“Icanforgive you, Hugh, yes. But I would never be able to let go of it.”
“Ally, please, it won’t happen again.”
For some crazy reason I flash on a piece of personal finance advice I’ve touted:Never make financial decisions based on what you assume you’ll be earning in the future.Meaning don’t buy a pricier car or house because you’re due for a promotion or plan to inherit soon from a grandparent. There areno guarantees about how things will play out in the future. And I can’t bank on the fact that Hugh’s mistake is a one-off, despite what he’s promising.
“I appreciate you saying that. And I have a feeling you’d try, at least for a while. But there’s something I need to explain. As horrible as things have been for me lately, it’s helped me realize a critical fact about myself. Ever since I found Jaycee Long in the woods that day, I’ve felt unsafe in the world. My parents tried to comfort me, and the therapist I saw when I was a kid did her best, but because I deceived them and couldn’t show them how ashamed I was, Icouldn’tfeel better. I think that finding the body in Erling’s office made me come unglued because it reinforced that sense of being at risk.”
“But—”
“Hugh, let me finish. I want to be safe again. I was attracted to you in part because you made me feel that way. But not anymore. If we stayed together, I would always be wondering and worrying—every time you got home late or needed to take a shower after work.”
“Ally...”
“I’ve already made up my mind. We need to separate. One of us can take the bedroom and the other the den until we work out the specifics.”
“Please, can’t we see a counselor, and talk about this more?”
“If you want to work with a counselor to make the transition easier, I’ll go with you, as long as you view it as nothing beyond that.”
“All right,” he says, finally, his head lowered. My senseis that he knows it’s pointless to keep talking, but that he might renew his efforts down the road. It won’t matter. It’s wrenching to think my marriage is over, but I can’t see any hope.
Later, as I’m listlessly putting away laundry in the bedroom—Hugh volunteered to take the den—Roger calls.
“How are you, Button?”
“Hanging in there.” The news about Hugh and me feels too damn fresh to share right this moment, so I save it.
“I’ve got an update on the situation out here,” Roger says. “Is this an okay time?”
“Yes, I’m eager to hear.”
“Nowak confided in me that Audrey’s mother has apparently come forward. Says Audrey told her not to go into Jaycee’s room the night she babysat, or the next morning, just peek through the doorway. She said it was because she didn’t want Jaycee to wake up. There was a bulge in the bed, but the grandmother never saw the girl. She’d probably been dumped in the woods by then.”
“Wow.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, it’s good to finally see the truth emerge.”
We agree to talk tomorrow and finalize our plans to meet again this week, and he promises to fill me in then on the latest with Marion, though I sense his relationship is as doomed as mine. As for our father, we’ve given him a watered-down version of events and have been keeping him abreast.
After signing off, I deliberate what to do next. I feel an urge to go outside, to be in the world again now that I’m sureno one is trying to harm me. Before I can do anything, my phone pings with a text from Jay Williams.
More info. After dinner at Pairings on Wednesday you walked south. Checked into the Element Hotel at about 9. You walked from there to Greenbacks the nextA.M.
I stand motionless for a minute on the middle of the bedroom, staring at the screen. I’m thinking, trying to make sense of it. Using my phone I google the Element, find out it’s a boutique hotel smack in the middle of Nolita, an area south of the East Village and north of Little Italy. I have no memory of staying there that night, needless to say. But that area once mattered to me.
It’s been a while since I updated my timeline so I grab my purse and fish it out, adding the details I’ve become aware of since Monday.
MONDAY
evening: dinner, TV, argument
TUESDAY
7:00: still in bed
9:00-ish: took call from Dr. Erling
