I can’t help but feel like I’ve played right into his hands.
Three
The house smells like a French bakery when I step inside and throw my car keys into the art deco bowl on the ornate Pier 1 table by the door. It’s carved out of fake jade, meant to evoke images of an ancient palace, but the price sticker is still adhered to the leg.
Collette is sitting on the living room floor, doing her homework on the coffee table. Music is blasting through her headphones. She says Beethoven helps her study. Sometimes I don’t know where she came from. But then when I think on it, she’s some version of me that I never got to meet when I was growing up. She makes the choices I would have made if my childhood had been comfortable and safe.
Waylen emerges from the kitchen, a bit of jam smeared on his cheek. “Hi, beautiful,” he says, wrapping me in a hug. “I had a little bit of time, so I went grocery shopping and got a head start on dessert. Linzer tortes.” His facechanges when he draws back and sees the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t stay for dinner,” I say, wincing sympathetically. I move into the kitchen, out of Collette’s line of sight.
“What?” His voice is hushed, as though I’ve just confided something awful. “Why not?”
“Work,” I say, glancing at the doorway just to be sure we don’t have an audience, even though I can hear Collette’s music from here. Our daughter doesn’t know about my little side hustle. She doesn’t know that her father used to do it too, before he traded it in for an editing job and a life of domestic bliss. He’ll take her to the bookstore and point out the notable stories he’s worked on. “It was my note to give Mr. Copper a pet dog in this scene. Initially it was going to be a nosy neighbor destroying his garden, but he already had one of those.” Or “I talked them into naming the dog Mr. Pickles.”
But rather than scroll through my Instagram page, featuring parties and events and homes I’ve decorated, I take Collette to a courthouse. She is eventually going to realize that my job isn’t like her dad’s.
We told Collette that we met in Paris while we were on respective summer vacations. I dropped my wallet and he sprinted across the café to return it to me before I climbed into my cab. It was love at first sight. She thinks that she was conceived well within the parameters of our holy matrimony, and that everything about our little family was planned.
In truth, Collette is what happens when two colleagues have a few too many margaritas and find each other too attractive to resist. Three months later, our mission wascompleted and Waylen and I were never meant to see each other again. Except I had a bathroom trash bin full of positive pregnancy tests, and Waylen was looking for apartments on Zillow. He says he fell in love with me the moment he knew I was carrying his baby, and his adoring commitment scared me more than the prospect of motherhood.
Mr. X was less than thrilled. “How are you going to play house and keep your head in the game?” he’d asked.
My response was simple: “Because it’s not a game to me.”
Waylen had fallen for my act. He told me I was sweet, that he couldn’t see himself settling down with a better gal.
“I’m not good for you,” I told him one night as we sat on the couch of our tiny apartment, huddled by the space heater that was shaped like a wood-burning stove. The electric glow of the fake logs lit up his face. “I’m not good for this baby, either.”
I almost told him the truth about my past. All he knew was that I’d committed some small crimes in my teens and early twenties. But it was enraging how determined he was to forgive me.
“You were just a scared kid who’d lost your parents when you were young,” he told me. “Youaregood. Better than good. If you don’t believe it, I will.”
“Are you quoting Hallmark movies to me, sir?” I’d said, and he laughed.
“Maybe I’m broke now, and this is all we can afford. But if you give me the rest of your life, I’ll fill it up with everything you deserve.”
I didn’t tell him about my inheritance until we were officially engaged. I hated to talk about how I received the money. It meant reliving the night my parents died, and all that came after that. That night is a clean seam down the middle of my life, dividing it between Before and After forever.
Waylen—sweet Waylen—didn’t force me to talk about it. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even ask to see the savings account where I was storing it. Instead, he kissed my forehead and told me he wanted us to build a life together, however that may look.
He’s kept his promise. All these years later, he’s so slick that he can even convince me sometimes that I deserve to be here, co-heading our little family. Sometimes, foolishly, I consider telling him the things he doesn’t know. The crime that Mr. X had purged from the internet as much as was possible. The one I never speak of.
It would be enough for him to leave me. It dangles in the corner of my mind like an emergency rip cord. A way out. I think about pulling it every day, but I never do.
All these years later, Mr. X has given up on trying to coerce Waylen back into a life of vigilantism, but the strain on our marriage has been constant. A fact that is evidenced by the glare Waylen gives me now. “You promised, Margaux,” he says. “You said this thing wouldn’t interfere with family life.”
“It hasn’t,” I say. “This is the first dinner I’m missing in months. You’ve missed dinner once or twice for work.”
Waylen isn’t reassured. In fact, this only makes him angrier. “So you just stopped by to say goodbye, then. What am I supposed to tell Collette?”
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t use our daughter to guilt me.”
He crosses his arms across his broad chest. “If you’re feeling guilty, it isn’t because of me. Maybe that’s just a natural reaction to—this.” He nods to the air around us, as though it’s filled with my misgivings.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and even though I don’t react, I know Waylen heard it. The tension is palpable.
I soften my voice. “I’ll be back before midnight.”
