The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (41 page)

“… so she hides everything. I find money behind drawers or under the rug. You have no idea how many places she’s hidden stuff in that house.”

So, what Bertram said was true?

“And she’s bought guns—”

“Uh-uh. My mom does not have a gun—”

“She does. I ought to know, Zoe—”

“Grandpa, I told you.” Molly’s voice was patient. “Remember? I’m Molly.”

But my father wasn’t deterred. “Listen to me, young lady. If you find a gun hidden somewhere, don’t you touch it, you hear me? She has real bullets in it. You could get hurt.”

The guns? How many were there? I tried to count. There was the gun. Dad had used the one in his desk to chase off the dogfighters. And the gun he’d fired the night I’d found Stan Addison. Were there others? I felt dizzy, unable to speak. I watched them talk as if I weren’t there.

“She was always nervous, even before we were married. In fact, she warned me not to marry her. But I didn’t listen, didn’t believe her. I mean, even after you were born, she was fine. It wasn’t until later, after your brother…that she just… Well.” My father choked up and cleared his throat, waiting for his voice to steady.

“You all right, Grandpa?” Molly had been leaning on her elbows, watching him. Now she reached out, touched his arm. He patted her hand, collecting himself.

“You need to understand. Since the baby, your mother hasn’t been the same. The doctor says it will pass, but she’s in bad shape, Zoe. I know it’s been hard on you, but you’re my big girl, and I need you to be strong. Maybe, between us, we can convince her that it’s not the end of the world. Even if the baby dies.”

Molly’s mouth dropped. “The baby could die?” She turned to me, her face an unspeakable question.

“Dad, stop. You’re scaring her. Molly, no. Don’t worry. The baby’s fine.” I hoped.

My father closed his mouth and stared at me with glazed, sorry eyes. Their pain astonished and confused me. For decades, I’d been angry with him, convinced that he’d been an unrepentant gambler and neglectful, indifferent husband and father. I’d never considered other possibilities, never thought about how the deaths of his son and wife might have affected him. His comments had rattled me, shaken my foundations.

“Chocolate milk, coffee and tea.” Sally delivered our beverages. “Your meals will be out in a jiffy, Mr. Hayes.”

My father cleared his throat, suddenly brightening. “See that?” He turned to me. “Lunch will be here in a second, Louise. Eat. You’ll feel better. We’ll all feel better. Everything will be fine.”

Lunch arrived before Nick did. My father quieted down to eat his broiled flounder. Molly put aside her worries long enough to chomp down on her hamburger special. Between increasingly rapid contractions, I stared at a pot of black tea, puzzling over my parents and my memories, trying to grab on to ephemeral images and piece together the jagged shards of my past.

D
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ARTIN MET US
at the hospital. I was beyond listening to the procedure she was going to follow. Molly was there, gaunt and staunchly holding on to my hand, reassuring me as if we’d suddenly reversed roles. I watched Nick’s face for signs of sadness or hope, reading my prognosis from his expressions, somehow forgetting that Nick never showed emotion, never gave his thoughts away. I studied him, read his blank face as a positive sign until my vision blurred. The medicine they pumped into my veins slowed the contractions but made my head hammer unbearably and gave me unfocused double vision. Nick and Molly disappeared. The doctor was gone. I lay alone on a gurney among double white curtains and double bare walls, writhing, convinced that I was dying, having a stroke. The pain in my head was surely a sign of exploding, hemorrhaging vessels, and no one seemed to hear when I moaned for help.

It seemed like hours, but might have only been minutes before they removed the IV bag, replacing it with another. A nurse with two heads and two bodies explained that I was having a reaction to the medication. They were going to try something else. I asked for Nick and Molly. I asked for the doctor. I have no idea what I was told. I remember the harsh skull-cracking pain and split images, waiting for time to pass.

And, slowly, time did pass. The medicine washed out of my veins. The pain in my skull let up. My vision returned to normal. The contractions were under control, and the baby was unharmed. But this time, Dr. Martin said, I was to remain on bed rest, probably for the duration of the pregnancy. If I couldn’t manage it at home, I’d have to stay in the hospital. But I was not to return to work. There would be no more trips to visit my father or his house, not even to the park or to Molly’s school. No driving. No lunch dates or shopping trips with friends. No dinners out with Nick, not that he’d been around for dinner lately. No anything. Just bed, for the next approximately four months.

Actually, I didn’t care. I was so medicated, so tired that bed seemed a good place to live. I don’t remember how it happened, but somebody hired a practical nurse, a bosomy older woman named Darla, to come in daily and make sure I got bathed and fed. My contractions were still monitored remotely, four times daily, by a computerized contraption. Susan and Karen organized a car pool with other moms to take Molly to soccer and gymnastics, her after-school activities, and they invited her over, making sure her life went on as normally as possible. And Nick came and went as usual. Mostly, he went. He was home less and less, usually only to sleep. When I had energy, I thought about our future, and I knew the wedding was off. Probably Nick was just waiting until the baby was born to tell me, not wanting to stress me further during the pregnancy. I wondered how I’d deal with it, couldn’t imagine. Couldn’t focus long enough to face it.

During the day, unable to concentrate, too woozy to be bored, I watched talk shows and soap operas. I floated in my mind, dozing, drifting through shadowed corridors in dreams filled with fighting dogs and hanged women, of a cold baby, crying under the floor. Awake, I muddled through medicated thoughts of my parents, wondering how my personality had been shaped by my mother’s compulsive disorder and paranoid imagination. I worried that I would inherit her illness. My mother hadn’t trusted my father, just as I doubted Nick. Was Nick really as uncaring, as secretive, as I thought? What was real, what imagined? I didn’t know anymore, couldn’t sort it out. My thoughts were scattered, out of sequence, groggily peppered with ravaged animals, with Craig’s screams and Bertram’s pleas. I saw my patients in my sleep, their drawings of the secrets buried in the walls of their minds. I worried about Molly, how she would be affected by my months in bed, by the arrival of a sibling. And I thought about the baby, whether it would be born too early, whether it would survive. I wondered if, like my mother, I’d suffer postpartum depression. If I’d be driven to desperation, wanting life to end.

I lay in bed day after day, dozing through a timeless and isolated haze, waiting for interruptions by Darla or increasingly rare phone calls from friends. Daytimes, I’d stare at the pages of magazines or try to follow the story lines of television soap operas. In the evenings, Molly would bring her homework into the bedroom and cuddle beside me, adding or practicing her cursive. Often, we’d have dinner in my bed and read together before Darla ran her bath.

Gradually, though, day and night became seamless, interchangeable. I’d wait for Nick to come in, wanting to talk. But his hours were irregular, and when he came home he seemed distracted, kept our conversations superficial. “Can I get you anything?” he’d ask. Or “How do you feel?” “Boy, I’m bushed” was also big. A few times I tried to talk, but his eyes put up walls, making him unreachable. He claimed he was too tired to talk. Or dodged, apologizing for not being more attentive, explaining that he had a lot on his mind, that his work was taking over his life, that he would try to do better. He’d hold me with loose, passive arms and fall instantly asleep, returning the next day to his attitude of removed indifference.

One Friday morning, about three weeks into my bed rest, near the end of my sixth month of pregnancy, Susan stopped by with homemade scones. Darla served them with a pot of decaf, blackberry jam and butter. When Darla was out of hearing range, for the first time I gathered the nerve to say out loud what I’d been thinking for weeks. I told Susan that Nick had lost interest in me.

“You’re crazy.” She didn’t even look at me. She slathered butter onto a scone.

“He’s never home, Susan. And when he is, he spends all his time with Molly. We never talk. We never have a meal together. We never…anything.”

“He’s working hard, Zoe.” She bit into the scone, closing her eyes to savor it. “Fact is you’re very needy right now. But so is Molly. Her world is upside down with you in bed all the time. You should be grateful that Nick’s trying to pick up the slack—”

Why was she sticking up for him? “Yes. It’s very nice of him.”

“It proves he’s devoted to you—” She poured cream into her coffee.

“It proves he’d rather do anything than spend time with me. Molly’s just an excuse.”

“You’re too sensitive. Have a scone.” She took another bite. “Man, I really am a good cook.” She broke off a piece of scone and spread jam onto it, held it out for me. I ignored it. Or tried to. Fact was the scones were calling to me, begging to be devoured.

“Nick’s different, Susan. He’s secretive—”

“Hello? Zoe? Nick’s always been secretive. It’s part of his charisma.”

I sighed, accepting the piece of scone, shoving it into my mouth, feeling it melt sweetly away. Why didn’t Susan believe me?

“Something’s changed. He’s …I don’t know. Even when he’s here, he’s gone.” I had to stop. I was out of breath.

“Stop this, Zoe. You’re going to make yourself upset and you’ll go into labor. You have to trust—”

“I think Nick’s having an affair.”

Her mouth dropped. She stared at me. Then she laughed out loud.

“You find it funny? What if Tim were cheating? Would that be funny, too?”

“Please. Tim couldn’t cheat. Who’d want him?”

I wasn’t amused. “I’m serious.”

“I know. But you’re being ridiculous.”

“Then tell me. Why is he never here, even when he’s not working? Where is he? Why is he too tired to talk? Why doesn’t he mention the wedding anymore?”

“Hold on,” she interrupted. “I know you’re on medications that scramble your brain. But try to follow me for a minute, will you?”

She had an annoying, know-it-all look on her face.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say.”

I waited. “So?”

“You’ve been through a lot, Zoe, and as a result you’ve become very focused on yourself. But guess what? You aren’t the only one who’s been through a tough time here.”

What was she saying? That I was selfish? “Meaning?”

“Meaning that you should think about things from Nick’s point of view. Can you? He might be just a little stressed out. Just a tad nervous. His fiancee is on bed rest, having a difficult pregnancy, in danger of losing their child. She’s almost gotten herself killed a half a dozen times in a month. The guy he hired to protect her is dead. In addition to these mundane factors, he’s facing marriage. For the first time since his disaster with his first wife, he’s making a commitment to someone. He’s never been a father before; now he’ll—poof—have two kids. Nick’s facing a lot of changes and he’s understandably not at the top of his act. You’re not the only one having to cope.”

I listened, wanting to strangle Susan. Oh, poor Nick. She made me want to cry for him. I was the one lying here day after day, contracting eight times every hour. I hadn’t made myself pregnant; I hadn’t been the one to propose marriage, either. He’d created this whole mess. I had no sympathy for him. But Susan wasn’t finished.

“Worst of all, Nick can’t fix things for you.”

I blinked at her. “I never asked him to.”

“Trust me, I know this about men: If there’s a problem, men want to fix it. If they can’t fix it, they don’t know what to do. They get frustrated. They say and do bizarre, even random things. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means they don’t know what to do, so they do something stupid. So you’re having trouble with the pregnancy. Nick can’t fix it. So what does he do? He hides. He says inappropriate things or avoids talking altogether. He acts clumsy. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you or want to marry you. It means he’s a man and he can’t handle being powerless.”

She smiled smugly, impressed with her own insight.

I was more impressed by the fact that, no matter what I said, Susan stood up for Nick, making excuses for his absences, explaining away his distance, trying to make him sound shy and vulnerable. Shy? Vulnerable? Those words fit Nick like his kid brother’s suit. At the end of the conversation I was more upset than ever. Doubts lingered, festered in my mind. In fact, I found myself distrusting Susan, wondering what she knew. Why had she been so adamant in her defense of Nick? Was she hiding something? Trying to protect me from some awful truth? I told myself that the medication was muddling my thoughts, that I was overly sensitive, that my confinement to bed rest had skewed my perspective. But the fact remained that the only way I would find peace was to talk directly to Nick. Nothing Susan said, nothing I told myself would appease me; I needed to confront him.

Once I made my mind up, I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to act. And so, after Susan left, I called Nick and found out that he’d be home by noon. Then I planned my speech. I would regain my dignity. I would refuse to be passive and dependent. I would ask him directly if he was with me simply out of guilt or sympathy. I would tell him that if he wanted out of the relationship, he needed to go. Not after the baby was born. Now.

As soon as I’d planned what I was going to say, I felt better. Lighter. All that was left was to say it to Nick. I wondered how he’d respond. Would he try to dodge? Would he leave? All morning that Friday, lying in bed, I waited to hear Nick come in, apprehensive about the confrontation, dreading the knowledge it would bring.