“I can explain.”
Dan’s banging continues. “Tessa? Get down here.”
“Stay here,” Gabe says.
From downstairs, Dan’s voice booms. Gabe has let him inside. Dan Huntsman is in our house. I tiptoe into the hall.
“I know it was her,” Dan barks. “Every time I look, she’s watching us.”
Is that true? Do I watch them? A shiver runs through me. That means he’s been watching me too.
“If it doesn’t stop, I’m filing a restraining order. Be a man and control your wife—” He pauses when Claire interrupts him.
“Dan, come on. Let’s go home.”
Before I can second-guess myself, I race downstairs. Everyone freezes when they see me, their expressions mismatched. Dan, expectedly, is furious. Gabe, concerned. Claire—her flawless face blushed and bronzed—distraught. And that’s when I see them, gleaming from her earlobes. Three tiers of diamonds. My earrings. Claire’s wearing them. Dan bought them for her, not Regina.
“Claire—” I start. She shakes her head no, reaches for her husband’s hand, and gently tugs him out of our house, his cold glare fixed on me the entire time.
Gabe watches our garden after they’ve disappeared. I wrap my arm around him, leaning my chin into his shoulder. Gabe’s a patient man. His clinic runs hot with emotions. Parents-to-be, especially fathers, are prone to frustration, sometimes anger. They unfairly accuse him,branding him a greedy liar when treatments don’t work. He’s trained himself to remain collected no matter how vitriolic they get. I sense it now, the way he fights to maintain his composure.
“I can explain,” I whisper.
He waits, ready to listen, and I have no excuses. The only proof I had was pinned onto my best friend’s ears. I don’t understand how Claire wasn’t hurt by the slap I saw, the slap I practically heard. I still don’t know what Dan’s capable of, but he didn’t buy Regina those earrings. He didn’t kill her.
I flop onto the couch. “I came downstairs for a glass of water, and I saw him hit her. I saw him drag her upstairs. I thought he was going to kill her, but she doesn’t have a mark on her. Her hair—” I mimic him pulling Claire’s hair on my own head. “He pulled her up by her hair, but it isn’t messed up at all. I saw it, though. I didn’t imagine it.”
The tears flow as I try to fight them. They’re manipulative, even though I don’t mean them that way.
Gabe sits beside me and pulls me against him. “I’m sure that was scary.”
I let my body relax into his until he chuckles suddenly.
“You realize you called the cops on your best friend’s kink?”
“What do you mean?”
“T., they were role-playing. You know.” He waits for me to catch on. “How sometimes you like me to play doctor.”
“What? Who would fantasize aboutthat?”
“Claire, apparently.” He laughs. It isn’t funny. It’s twisted, disturbing. It makes me think I don’t know my best friend at all. “Oh, come on. It’s kind of funny.”
I manage to summon a smile. I stand, smooth out the only pajamas that currently fit me. “I’ll apologize. I’ll go over and explain.”
“No.” Gabe rests his hands on both my shoulders. Those golden brown eyes bore into me. “Let it go.”
He has no idea how much more I need to let go than Claire and Dan.
“Do you think Claire’s mad at me?”
“I think she’s probably more embarrassed.” He pulls me onto his lap, kisses my hair. “She’ll get over it. Give her some time, and she’ll see it’s actually pretty funny.”
Gabe chuckles again as he heads upstairs to bed. I stay seated on the couch, trying to make sense of everything that’s just transpired. I’m mortified, for sure. Also unsettled. If Dan didn’t buy Regina those earrings, if he didn’t know her, didn’t kill her, I have no idea who did. I try to summon the list of names Maya showed me. I’ve always thought in images. It helps as a designer, being able to envision a piece before I’ve started to render it, let alone fabricate it. I can see the troubled expression on Maya’s face, the way she sniffled as she opened the binder to the list of five names. I squint, trying to make those other names come to life. I can see letters, a first name that stars withA, the last nameJackson. As the names partially materialize, they remain fragmented, unfamiliar. My mind’s eye drifts back to Maya, her twitching mouth, her pale face, a tragedy I can’t begin to imagine, a cruelty I’m going to impose on her. I need to see the list again.
Outside, one light shuts off, then another, our neighbors putting this strange disruption to bed. I’m not really searching for anything, just staring vacantly in the direction of the canal, lost in thought, when Dan materializes across the way. He’s in his boxers now, his bare chest smooth and muscular. Slowly, he pulls one blind down, then another, his attention lasered on me. His face disappears behind the gossamer fabric, but I can still see the outline of him, standing at the window. It’s impossible to hide in a house made of glass.
On Wednesday morning, I wake up to radio silence on my mom-group text chain. Our text chain is never quiet, especially not on a weekday morning when we all report our ETA for the park. Even though I know what this means, I tell myself it’s nothing. They simply forgot to text. I’ll go to the park and see that everything’s fine.
