The Other Mrs.(50)

Around eight o’clock, Erin’s parents made a call to the police. But Erin had only been gone two hours at that point and the police weren’t quick to issue a search. It was winter. It had snowed and the roads were slick. Accidents were plenty. The police had their work cut out for them that night. In the meantime, the police suggested Will and her parents keep calling around, checking out any place Erin was liable to be—which was ridiculous since a winter weather warning had been issued, urging drivers to stay off the roads that night.

The route Erin often took to Will’s was hilly and meandering, covered in a thin layer of ice and snow that wrapped around a large pond. It was off the beaten path, a scenic route best avoided when the weather took a turn for the worse as it had that night.

But Erin was always foolhardy, not the type, according to Will, that you could tell what to do.

At just thirty-two degrees, the pond where they later found her hadn’t had a chance to freeze through. It couldn’t bear the weight of the car when Erin hit a patch of ice and went soaring off the road.

That night, Will looked everywhere for Erin. The gym, the library, the studio where she danced. He drove every route he could possibly think of to get from Erin’s house to his. But it was dark out, and the pond was only a black abyss.

It wasn’t until early morning that a jogger spied the car’s fender sticking out of the ice and snow. Erin’s parents were notified first. By the time Will heard the news, more than twelve hours had passed since she hadn’t shown up for their date. Her parents were devastated, as was a little sister, only nine years old when she died. As was Will.

I push the book away from me. I don’t have the stomach to read it because I can’t see the book without thinking of the photo that was once tucked inside.

Where is he keeping Erin’s photograph? I wonder, but at the same time comes another thought: Why do I care?

Will married me. We have children together.

He loves me.

I leave my breakfast dishes where they are. I step from the kitchen, slip into a windproof jacket that hangs from a hallway hook. I need to go for a run, to blow off steam.

I head out onto the street. The skies this morning are gray, the ground moist from an early rainfall that’s drifted somewhere out to sea. I see the rain in the distance. Streaks of it hover beneath the base of the clouds. The world looks hopeless and bleak. By the end of the day, forecasters predict the rain will turn to snow.

I jog down the street. It’s a rare day off work. What I have in mind for it is a jog followed by a quiet morning alone. Otto and Tate have gone to school, Will to work. Will has no doubt caught the ferry by now, getting shuttled to the mainland. There he’ll catch a bus to campus, where he’ll rivet nineteen-year-olds about alternative energy sources and bioremediation for half the day, before gathering Tate from school and coming home.

I jog down the hill. I take the street that follows the perimeter of the island, moving past oceanfront properties. They’re not lavish, not by any means. Rather, they’re well-worn, lived in for generations, easily a hundred years old. Breezy cottages, rough around the edges, hidden amid the ample trees. It’s a five-mile loop around the island. The landscape isn’t manicured. It’s far more rural than that, with long stretches of backwoods and public beaches that are not only rugged and seaweed-swept, but eerily vacant this time of year.

I run fast. I have so much on my mind. I find myself thinking about Imogen, about Erin; about Jeffrey Baines and his ex-wife hiding in the church’s sanctuary. What were they talking about, I wonder, and where is Erin’s photograph? Has Will hidden it from me, or is he using it as a bookmark in his next novel? Is it something as auspicious as that?

I pass cliffs that inhabit the east side of the island. They’re precarious and steep, jutting out and over the Atlantic. I try not to think about Erin. As I watch, the ocean’s waves come crashing furiously into the rocks. All at once, a flock of migrating birds moves past me in a deranged mass as they do this time of year. The sudden movement of them startles me and I scream. Dozens, if not hundreds, of black birds pulsate as if one, and then flee.

The ocean is tempestuous this morning. The wind blows across it, sending the waves crashing to shore. Angry whitecaps assail the rocky shoreline, throwing upward a ten-or twenty-foot spray.

I imagine the waters this time of year are icy, the depth of the ocean deep.

I pause in my run to stretch. I reach down to touch my toes, loosening my hamstrings. The world around me is so quiet it’s unsettling. The only sound I hear is that of the wind slipping around me, whispering into my ear.

All at once I’m startled by words that get carried to me on the jet stream.

I hate you. You’re a loser. Die, die, die.

I jolt upright, scanning the horizon for the source of the noise.

But I see nothing, no one. And yet I can’t shake the idea that someone is out there, that someone is watching me. A chill goes dashing up my spine. My hands start to shake.

I call out a feeble “Hello?” but no one replies.

I look around, see nothing in the distance. No one hiding behind the corners of homes or the trunks of trees. The beach is without people, the windows and doors of the homes shut tight as they should be on a day like this.

It’s my imagination only. No one is here. No one is speaking to me.

What I hear is the rustle of the wind.

My mind has mistaken the wind for words.