“Don’t do that again,” he orders at last. “Stay where I can see you. Understand?”
“Of course. Sorry, dear.”
His hand comes back to the small of my back, hot and proprietary, and steers me toward a knot of men in tuxedos by the bandstand. I float beside him on autopilot, nodding, smiling, laughing at all the right things.
Six weeks,I think.Six measly weeks.
One way or another, it all ends then.
14
CASS
I wake up on January 1st feeling like a microwaved corpse.
Raymond is snoring beside me, mouth open, the white tufts of his mustache fluttering with each noxious exhale. He smells like burps, whiskey, and body odor, a sour blend that I’ve come to associate with his particular brand of hangover.
I didn’t touch anything alcoholic last night, but I feel as bleary and wrong-footed as if I’d been guzzling shots for hours on end. Everything is off. The sheets are too hot. The duvet is too heavy. The light coming through the wrong gap in the curtains is hitting me square in the eye, and my bladder is screaming, and my stomach is doing slow, sickening revolutions, over and over, like a Ferris wheel that’s going to shear off its bolts and go tumbling over the countryside any second now, leaving havoc and heartbreak in its wake.
I lie very still and do my morning inventory.
Am I pregnant? Yes.
Am I married to a monster? Yes.
Am I now in a secret partnership with a Russian assassin to murder said monster? Also yes.
It’s gonna be a hell of a year.
I ease one leg out from under the covers, then the other, then sit up by slow, careful degrees, trying not to make any noise. Raymond grunts and I freeze. Then he snorts, moans, and rolls onto his back before resuming his snoring at a slightly higher pitch and a significantly louder volume.
I don’t move until I’m sure he’s under again. Only then do I pad to the bathroom on my tiptoes.
I close the door behind me and lock it, then sit down on the toilet and put my face in my hands.
Last night happened. Last night actually, factually, no-takesies-backsies, really did happen. I keep replaying the handshake in the closet, Matvei’s eyes burning blue in the darkness.
Let’s go kill my husband.
I pull my hands away from my face and look at them, positive that I’ll find some sign of what I’ve done. Strangely, they’re not shaking. Isn’t that something?
A month ago, I couldn’t pour orange juice without sloshing it all over the counter from sheer nerves, and now, here I am, calm as a Zen cucumber, plotting murder before breakfast.
Maybe I really am built for this after all.
Or maybe I’m just dissociating.
I flush just to make things sound normal in case Raymond is listening, wash my hands twice, splash cold water on my face, and pat it dry. Goodness gracious, I do not look good. Smudgedmascara that evaded last night’s pre-bed makeup wipe blends into a bruise that no makeup wipe can remove.
At least my belly is still flat. Flat enough, at least.
For now.
I press a palm to my stomach, very lightly, and whisper, “Six weeks, baby. Hang tight. Stay skinny. Mama’s begging you.”
Then I put on my robe and go make coffee for two—Raymond’s cup gets a hefty splash of hair-of-the-dog Kahlúa—because that’s what good wives do on New Year’s morning.
Raymond drags himself out of bed around ten. I hear him before I see him: the long, theatrical groan, the lead-footed Frankenstein shuffle down the hall, the wet smacking sound he makes with his mouth when he wakes up dehydrated.
