Chapter 1
October, 2019
If I had hesitated even half a second, everything would have been
different.
There would have been blood all over the pavement. Screeching
wheels. Screams from passersby. Then an ambulance. A firetruck. Or
maybe just a trip straight to the morgue. Somber calls to relatives—a
husband, a daughter, a son.
I’ve never done anything heroic in my entire life. The leading
candidate would be this cat I used to feed in an alley next to my
building. But I’m not sure if feeding a stray cat counts as heroic.
Also, I heard that cat eventually bit somebody, so maybe I was just
aiding and abetting a bad-tempered cat.
But today, I saw the red Ford Taurus rushing towards the red
light with no intention of stopping. I saw the hunched old lady
struggling with two grocery bags she could barely lift, blissfully
unaware of the impending collision. And a split second before the
Ford burst through the red light into the crosswalk, I grabbed her
and pulled her back.
I saved her life. For the first time in my life, I’m a hero.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
The old woman is not as grateful as I would have expected.
Actually, that’s an understatement. She’s glaring at me with venom
in her watery blue eyes, her jowls trembling with fury. She looks like
she’s going to pop me one with her oversized light pink purse.
It could be because when I grabbed her (in the course of saving
her life, as you recall), I wasn’t as delicate about it as I might have
been if time weren’t of the essence. That is to say, I knocked her
down. But to be fair, I fell too. And I think most of the impact of her
fall was blunted by her landing on me.
Also, she dropped her groceries during the fall. And now there
are groceries everywhere. I mean, everywhere. There are cans of
chicken noodle soup, cans of creamed corn, cans of green beans, all
rolling around the pavement, trying to make a break for it.
“You tried to attack me!” the woman yells at me as she
struggles to her feet. A fleck of her spit hits me in the chin as she
briefly loses her balance. I reach out to steady her, but she belts me
with a loaf of white bread, so I take a step back.
“A car was going to hit you,” I try to explain. I reach for a can of
tomato soup about to roll into the street. Christ, there are a lot of
cans. Why did she buy so many canned foods? Doesn’t this woman
have a refrigerator?
The woman snorts like she’s never heard something so
ridiculous in her entire life. “There was no car. You attacked me. I
was minding my own business and you pushed me down! And now
I’m going to sue you for assault! And I’ve got witnesses!”
She looks around at the pedestrians that are mostly stepping
over her groceries as they cross the street. Nobody but me is even
attempting to help clean this up. Are people really this rude? Do they
think this is some new game we’re playing where we chase down
cans rolling across the sidewalk?
Finally, a man in a business suit stops in front of us, and without
being asked, he starts picking up the groceries. The old woman
rewards him with a grateful smile that’s a stark contrast from the
way she’s still glaring at me. It seems sort of unfair, because I’m the
one who saved her life.
“Thank you so much, young man,” the old woman says as she
pats her puff of white hair. “You’re so kind to help.”
“No problem,” the man says. “How could I see you struggling
and not stop to help?”
He flashes a grin that reveals a row of straight, white teeth. My
parents couldn’t afford braces, so I’ve got two crooked incisors that
I’m self-conscious about. My dream, if I ever have enough money, is
to get them fixed. But that’s not going to happen, short of winning
the lottery. And I can’t even afford a ticket.
“Well, nobody else stopped,” the woman points out. She shoots
me a look. “And this horrible girl over here pushed me down! You
saw it happen, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t say anything. He’s busy chasing down a can of
cranberries.
She clutches her neck and moans. “I think I have whiplash! I
should probably call an ambulance.”
I let out an involuntary gasp. “An ambulance?”
“That’s right,” she snaps at me. “I’m going to sue you for
everything you’ve got. I’ve got a witness now!”
She’s going to sue me for everything I’ve got? Well, good luck.
My bank account is mostly cobwebs at this point. She can have my
debt if she wants it.
“You’re my witness,” the old woman says to the man. “You saw
how she pushed me down, didn’t you?”
He scoops up a carton of eggs from the sidewalk. He cracks it
open to find three casualties inside. “Yes, I saw it.”
The old woman smiles triumphantly. “I thought you did.”
He glances at me with a raised eyebrow, and I just shake my
head. “She saved your life, you know,” he says. “There was a car
that ran the red light. It was about to hit you.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re making that up!”
“No. I’m not.” His voice is flat, leaving no room for argument.
“She saved your life. You’d be dead if not for her.” He shoves a can
of onions into her bag. “You should thank her.”
The old woman looks between the two of us, the wrinkles in her
face darkening. “Oh, I get it. The two of you are in cahoots.”
“Cahoots?” A smile touches the man’s lips. “I promise you, I’ve
never met this woman before in my life.”
It suddenly occurs to me the man is quite nice looking. He has a
thick head of chestnut hair, vivid green eyes, and also, he fills out
that suit pretty nicely. I don’t usually notice things like that, but it’s
hard not to notice.
“I don’t believe you!” The woman clutches the pink purse to her
chest. She fumbles for the two grocery bags, which have mostly
been restored. I suspect there are still a few cans rolling around
somewhere that will eventually fall into a sidewalk grate. “This is
some kind of scam. I’ve heard about this. You probably want me to
buy a bunch of gift cards for a prince in Nigeria.”
The man’s mouth falls open. “A prince in Nigeria?”
But the old woman doesn’t want to hear another word. She
stomps off with her grocery bags, nearly getting floored by a taxi
cab as she rushes across the street. But she makes it.
I straighten up from my crouched position, my calves screaming
with pain. That’s the last time I try to save somebody’s life. I learned
my lesson. All I got was yelled at. And now I’m running late.
“Hey.” The hot guy with the green eyes and business suit is still
standing next to me. “There’s a coffee shop right there with a
bathroom if you want to get cleaned up.”
Cleaned up?
I look down at my clothing. This morning I had put on my best
clean white dress shirt and gray pencil skirt because I’ve got my first
job interview since I was laid off two weeks ago. It’s nothing great,
just bartending, but I need it—bad.
Unfortunately, it rained early this morning. And because it’s the
end of October and there are leaves all over the ground, the rain
mixed with the fallen leaves, and it all turned into some kind of
disgusting brown paste. And that brown leaf paste is now all over
my clean white shirt and gray pencil skirt. I look like I just rolled
around in the mud. This is not salvageable. My only real option is to
go home and change. Except my interview is in…
Fifteen minutes. Damn.
I’m new at this saving people’s lives business. Does it always
end up so crappily? Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. Everything
going wrong unexpectedly seems to be a pattern in my life.
The man is looking at me with his eyebrows bunched together.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I look down at my ruined interview outfit. “Totally fine.
Absolutely, completely fine.”
He just looks at me. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but
something about the way he’s looking at me makes me want to pour
my heart out to him.
Or rip my clothes off. A little of that too. He is pretty hot. And
it’s been a while for me. A long while. I think there was a different
president in office at the time. Kevin Spacey was still a respected
actor. Brad and Angelina were a happy couple. You get the idea.
“I have a job interview,” I admit. I raise the sleeve of my shirt,
which is caked in leaf paste. “Had a job interview. I don’t think it’s
going to go well. In fact, I think I should just call it off.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You’re looking for a job?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Sort of.”
Desperately, actually. My landlord informed me yesterday that if
I don’t have the rent by Friday, there’s going to be an eviction notice
on my door by Saturday. And then I’ll have to live in a cardboard box
on the street, because that’s my last option.
“What kind of job was it?”
“Well, this one was bartending.” At a seedy bar that would have
paid minimum-wage. “But… I mean, that’s what’s available. At this
point…”
I stop talking before I let on how desperate I am. This man is a
stranger, after all. He doesn’t want to hear my depressing life story.
But he’s got that smile on his face again. It’s an infectious grin,
the kind that makes me want to grin right back, despite the fact that
I am covered in leaf paste and about to blow my only chance of
making the rent this month.
“Do you believe in fate?” he asks.
I cock my head to the side. Do I believe in fate? What kind of
question is that? It seems like the kind of question that somebody
who’s had a very good life might ask. Because the cards I’ve been
dealt so far have all been losing ones. Starting with my parents. And
then Freddy. If fate exists, then all I can say is it doesn’t like me very
much.
“I’m here in the city for an interview myself,” the man goes on,
without waiting to hear my answer. “I was actually going to
interview somebody for a job. Except she didn’t show up. So…”
I stare at him. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? “What kind
of job?”
“Well, it’s…” He hesitates, then nods his head at the coffee
shop. “Listen, why don’t we go inside to talk about it? I’ll buy you a
cup of coffee—you look like you could use it.” He grins at me. “I’m
Adam, by the way. Adam Barnett.”
“Sylvia Robinson.”
“Nice to meet you, Sylvia.”
He holds his hand out to me, and I shake it. He has a nice
handshake. Warm and firm, but not like he’s trying to crush the
bones of my hand. Why do some men shake your hand like that?
What are they trying to prove?
Of course, then I notice my own hand is slick with leaf paste.
This just isn’t my day. But Adam doesn’t wipe his hand on his pants
when we’re done shaking—he doesn’t seem at all concerned that
I’ve just given him a handful of muddy leaves.
“So what do you say?” he asks.
“I, uh…”
I don’t know why I’m hesitating. A job is a job. And this man
seems nice enough. He’s the only one in the street who bothered to
help clean up that old woman’s groceries. And he defended me
when she was attacking me. I need a job badly, and this is my only
shot right now. Plus, it would be nice to sit down and get some
coffee after the morning I’m having (and also wash my hands).
But for some reason, I can’t shake this awful feeling in the pit of
my stomach.
I once read that when people have near-fatal heart attacks,
they get a sense of doom. They describe a sinking sensation before
the chest pain even begins, like the world is about to end. It’s a
commonly described phenomenon that nobody can explain. But
when something terrible is about to happen, people know.
And when I look at Adam Barnett, for a moment, I get that
sensation. Doom.
Like something terrible will happen if I follow him into that
coffee shop.
But that’s ridiculous. I’ve had a run of bad luck over my life, so
of course, I’m going to be suspicious of everything. I don’t believe in
fate and I don’t believe in premonitions. What I do believe is that I
will be homeless in a few days if I don’t get my hands on some
money. And turning tricks in Times Square is not my cup of tea.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s get some coffee.”
Chapter 2
It’s even worse than I thought.
I look at myself in the bathroom mirror in the tiny coffee shop
where Adam brought me. I knew I had leaf paste on my shirt, but I
didn’t realize quite how much. There are chunks of leaves dotting
the sleeves of the shirt, all over my back, and stuck to my butt. My
skirt, at least, isn’t white. So I can just wipe that off and it’s good
enough. But the shirt is a lost cause.
Moreover, I look like a woman who just slipped in a big pile of
muddy leaves. There are a few flakes of detritus on my neck and
chin, and my dirty blonde hair has become partially unraveled from
the elaborate French twist I learned how to execute from a YouTube
video. I remove the clips and shake it loose, knowing I’ll never be
able to re-create it without step-by-step instructions from Yolanda
the Hair Guru.
I
turn on the faucet for the sink. The water is ice cold, of
course. I wait a few seconds for it to heat up, but I’m not that lucky
today. Instead, I have to splash cold water all over my face.
Unfortunately, that makes my cheap mascara leak like I’m the Bride
of Frankenstein, so I have to wipe it all off. I wore a lot more black
eye makeup when I was younger, but I still wear a fair amount, and
without it, my face looks pale and plain. But I don’t have any in my
purse, so there’s not much I can do about it.
I start splashing water on my muddy shirt. It gets the dirt and
the leaves out (mostly), but now I’ve got dark wet splotches all over
me. Also, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the wet fabric is
see-through.
Goddamn it. I can’t go out there like this. Not when this is
potentially a job interview. Or potentially… something else. Whatever
it is, I look totally inappropriate.
There’s a rap on the bathroom door. I’ve been in here for too
long and someone else needs to come in. “I’ll be out in a minute!”
“It’s Adam,” the voice says from behind the door. “I’ve got
something for you.”
I
crack the door open just enough that I can see his eyes
peeking through. He’s holding something in his right hand.
“It’s a shirt,” he says. “I got it from my car. I could tell yours
was wrecked.”
I reach my hand through the gap and take the shirt from him.
It’s a T-shirt in a size small. It’s pink. I’m guessing it’s not his.
Before I can ask, he says, “It’s my wife’s.”
“Oh!” I say. But what I’m really thinking is: oh.
Of course he has a wife. He’s a nice, thirty-something guy who
looks great in a suit. Of course he has a wife. Those guys are never
single. I hadn’t noticed a ring, but to be fair, I was distracted.
This is a good thing though. Because if he legitimately has a job
for me, the last thing I need to do is muck it up with a pointless
flirtation. I’m terrible at flirting anyway. If he’s happily married, that
will be off the table. And I can focus on a new job and getting my
life back on track.
“Thanks, Adam,” I say. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Take your time.”
I lock the bathroom door and take off the white shirt. I roll it
into a tiny ball and stuff it deep inside my purse. Then I slide on the
pink T-shirt. I turn left and right, admiring my reflection. It fits me
like a glove—it’s very flattering. Thank you, Mrs. Barnett.
Before I go out, I reach into my purse and pull out a tube of red
lipstick. I apply a fresh layer, which brightens up my pale face. Yes,
he’s married. But still.
The diner is cramped, and Adam snagged a booth that seats
only two people. He’s already ordered us coffee, and there’s a cup
waiting for me in front of the empty side of the booth. His eyes light
up when he sees me, and he gestures for me to sit down. I take a
second to check out his left hand, and sure enough, the simple
white gold wedding band is there. How did I miss that?
“I got you a cup of coffee. Hope it’s okay. There’s cream and
sugar on the table.”
I slide into my seat. “I take it black.”
Bitter and black. That’s the only way I ever drink coffee.
“Same here.” Adam lifts his cup of coffee and takes a long sip.
He shudders. “What a day, huh?”
I nod. I know I’ve had a shit day. But I don’t know what sort of
day he’s had so far. Is it just that the person he was supposed to
interview didn’t show? Something in his expression makes me think
it’s more than that, but it seems like it might be off-limits to ask. I
don’t want to be rude, especially since I’m now counting on this guy
to keep a roof over my head.
“Do you want anything to eat?” he asks. “My treat.”
I’m starving. I’m currently on the poverty diet. All I ate for
breakfast this morning was a banana. I have eaten spaghetti every
night in the last week for dinner, which means I only had to buy that
one box of spaghetti and one can of tomato sauce, totaling $5.39.
But the last thing I want to do is stuff my face in front of a potential
employer. The coffee will have to be enough. “No thanks.”
He stirs his coffee with a spoon, even though he hasn’t added
any cream or sugar. He tugs on his tie with his other hand. I don’t
know why he looks so nervous. He’s the one offering a job. In this
economy, it seems like anyone offering a job is in pretty good shape.
I’m the one who’s about to be homeless.
Of course, I don’t know what the job is. Maybe it’s something
really awful. I try to imagine a job I wouldn’t be willing to do for a
reasonable salary. I would clean toilets. I would shovel snow for him
on the coldest day of winter. I would take out his trash.
I wouldn’t eat his trash. If that’s the job, I wouldn’t take it. I
suppose that’s where I draw the line. No eating of garbage.
“So I’m sure you want to hear about the job,” he finally says.
“Cut to the chase, right?”
“Well…”
He smiles crookedly. “You’d be working for me—at my house.
Well, technically you’d be working for my wife.”
I take a sip of coffee and shudder much the way he did. Wow,
this stuff is high octane. “Your wife?”
“Yes.” He plays with his wedding band, turning it in circles
around his fourth finger. “Victoria has… she’s been ill.”
My heart sinks. “I don’t have any nursing training…”
“Oh, you wouldn’t need that.” He takes another swig of coffee.
“She’s got a nurse to help her in the morning. And she’s got me at
night. But when I’m working, I want somebody around to keep her
company.”
She has a nurse who comes in every day? It sounds like this
woman is pretty sick. I’m dying to ask what happened to her, but I
feel like that might be rude. And he’s not volunteering any
information. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me. If I take
the job, presumably I’ll find out.
“She’s alone all day,” he explains. “I work from home, but I can’t
be with her twenty-four hours a day. I just want somebody to spend
time with her. Maybe read to her. Sit with her during meals. Just be
a friend to her.”
“You’re hiring me to be your wife’s friend?” I blurt out before I
can stop myself.
Adam’s ears turn slightly pink. “Well, when you put it that
way…”
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. What you’re
doing for your wife is… nice. You don’t want her to be lonely.”
And I mean it. I don’t know what’s wrong with his wife, but it’s
obvious he cares about her. He’s willing to pay somebody to be with
her while he’s working. If something happened to me, I’d probably
end up in some nursing home or something.
“You said you work from home,” I say. “What sort of work do
you do?”
I expected him to say he worked in computers, since that’s what
most people who work from home seem to do. But then he surprises
me by saying, “I’m a writer.”
“You’re kidding!” I take a sip of my coffee. “Anything I would
have heard of?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
I’m not much of a reader, so he could be a bestselling author
and I wouldn’t know it. Presumably, he does okay if he’s able to pay
me to be his wife’s friend. Or else, he’s got a big inheritance. Or
maybe Victoria has the money.
“Anyway…” He rakes a hand through his dark hair. “There’s one
other thing about the job…”
I raise my eyebrows. Uh oh, here comes the catch. Let me
guess: I have to perform my duties while completely naked. “Yes?”
“It’s not local.”
“Not… local?”
“Victoria and I live out on Long Island.”
I frown. “Where in Long Island?”
“All the way out.”
“Like the Hamptons?”
“Montauk.”
I stifle a groan. Montauk is at the tip of Long Island. Like, as far
as you can go without being in the Atlantic Ocean. It would take me
over two hours to drive there from my studio apartment in Brooklyn.
And that’s if I had a car, which I don’t. I suppose I could take the
Long Island Railroad. I can’t even imagine how long a ride that
would be.
“That’s a bit of a trip,” I admit. “And I don’t have a car.”
“Right.” He stirs his coffee cup again. “That’s why… I mean, if
you took the job, you could live in our house. Rent-free, of course.
And you can use Victoria’s car for whatever you need.”
My mouth falls open. I hadn’t expected him to offer that. Of
course, it makes sense. If you live out in Montauk, you can’t expect
to find somebody in the city to come work for you unless you offer
accommodations.
“That’s very generous,” I say.
He offers that crooked smile again. “Work is keeping me very
busy lately, and I hate the thought of Victoria being lonely all day.
And I need to find someone before the winter sets in. The snow will
make it more difficult for me to arrange interviews.”
This job would solve all my problems. I’d have money coming
in. I’d have a place to live. I’d be able to start crawling out of the
hole my medical expenses left me in. I could start fresh. It would be
amazing.
But for some reason, every fiber of my being is crying out for
me to tell him no. It’s that same sense of impending doom I had
outside. That if I take this job—if I go out to that house in Montauk
—something terrible will happen to me.
Not just terrible. Worse than terrible.
I can’t take this job.
“We should probably discuss salary,” he says.
I clear my throat. There’s no point in continuing this discussion.
I have to tell him no. “Listen, Adam…”
“Would fifteen hundred dollars a week be okay?”
My mouth drops open. Is he serious? He can’t possibly be. He’s
going to give me a free room and board and fifteen hundred dollars
a week to hang out with his wife? How does he even have the
money to pay me that much? It sounds too good to be true.
But if it’s true, that money will change my life.
“And I can arrange health insurance too,” he says quickly. “Also,
you’ll have Sundays off. And… two weeks of vacation? Is that
enough?” When he sees my expression, he adds, “Three weeks.
Three weeks of vacation.”
I think I’m going to choke on my own happiness.
There’s no reason not to take this job. Yes, my gut is telling me
to turn him down. But so what? Freddy used to say to me that I
always thought something bad was going to happen to me. Doom
and Gloom Sylvia. But to be fair, I was right a lot. Bad things did
happen to me. I’ve gotten burned so many times, it makes sense I’d
be wary of an opportunity that seems too good to be true.
This job is a chance to turn things around.
“When do you need me to start?” I ask.
Chapter 3
The train ride out to Montauk is endless.
Adam offered to pick me up and drive me there, but I couldn’t
in good conscience make him drive six hours round-trip, and then
another six hours to drive me home. If he drove twelve hours for
me, I would feel obligated to take this job. Like when you go on a
date with a guy and he buys you a lobster dinner, and then you feel
like you owe him something.
Not that I date anymore. I’m done with that for at least the rest
of this decade.
So I’m on the Long Island Railroad, and Adam has promised to
reimburse me for my round trip ticket. I’ve snagged a window seat
by myself, which wasn’t that difficult considering I’m going against
traffic, and I’m pretty sure nobody is commuting all the way out here
on a daily basis anyway. I’ve got my earbuds in, but I’ve tuned out
the music as I watch the scenery fly by. At first, there are lots of
houses and buildings. Then fewer houses and fewer buildings. Then
just houses. Now it’s mostly green.
And I’ve still got another hour to go.
I get out my phone to try to find something to entertain me the
rest of the journey. There’s a text message from Freddy on the lock
screen. I changed my number, but somehow he keeps getting it.
One of our mutual friends must be giving it to him. He hasn’t
changed his number though, so I recognize the digits even without
his name on the screen:
Please give me another chance. Please Sylvie.
I snort at the phone. By now, Freddy should know better than
to think I’ll ever give him another chance. It’s because of him that
I’m trekking out to Montauk to keep from living out on the street.
This is his fault. My whole life is his fault. I start to block his number
but before I can, another message pops up:
Please. I love you. I’ll do anything you say.
And then he is officially blocked. But knowing Freddy, he’ll figure
out a way around it.
Adam told me he’d be waiting at the train station to pick me up.
By the time the train pulls into its final stop, my neck feels stiff as a
board. I take a moment to stretch myself out and gather my
courage. That awful sensation has gotten worse and worse during
the long train ride out to the tip of the island, but I do my best to
push it away. I’m just feeling antsy because I’ve lived in the city for
so long—that’s all it is.
I brought a light jacket, but it’s colder than I would’ve expected
out here. And windy. The moment I dismount the train, a gust of
wind goes through my jacket like it’s made of paper. I have no
padding on my body anymore, so I’m cold most of the time even in
warmer weather. I should’ve worn another sweater.
“Sylvia!”
I hear the familiar voice calling my name. I swivel my head to
look down the platform—Adam is waving frantically at me. He’s
dressed more appropriately than I am in a warm looking blue jacket
with a scarf and a black hat on his head. Clearly, he’s very familiar
with the weather out here.
He jogs over to me, a crooked grin on his face. In the last week,
I had somehow forgotten how good-looking he is. Even in that bulky
black wool hat, he’s more than a little cute.
But he’s also more than just a pretty face. When I went home
and googled Adam Barnett after first meeting him, I discovered he
had been overly modest when he called himself a writer. This guy
has had three books that hit number one on the New York Times
bestseller list. There are articles online that say he’s one of the best
modern writers of our time. The next Stephen King. This guy is a big
shot. And apparently, a bit of a recluse.
Then I googled Victoria Barnett. I found nothing. And believe
me, I looked.
“You get in okay?” he asks anxiously. “How was the ride?”
“Long.” I hug my chest and shiver. “You know, it’s like ten
degrees colder out here than it was in the city.”
He laughs. “Yeah. Today is cold. Do you want my scarf?”
Before I can say yes, he unwinds his dark green scarf from
around his neck. I accept it graciously because I really am cold. It’s
such a gallant gesture. Also, it smells nice. Like expensive
aftershave.
Okay, I should probably quit smelling his scarf.
Adam leads me out to the parking lot. I got a little spark of
excitement when he hits his key fob and the BMW lights up. The guy
drives a BMW. I’ve never known anyone who drove a BMW before. I
haven’t ever even owned a vehicle. Freddy drove a piece of junk car
—a used Ford Fiesta with scratches all over it because he couldn’t
afford to get it repainted. Half the time, he had to ask me to come
downstairs and give him a push to get it started. To his credit, Adam
looks mildly embarrassed when he sees the way I’m looking at his
car.
“Don’t say it,” he says. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“I’ve got a rich asshole car.” He slides into the leather driver’s
seat and I climb into the car next to him. Wow, leather. I run my
hand over the material. “But it handles really well in the snow. And
Victoria loved it.”
I can’t help but notice he referred to his wife in the past tense.
We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times since our initial meeting
and he’s been very vague about his wife’s illness. I’m not sure why
he doesn’t want to tell me.
I mean, I’m the one who’s going to be taking care of her. I need
to know what’s wrong with her. Does she have arthritis? Lupus?
Really bad food allergies? I can’t even imagine.
Adam must sense what I’m thinking, because as he pulls onto
the main road, he blurts out, “She had a head injury.”
“Oh…”
“She fell down the stairs about nine months ago.” He winces.
“In our house. We have this crazy winding staircase and… I was in
the city all day with my publisher, so I didn’t find her till later. If I
had been there…”
His voice breaks on those last words. I get an ache in my chest
for him. It’s bad enough to have to deal with your wife being ill, but
worse to blame yourself. I wonder if Victoria blames him too.
After about twenty minutes of driving mostly in silence, we
come across an iron gate extending the length of a city block. When
Adam hits the button in his car and the gates open, I realize this
must be where he lives. He lives in a gigantic house surrounded by a
freaking gate. At least there isn’t a moat and a dragon, but it
wouldn’t surprise me.
Adam must notice the way my mouth is hanging open. “Real
estate is cheap out here,” he explains. “You can get a huge house
for next to nothing. That’s why we wanted to move out here. Even
though it’s obviously not the most convenient.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, although I’m secretly thinking to myself that if
I live to be a hundred, I’ll never be able to afford a house that looks
like this.
Given how magnificent the house is, it’s surprising to see the
grounds are so unkempt. The lawn is badly overgrown. There are
leaves all over the place and branches hanging in the path to the
garage. It gives the entire property a bit of an abandoned look to it.
If somebody told me nobody lives here, I would believe it. Especially
since there are no lights on inside the two-story house, even though
Adam’s wife is supposedly inside.
“We used to have a gardener,” he explains. “But she… she’s no
longer with us…”
He gets a sad expression on his face. Despite how attractive
and wildly successful he is, Adam looks like a man who has had a
hard life. At least, he’s had a rough go of things lately. It makes me
like him even better.
The inside of the house is even more magnificent than the
outside. I feel like I’m walking into an opera house or something.
The living room is so large, I feel like it could swallow me up. I could
fit five of my studio apartments in this room alone. There’s an
enormous sectional sofa abutting a real working fireplace and a
widescreen television. Everything in this house is shiny new and
painfully expensive-looking.
Adam is watching me, so I feel like I need to say something.
But all I can manage is, “Wow. This place is…”
“Big, right?” His face lights up at my expression—it’s clear he
loves this house. “That’s why we wanted it. We used to live in this
apartment in the city and it was so tiny. When Victoria first walked in
here, she spun around in circles with her hands out.”
I can relate to Victoria because I kind of want to do the same
thing. This house is made for spinning around in circles with your
hands stretched out.
My eyes rest on a photograph on the mantle above the
fireplace. It’s a picture of Adam with his arm around a young woman
with blond hair. “Is… is that her?” I ask.
He nods. “Yes…”
I take a step closer to get a better look, hoping he won’t think
me rude. Victoria is… well, she’s beautiful. She has long golden hair
worn loose around her face and she’s wearing a stunning black dress
that she fills out perfectly.
But the thing I can’t stop looking at is Victoria’s face. She’s
pretty, but it’s more than that. Her face is so open and honest and
fresh and her smile is so friendly. I’ve always worn too much
makeup, but Victoria is wearing hardly any, and it suits her. She
looks like the sort of person that you meet and instantly like. She
looks so happy in the photo.
She has no idea what’s about to happen to her.
“She’s beautiful,” I finally say.
“Yes.” His eyes drop. “She is.”
He looks so sad, I wish I hadn’t said anything.
He clears his throat. “She’s upstairs. Do you want to meet her?”
I look at the flight of steps to get to the second floor. He wasn’t
kidding when he said it was a long and twisted staircase. The steps
are almost painfully steep, with barely enough room for a foot on
each landing. If somebody took a spill down that entire flight, they
wouldn’t walk away so easily. I look at the foot of the stairs,
imagining the blond woman from the photograph lying there with
her limbs twisted around her.
I shiver again. Is there a draft in this house?
I follow Adam up the flight of stairs, clinging to the banister for
dear life. If I fall down the stairs and have a brain injury, I don’t
have a husband to hire people to take care of me twenty-four hours
a day, so I better be damn careful on these steps.
“I don’t leave her alone,” Adam explains to me as we mount the
steps. “Her nurse, Eva, is with her right now. That’s where I’m
hoping you’ll come in. So Eva can have a break. And… me too.”
He’s embarrassed to admit he needs a break from his wife. But I
get it. “No problem.”
I follow Adam down a long hallway. This house is so big, there
must be at least five or six bedrooms up here. He takes me to a
room at the very end of the hallway on the right. “This is Victoria’s
room.”
“You don’t share a bedroom?” I blurt out.
Adam’s green eyes widen. Why did I say that? Why do I keep
saying such stupid things? Who am I to judge his sleeping
arrangements?
“No,” he finally answers. “She needs a lot of equipment and…
We just… No, we don’t anymore. No.”
“Of course,” I say quickly. “I get it.”
Adam raps his fist once against the closed door. Then we wait
as I hold my breath.
“Come in!” an accented voice calls out.
I release the breath as Adam opens the door to the room. The
first thing I see is an extremely large woman. She has close-cropped
black hair and a light brown skin color. Her arms are easily the width
of my upper thighs, and she looks like she could toss me onto her
shoulder and jog around the house with me on her back. I try to
guess her age, but she could be anywhere between thirty and sixty.
“Mr. Adam,” she says in an unidentifiable accent. “You are back.”
“Yes.” He flashes a very forced-looking smile. “Eva, I’d like you
to meet Sylvia. She’s going to be helping out with Victoria.
Hopefully.” He winks at me. “Sylvia, this is Eva.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Hello.”
I get the sense that Eva and I are not going to end up being the
best of friends. I clear my throat. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m
very much looking forward to meeting Victoria.”
Eva swivels her head and I follow her gaze to the window. And
that’s when I see the wheelchair set up to face the rear window. The
chair has a headrest, but I can see golden locks flowing around the
black material.
“Is that her?” I ask, even though it’s ridiculously obvious that it
is. Who else would it be?
“Yes.” Adam smiles crookedly. “Come over and say hello.”
I walk around the hospital bed, careful not to trip on what
appears to be a mechanical lift for getting in and out of the bed.
Adam steps aside to let me get close to the wheelchair. The chair is
tilted just enough that I can see Victoria’s face.
And before I can help myself, I let out a strangled gasp.
Chapter 4
This woman is not the same woman from the photograph
downstairs.
Well, she is, but she isn’t. If you know what I mean. She used
to be that woman, but it’s clear that she isn’t anymore. She’s a shell
of that same woman.
She still has the same golden hair, but it’s dull and limp instead
of shiny like in the photograph. There is a scar snaking out from
under her hairline on the left. Her blue eyes have lost all their
expression, and they stare off in two completely different directions.
Her left cheekbone looks almost dented and there is a jagged ugly
scar running down the entire side of her face. For a moment, I
wonder why, with all their money, they didn’t give her plastic
surgery, but the answer is obvious. She couldn’t care less what she
looks like anymore.
“Hey, Vicky.” Adam’s voice softens and takes on a tender tone I
hadn’t heard before. “This is Sylvia. She’s really nice. She’s going to
be spending some time with you.”
Victoria lifts her eyes to look at me. The right one looks straight
in my face, but the other still points in the direction of the window.
It’s hard to tell if she’s seeing me at all. She doesn’t say a word.
“She doesn’t talk much,” he explains in a low voice. It’s like he’s
hoping she won’t hear, although she’s about two feet away from us.
“The injury to her head affected the part of her brain that controls
speech. She can understand things, but it’s hard to know how much.
She can’t get many words out. Sometimes she can say ‘hi’ or ‘okay’
but most of the time, she can’t even tell you her own name.”
His voice breaks slightly on the last thing he says. It must be
hard for him to explain all this to another person. I can’t imagine
what it must be like for the person you married to not even know
who you are or be able to say their own name.
“Hi, Victoria,” I say. I realize that I’m speaking too loudly and
too slowly, like I’m talking to a hearing-impaired child. If she’s reall