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“Maybe she had a flat tire.” Please let it be that. “I’m sure she’s coming.”
The phone rang. Vanessa quickly gave Dominick some markers so he could write on the dry-erase board attached to the fridge, and approached the desk in the corner.
Anxiety stabbed through her when she recognized Manuel’s cell-phone number on the caller ID. He was supposed to be on a plane to Mexico. He left the country often and stayed sometimes for several days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. He claimed to import marble from Culiacán, but Vanessa had long suspected that he imported more than marble.
The steady bursts of noise jangled her already frayed nerves. Should she answer it?
She wasn’t sure she could keep her voice level. Hoping that his plane had simply been delayed, that he’d be gone soon, she decided to let the answering machine take it. But she should’ve known she couldn’t avoid him so easily. Her cell phone, which was sitting on the counter, started ringing only a few seconds later. Manuel hated it when he couldn’t reach her. She knew he’d keep trying, again and again and again, until she finally picked up, even if it meant missing his flight.
She couldn’t let him miss his flight.
When she continued to hesitate, Dominick glanced up from his drawing. “Mommy?”
Spurred by the curiosity in her son’s voice, Vanessa arranged her expression in a blank mask to hide the fear and loathing Manuel elicited, and retrieved her cell. “Hello?”
“What’s going on?” Manuel demanded without a greeting.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You didn’t answer the house phone.”
“I told you last night that I might run a few errands this morning.”
“You haven’t left the house.”
A prickly unease crept up Vanessa’s spine. He’d spoken with such certainty. “How do you know?”
“A good guess.”
She didn’t believe it was a guess at all, and judging by his flippant tone, he didn’t care whether he’d convinced her. Somehow he always knew where she was. She’d scoured every inch of the house and been unable to find any type of listening device or video camera, so he must have hired someone to watch her. Which made Juanita absolutely integral to her plan.
Dominick went back to drawing, and Vanessa moved to the sink to stare out the kitchen window at the perfect summer day, wondering for the millionth time who was out there.
“Why didn’t you pick up?” Manuel pressed, unwilling to let the subject go.
“I was—” she swallowed to ease the dryness in her throat “—in the bathroom.”
“I had a phone installed there, remember? For your convenience.”
Not for her convenience. So she wouldn’t have even the bathroom as an escape from him. “I refuse to answer the phone while I’m in the bathroom,” she said. “I haven’t used that extension since you put it in. You know that.”
He chuckled softly. “Querida, you can be so stubborn.”
Manuel had no idea. But he was about to find out—if only Juanita would arrive as promised.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“I’m calling to check on you.”
Check on her? Not in a loving way. Vanessa could hardly tolerate the sound of Manuel’s voice or the pretense of his caring. When she’d first met him, at twenty-two, she’d just graduated with a teaching degree. He’d been older, twenty-five, and had seemed energetic and ambitious—but loving and kind, too. He’d changed so fast….
Maybe she’d never really known him. Maybe the man he used to be was simply a persona he adopted when it suited him. In any case, she barely recognized him anymore. His dark eyes, once the color of melted chocolate to her, watched her too carefully, frightening in their obsessive intensity. And the thick black hair she used to love, especially when it fell across his brow, he now slicked back in a dramatic style that added to the impression he gave of being as hyperaware as he was hypercritical.
She brought a hand to her chest, preparing herself for the answer to her next question. “Aren’t you going to Mexico today?”
“The trip’s been postponed.”
Her muscles tightened. No! Not when I’m so close. “Until when?” The knocking of her heart against her ribs made it difficult to speak.
“Come on, mi amor. You know better than to bother your pretty head with business.”
A dodge. Typical of him. As was the condescension in his voice. He didn’t like her knowing his schedule. Except for the odd occasion, he typically sprang news of an impending trip only the night before.
But Juanita still wasn’t here, and Manuel hadn’t said why his trip had been postponed. Did he realize she was planning to leave him?
“Will you be home for dinner, then?” she asked.
“Of course. I always spend my evenings with you, if I’m available.”
Bile rose in Vanessa’s throat at the thought of postponing her escape until Manuel’s next trip to Mexico. Holding out until he was far from home would be the wisest course. She and Dominick needed the lead time. But everything was already arranged. And staying meant she’d have to suffer through more nights in Manuel’s company, nights that always ended, at some point, with her lying beneath him. Manuel had an insatiable sexual appetite and demanded she perform some kind of sex act for him daily, often two or more.
“Maybe you could mention to Juanita that I’m in the mood for meñudo,” he said.
Even the prospect of sharing another interminable dinner with Manuel made Vanessa ill.
She frowned at the cigarette burn her husband had inflicted on the inside of her wrist four days ago. Manuel loved to deal out little reprisals for anything that displeased him—
Dominick rounded the kitchen island. Quickly hiding the injury, she rubbed her son’s back as he came over to hug her leg.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Worry clouded his innocent eyes.
She held a finger to her lips to indicate silence. She didn’t want Manuel to overhear.
“I’ll tell her to make it for dinner,” she said into the phone.
“And I’m going to need those suits I had you take to the cleaners,” he added. “Can you pick them up for me while you’re out?”
Her life was closing in on her again. “Of course.”
“Thank you. You’re such a wonderful wife.”
“I’m not your wife,” she said.
