I scroll up to her 1099 pay. A tutoring company that paid her modestly and three even smaller sums from magazines. But the bulk of her income was from Rosebud LLC.
I glance over at Tessa, who clenches her jaw as she notices that name, her temples pulsing. She knows what Rosebud is. At last, she understands. This all leads back to her husband.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tessa
Acid burns through my chest as I readRosebud LLCon Regina’s tax return. Gabe’s business is divided into several LLCs. Four or five of them, for tax purposes. Other than Longevity, they’re all references to us. Something with steel, something about the canals, Rosebud.
When we were first dating, Gabe couldn’t believe I’d never seenCitizen Kane, so he secured a projector and set up a picnic on the roof of my building in Brooklyn. We were long distance then, relishing every minute together, no time to waste, even for a classic movie. I don’t think we made it ten minutes before our desire got the best of us. Ever since, when we’ve tried to watchCitizen Kane, we end up naked before the first act’s over. The movie isn’t sexy, but it’s become our shorthand for a quickie. If we’re at a party and want to have sex, one of us will say,Want to watchCitizen Kane?I’ve still never seen the movie to the end.
I thought it was sweet, how he named the different arms of his company after us. SeeingRosebud LLCon Regina’s tax return isn’t sweet. It’s twisted.
I close her return and the Taxes folder, unsure what I’m searching for until I see a PDF saved as “Rosebud 1099.”
Under the payer’s information is all the evidence I need. The address. It’s the same as Longevity’s.
Rather, it’s an odd address on the same street, consecutive to Longevity’s. Does Gabe lease extra office space he hasn’t told me about?
“I’ve gotta go,” I tell Barb, standing so quickly an acute twinge shoots along my pelvis. It feels like I’ve pulled a ligament. I probably have. Everything in my body is loose and leaky. The truth is loose and leaky, too, dripping from the seams, about to burst.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Barb seems so small, seated below me. So afraid. So hopeful. I can’t vocalize what I’m thinking, can’t give it weight. I grab the handles to Jasper’s stroller so forcefully, half the treats I’ve dumped on him fall onto the floor. He protests briefly, then shifts to one of the many snacks still blanketing him. More fall, and we leave a trail of prepackaged junk food in our wake.
“Tessa, stop. Where are you going?” Barb stands, ready to follow, but I tell her I’ll call her later. I can’t be around her right now. She can’t be my confidant, the one to tell me I’m jumping to conclusions, to confirm that my suspicions are reasonable either. “Wait—it isn’t safe.”
I know I’m not safe, not until I find out why Regina was on Gabe’s payroll, why he had another office, why two people who worked for him are dead. I wave goodbye and hope she’ll take the hint.
Fortunately, Barb doesn’t follow me. Outside the air is stringent with salt, just chilly enough to make me feel alive. “Call me as soon as you get this,” I say into Gabe’s voicemail.
As we rush to the car, I keep calling Gabe, knowing he won’t answer while he’s at work. I need to understand how he lied to me. Whether they’re paid through Longevity or one of his other LLCs, I know everyone who works for my husband. We have holiday parties, Fourth of July barbecues, dinners at our house. I know their children, their spouses, their pets. Not Regina. Gabe kept her hidden from me.
I thud Jasper’s stroller to a stop a few feet from my car. Invested in a crispy rice square, he barely notices. There’s only one reason Gabewould have hidden Regina from me, why he’d deny knowing her. It’s wholly unthinkable, even though it’s the most common excuse of all.
Momentarily, the money throws me. If they were having an affair, why would she be on his payroll? I laugh at my own stupidity. He’s bankrolling her life, finding a way to do it as a tax write-off. It’s so Gabe—not the cheating part, but making his deceit fiscally responsible. He furnished her apartment in the only style he knows. My style. She had my sofa in another shade, my life in another form. And I’ve befriended her mother.
A car honks, jolting me out of my spiraling thoughts. The man rolls down his window. “You okay?”
I’m about to bark at himOf course I’m not okay. I just realized my husband’s cheating on me and his mistress drowned outside our home,but he’s staring at my stomach. To the outside world, I’m a pregnant woman, ready to pop. To the outside world, this is the biggest thing going on in my life, the sole thing that matters. Although I can never forget I’m pregnant, I’ve spent so little time over the last week thinking about my baby. It would be enough to make me cry if it didn’t make me angry. Gabe has robbed me of this precious time with my daughter, the last days she belongs to me instead of the world.
I wave to this concerned stranger that I’m fine and hurry over to my car. He waits for my spot. I don’t rush. Instead, I run my hands along the wheel, trying to piece together what I’ve been refusing to consider.
If Regina was sleeping with Gabe, how did she know Aram? Why is he dead too? There are too many variables I can’t know, not without talking to Gabe. Again with the naivete. I’m still assuming that my husband will tell me the truth after he’s broken our most fundamental tenet. He cheated and lied about it. He’s gotten two people killed. He may be next. I have to protect him. It’s still my first impulse, even though he’s betrayed me.
Before I pull out of my parking spot, I set the house to “Away” on my home-security app, activating the alarm on our doors and windows. I should be doing this all the time when we leave. That’s why we havean alarm. But we barely use it. Our house is so visible, the tourists our best form of surveillance. It’s foolish to assume the presence of strangers makes us safe. I’m foolish for doubting the voice that’s been telling me my son knew Gigi, that her death was connected to us.
Not to us. To Gabe.
The moment I step into our living room, the sensation of being watched hits me like a bad smell, rank and pungent. Outside, a family walks by, wearing matching UCLA sweatshirts. Across the canal, the woman who paints hides behind her easel. A man I don’t recognize photographs a woman leaning against the bridge’s railing near a bike that’s been abandoned, its orange child seat bright and empty. It’s not just me. The bike isn’t locked. Everyone here has lulled themselves into a false sense of security.
I set the alarm to Home and plop Jasper into his play area. He’s about to protest until he spots a truck that makes the most cloying ring when rolled back and forth. My sweet boy. If only he could tell me when Gabe brought him to meet Regina, how often they saw her. Of course that’s how Jasp knew her. A heat spreads through me. Gabe knew Jasper would never be able to communicate these details to me. He acted like I was being hormonal for worrying that Jasper recognized her, when he’d made my son an accessory to his affair. An affair he promised never to have. It makes me want to melt onto the floor, to permanently exist as a puddle, to never have to reconstitute. How could Gabe cheat? How could he betray our iron-strong bond, the family we’ve worked so hard to build?
Just then, the baby rolls, trying to comfort me. I rub my belly, feeling like I’ve failed her before she’s even been born. I want to shield her from this. Jasper too. It’s my job to shield them. That’s the heartbreaking truth of parenthood. You fail at your most basic job. The world is cruel. The world is violent. As a mother, I can’t prevent them from encountering the cruelty and violence of the world. I can’t keep them safe. But I have to try.
I grab Jasper and bring him upstairs to our home office. I sit behind the mahogany-and-oak executive desk, opening and closing drawers,trying to find receipts for the couch Gabe bought Regina, the table, the vase, the candles. Love notes he’s written her. Poems she’s written him. Anything that proves what I already know.
The long drawer has pens, bits of lint, paper clips that have been unbent, then approximated back into shape, something Gabe unconsciously does when he’s thinking. The first side drawer holds magazines and local newspapers with articles featuring Gabe. He and other doctors, the top specialists in Los Angeles, pose on the cover ofLos Angelesmagazine. When I flip through it to locate the article on my husband, a sheet of paper in the back falls onto my lap. It’s trifolded and thin, crinkled.
My limbs go numb as I spread it out and see that it’s a restraining order for civil harassment. It’s blank, making it even more menacing. It could be for anyone. Was it intended for Regina? Had their affair ended and he was paying her off? Did she get drunk and stumble to our house, desperate to talk to him? Did things get out of control, and he ... Could he ...? Gabe would never ... he’s not a ...
