Back then, though, was before I knew that he had full control over all of Avery’s birth documents, and unless I found a lot of money and some shady people to provide me with fake ones, this was now our life.
I have dreams sometimes of telling Cora, or Donna who jogs by and coos at Avery on the front porch sometimes, but it’s not that easy. Of course, I thought I could just go to the police. I could call 9-1-1 or run to a neighbor and tell them everything. What rational person wouldn’t think to do that? Lucas thought that was a great idea. The first time—the night everything changed, and he pushed his thumb into my throat so hard I saw stars and blacked out—I said I’d call the police. I was pregnant; we’d just arrived in the US. It was only a matter of months before the man I married choked me up against the bathroom wall for telling him he’d used up the hot water.
He laughed at me when I said I’d leave, go for help. He handed me his phone to call the police. When they came, he welcomed them in. He laughed with them, explaining my depression and fragile state of mind. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. They called himsirand shook his hand.
If I am to escape him, there can be no chance that I’ll be stopped by police or reported as missing before I can get very far. I have to get far enough away in one go, and that will take money. I think about Cora on our porch. It’s the closest I’ve been to another person besides Lucas and Avery in so long. There was a moment I thought,What if I opened my mouth and the words came out and I asked her to help me?But I already know how that fantasy ends because all the cameras have audio and he gets alerts on his phone anytime they pick up any voice in the house. I learned that the hard way. And I cannot spend nights in that room in the basement again for some attempt that will never work.
I pull a pink knitted blanket from the back of the rocking chair in the nursery and lie on the floor beside Avery’s crib. I still don’t cry. I don’t feel anything at all. I just stare at the unicorn night-light plugged into the wall across the room and pray for merciful sleep.
9
PAIGE
Paige stands in her dark kitchen opening a can of tuna fish for Christopher, who dances around on his hind legs impatiently. She’s teetering on spiky high heels in a too-tight skirt she can barely walk in, and he almost knocks her over with his excited jumps.
“Take a pill, Christopher,” she says, nudging him off her leg and leaning down to feed him the tuna, which he eats in two bites. She has to hold the side of the sink to stand back up, in the stupid getup she’s forced to wear. She hates dressing up. Adults should not dress up for Halloween. Period. She hates theme parties where she’s required to come as a flapper girl or in some grass skirt for a backyard luau.Guess what, Brian? Adding pineapple to your burger on your shitty backyard grill and throwing some plastic leis around for decoration does not a luau make.This might not be a costume, but it feels like one.
The annual Museum of Art Ball should also not be called aball. There’s a karaoke room and a bunch of twentysomethings throwing up into garbage cans by nine o’clock after too many free margaritas. Most people make an effort, though, in their tuxes and puffy dresses, even though it looks a bit like a 1980s prom exploded, and then there’s a handful of people who come in jeans, for Christ’s sake, but fine. It’s aball. She and Grant have always gone, and of course Cora and most of the community have, too. Like most events they attend, it’s for charity. She would not be going at all this year if Finn were not going to be there, but Grant is excited to pick her up and go together, so she’ll pretend to be trying to have a normal evening. In fact, Grant is stunned that she agreed to go at all. She knows he’s hopeful that she’s finding a way to move on with her life, if even just a little bit.
The Sapphire Hotel is decorated with sparkly paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and balloons floating in between them. There are little bar carts set up around the enormous room. Well, more like folding tables with black tablecloths over them, and some bottles of booze and plastic cups scattered about, but it will do. Giant double doors stand open and lead into a few other rooms, one where a live jazz band is playing and a decent crowd of people are out on the makeshift dance floor already. The other banquet room has round tables set up around the plush, carpeted space, holding hors d’oeuvres, like deviled eggs and crab puffs. There’s an ice sculpture of what she thinks was probably a swan but now has melted a bit and looks more like a demented pigeon.
Grant points out Cora and Finn standing in a circle of conversation with a few couples near one of the bar tables. They make their way over and exchange pleasantries with everyone. She avoids eye contact with Finn. She’s not sure what her face might give away in front of the others. She’s not accustomed to making out with married men, so she isn’t certain she’d mask her guilt well on the spot. She needs a minute.
“What the hell is that?” Paige says, pointing to Cora’s drink, which looks like a snow cone.
“A Blue Lagoon,” she says.
“Is that a gummy bear?” she asks. Not waiting for an answer, she takes it from Cora and sips, then makes an exaggerated face of disgust and hands it back. She feels Finn’s eyes on her.
“Well, don’t you two look like a Disney couple,” she says, reluctantly meeting his gaze and then quickly giving her attention to Cora, who gives a giggle and little mock curtsy, although, really, her outfit makes Paige wonder if Cora has realized this is not her quinceañera.
“I need a martini with a blue-cheese-stuffed olive immediately.” Paige pulls Cora over to the bar with her, having asked the group to excuse them. Paige pokes at the olive in her drink with a toothpick as they glance around the party together.
“God, Harry Kilgore’s breath just comes right at ya, doesn’t it?” Paige asks, looking back over at the growing circle their husbands are still standing in.
“I had to sit in a car with him once for a PTA thing. I had to throw my coat out after. The dry cleaner couldn’t get the smell out. Poor guy has no idea,” Cora says.
“I feel like someone should tell him,” Paige says, and Cora looks to her as if she’s clearly the only person capable of such bluntness.
“Someone close to him. Not me. Hey, who’s that?” Paige asks, pointing to a couple newcomers to the husbands’ conversation.
“Oh, Charlotte and Tony,” Cora says. “Very cool couple. She’s like an art teacher, you know the kind where you paint real naked people, and he works with Finn. He’s in a band. Well, you know, like a garage sort of thing on the weekends, but I think he’s the drummer. I should tell you next time we have them over. You’d like them.” Paige doesn’t have to give Cora a look that says meeting new people and attending dinner parties are the furthest thing from her mind. Cora just tacks on, “I mean, at some point. We don’t see them too often, anyway.”
“Right.” Paige smiles, wondering if Charlotte is theDrinks with Cwoman Cora told her about.
“I guess nothing yet or you would have told me,” Cora says, fidgeting nervously with her straw and dunking her vodka-soaked gummy bears into the blue depths of her drink.
“Not yet, sorry,” Paige says, avoiding her eye, feeling a muscle in her cheek twitch. Cora nods and gives her a tight smile.
“I figured last weekend when you didn’t come to the restaurant for the event that night, maybe you... I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I followed him a bit here and there and haven’t seen anything, you know, red-flaggy yet. I’m trying to be careful so he doesn’t catch on, of course. But I’ll keep trying,” Paige says. She notices Cora looking longingly over at Finn. “If you want me to,” she adds.
“Yeah. No, I mean, I think so. But that’s good, right? He is where he says he is, so that’s a good sign. Maybe I am being psycho doing this. That’s what he would call it if he ever found out. I mean, we’d be over. Shit. What if you come on to him and he...says no. I hadn’t even thought about how forever awkward that would be between all of us. Then, what if he suspects I put you up to it? God, I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” She blows out a heavy breath and stares into her drink.
“He won’t say no,” Paige says, curtly.
“What?”
