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Nine Months Before
May 2018
Whole wheat bread. One and a half slices of ham. One squiggly squirt of mustard. Five Lay’s cheddar cheese potato chips arranged carefully on the bread. Cut crusts off, insert into plastic baggie, draw permanent-marker heart on the front of the brown paper lunch sack.
Was Anne Wilkes in a rut?
Probably, she thought, looking at the sandwiches she’d prepared for her children while simultaneously spinning to yank the refrigerator open and place the ham, cheese, and mustard in their rightful spots.
She stared at her perfectly organized fridge. Even her fridge was in a rut. The same milk, the same yogurt (Activia because Mark suffered from indigestion and bloating), and even the same treats. One Lindt truffle per day in order to keep her ass smaller than Pluto. After four kids, two of them twins, it was a constant battle.
The fridge closed, and Anne gave an incoherent mumble into the phone that would keep her mother’s stories flowing for the next few minutes. Jutting a hip against the counter, Anne snuck a few cheddar cheese crisps from the bag, figuring it counted as breakfast.
“Anne, are you even listening? I wish you would pay attention,” Beatrice said. “I wish…”
Beatrice didn’t need to finish the sentence. It didn’t matter, because Anne knew where she was going with it. Her mother wished for a lot of things. She probably wished for a different daughter. After what had happened three years ago, Anne was officially an embarrassment to Beatrice Harper.
For a while there, Anne had been somewhat mediocre in her mother’s eyes. She’d acquired a house, children, and a highly respected husband. Anne’s marriage had been her crowning glory for the last fourteen years. Happily married to a handsome, decorated LAPD officer—formerly of the narcotics division, newly promoted to detective—she’d done one thing right in her life. Until she’d failed at her marriage, too.
“Mom, I’ve got to let you go,” Anne finally said. She’d hit a wall and was unable to listen to her mother’s latest drama about the country club for a second longer. “It’s time to get the kids ready for bed.”
“You really should hire a chef, or at least a nanny,” her mother sniffed. “It’s not good for you to be running around like you do. You’ll get bags under your eyes. Then Mark will leave you, and you’ll be all alone—an unwed mother of four children.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Anne said. “We’ll see you in a few weeks.”
From the other room, the sounds of screeching reached Anne’s ears. She sighed. It had been too easy. The twins had gone down early, both sleeping peacefully in their cribs by seven thirty. A record of sorts these days.
It must have been Samuel, sneaking into the room to torture them again. At four years old, he was fascinated by his two younger siblings, though his fascination often walked the fine line between love and hate.
“Mom!” Gretchen, the oldest at seven and a half, yelled unhelpfully from the living room. “The twins woke up!”
“Right, I can hear that,” Anne hollered back. “Go get your jammies on, will you? Help your brother, please.”
Anne shoved tomorrow’s lunches back into the fridge and slammed the door. She did a super-quick cleanup of the kitchen and told herself it was good to let the twins cry it out for a little longer. A quick check of her watch told her the babysitter was due to arrive in under twenty minutes.
Mark had scheduled Olivia to arrive half an hour earlier than she needed to be here. It was her husband’s way of checking up on her. Then again, scheduling the babysitter for extra hours wasn’t Mark’s only way of checking up on his wife. In fact, he orchestrated unexpected checks so frequently they were anything but subtle by this point.
There were Mark’s famous “surprise” lunches where he’d pop home unannounced for a bite to eat. Mothers from Gretchen’s school had taken to showing up with trays of lasagna for no obvious reason. Playdates with Samuel’s friends appeared on the calendar on days Mark worked extra shifts.
He still didn’t trust her, and that was beginning to drive Anne batty. She was fine, fine, fine. She’d been fine for almost three years now. Mostly fine, she amended, but only to herself. She still had her days.
With a sigh, Anne glanced at the clock again. She had time to speed-rock the twins back to sleep, change into a somewhat sexy outfit, and apply some concealer to the bags under her eyes that felt permanent. Maybe her mother had a point. If she didn’t shape up soon, she’d be a single mom of four. As much as Mark drove her nuts some days, she was married to him, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Anne cursed as she made her way into the living room and tripped over a stuffed elephant. As she hopped over to the stairway, her anger found a target in Gretchen, who still hadn’t moved from the couch.
“Turn the TV off,” Anne barked. “Olivia will be here soon, and I want you ready for bed.”
“I want Olivia to put me to bed,” she moaned. “She reads me extra books.”
“You’re not getting any books if you don’t get ready for bed. You know the rules.”
Babying her stubbed toe, Anne made her way upstairs and found Samuel in his room, staring at a tablet. She made a note to discuss the overuse of screens in this house with her husband later tonight at dinner.
“Put it away,” she snapped at Samuel. “Get your pajamas on. Now.”
Samuel didn’t appear to hear her. The twins’ shrieks reached new levels of earsplitting. Anne’s blood boiled in her veins. Mark should have been home twenty minutes ago. He’d promised to help get the kids ready for bed so Anne could bake the boatload of cupcakes that Gretchen needed for some fundraiser tomorrow.
If Anne didn’t get them baked, they would have to pay for the volunteer hours Anne hadn’t completed. Unfortunately for the Wilkeses, they couldn’t afford to pay for the hours, so a shitload of cupcakes was the answer.
