Live to Tell (18 page)

Then she realized her sister was referring to Nick’s own mother having run off and abandoned her family.

“What if he never comes back?” Lauren bleakly voiced the thought that had been on her mind since she saw the text message.

Now, she jabs the coffeemaker’s on button, remembering her sister’s matter-of-fact response.

“Well, Nick survived it. Maybe he figures his kids will, too.”

Lauren sinks into a kitchen chair, wishing she could find it impossible to believe Nick could actually think of it that way.

But who knows what Midlife Crisis Nick is capable of?

Not me. He’s a total stranger now
.

Lauren wonders if he even bothered to contact the office after he resurfaced yesterday—and whether HR ever managed to get in touch with Beth. Marcia Kramer never called Lauren back with any updated information, and Lauren decided it wasn’t her place to call Marcia and let her know she’d heard from Nick.

Is Beth there with him as he thinks things through?

Wherever
there
is.

At first Lauren had assumed he was still at the island beach house, but maybe not. Vacation rentals on Martha’s Vineyard are notoriously heavily booked at this time of year, and they tend to run weekend to weekend. Besides, Nick already mentioned—several times—that the kids’ first week home from camp was the only week his vacation house was available.

Unless he had lied to her—or had planned all along to stay through this week.

“But if he did that,” Alyssa said when she brought up the possibility, “then he probably would have arranged to take extra vacation time from work, wouldn’t he?

“Probably. Considering that he cares about his job more than anything else.”

“Even Beth?”

Lauren didn’t bother to reply to that.

“Okay,” Alyssa went on, “so you honestly believe that this really might be a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Well, if he’s not at the island house, where is he doing all this thinking?”

“Who knows? Maybe he’s holed up in his apartment down in White Plains. Maybe he got back home over the weekend, but didn’t feel like dealing with the kids, or humdrum daily routine, or real life in general.”

“Yeah, well, who does? But real men suck it up and do what has to be done.”

Lucky Alyssa, married to a real man. Ben is great with the baby and around the house. Of course, so is their live-in nanny, whose name is Maria, just like in
Sound of Music
. She even plays the guitar.

Alyssa really does live a charmed life.

Things were different when they were growing up, though. Lauren was one of those rare high school girls who were on top of the world, and college was even better. Then she met Nick…

Her older sister, meanwhile, was a bookworm who focused on academics throughout high school and college and rarely dated, even after she moved to New York to take a job in the finance industry. A late bloomer, Alyssa met Ben around the time Lauren got pregnant with Sadie, and embarked on a whirlwind courtship.

Lauren squeezed herself—six weeks postpartum, and nursing—into a matron of honor sheath for their wedding.

“You look gorgeous,” Nick told her, and she knew she didn’t, but she thought it was cute, the way he believed it.

That was probably a lie, like everything else.

Lauren pours a cup of coffee and sits with it at the table, brooding.

She has half a mind to get Nick’s key and drive down to his apartment to see if he’s there. If he is, she’ll ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. Remind him that the world doesn’t revolve around him. That his three children need their father…

Even if their mother has no use for you whatsoever, you SOB.

Sadie woke up when Mommy got out of bed a little while ago. It was so dark she thought it was the middle of the night. She heard Mommy go downstairs, and she waited for her to come back, but she didn’t.

Alone in the big bed, Sadie couldn’t fall back to sleep.

After a little while, through the open windows, she started to hear the birds calling to one another outside. They don’t do that in the middle of the night. She noticed that the room wasn’t quite as dark, and she realized it wasn’t the middle of the night after all. It was—
is
—morning.

She waits in bed until there’s more light filtering through the cracks around the closed shade. Then, carefully, quietly, she gets up out of bed and tiptoes across the floor.

Peeking out into the shadowy hallway, she sees that Ryan’s and Lucy’s doors are closed. Sadie left her own door open when she left her room last night.

As she slowly walks toward it, she can hear her mother moving around downstairs in the kitchen, and she can smell coffee. Familiar household sounds and smells make the hallway seem a little less scary.

Sadie stops in front of her bedroom door.

Last night, she rigged the fishing line again.

In this dim light, she can’t tell whether it’s still intact.

She drops to her knees and feels around in the open doorway.

There it is.

Sadie breathes a sigh of relief. Good. This time, nobody’s been in her room.

But that doesn’t mean someone wasn’t in here yesterday.

Maybe she should tell Mommy after all. She was about to run down and tell her when she first discovered the dislodged fishing line, but then Lucy came running in and made that big commotion about hearing from Daddy, and then Ryan called, and no one paid any attention to Sadie.

Or to Chauncey.

No one else seemed to care that he was still sound asleep, barely moving. He didn’t stir at all when Sadie crept over and touched his paws. She knew something was wrong. She tried to tell Mommy again, but Mommy took a quick look and said he was okay.

Sadie was mad about that. She was mad about a lot of things.

So she went back up to her room and she sat on her bed and she guarded her stuff.

Mommy had said she was going to clean out the bedrooms yesterday, but she didn’t.

Still, Sadie sat there all day. Until it got dark. Then Mommy made her come down and eat something for dinner. After that, Mommy came back up with her and tucked her into bed.

Lying there alone, Sadie started to wonder what might happen if the person who had been there came back in the night.

Frightened, she tried to stick it out, afraid that if she left, the burglar might come in and steal all of her things.

Finally, though, she was too scared to stay. She rigged the fishing line again and then she crawled into bed with Mommy.

She does that a lot, so Mommy didn’t ask her many questions about what was bothering her. If she had, Sadie might have told her.

She didn’t, and Sadie decided not to bring it up. She was afraid that if she mentioned her bedroom, Mommy would remember that she was planning to clean it out and give some of Sadie’s things away to the tag sale.

She crawls under the fishing line and walks around her room, checking to make sure that everything is right where it’s supposed to be.

Pausing at her bureau, she notes that it still looks a little empty. She moves her My Little Pony lamp to the left a bit, then moves her Tinker Bell music box to the right.

Now it’s not so obvious that the pink dog is missing.

Satisfied, Sadie turns away.

“What are we doing today, Mom?” Lucy, wearing shorty pajamas and carrying her book and her iPod, appears in the kitchen as Lauren tosses a filter full of cold, wet coffee grounds into the trash.

Ordinarily, she pours what’s left of the morning coffee into a pitcher to ice in the fridge for later, but today, she drank the entire pot herself.

And I’m still exhausted.

A warm breeze billows the curtains at the screen above the sink as Lauren runs water into the empty glass carafe, telling Lucy, “I’m not sure what we’ll do.”

She only knows that it’s going to be another long, hard day.

Stress, anger, exhaustion—all of it due to Nick.

“Maybe we can go back to the mall,” Lucy suggests hopefully.

“Maybe we can—wait, no. Sadie has a doctor appointment this afternoon.”

“I hope she doesn’t have to have any shots. Remember last time?”

Last time. How could she forget Sadie’s annual checkup, in April? Sadie, hysterical, writhing, needing two nurses, Lauren, and Lucy all to restrain her for the needle…

That was not long after Nick left. Lauren was in tears, too, by the time the ordeal was over.

“It’s not that kind of doctor appointment,” she tells Lucy.

“Oh. It’s the shrink?”

“Please don’t say that in front of your sister. And please don’t tell anyone outside the family about this.”

“Mom, it’s no big deal. Everyone has a shrink.”

Everyone, who? Everyone at camp? Lauren is too tired to ask.

Lucy opens a cupboard. “We need more cereal.”

“Add it to the list.”

It was Nick who, years ago, pinned a magnetic “Groceries” pad to the fridge. Whenever someone notices the household has run out of something, he’s supposed to write it down. No one but Lauren ever does it without prompting—though Ryan has been known to list wishful items like Pepsi and Ring Dings.

“When was the last time you went to the supermarket? Because we’re actually out of a lot of stuff,” Lucy announces from behind the cupboard door, where she’s apparently taking inventory.

“I don’t know—it’s been a while.”

The truth is, it’s been months. All summer, she’s been picking up a few grocery items here and there at the Korean market and the Rite Aid a few towns over, reluctant to visit Glenhaven’s lone supermarket. She’s never been able to get into and out of that store without running into several people she knows.

“I’ll stop at the store today after Sadie’s appointment,” Lauren tells Lucy.

After all, it’s August. No one’s around. Plus, the A & P happens to be located in the same strip mall as Dr. Rogel’s office. Pinch-hitting Dr. Prentiss said she has her own office elsewhere but that she’d meet them here so that Sadie will feel more comfortable.

“Don’t forget to buy Lucky Charms. And sugar, and chocolate.”

“
Chocolate?
”

“We don’t have any.”

“Did you write it all down?”

No answer from Lucy.

Lauren turns to see that she’s just plugged in her iPod earphones and is fiddling with the volume.

With a sigh, she turns off the water, dries her hands on a dishtowel, and reaches for the magnetic pad.
Lucky Charms, sugar, chocolate…

Household staples, for sure. Good thing Nick isn’t around to criticize their eating habits.

She adds to the list because really, what the hell?
Pepsi. Ring Dings. Doritos
.
And fake yellow cheese that comes in jar.

She can never remember what you call the stuff. Nick used to say it was toxic. Lauren considers it decadent.

She tears the list off the pad, sticks it into her purse, and waves her arms at Lucy.

“What?” Lucy unplugs one earbud.

“I’m going to go up and take a shower and get dressed now before something else pops up.”

“Have fun.” Lucy plugs in again.

“Oh, I will,” Lauren mutters. She’s been trying to get back upstairs for the last couple of hours, but there’s been a barrage of interruptions: Sadie waking up and wanting breakfast, Ryan waking up and wanting breakfast, Sadie and Ryan arguing over the television, an endless phone call from her mother…

Lauren didn’t tell her about Nick’s latest misdeed, and she had asked her sister not to mention it, either. She knows her parents now loathe Nick as much as they adored him over the course of the marriage—and they aren’t opposed to bad-mouthing him in front of the kids, Lauren discovered during their last visit.

The less ammunition she provides, the better.

“How’s you-know-who?” her mother asked, just before they hung up—and right after she pressed Lauren to set a date for a visit.

“Mom, you can say his name.”

“I know I
can
, but I don’t want to. How is he?”

Lauren sighed and told her Nick was fine.

Which is true—if “fine” entails dropping off the face of the earth for a few days to “think.”

Lauren steps over Chauncey, snoozing on the rug in the foyer, and starts up the stairs.

How nice for Nick to have the luxury of undistracted “thinking.” Or undistracted anything. What she wouldn’t give for a little less distraction, and a little more—

The doorbell rings.

Perfect. Just perfect.

“Can someone get that?” Lauren calls, just having reached the top of the stairs.

No reply.

Oh, right. Lucy is plugged in. Ryan and Sadie are presumably behind their closed bedroom doors.

With a sigh, Lauren makes an about-face and heads back down to answer it. Through the frosted glass panel in the door, she can see the silhouette of someone standing on the porch.

Chauncey, having sprung to life, meets her at the bottom of the steps, barking and wagging his tail.

“I guess you’re back to normal today, huh, boy?” Lauren rubs his head, then opens the door.

John, the pinch-hit dog walker—make that the
legitimate
pinch-hit dog walker—is standing on the porch, her house key in his outstretched hand.

“Hi. I was about to let myself in but I figured maybe I should ring first.”

“Oh, well…thanks.”

John pockets the key and reaches down to pet Chauncey. “How’s it going there, pal?”

“You know, I should ask you…he seemed kind of under the weather yesterday. Was he low energy when you walked him, did you notice?”

“This guy? Low energy?” John shakes his head. “Nope. I wouldn’t say that. Not that I know what he’s usually like, but he was chasing squirrels around and all that good stuff. Maybe I just wore him out.”

“Maybe.”

Lauren watches him head down the street with Chauncey on the leash. The dog certainly has a spring in his step this morning. Everything seems to be okay now, thank goodness.