“What does that even mean?” she asked. “Are we going back again to your tragic, terrible childhood? I’ve been telling you for fourteen years what a remarkable person I think you are for making it through and making yourself into the human being you are—or were, at least.
“Enough with that, Steve. You’re a grown man. Stop playing the sympathy card already. Stop trading on your mother’s misfortunes. The statute of limitations has run out.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. “Miss Perfect Family.”
“I’m not apologizing because my mother wasn’t an IV drug user,” Sara said. “It’s not my fault you had a rotten childhood. You wanted my perfect family, remember? You married my perfect family. We had our own perfect family. Now you’re the one destroying it.”
“You’ve always been jealous of the time I spend on the Thomas Center—”
“Don’t start with that,” she warned him. “Don’t put this on me. I’m not taking it. I’m not the bad guy. You want to volunteer? That’s great. You’re a humanitarian. But you don’t do it at the expense of your family. You don’t do it at the expense of your daughter or me. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership. You’re more devoted to Don.”
“That’s not true—”
“Really?” she said, pretending shock. “Who did you call this morning?”
“He’s my attorney.”
“And did you ask him to call your wife and explain to her why your blood is on the driveway and why you’re missing?”
“Maybe I was embarrassed.”
“Maybe you didn’t give a shit,” she said. “I don’t know who you think of anymore, Steve, but it certainly isn’t me and it certainly isn’t Wendy.”
“I love my daughter,” he said vehemently, taking an aggressive step toward her.
The omission of her name from that sentiment cut Sara like a knife. She wouldn’t have believed she had any illusions left about their relationship, but it still hurt.
“Then why do you do these things, Steve?” she asked. “Wendy isn’t stupid. She knows when you don’t come home at night. She knows what that means. An eleven-year-old girl shouldn’t feel compelled to come to her mother and tell her she knows all about affairs, and why does her father have to do that?”
“And I’m sure you haven’t tried to tell her otherwise,” he snapped.
“Why would I? I’m supposed to lie for you? I’m supposed to lie for you and look like a fool to my daughter? I’m not stupid, either. You think I don’t know that you weren’t in Sacramento last weekend? Did you think I wouldn’t check up on you when you’ve done this to me time and time again over the last year and a half?”
“Where do you think I was?” he asked, challenging her.
Sara refused the bait, careful with her answer. “I don’t know where you were.”
“Really, where do you think I was?” It was a taunt more than a question. He moved back and forth in front of her like a shark in a tank. “Do you think I was with Marissa?”
Sara said nothing, but caught herself taking a step back from him.
“You think I was having an affair with her, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you were suddenly so interested in her, wanting to be friends with her, hanging out with her. Did you think she would just tell you? Did you think she would just turn to you one day and say, ‘Oh, by the way, Sara, I’m fucking your husband’?”
“Stop it,” she said quietly, her voice trembling with anger and something she didn’t want to call fear. He continued his pacing, back and forth, back and forth, inching in on her with each turn. She took another step back toward the bookcase built into the wall behind her. With his battered face he looked monstrous and aggressive.
“That’s what you believe,” he said. “Just like you believed I was having an affair with Lisa Warwick. Why don’t you want to hear it?”
She didn’t say anything. She wanted this conversation to be over and for him to just leave.
“Really, Sara,” he pushed, coming toward her, in her face. She tried to take another step back and couldn’t. Something like satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
“Do you think I was with Marissa?” he asked quietly. “Do you think I was stabbing her forty-seven times and cutting her throat?”
“Stop it!” she said again, staring into his face and not recognizing him. This man was a stranger to her. She didn’t know what he might do.
“Why?” he asked, enjoying her fear. “Am I scaring you? Do you really think I could do that?”
Sara tried to step sideways to get away from him. He grabbed her arm hard and shouted in her face.
“Answer me! Answer me! Do you think I’m a murderer? Do you?”
“STOP IT!! STOP IT!!” Wendy screamed.
Startled, Steve stepped back as Wendy flung herself at him, hitting him with both fists.
“STOP IT! STOP IT! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”
“Wendy!” Steve grabbed hold of her and she kicked him and struggled and squirmed.
“Let go of me! I hate you!”
“Don’t say that!”
He dropped down on one knee and tried to gather her close. She swung sideways to evade him, hitting him with her elbow in the bridge of his already broken nose.
Steve fell to the side then came up on his knees, his hands to his face, blood pouring out of his nose, between his fingers and dripping onto the carpet.
Sara caught her daughter as Wendy flung herself against her, sobbing.
“Look what you’ve done,” Sara said as the man who used to be her husband looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “Look what you’ve done to us. Get out. Get out before I call the sheriff’s office.”
And that was end of the fairy tale.
54
The inky black of night paled to charcoal gray. The rain kept coming down.
Even beneath her trash bag garment Gina felt wet and cold to the bone. She had spent the night shaking, drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time she wanted to let go and sink into a deep sleep, Marissa’s voice shouted her awake.
Stay awake, stay alive!
Gina kept one long stick of the discarded lumber in hand to swat at the rats and mice that crept near, smelling her blood, smelling her fear. Though in the dead of night she was no better off than a blind woman with a white cane, feeling around for danger while danger kept just out of reach.
Over and over during the night she had caught herself thinking this couldn’t possibly really be happening. Marissa couldn’t be dead. And she couldn’t have been attacked by someone she had considered a friend. Yes, she had made a threatening remark, but she never would have followed through on it. She had been out of her head with panic. A true friend would have known that. A true friend wouldn’t have shot her and left her for dead because she had said something stupid.
She was so tired. She knew she was in danger of dying from hypothermia. Her body wasn’t making enough energy to try to keep itself warm. With the cold rain coming down, that would only intensify. Dehydration was only making the situation worse.
Her body needed fuel. She hadn’t eaten in—what?—three days now? As enough light filtered down the shaft of the well, she tried to make out some of the garbage that had fallen from the bag she was wearing. She looked for anything that might be edible, something that wouldn’t be moldy or rotten.
Using the stick for a reaching tool, she inched a crumpled potato chip bag toward her, and found a few chips and a mouthful of crumbs. They were stale and soggy, but they were calories, and the salt tasted good. She mentally thanked the unknown teenagers who partied at this desolate spot.
Over the next hour, Gina became more skilled with the stick, snagging a wrapper with three bites of a Snickers bar inside, and a McDonald’s bag with a couple of stray French fries, a packet of ketchup, and a dried crescent of bun from a not-quite-finished hamburger. She ate all of it and prayed it stayed in her stomach.