Tips for Living(59)
I turned away, my gaze settling on the framed photographs resting on the mantel. A picture of a young, gap-toothed Sam. He looked like his dad. Another of Ben’s wife standing behind the wooden wheel of a sailboat, smiling confidently, her hair blowing in the breeze. All I knew of sailing I’d learned during a Channel Island whale-watching trip with Hugh: for seasickness, suck on gingerroot. Had Ben been comparing me to her tonight? Did I even come close to measuring up? I couldn’t afford to spend any time worrying about that. I had more important things to figure out, like why this bizarre affliction had returned and how to stop it.
According to everything I’d read, muscle-paralyzing drugs were the standard treatment. A terrible idea. What if there was an emergency in the night? A fire? I’d be toast if I couldn’t move. And what about needing to use the bathroom? Not a single article had offered an actual cure, though some sleep-clinic research showed promise for biofeedback techniques. I was afraid to seek help at a sleep clinic. What if Gubbins was right about the police tracking my GPS? If they discovered I went for sleepwalking treatments, they would use it against me, if not as direct evidence, then as a sign of a troubled woman with a guilty conscience.
I moved to the couch and flopped down. My head fell back onto the pillows, and I became aware of a smell almost instantly—subtle but definitely there. Cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Where was the delicious cookie smell coming from? I sat up again. A large brown pillar candle had been placed in the center of the coffee table. I leaned over, drew it toward me and sniffed.
A chocolate chip cookie candle.
Ben had a chocolate chip cookie candle in his living room.
If I weren’t so messed up, I could fall in love with a man like him.
Ben didn’t budge when I tiptoed into the bedroom. Or as I gathered my clothes, or even when I accidentally tripped over the alarm clock on the floor and caused it to clang like a tricycle bell for a second or two. I envied Ben’s ability to sleep soundly. He lay on his side, arms wrapped around his pillow the same way they’d embraced me. When I finished dressing, I knelt down next to the bed and watched him sleep. All traces of the ornery Ben had disappeared. His expression was sweet, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, as if he were smiling at some happy thought. I had to fight the urge to kiss him. He’s a good man: a good father, a good friend. Loyal and true. He’s lost the love of his life, and he’s trying to start over. He’s opening his heart to me. But my heart wanted to run and hide. If Ben knew about the sleepwalking, how would he react?
I’d told Hugh about my distressing sleep history and its genesis: the mobsters showing up at the cinema to strong-arm my father. “That same night, I woke up wielding a golf club. The next night, a knife. I think I wanted to protect us.” Ashamed of how vengeful it looked, I didn’t share how I’d mutilated Axel’s sweatshirt years later.
Hugh was sympathetic and reassuring—even a little intrigued. “Those bastards must’ve scared the hell out of you, poor kid. This explains something.”
“What?”
“You’ve always given off a kind of dark mystery. I thought it was the Russian in you.”
But Hugh had hidden his own darker feelings. That “disturbing” picture he’d painted of the “Nora beast” standing over him while he slept? The one I read about in the review of his Scenes from a Marriage show? That was Hugh saying, “This is my ex-wife, the repulsive sleepwalking fiend.”
If Ben learned about the sleepwalking, he might also be repulsed. He might even begin to add things up differently. He could have doubts about whether the killer really did arrange a frame-up. He might suspect that I’d murdered Hugh and Helene. How could I expect him to trust me when I was having trouble trusting myself?
Ben’s eyelids began to flutter. What was he dreaming? Was I in there with him? Were we opening his door to the ocean, crossing the threshold together and diving deep? I wished I could swim by his side over the coral reefs and discover fish and plants I never knew existed, explore underwater caves and ancient shipwrecks with him. I didn’t want our great adventure to end before it started. But I couldn’t see having a relationship until I cleared my name of suspicion.
I quietly took a pen from my purse and, fearful that tearing a page out of my comp book would be the thing that would wake him, went back to the kitchen. I returned, righted his nightstand and set my note down on top of it.
A brilliant moon lit my path. The surf slapped against the wooden pilings of the empty docks as I jogged along the edge of the water with my shoulder bag slung across my chest like a bandolier. A halyard pinged against a flagpole. Cold, salty air bit my face, drawing tears from my eyes. Tiny daggers of ice stabbed my lungs. I was headed for the Courier. We’d driven to Ben’s apartment in his car, and mine was still parked in front of the office. Though blood drummed in my ears and my chest wheezed, I kept moving through the frigid early morning. In a little more than an hour, it would be light, and I’d meet up with Grace at Van Winkle Lanes. I’d tell her everything. She would have some idea of what to do. She always did.
Soon I was making the left on Pequod Avenue and heading toward the golden glow of one of Pequod’s solar streetlights. I stopped short when I saw him. He stood a few yards ahead of me under the canopy of the Pequod Bookstore, nibbling on the ornamental cabbage in the window box. A white-tailed buck. Noble, elegant tines sprouted upward on either side of his head. His ears twitched and he lifted his snout. He turned and stared at me, still chewing the cabbage leaves. Daring me to do something about it.