As soon as there’s room on the conveyor, he loads their items—milk, butter, oatmeal, cereal, flowers . . . for Campbell?

Is that his MO?

Does he tear her down and build her up?

Does he show her how amazing of a father he is and shower her with flowers and help with grocery store runs so that when she thinks about the possibility of life without him, she thinks twice?

Sutton looks every bit the part of a doting father, from his baseball cap to his lived-in gray T-shirt to his broken-in jeans and tennis shoes. His hair is damp beneath his hat, and I imagine him going for a quick jog this morning before grabbing a hot shower and loading up Gigi to run to the store. Maybe it was a good morning for them. One of the mornings that reminds Campbell why she married him, reminds her that there’s a good side to him.

That’s what abusers do.

It’s a game to them.

The hot and cold, the good and bad, the constant emotional manipulation.

I think of what she said yesterday on the phone: “It was lovely to finally meet you.”

At first I thought she was distracted, that it was an erroneous choice of words, but what if it wasn’t?

What if she knew about me long before I knew about her?

Sutton was always a sentimental man. There was a shelf in his dorm closet where he kept a box of high school mementos. I’d found it strange that he’d hung on to a dried-up prom boutonniere, a track ribbon, his varsity basketball team photo, and his college acceptance letter, among other things, but he claimed these were the things that made him who he was, and he didn’t want to forget.

He said most people went to college to shed their old skin, to become who they thought they were supposed to be. But he didn’t want to lose sight of who he was. He didn’t want to forget how he got there. He was proud of who he was, who he’d become, and where he was going.

Only now I have to wonder, does he have a box of . . . me?

We spent close to four years together. There have to be dozens of printed and framed photos. A handful of cards. An assortment of random notes and letters. Old T-shirts. Maybe even perfume bottles.

Everything meant something to him.

What if he kept them all? And what if Campbell found them? How would he explain those things to her? It’s not the same thing as hoarding a box of high school track ribbons.

Sutton pays for his groceries, tapping a shiny blue debit card against the reader until the light flashes green.

I imagine Campbell finding his box, tearing through his old memories in a state of frenzied concern, studying my face in the photographs and wondering if our resemblance was intentional . . . or chance.

If all of this is true, then she knew exactly who I was when she invited me in to bandage my wounds after our sidewalk run-in.

No wonder she was so persistent.

She was just as curious about me as I was about her.

And once I started prying into her marriage, asking questions directly relating to Sutton, shit got real, and she got the hell out of there.

Oh, my God.

It makes perfect sense.

This is why she’s avoiding me.

“All done.” Rose’s voice startles me into the present moment, and when I glance up, I spot Sutton and Gigi heading through the automatic doors toward the parking lot. She scans the store as he pushes the cart, and I hold my breath in case she sees me and waves. Within seconds, the automatic doors glide closed, and the two are parking-lot bound. I exhale. “You ready?”

I follow my sister to an open checkout, watching from inside as my stranger of an ex loads his groceries beneath the hatch of his Toyota before buckling his daughter into the back seat.

Five minutes later, he’s gone and we’re heading home to slice fruit and bake quiche and Rose’s prattling on about baby names, talking about the size of her bladder, and carrying on like a woman far more than eight weeks pregnant. I indulge her because I’m trying to be a good sister.

On the way home, we pass 72 Lakemont, and I steal a fleeting glance through the open curtains that provide a direct view of their living room.

I spot nothing of interest and no one inside.

But I think about Campbell’s phone call yesterday, the defensiveness in her voice all because I asked if she was okay.

“You don’t know the first thing about my marriage,” she’d said. I was certain she was being coached. Everything sounded so careful and scripted until the end of our conversation, when the tone of her voice sharpened and her words became more surefooted.

Maybe I had it all wrong.

Maybe she isn’t a battered, abused woman covering for a controlling husband . . . but a woman fielding a threat? If she knows who I am, knows Sutton loved me first, knows I broke his heart long before she came around, then perhaps she’s terrified that my presence will rock the rickety foundation of their marriage?

Maybe she’s afraid that if he knows I’m back in town, something will shift inside of him? That the truth will come out? That he only married her because he couldn’t have me?