Good Girl Bad (24)

“Why don’t you go back to bed, try to get some rest,” he says, gentle. “You’ve had a terrible shock. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’ll sit up and keep an eye on things.”

The thought of a stranger in the house, with Genevieve asleep in the bedroom next door, makes his heart thud in his chest. They had peeked in, of course, to check that Gen was all right, that she hadn’t been disturbed (or taken, Nate realizes), but she’d looked peaceful, her dark hair fanned across her pillow, her mouth slightly open.

He’d clicked the door shut ever so gently, even though he knows she could sleep through an avalanche.

Rebecca shakes her head at him. “I’ll never get back to sleep,” she says, and he nods.

He puts his head in his hands and squeezes his eyes shut.

Eventually he looks up.

“Tell me about the fight,” he says, and his eyes broke no resistance.

I know, and you know, they seem to be saying to her.

But now we need to talk about it.

Rebecca looks uncertain.

“It was nothing,” she says, defensive. “She was being disrespectful. I told you. I yelled at her, told her not to be so disrespectful. After all the things I do for her. Yada yada yada.” Her face clouds over, and Nate can see indecision, anger, and even self-doubt passing across it with her thoughts, but she won’t be drawn on anymore.

“Our daughter is missing!” he shouts in frustration. “Don’t you think it might be relevant? You and I both know your fights can get completely out of hand. What did you say to her?”

But Rebecca just put her head in her hands, and refused to say another word.

Alone in her bed later, she turns Nate’s words over and over in mind.

Did she know?

There’s that creeping feeling in her stomach, the uneasiness she can’t shake. The unsettling idea that what she brushed over and smoothed away was not nothing. That there was something about her fights with Tabby that were furtive and shameful. Something that was outside her control, that she couldn’t whip back into shape, into something calm and understandable, something justified.

“I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper in front of them.”

Tabby’s words hang in her mind, suspended. They didn’t make any sense. Rebecca never lost her temper in front of other people. Why would Tabby think such a thing? It was only Tabby who drove her so crazy, who made her so mad. But even as she thinks this, something bubbles and whirs away deep inside her: the knowledge that perhaps that was a problem. That if she could control her temper in other contexts, why couldn’t she control it with Tabby?

If she could control it when Tabby had a friend over, and wait until the friend had gone to let loose her rage, that if she didn’t do it with other people, was it because she knew that it really wasn’t an okay way to treat other people? That that flash of satisfaction she feels when she sees Tabby cowering, succumbing, soothes something in her, makes the world feel right again, but she would never, ever, ever admit that to anyone or resolve a dispute that way outside her home?

That she would never, ever, ever settle some disrespect at work this way?

In amongst all these questions though, another one pops up, and it is the question that lingers on her mind, and scares and confuses her the most. She shoves it away, trying desperately to go to sleep, but it keeps resurfacing, taunting her, scaring her.

That word. The last thing that Leroy ever said to her.

Abuse.

Angrily, she leaps out of bed and pops a sleeping tablet from the pack, swallowing it in a fury.

But the question doesn’t leave her. In amongst the drugged heaviness that starts to wash over her, in fact, it’s the one phrase that remains crystal clear.

If her “abuse” is a problem…can she stop?





20





Two-and-a-Half Months Earlier

“What’s wrong, Freddy?”

Rebecca stops what she is doing in surprise when Freddy comes into the kitchen. She’s wiping away tears, but she looks angry, too.

“Honey, are you okay? Did you and Tabby have a fight?” Rebecca pats a barstool and sits down herself, but Freddy stays standing, her posture stiff. Like she doesn’t know whether to trust Rebecca or view her as the enemy.

“Here, come try this for me,” Rebecca goes on, scooping some icing out of her mixmaster. It’s streaked red and white and is rich and buttery. Rebecca already knows it’s good, she doesn’t need Freddy to tell her, but she proffers the spoon anyway. Hoping to tip Freddy’s assessment from suspicious to trusting. She’s never seen Freddy and Tabby fight before.

Freddy hesitates for a moment, then obediently steps closer and opens her mouth.

“Oh gosh, so good, Mrs. G. What’s it for?”

“I just felt like baking. It’s nice to have treats in the kitchen, don’t you think?” Rebecca doesn’t look at Freddy, but busies herself scraping the icing onto a fat pale cake on a fancy cake stand. She scrapes and smooths and spreads with flourishes. Within minutes, the cake looks like something you might buy in a shop.

Freddy sits herself down on the edge of the barstool gingerly. She seems deep in thought.

“You can take some home if you like,” Rebecca offers, indicating the cake.

“Oh no, that’s okay,” Freddy says, looking uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to put Rebecca out, but she also doesn’t want to carry half a cake home on her bike.