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This week started with incessant phone calls from a blocked number. Telemarketers are boundless, James said when I showed him my phone. Just change your settings, he told me, as though I hadn’t thought of that. As though that was the point.
Yesterday, it got worse. Yesterday, there was a dead bird on my windshield. It was awful, splayed out like whoever put it there wanted to send a message.
And then, last night, at dinner, it came when a message was delivered to our table. Origami, folded in the shape of a bird. I will admit that when I unfolded it, it gave me a sense of justification. Now my husband would see that I’m not paranoid, and I’m not crazy. Neighborhood kids wouldn’t go so far as to follow us to a restaurant downtown.
James laughed it off. Well, he didn’t actually think it was funny. “There are some lonely people in this world,” he’d said. “It’s probably just someone who saw a beautiful woman and wanted her to know she’s being noticed.”
I unfolded the bird, knowing with everything in me, all the way to the marrow of my bones, that it was more than that. Words written in red jumped out at me. You next.
I held it up so he could see. “You don’t think it’s an odd thing to write?”
“It’s strange,” he quipped. “But it’s paper, Laurel—how harmful could it be?”
I recanted the story about finding the bird on my windshield.
“A coincidence, I’m sure.” He seemed almost amused. James gets off on seeing me one step beyond the edge, so I shouldn’t have been surprised “Sometimes,” he said, “I think you read a little too much into things.”
But I’m not so sure.
The first thing I noticed as we turned into our drive was how dark it was. James accused me of forgetting to turn on the outside lights, even though I knew I had. “This is not good,” I said. “I don’t think we should go inside.”
“Tell you what,” he replied with one of his reassuring smiles. “You stay put. I’ll go in and make sure everything is all right.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’ll text you.” He was already half out the door. I wanted to jump out of the car; whether it was to stop him or follow him, I wasn’t sure. Halfway up the drive he pressed the remote, locking the car doors. He flexed his muscles as though to say, I got this.
If this were a horror flick, this would be the part where the very stupid yet chivalrous man walks into something that ends up getting him killed.
But this is not a horror flick, lucky for my husband. And lucky for me.
Just a blown fuse, James texts after an eternity. It’s not that I believed him—just that I couldn’t very well camp out in the car. I saw it differently. I saw it for what it was. A bad omen.
I’ll come walk you in.
My husband always liked playing the hero. So I let him. It keeps life on an even keel.
Once inside, I double-and then triple-checked the doors, ensuring they were locked. James kissed my forehead and told me I needed to rest. He assured me that he’d checked everything. He promised he’d get the lights changed out in the morning. “Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll come up and join you in a second.” He had work to do in the office. He wanted to email our handyman to make sure he’d be able to come by tomorrow to replace the fuses.
It was well past midnight before he finally came to bed. He kissed my cheek and called it a night. Only one of us slept. When I was certain that he’d properly drifted off, I found myself tiptoeing through the house, logging onto his laptop. Before I knew it, I was clicking through his emails. I scanned his texts for good measure. I don’t know that I have anything to worry about. But I don’t know that I don’t either.
He’s been stressed about the sale of our company. We’re both ready to move on, and now it’s time to cash in on what we built so that we can do that. My husband, however, is holding out, while I think the offer on the table is good enough.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been snooping. Although, how else am I supposed to stay privy to what’s going on? This way, it makes it easy to slip suggestions in through normal, everyday conversation. I found a few things nestled in his inbox that warranted a conversation. But nothing of significance.
It wasn’t until I dug into the project management app our company uses to communicate deadlines and such that I found something of real interest. It was a message between him and one of our attorneys.
I think Laurel is having an affair. You know what this means…
I should have stopped there. I panicked, instead. The important thing in any crisis is not to react until you’ve thought things through. You have to weigh your options and develop a strategy from there. That’s not what I did. Not really. And once a thing is done, what can you do?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dr. Max Hastings
AFTER
Dr. Jones stared at me furtively. “Well?”
