‘Hey,’ she says, worry etched on her tired face, Jackie grabbing at her hair.
Should he tell Stephanie about this possible child of Erica’s? She might be bluffing; it might not be true at all. He takes the baby from Stephanie, gives them each a kiss. He knows Stephanie wants to go to the police, especially after what happened this morning in the park. But if Erica has a child by him, it will look bad, no matter what he says. He won’t be able to deny he slept with her. He doesn’t want to go to the police, not now.
He needs time to look into things himself – maybe it isn’t even possible for her to have the accident investigation reopened. Maybe they’re all empty threats, and this frantic worry is for nothing. Maybe there is no child. But how is he to find out? He would be an utter fool to submit to a paternity test if Erica asks for one – because what if she’s right?
Stephanie takes Emma out of the playpen and they slump together onto the sofa, a baby on each lap.
‘Any news?’ Stephanie asks anxiously.
Patrick shakes his head, avoiding her eyes by playing peekaboo with Jackie. He doesn’t want to tell her what Erica said to him in the park.
‘I think we should go to the police,’ Stephanie says tentatively.
‘No,’ Patrick says, not looking at her. ‘Not yet. I think she’s bluffing. I don’t want to piss her off. Maybe she’ll just go away.’
‘Look at me, Patrick,’ Stephanie says. He finally turns towards her. Her eyes are worried. ‘I don’t think she’s going to just go away. You told her we wouldn’t pay her. Do you think she’ll really go to the police in Colorado?’ Her voice is anxious.
‘I don’t know, Stephanie.’ He’s exhausted. He lets his head fall back against the sofa and closes his eyes.
‘You slept with her,’ Stephanie persists. ‘She can exaggerate about that, tell all kinds of lies about the two of you, about your relationship with your first wife. She can make up anything she wants.’
He feels a trickle of sweat starting along his back, between his shoulder blades.
‘Did anyone else know – that you slept with her?’ she asks.
He lifts his head from the back of the sofa and opens his eyes. He shakes his head. ‘No.’ He can’t bring himself to tell her about the possible child, not until he’s sure the kid exists. He tells himself that Erica is lying, and he almost believes it.
‘Was – was your first marriage a good one?’ she asks.
She’s questioning him, as if she might not believe him, as if she doubts.
He leans in closer to her. ‘Stephanie, yes, I loved her. We argued a little, but only because we were young, and trying to get by on very little money. It was tragic what happened to her.’ His voice takes on even more urgency. ‘You must stay away from Erica, Stephanie. She’s a liar, she’s vindictive and she’s very clever.’
‘I know. That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Stephanie says anxiously. ‘If it’s her against you, who will people believe?’
Nancy rattles around the house, keeping an eye on the Tesla app. At five o’clock, she sees that the car is moving. It’s a little blue dot on a map on her phone screen. She sits anxiously on the couch in the living room and watches the blue dot as if she’s watching her life fall apart. Maybe he really is going to a job site. It occurs to her that she should find out where they all are. There can’t be that many – why hasn’t she paid attention?
She watches the dot turn onto the highway, towards Newburgh. She certainly doesn’t know of any work Niall is doing out that way. She decides to drop Henry off at her mother’s, making the excuse that Niall has asked her to join him for a last-minute dinner with clients.
She gathers up Henry and a few toys and tells him he’s going to visit Grandma. Once she’s dropped him off, she gets back in her car and looks at the app on her phone. The car has stopped now. The address is 884 Division Street.
She can follow him wherever he goes without being seen, which is rather convenient. She puts the address into her GPS, and after twenty-five minutes arrives at a low-rise apartment building. Job site, my ass, she thinks. How will she know which apartment it is?
She parks across the street and gets out of her car. As she walks towards the building, she sees her husband’s shiny Tesla in the parking lot. The bastard.
She walks up to his beloved car. The urge to deface it is overwhelming. There’s no one around. She could key it; he’d never know it was her. Maybe if she defaced his car every time he came here, he’d stop coming.
She pushes the driver’s-side handle and opens the door; the key card in her wallet unlocks the car and lets her in automatically – she doesn’t even have to take it out of her purse. She sits in the driver’s seat for a moment; she’s so upset her breathing is fast and shallow. The car has automatically turned itself on. She stares at the computer screen for a minute and then hits the Navigate button. That pulls up a screen that shows the addresses he’s recently entered into his GPS. Oh, look, he’s put in the address – and the apartment number – of his new lover. Good to know. Apartment 107. She uses her cell phone to take a photo of the address on his monitor.
She gets out of the car and slams the door. She takes a picture of his car in the parking lot, with the building in the background. Then she enters the apartment building – where her cheating husband is sleeping with another woman while she’s down here at the locked doors – and searches the directory. There it is – number 107, E. Voss.
Well, at least now she knows. She uses her phone to take some pictures of the directory too.
What now? Does she stay here and face him when he comes out? Create a scene? Does she wait in his car? Wouldn’t it be fun to see his face when he comes out to his car and finds her sitting in the passenger seat? Or should she stay out of sight and wait for him to leave, and then buzz this E. Voss? Get a look at her?
She can’t decide. Finally she gets back into her own car, fighting back tears. She’d told her mother she might be late. She decides she doesn’t want to be home when her husband gets back; she needs to calm down. Instead, she drives back to Aylesford and goes to a movie.
She’s alone in a movie theatre on a Friday night. In the darkness of the theatre, she discreetly wipes her tears away with a tissue and keeps an eye on the app. Soon she sees the little blue dot coming back down the highway. She watches it arrive at their home and stop.
You bastard, Nancy thinks.
She sends him a text.
I’m at the movies with a friend. I’ll pick up Henry from my mother’s when I’m done.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT NIGHT, AS they try to soothe the babies, Patrick’s mind is working overtime; he needs to know what he’s up against. He needs to find out the truth.
He walks blearily around the living room, a crying infant in his arms. He and Stephanie have given up trying to be heard above the noise; besides, they are all talked out. Now it’s as if they are both existing within their own cones of misery.
Patrick thinks back to those early days in Colorado, when he was newly married. Lindsey was pregnant; they had moved to the little commuter town of Creemore for him to take an internship in Denver. There he’d met Greg Miller, who was also interning at Wright & Fraser Architects. They worked, socialized, drank together. Erica and Lindsey had become good friends, having met at a photography class, although initially one might think they had little in common. Lindsey was pregnant, putting most of her energy into preparing for the baby, homesick for Grand Junction. Erica was working part time at a drugstore and pining for something more.
For Patrick, it was all about keeping his head above water. He was in his first real job, trying to support a wife and expecting a new baby too. Adjusting to life, wondering what the future held. He hadn’t planned on marrying and having a family so young. And then one night Erica started looking at him across the table at the bar, and his eyes wandered, and his thoughts, and he’d betrayed Lindsey.
And now he was paying the price.