One day, sixteen hours before Halloween
Jude
Hey. You didn’t come for breakfast.
Hello?
Jude?
Are you ignoring me?
Jude??
You aren’t talking to me now??
I lean against the granite counter and try to decide what to do. My wife is sleeping in the other room, and this girl...whatever she is to me...is blowing up my phone. My palms feel sweaty, my heart is racing.
I do the only thing I think I can to de-escalate what seems to be a ridiculous situation.
I answer.
My wife is still sick.
Three bubbles.
So you’re playing nurse to the doctor?
Is she being snotty or not? I’m trying to decide when another text comes in.
Lol
I guess not.
You said you were going to call and then didn’t, so I got worried.
I somehow know that’s bullshit, but I play along.
Thanks for your concern! But there’s no need. Just holed up at home.
Three bubbles.
With your wife?
Didn’t I just say that? I’m annoyed as I answer.
Yes. Gotta go. I need to figure out what to make for dinner. I don’t cook.
I wait for just a second, but there are no bubbles, and then I get annoyed. I don’t have to wait for her answer.
I return to the living room and sit on the couch with my wife. Corinne doesn’t wake up, and I channel surf, finally coming to a rest on the History channel. My hand rests on her calf, and I listen to her even breathing as I watch a documentary on a tribe in Africa.
It’s warm and cozy here with my wife, and little by little, I find my eyelids closing.
I’ve just dozed off when the doorbell rings.
I startle awake, and it takes me a minute to realize what woke me. Then Artie barks, heaving herself to a standing position and limping to the door.
I hurriedly extricate myself from Corinne’s legs and rush to answer the door. I don’t want them to wake her. She hasn’t rested like this in months.
I throw open the door, expecting to see a neighbor, but instead, Zoe stands in front of me, with a disposable container in her hands.
My heart drops, then ricochets against my ribs.
I glance back inside at the couch, and Corinne is still there, although she looks to be stirring a little. I step outside and close the door behind me.
“What are you doing here?” My words are sharper than I intended. Zoe looks wounded, her eyes widening. She shoves the disposable bowl into my hands.
“I came to help you,” she offers. “You said you couldn’t cook. I was just leaving Vilma’s, so I thought I’d bring some soup for your wife on my way home. That way, you can look like a superhero. I was just trying to help.”
She sincerely sounds offended, although I’m pretty sure her top is unbuttoned more than usual. I can see the top of her red lace bra peeking out. I look away, focusing on her face.
“Thank you,” I say formally. “This was very kind. I’ll make sure to tell her you were thinking of her.”
Zoe giggles. “No, you won’t. You shouldn’t mention me to her at all. You don’t want to incriminate yourself.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong!” I say, and I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince. Zoe or me.
She raises her eyebrows. “Okay. Calm down.”
“You should go,” I tell her, lowering my voice. “Corinne is asleep, and I don’t want her to wake up.”
“Of course you don’t.” Zoe nods. “Put the soup inside and come for a drive with me.”
I shake my head. “No, I need to be here.”
“Come on...” she cajoles. “Just come for a drive. You need some fresh air, and I’ll make it worth your while.” She raises her skirt so that I can see the top of her thigh. I grit my teeth because OH MY GOD. This can’t be happening. My wife is twenty feet away, and my heart is pounding.
“No. I’ll see you at Vilma’s.”
I step back inside and close the door, congratulating myself on my deft handling of the situation, and Corinne is standing in front of me. I startle, and she raises an eyebrow.
“Who was that, babe?” She eyes the container in my hands. “Food?”
My heart pounds, but I nod because it’s not a lie. It is food.
“Soup. For the sickly.”
“You’re too good to me.” She kisses my cheek and I feel like an utter ass. How am I going to get myself out of this situation?
“Let me go dish it up for you,” I tell her. “Go back and lie down again. You still look awful.”
“Gee, thanks,” she says wryly, but she does as I suggest, shuffling back to the couch and collapsing onto it. She really does look bad. Dark circles, pale skin. Her exhaustion is finally catching up to her.
In the kitchen, I dish out soup into a bowl, plating it with a few crackers on the side. I hold the serving spoon out for Artie to lick.
“Don’t tell Mom,” I instruct her. Human food gives her gas. She wags her tail.
I take the food to Corinne and sit at the other end of the couch while she sips at it. She leaves the crackers on the plate.
“I’m feeling better,” she announces when she’s finished. “I’m still tired, but a thousand sleepless hours is hard to recover from.”
“I still don’t want you up and about,” I tell her. “You need to rest some more.”
“But I’m bored.”
“I’ll get out the chessboard,” I decide. “We haven’t played in forever.”
“Not in years,” she agrees. “Do you remember how we used to leave a game running on the coffee table in college?”
I nod, chuckling. “Yeah. Because sometimes that was the only way we could interact with our busy schedules. I’d come home and move a piece, and then you’d come home and move a piece.”
“I felt like I was with you even when you weren’t there,” she says with a slight smile. “Maybe we should start that again.”
“We can keep the game running,” I tell her as I get the game from the sideboard. “But I don’t want it to be the only way we interact, Co.”
She shakes her head quickly. “It won’t be. I told you, Ju. I’m going to concentrate more on us. You deserve it.”
“We deserve it,” I correct her as I set up the board. She slides down to sit at the coffee table, a blanket around her shoulders and Artie’s head in her lap. She strokes Artie’s head absently.
“I love you. Do you believe me?”
She stares at me with such a soft look in her eyes, making them seem as light as the sky.
“Yes, I believe you,” I answer quickly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ve been so absent lately. I’m sorry. I’m fighting demons that I shouldn’t fight. My marriage comes first.”
“Sometimes demons are insistent,” I muse as I move a chess piece.
She nods. “Yeah. Mine certainly are.”
“Can you talk about them?” I’m hesitant to ask. She doesn’t like talking about it, and she never has. That’s not going to change.
“Maybe. I’m starting to realize that the way I’ve handled it all of these years hasn’t been healthy. Ignoring it doesn’t work. I have to address it.”
“Seems to me like a really good therapist told you that once.” I stare at her pointedly. She refuses to look up, studying the board intently instead.
“Yeah. He was a smart one.”
We’re quiet for a while. Corinne reaches out a finger and pushes her first piece, moving one square.
“I hate Halloween,” she says quietly, needlessly.
“I know.”
“I’ll always hate Halloween,” she adds.
“I know. That’s okay.”
“There was blood caked under my fingernails.” Her voice is low, and she stares away from me, at nothing. “I couldn’t get it out. It was there for days and days.”
I sit back, waiting. She’s never told me this before.
“That night...the cops came and wrapped a blanket around me and took me out to a car. But I was there to babysit the kids. And I forgot about them. Their parents were in the house, in pools of blood, and I forgot about them. I forgot about them, Jude.”
Her voice cracks, and I grab her, pulling her to my chest. I stroke her hair, and she cries.
“Corinne, they couldn’t have been there long,” I tell her rationally. “The cops were there. I’m sure they got them out, just like they led you out.”
She sniffs, her hand balled into a fist against me. “Yeah. But still. I was there to protect them. And I couldn’t.”
“You were their babysitter,” I tell her helplessly. “You were an eighteen-year-old kid who was there to feed them dinner and put them to bed. You weren’t there to protect their lives. It’s not your fault. Surely this isn’t what you’ve been carrying around all of these years.”
I pause, because maybe it is. Guilt is sometimes irrational. As a therapist, I’ve seen that a million times. But she shakes her head.
“Surely not. I do feel awful about it, though. I didn’t see the cops take them away. The state came and got them. They were put into separate foster homes. The scandal probably followed them everywhere.”
“Well, you know how that is.” I sigh. “You suffered from the scandal, too.”
“Yeah. But my father did it. Theirs was just an innocent bystander. It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair sometimes.” I stroke her back. “You know that. But you know what else? You’ll get past this, Co. You’re the strongest person I know.”
She closes her eyes and curls up more tightly, and I’m practically holding her like a baby now. It feels good. I feel like I’m guarding her.
“No one will ever hurt you again,” I promise. “I won’t let them.”
“But don’t forget—” she looks up at me, her eyes watery “—the queen is the most powerful piece on the board, Ju. I think I have to protect myself.”
I chuckle at her effort to lighten things up. “Maybe. But the game is over when the king is taken. So whoever wants to hurt you will have to come through me. It’s not gonna happen, because I refuse to be taken without a fight.”
She cuddles into me. “Promise?”
I squeeze her tight. “I promise.”
Guilt tightens around my stomach like a vise, and I ignore it, pushing it away farther down until it disappears. If I ignore it long enough, then it isn’t there.
That’s my logic, anyway.