“Can I do anything to help?” she asks while kissing Carpenter on the head.
“It’s all done.”
She frowns at my expression. “What’s wrong?” She sees me eyeing the calico cat. “Thatcher?”
“We need to talk, honey.”
Jane swallows. “Okay.” She gently sets Carpenter down, and then she assesses the glassware and food set on the table before disappearing into the kitchen.
She returns with parmesan cheese, which I forgot.
My lip lifts slightly, and the pressure in my chest almost relents. Ophelia and Licorice are rubbing up against my ankles, purring. Normally I’d pet the white and gray cats, but I crouch down and toss them a catnip-laced Darth Vader mouse.
They chase after the toy.
I stand back up and notice Jane frozen with a hand on an iron chair.
She’s zeroed in on the pasta in meat sauce. “I thought you said you wouldn’t cook me your grandma’s braggiol’ because you can’t do it like her?”
I did say that.
“It’s comfort food.”
Worry widens her gaze, but she takes a readying breath and lowers on the seat. “You think I need comforting?”
I sit across from my girlfriend. “Not just you. This won’t be easy for me either.” I nod to the soup in the small bowls. “I didn’t cook the pasta vasul’. My brother said our stepmom brought a container over yesterday for you and me.”
My family had been worried about us being snowed-in, and coming home to familiar food, made out of love, is simply pure love.
Family constantly makes me feel like the wealthiest man in the world. There’s not a day I’d ever take them for granted.
I look at Jane more. “I just heated it on the stove.”
She tries to smile, but her lips fall. “That was awfully sweet of Nicola.” She inspects the soup. “Pasta and beans?”
I nod, just once.
Say more. I’m naturally quiet, but in this setting, my conciseness and brevity packs on tension like ten tons of weight.
Jane pours wine, a dark Cab, in our glasses. Strain stretches between us. “I’m guessing this is about the culprit, but you should know that I feel extraordinarily safe here. I can already sense the warmest, most relaxing sleep tonight. Better than in a long while.”
Whatever great sleep she thinks she’ll have, I’m about to fuck it all.
She studies me and places the wine bottle aside. “Do you feel safe?” She looks pained. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked you sooner.”
I hold her gaze. “You don’t need to apologize. I feel safe, but I feel safe most places.”
Jane nods once, like I did, and cups wine between tense hands.
My ears ring in her silence. And I focus on my talk with Farrow hours ago. He said he was going to take Maximoff out to dinner and lay down every single horrific detail that occurred in this house.
I agreed to do the same for Jane.
We’re both just praying they’ll consider moving.
“I have to tell you what happened here,” I explain.
She inhales a sharp breath. “Must you?”
I nod. “You have to know.”
She takes a dainty sip of wine, then places the glass down. “Okay.” She folds her arms on the table. “I’m ready.”
With steaming pasta between me and my girlfriend, I have visions of Lady and the Tramp—but this is a fucked-up version of a Disney movie. Especially with the next words out of my mouth.
“He masturbated on your bed, Jane.” Direct. To-the-point.
She blinks a few times.
I’m more specific. “The police found his semen on your bed.” My muscles are flexed, just seeing her cage breath.
She reaches for her wine, thinks against it, and bends over to the floor. I watch Jane hoist Lady Macbeth, and her childhood black cat curls up on her lap. I realize, pasta is my comfort.
Her cats are hers.
Jane strokes her fur. “I thought…perhaps, the culprit just touched my bed, and that’s why you changed the duvet.”
“I threw away everything: the sheets, the blankets.” I pause. “The mattress is new too.”
She fights a swell of emotion. “Thank you.” Her eyes redden, hand staying still on her cat’s belly.
I want to hold Jane. Cup her cheeks in my hands and tell her that I have her six. That for as long as I live, no one on this earth will touch her with ill intent or hatred or harm.
I can’t.
I can’t give her a false sense of security. And I don’t want her to normalize what stalkers and revolting pricks do. We can avoid them better in a gated location.
“Security called him Sneakers,” I explain. “Because he always wore these dated white-scuffed sneakers whenever he stopped by the house.”
She blows out a short, controlled breath. “Is he a heckler?”
“A fan, or really, a suitor from your grandmother’s newspaper ad.”
“Oh.” Her chin trembles a little and she breathes in, the deepest breath she can.
“He was allowed to walk past the house. As much as he wanted.”
Jane nods.
“He was allowed to park outside the house. It’s public property.” I take a beat. “He was in his mid-forties, almost your dad’s age. And the first time he was caught, he was masturbating in his car outside this townhouse.”
Her lips slowly part. “Oh God…he’s done it before?”
I nod. “A restraining order was filed, which he broke. He’s not the first, second, third, or last fuckbag that I’ve slapped with a restraining order. He won’t be the last man to break into this townhouse either.” I grip her gaze with severity. “I feel safe. You feel safe, but the truth is, you aren’t safe here. Maximoff isn’t safe here. Neither are Luna and Sulli.”
Her blue eyes are glassy with tears that won’t fall.
My words—mine, are pushing Jane to this place, and chewing broken glass would feel better. I continue fast. “I’m not saying any of this to hurt you. I just need you to understand what’s happening and why I can’t protect you here.”
She buries her face in Lady Macbeth’s fur for a moment.
Her silence is a toxin dripping in my veins. I can’t stand it. “Please say something.”
Brushing tears away with the heels of her palms, she glances up. “I have an overactive imagination, you see, and I just keep picturing some gross old man in our room with his cum on our bed…” She perches her elbows on the table, palms covering her face, agonized. “They saw, didn’t they?”
My brows knit, and I shake my head. “Who?”
“The way you were staring at Carpenter.” She lets out a guttural noise that wrenches me to my feet. Lady Macbeth springs off her lap.
“Jane.” I crouch down beside her chair.
“Walrus and Carpenter were in the room with him.” She won’t uncover her face. “I thought he could be worse than a burglar. I thought he could do something as sickening and heinous as what he did—but knowing for certain feels…” She chokes on a sob. “It feels like…my skin is crawling and it will never stop.” Her hands fall, and I kneel and pull her into my chest.