“Can you imagine how awful it must’ve been for him?” I ask. “To be the only child of a narcissist and an alcoholic?”
She nods, exhaling. “Thank goodness he isn’t anything like them.”
“I know, right? He’s worked so hard to overcome some of his issues. To break the cycle.”
“I see that.” Her thin lips work into a sliver of a smile. “Though I imagine neither of us knows the half of what he went through.”
“Can we ever truly know everything about everyone?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think we can.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LYDIA
“Oh, my goodness, angel. You don’t have to keep doing this for me.” Delphine palms her cheeks when I arrive home Wednesday night with a takeout bag—third night in a row. Every afternoon, I tell the chef to prepare a to-go entrée for me. Only it’s never for me. After everything this woman has done for me, a few fancy meals courtesy of sea bats is the least I can give her in return. “I’ve never eaten so well in my life.”
She slicks her hands together, and I set the table. The food is more than enough for the both of us and then some. My stomach can only handle so much richness, and Delphine isn’t the type to overindulge. I won’t do this indefinitely, but it’s a little something-something for now.
“So how’s it going so far?” she asks as we dig into our respective piles of fettucine alfredo with Pacific geoduck clams—whatever those are. “Staff keeping you on your toes?”
“It’s mostly office work—ordering supplies, taking inventory, double-checking scheduling,” I lie. And it pains me to lie. But I can’t tell her the truth, that I sit in the office with the door closed all day, browsing the internet or doing printed-off crossword puzzles to pass the time.
Luca refuses to give me actual work to do, though I can’t figure out why. Any time I ask if I can be of service, he mutters something about taking a phone call or letting me know and disappears. He’s clearly avoiding me, trying to busy himself enough to forget I’m back.
Unfortunately for him, I’m not going anywhere.
Not for a while.
“Boring stuff.” I twirl a small mountain of pasta on my fork. “I was going to ask you . . . how much should I pay you for rent now?”
She rests her fork against her plate and sits back, as if the thought had yet to cross her mind. But I’m not going to live here scot-free and take advantage of her.
“I can still do laundry and those kinds of things if you want,” I add. “Would just have to be after hours.”
Lord knows I’ve got nothing but time.
“You haven’t even had your first paycheck yet, angel.” Her voice is as tender as the veal they serve at sea bats on Tuesdays. “One thing at a time. Let me think on that and get back to you with a number.”
My mind wanders to the three thousand in cash tucked into the interior pocket of my backpack. It isn’t safe to haul that kind of money around. Tonight I’ll stick most of it in the dresser, under a stack of folded sweaters. Come Friday, that money will be almost doubled, and by next week, I’ll have an entire drawer full of it—which isn’t practical.
Yesterday I suffered through a depressing lunch with Merritt. She was gaming for compassion, sharing sob stories about her dead mother. But there aren’t enough dead moms in the world to make me walk away now, when I’m so close to the flipside of hell.
I didn’t spend nine years in captivity to spend the next fifty of them homeless.
Even if I liked Merritt, even if I adored her—it couldn’t stop me from doing what I came here to do . . . what I have to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MERRITT
“Seven days.” I fold the baby’s coming-home outfit and place it inside the hospital bag. “Can you believe it?”
Luca hasn’t said more than two words since he got home from work, and the circles under his eyes are getting darker by the minute. But I waited to pack the bags until now, hoping it’d give him a little something to look forward to. A roundabout reminder that life is still moving forward all around us. Good things are on the horizon.
I tug the zipper and place the duffel by our bedroom door, that way he’ll see it every time he comes and goes. The more reminders of what’s at stake, the better.
I want my husband back—my true husband. The man I married, not his speechless, secretive doppelgänger.
“Luca?” I shuffle back to the bed.
“Hmm?” He glances up from his phone, eyes squinted and swollen with exhaustion. He hasn’t been sleeping, and I know this because neither have I.
I climb in beside him, wedge beneath the covers, and gently remove the phone from his hand.
“I miss you,” I whisper. It’s a strange thing to say to someone who’s right beside me, but I don’t know how else to convey to him that lately he’s here . . . but he isn’t. “Are you okay? Because I don’t think you are.”
He won’t make eye contact, he simply stares out the window on the far wall, into a literal ocean of blackness.
“This isn’t easy for me.” His tone is so unconvincing it’s insulting. It’s as if he’s simply uttering the words but his mind is elsewhere . . . with someone else.
With her.
“I’m doing my best,” he adds.
“This is your best?” I breathe. My patience is wearing paper thin. I can’t stand another minute living in this gray area, not knowing what Lydia wants or what my husband is thinking—or doing—half of the time. “Zoned out? Detached?”
He rustles, changing his posture and clearing his throat. Without a word, he slips his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in. A moment later, his warm lips press against my forehead—never my lips anymore. It’s as if the man I love is slipping through my fingers.
I lean away. “Yeah, well. I’m afraid this isn’t going to work this time.”
His forehead creases. “I don’t understand.”
“You can’t just . . . hold my hand or kiss me every time I’m upset and expect it to fix everything. We need to have a conversation—the one you’ve been sidestepping.” I turn away long enough to blink away the threat of tears.
He blows a hard, cinnamon-toothpaste-scented breath, massaging the tension from his face as his shoulders sag. “I’ve been preoccupied, Mer. Yes. But there’s nothing to fix here. Nothing is broken. I’m not going anywhere; you’re not going anywhere. We’re having this baby, and everything else we’ll take one day at a time.”
“Everything else meaning . . . Lydia.” It’s not a question.
“Lydia . . . the business . . . everything that isn’t you and Elsie and the baby.” He reaches for my hand, threading his fingers in mine. His skin is ice cold. “Trust me. Everything’s going to go back to the way it was before.”
It’s the only thing I want—and the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
I switch off the lamp on the nightstand and return to my husband’s side, resting a little easier tonight knowing we’re on the same page.