The Wife Who Knew Too Much(7)

When we got to the road that wound around the lake, Connor slowed down and shut the music off. As we approached the Ford house, my armpits felt damp and my chest felt tight. I didn’t want to meet his grandmother. She scared me senseless. I just wanted him to want to introduce us. He’d proved he was willing to. Now I wished we could go somewhere else. But I’d made enough of a fuss that I couldn’t back down.

We turned in to the driveway. The rambling, shingled house was mostly dark, except for a couple of lights on upstairs.

“Are they sleeping?” I said.

“My grandmother goes to bed by ten. Mom’s in Connecticut for a court date, and my aunt and uncle went back to the city.”

I breathed out in relief.

We picked our way down the driveway, which was parked up with cars and littered with fallen bikes and sports equipment. He took me in the back way, through the screen porch. Viewed from across the lake, Nell Ford’s house sparkled. Up close was a different story. The screen door sagged on its hinges. The porch was crammed with musty old furniture. We stepped through the door into a large kitchen, its appliances decades out of date. A tang of garbage hung in the air, just like in any old house.

Connor led me up the creaky back stairs to the third floor, where he pushed open a bedroom door. The room was narrow and dark, with two sets of bunk beds and clothing strewn across the floor. Robbie lounged on a bottom bunk, talking on his flip phone. Two other Ford kids were on the bed above, staring at a Nintendo screen, their gangly legs hanging off. Their names were Tyler and Caleb, though they were called Punk and Boo. They were brothers, maybe twelve or thirteen. They gawked as I entered.

“You guys know Tabby,” Connor said.

“Tabby, what uuup,” Robbie said, slurring as he closed his phone.

He sounded drunk, or high.

“I need the room,” Connor said.

Robbie got up, yanking on Punk’s leg where it hung off the bed.

“You heard the man. Move it, dudes,” he said.

The younger boys followed Robbie out, poking each other and grinning. Connor shut the door and took me by the hands, drawing me down onto the lower bunk on the opposite side of the room. It must be his bed. It was narrow and lumpy, with a green wool blanket that felt scratchy against my skin as he undressed me. But I loved being in the place he slept each night, and I adored the way he looked at me.

“Your body is unreal. I’m crazy for you, you know that, right?” he said.

The bed squeaked like crazy as we made love. I heard giggling coming from the other side of the door.

We didn’t get caught that night. Therefore, naturally—despite the obvious dangers of hooking up in his grandmother’s house—we did it again the next night, and the night after that, until it became a habit. Three or four nights a week, I’d sneak out. Connor would pick me up at the end of my street. We’d get to his house late, when it was dark and quiet, and sneak up the back stairs. I never ran into Nell Ford.

Never—until I did.

All the Ford kids knew about our rendezvous, and I’d been worried that someone would snitch. Connor claimed that could never happen. All the cousins were guilty of something. Knowing each other’s secrets created mutual assured destruction. But we hadn’t reckoned with the effect of Connor’s feud with his middle sister, Chloe. What had gone wrong between them, I didn’t fully understand, though I knew it had something to do with the parents’ divorce. One night, out of the blue, Chloe decided to tell.

We were lying under the scratchy blanket when Mrs. Ford pounded on the bedroom door.

“Connor, open up. Have you got a girl in there?”

“Shit, it’s my grandmother,” he said, under his breath.

We jumped up and pulled our clothes on. I started to speak, but he shook his head and put a finger to his lips, nodding toward the door.

“Coming right out, Grandmother. One second.”

Nell Ford couldn’t wait. She threw the door open and caught us half-dressed. I had my shorts and bra on but not my top. Connor was just stepping into his jeans. He stumbled and nearly toppled over.

“Wait a minute, Grandmother. Stay out.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. This is my house. So. You’re Jean Parker’s granddaughter? What does your grandmother think of your behavior?”

Connor looked stricken. “Tabby is my friend.”

She looked me up and down, her face puckering with distaste.

“Apparently, quite a close friend.”

“I’ll take her home.”

“She can get herself home. You and I need to talk, young man.”

“But—”

“Sit down. And you, please leave my house. Now.”

I looked at Connor. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He sat down on the bed and hung his head. I walked out, past the grandmother, down the stairs. Robbie was sitting on the screen porch. I borrowed his phone to call Grandma Jean to come get me.

When she pulled up fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on the front steps, dry-eyed in the dark. Connor hadn’t come looking for me. But Nell Ford must’ve been watching from the window. As I walked down the driveway, the front door flew open, and she rushed past me, bearing down on my poor grandmother.

“Jean Parker, I need a word with you.”

Grandma Jean got out of the car and met her with shoulders squared. They had it out right there on the front lawn, loud enough to wake the neighbors. Grandma Jean stood up for me, and told Mrs. Ford to look after her grandchildren, who everybody knew ran wild all over town. It was hardly a fair fight. The next day, I was let go from the club. Grandma Jean got an official reprimand in her file for inappropriate conduct toward a member. Later that year, when layoffs came, the blot on her record gave them an excuse to fire her. As for Connor, he called the next day to apologize. When I wouldn’t come to the phone, he kept calling, until he gave up and wrote me a letter. When I didn’t answer that, he wrote again. I burned the letters unopened. Eventually, he stopped writing.