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No one.
Anne slammed the top slice of bread onto the sandwich and heard the crunch of chips as she stared at it, bile rising in her throat. She’d told no one about Mark’s visits to a young woman living in a suspect neighborhood. Only she and the possum knew about their dalliances on Tuesday nights.
When she could, Anne still made the trek over to the offending apartment. Tuesday nights on repeat. For some reason, that was the day they’d chosen for their weekly rendezvous. Anne wondered why not Monday, when the week was fresh? Or Friday, when the weekend was their oyster? Or Wednesday, as a halfway point?
Not that it mattered. Anne should have forsaken her weekly jaunt altogether and pushed it out of her mind, but the problem was, she couldn’t. There was something addictive, something tantalizingly awful about watching her husband derail their neat little life.
Week after week, Anne’s heart hardened, her gut tightened, and when she finally drove home, she became a tight ball of fury as she collapsed into bed riddled with guilt and shame. The heaviness that accompanied such secrecy threatened to drown her in her sleep.
Through it all, Anne couldn’t bear to confront her husband. Her mind danced a deadly duet between the logistics of the fallout a divorce would cause (insurance, a steady salary, a father figure for the kids) and the emotional turmoil the secret gave her (anger, flashes of an anger so murderous she startled herself). Together, everything was wrapped in a tender layer of sadness.
Anne finished making Gretchen’s sandwich and threw some carrot sticks into Samuel’s paper bag. The babysitter would arrive in under ten minutes. It was, once again, Tuesday night.
Instead of letting the anger consume her, Anne was pleased to find a calmness descending over her shoulders as she climbed up the stairs and checked on the kids. All were sleeping by some miraculous turn of events. Gretchen’s angelic little lashes dusted posy-pink cheeks. Samuel’s thumb was stuck in his mouth, despite his recent birthday when he’d promised to give up the habit. The twins lay sprawled, hands in the air, curled into their side-by-side cribs. In sleep, they were perfect.
Anne went to her room, sat before the small mirror perched on the old dresser that she’d made into a piecemeal sort of vanity. When they’d first been married, she’d installed Hollywood-style bulbs while Mark added a large mirror. She’d found a refurbished stool at a garage sale for five bucks to add to the display. Mark had sanded and painted it for her, along with the dresser.
It’d been quaint, years ago. Anne remembered their honeymoon days, specifically the year after they’d been married. She would don her best robe, whip her hair into a loose updo, and preen before the vanity as she gazed lovingly at her new, precious diamond wedding band.
Mark would come into their room, find her there, and whisk her onto the bed where, shrieking, they’d make love until gasping and spent. It had been a time of easy euphoria. She’d felt rich, full of life, satisfied beyond belief with the hand fate had dealt her.
Now, the dresser looked cheap and dingy. Gretchen had smeared blue nail polish along one side, and a chunk of mirror had cracked off in the top right-hand corner. Two of the drawers didn’t fully shut, and the one that did squeaked like the dickens, so Anne ended up leaving it open so as not to wake the twins when she reached for her deodorant.
Anne glanced into the cracked mirror and swiped on the same shade of lipstick she’d been wearing since they’d gotten engaged. It was a bit crusty, and Anne had been meaning to pick up a new tube when she was at the store. But in addition to being distracted with her shiny new secret and forgetting about her shopping list, Anne had also found herself being inordinately frugal.
Just in case, she told herself. Just in case she had to get used to managing four children on a single mother’s (lack of) income. She’d begun putting the extra pastries back during grocery store runs, buying on-sale grapes instead of the organic apples her children loved. Anne’s running shoes had developed a hole in the bottom that she was staunchly ignoring.
Anne rose, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She’d given up the pretense of wearing her evening best to spy on her husband. It made her feel even more pathetic that she had to lie to a twenty-something babysitter. There were plenty of lies swirling through the atmosphere already without Anne adding to the problem.
Tonight is it, she decided.
The babysitter was ringing the doorbell when Anne reached the landing. Anne had asked Eliza if she knew anyone who would babysit on short notice, because Anne had been forced to let Olivia go for personal reasons. Shame Olivia was so nosy.
Thankfully, Eliza’s husband had been able to recommend a young girl from his acting class who was looking for work. After a quick interview and an hour trial run with the kids the previous weekend, both women agreed to move forward with their working relationship.
“Hi there, Penny,” Anne said. “Thanks so much for coming by tonight.”
“Oh, thank you! I’m so glad you’re trusting me to be here with your kids,” Penny said. “I was really looking forward to spending more time with them. They’re just adorable.”
Anne nodded along, thinking the kids would be better in Penny’s hands than her own. She wasn’t sure if that was devastating or a relief, so she ignored it. Instead, she let the young woman in, gave her instructions, and paid her cash up front.
“I usually don’t collect money until the end…” Penny looked at the wad of bills in her hand. “I mean, whatever you prefer.”
“My husband might beat me home, and I don’t want things to be awkward. He doesn’t know the going rate.” Anne scrounged up a wink. “This way, we’re all square.”
“Okay, well, have a wonderful time,” Penny said. “We’ll be fine here. Well, duh. We’re not going anywhere—sorry, bad joke. Call if you need anything at all.”
Anne was barely listening as she shrugged on her coat. As she grabbed her keys, she idly wondered if Penny would ever disappear for three days and leave her children behind. Probably not. Women like Penny lived pretty, perfect little lives.
Anne arrived outside the apartment complex a few minutes later than she’d intended. She’d stopped to get a coffee from the gas station, a funny little splurge she allowed herself despite her new penny-pinching ways. Though the real splurge was the Bailey’s liqueur that she tipped into the cup in place of creamer.
Hunkering down in her seat, Anne settled in to watch. Mark arrived, and the same old routine began again. As Anne drank more of her coffee, she stopped tasting the Bailey’s. She added a little whiskey from the flask in her purse to spice things up.
It wasn’t enough for her to just watch anymore. She needed to do something, and the alcohol helped her think. It gave her confidence. Armed her with numbness and rage instead of the delicate hurt that plucked at her like vicious paper cuts, she could formulate a plan of attack.
Setting her coffee into the cup holder, she reached for the handle of her car door. Her dismally unpainted nails rested against it, frozen there as she watched the same song and dance continue outside the gate—the hug, the brief kiss on the forehead, the disappearing act behind the overgrown shrubs.
Before she knew it, they were gone, and it was too late. The gate was locked. Anne’s self-esteem might have been at an all-time low, but she wasn’t climbing over a fence to knock on the door. She’d wait, wait, wait some more. She’d gotten good at waiting.
