Reputation(89)

A flashlight beam shines in my face. I roll down the window and offer a polite smile. “Hi, and I’m sorry,” I say preemptively. “I had no idea I was speeding, I guess because there’s no other traffic out here and I wasn’t paying attention—”

“Ma’am,” the officer in front interrupts. The glare from the flashlight obscures his face, but I know that he’s tall and broad, maybe even broader than my husband. “Can you step out of the car?”

I gesture toward the baby in the back seat. “B-But I’m giving him his bottle. He’ll start crying.”

The officer’s light moves toward the back window. When it shines on Freddie, I feel a surge of protectiveness. “We need you to step out of the car,” he repeats.

“Here’s my license and registration . . .”

“Ma’am,” the second officer orders. “Get out of the vehicle. Now.”

I release the bottle from Freddie’s lips. No surprise, he starts to wail. “It’s okay,” I tell him, a hard, solid ball suddenly clogging my throat. Then I unlock the door and step out. The night is cold, and the rain bites at my skin. The officers shine their lights up and down my body, taking in my pajama pants, my untied shoes, my tangled hair. I don’t like how long they’re looking at me. I don’t like how vulnerable I feel, standing on the shoulder.

“What’s this all about?” I ask shakily. “Can I get back to my baby now? He needs me.”

“Where are you headed just now, Mrs. Apatrea?” the second officer pipes up. Bossily. Angrily, almost. “The middle of the night, with your baby?”

“I . . .” I search their dark, shadowed faces. How do they know my name? I haven’t given them my information yet. “Why are you asking this? What did I do wrong?”

“We have a report of child endangerment, Mrs. Apatrea. Your husband has a report from a psychiatrist that you’re suffering some pretty serious postpartum depression and that you’re at risk to harm your child.”

“What?” I blurt.

“We need to get the baby back home,” the first officer says. He takes my wrist, and his big, broad body forms a shield around me, preventing me from running. “And you, too. You need help, Mrs. Apatrea. Your husband is very worried.”

My heart bangs in my chest. Your husband.

My head starts to spin. I’m afraid I might be sick. And Freddie, in the back seat, has reached a fever pitch. “Y-You can’t take me back there,” I whimper, the tears streaming down my face. “My husband hurt me! He’s dangerous!”

“Ma’am.” My eyes have adjusted now, and I can see their faces more clearly. They’re craggy, bland, generic, uncaring men, and as they look at me, I can tell they see only what they want to see—what Ollie has told them. The first guy puts his other hand on my shoulder, guiding me toward the waiting vehicle. “The only dangerous person here is you.”





37





KIT


SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017


I sit on the side of my old bed from childhood, staring at the braided rug. There’s no way I can sleep. I watch as the clock ticks from 1:20 to 1:21. Then 1:59 to 2:00. Then 2:12 to 2:13.

I haven’t heard from the anonymous caller again, but those few words, that bald threat—I know you did it—is enough to send my mind spinning. Who was on the other end? Why would they say I murdered Greg? I try to reconstruct the night of the benefit as best I can, but it’s pointless. The whole night is a jumble of sounds and images I’ll never get back, a dark, formless room with a door shut tight.

But if I could open that door a crack, what would be in there?

I was certainly angry enough. Humiliated that Greg had ruined our family. Rejected, too, because I’d expressed again and again that I wanted to save the marriage. And then I’d seen Patrick at the benefit, the fresh lust making things hurt even worse. What might have happened in my yearning, needy, hopeless, irrational brain? Did betrayal plus wanting plus rage plus embarrassment plus extreme intoxication equal murder?

Stop it, I tell myself, punching my pillow. You didn’t do anything. But I don’t know for sure. I don’t have certainty, and it’s that tiny shred of doubt that makes me uneasy.

I rise from the bed, pull on a cardigan, and push my feet into a pair of slippers. I can’t be in this house right now. I’ll take a flashlight, I’ll take some pepper spray, but I at least need to stand on my father’s front porch and look at the stars.

I creak down the stairs, not wanting to wake the girls. I disarm the alarm system and push open the front door. The air feels good on my skin, and I tilt my face toward the sky. The moon shimmers above me. The only sounds are faint gusts of wind and far-off traffic.

I wonder if the neighborhood was this still the night Greg was killed. I shut my eyes, trying to recall padding across this lawn, poisoned out of my mind. Staggering into the house. Not heading straight into the bathroom but instead into the kitchen and finding Greg at the fridge, casually reaching for a beer. Could we have fought? Maybe everything burst to the surface, and I just . . . snapped? I don’t remember, though. There isn’t even a glimmer.

I turn and look at my parents’ house, the stonework towering toward the sky, the aged copper roof tiles intricately shadowed in the moonlight. I’m sorry, I want to tell my sleeping father. The last thing he needs is a shock to his system. I want to tell my daughters I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry because I don’t remember, and I don’t have a good excuse, and I can’t know for sure if I’m not a killer. And I’m sorry to Willa as well. I dragged her out here. Put her through this. And it turns out it was me all along.