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And I let her go.
Because tomorrow, I get my family back.
5
It’s not the scream that wakes me. Because, in my dream, I’m expecting it.
In fact, it’s not a dream, it’s a memory. I can smell fresh cut lawn, hear the sprinkler from Russell’s house next door. Inside, Eve is fixing dinner, and she’s turned up my Bon Jovi album, singing along to Runaway…
I’m pushing Ashley on her new swing set. Her legs are out, and her braids are flying and she’s laughing, screaming, glancing over her shoulder at me, her daddy.
My chest is full. Especially when Eve walks out onto the deck carrying a plate of meat for the now smoking grill. It’s a blue-skied day and the heady redolence of the burgers snapping and browning draws me over. I circle my arms around Eve’s waist, lean in and press my lips to her neck, her skin tasting of salt and a hint of today’s soap. I’m suddenly ravenous, but she hums, then pushes me away, grinning at me over her shoulder, just like Ash did, only not quite. There’s a twinkle in Eve’s eyes and she winks because it’s Saturday night and my world is perfect.
“Rem!”
I turn, looking for the voice, then round back to Eve who has left me for the kitchen.
I follow her inside, but she’s not there. “Eve?”
“Rembrandt!”
My head pounds. “Eve?” I walk through our family room, past the wrapped canvas pictures we took at the beach, the long sectional where Ash and I watch Dora and up th
e stairs to our bedroom.
But it’s empty too.
“Rembrandt, are you here?”
I head back downstairs and to my office. It’s exactly how I left it—leather chair, rows and rows of novels on a bookcase behind the desk. My novel, The Last Year, in hardcover, on my desk, as if it might give me inspiration.
Eve says she fell in love with me through that book, written my rookie year as an investigator. It hit the NYT Bestseller list, and bought me my Porsche, and a few other toys. I thought I was going to be the next Mickey Spillane. I had no idea what a fluke it was until I attempted novel number two.
I might be a one-hit wonder. But Eve doesn’t care, and that’s why I’m searching the house for her. Why I’m ignoring the voice…the voice…
The pounding.
I open my eyes, and stare at the ceiling. I’m fully clothed, having dropped onto my sectional last night, one of my mother’s knitted afghans over me. I couldn’t bear to sleep in the bed Eve and I shared—and will again, I’m determined.
Wow, I miss them.
The voice comes again … from outside the front door. “Rem, I’m going to call 9-1-1!”
I untangle myself and roll to my feet, still clearing my head, gulping past the thrum of my heart.
I see a figure through the glass and open the door to find my neighbor, Gia. She’s wearing a tank top, short shorts and holds her baby on her hip. She’s curvy and young and there are sirens sounding in my head, although I’m not sure why.
“Finally,” she says. “I was getting worried.
“Sorry. I was sleeping.” Dreaming, actually, and I’m not a little irked that she woke me up. I glance past her. Must be around six a.m.—the sun is barely up. Which now has me awake. “What’s going on?”
“It’s…” And now I realize she’s been crying, her eyes reddened. Her baby—I think it’s a boy, dark curly hair, big brown eyes—stares at me, his thumb jammed full hilt into his mouth. “Alex. Again.”
Alex. The last thing I remember about her husband Alex is the fight he and Gia got into a few weeks ago. Eve and I watched, and I debated crossing the street to intervene. But domestic squabbles are exactly how many cops get shot, so I stayed put and made sure nobody threw anything like chairs or fists.
Alex finally left in his Beemer.
I’m thinking, in this reality, maybe he’s not much different.
