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Chapter Eighteen
I can’t shake this terrible feeling, apparently not even from my dreams. The foggy haze of sleep settles, refusing to immediately lift just because consciousness is trying to make an appearance. Pulling myself from sleep to the surface feels like trying to pull myself from a well with a rope. My head feels like it weighs ten thousand pounds, my eyelids equally heavy. Sleep beckons me backward, like waves, knocking my sharp edges off.
I ask myself what I know, running through the events of the day in my mind. It started out as normal. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. A fine summer’s morning, one that had turned out better than I’d expected. Joni made her famous strawberry and spinach salad with honey balsamic vinaigrette for lunch, which Eve and I ate outside by the pool. Afterward, Eve had taken a swim, and I sat in the lounge chair jotting notes about the book. While progress has been made, there’s only a few weeks left until the deadline, and I’m not close enough.
Liam and I had a productive morning session before he retired back to the cottage, telling me he was taking the afternoon off to run into town.
When Eve finished her swim, she suggested we head upstairs for a nap, which I assumed correctly was code for sex. That’s what we used to say when the kids were young and we wanted to get a quickie in. It brought back memories of summers past, in a good way.
After we made love, I powered up my laptop and brought it to bed as Eve slept beside me. At some point, I must have dozed off, because when I wake, I am slumped forward in bed, pillows propped behind me, drool coming from my mouth. Glancing over at the clock, I try to remember what time it was when I fell asleep. That’s when I hear Eve’s voice calling and I realize she isn’t in bed beside me. Pulling myself completely upright, it hits me—the sweet, musky, unmistakable smell of smoke. My mind races to the children. Maybe it’s the post-nap fog, or the two whiskey sours I had after lunch, or maybe it’s just that the parent in you never dies, even if children do, but I have the overwhelming sensation of needing to get to them.
Leaping from the bed, I bound down the stairs, taking them two at a time. The smoke is worse on the first floor, blindingly thick and suffocating, like someone has opened my mouth and shoved a hot piece of coal straight down my throat and into my lungs.
Like a cannon, my chest pushes outward in rapid deliberate bursts. “Eve!”
She calls for me again, and my feet propel me in the direction of her voice. Smoke has filled the hallway. Its thick, black haze overpowers my senses. Finally, I reach Eve in the kitchen. “I warned you, George. So many times I’ve warned you,” she says.
It’s not the first time she’s used these words. They’re familiar, reserved for special occasions. Usually when I let my guard down. “Why don’t you ever listen?” Her eyes are fixed on the floor, never wavering. “Why do you make me do these things?” This is Eve’s troubled voice, throaty and devoid of emotion, the one I do my best to avoid.
As I round the counter, I laser in on what’s causing the smoke. Flames billow from a frying pan on the stove. A container of vegetable oil sits beside it, empty.
Flipping the burner off, my eyes scan the room in search of a lid. I check the cabinets, but they’re all gone. I rifle through the kitchen looking for baking soda and find nothing.
Removing my shirt, I wrap it around my face and bolt toward the laundry room, where I keep a spare fire extinguisher hidden. Eve has removed the one that belongs in the kitchen.
The fire alarm flashes through my mind. I wonder why it hasn’t gone off. Looking up at the ceiling, it becomes clear. My wife has ripped it from its socket. No doubt she’ll have done the same to the others. It wouldn’t be the first time.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” she says when I return with the extinguisher in my hands. After I put out the grease fire, I look down at her. Those eyes, there’s so much history in them, but it’s not there now. What’s reflected back to me is not the Eve I know, it is not the woman I married, it is not the mother of my children.
She’s seated on the kitchen floor, sprawled out, her legs splayed in front of her. A knife lies on the floor between them. Across her lap is the shotgun that is supposed to be locked in a gun safe in my closet. Eve doesn’t know the combination, or so I thought. But it’s not the shotgun that worries me most. It’s what is in her left hand. A hammer.
“Please,” I say calmly. There’s so much more to be said, but the rest of it won’t come and doesn’t matter. “Don’t do this, Eve.”
‘This is all your fault,” she tells me with spit flying from her mouth. She’s full of rage, possessed, past the point of rationalization. “You don’t love me, George. You never did.”
“That’s not true,” I say, glancing toward the door, glancing at the shotgun, thinking about what’s at stake if I don’t get this situation under control. Carefully, I go over to the sink and fill a glass with water and gulp it down. Eve rests the hammer across her knee and picks up the knife.
I look in the direction of the driveway. “Joni go home for the day?”
She glares at me. We both know the answer. My attention turns to the cottage, and I try to discern whether Liam’s there, whether he would help or harm the situation, whether putting him in danger would be worth it.
“I lied, you know.”
“Yes.”
“And ever since, you haven’t loved me.”
“I’ve always loved you.”
“You can’t love a liar.”
She’s taken that line from my manuscript, I realize. I shouldn’t be surprised she’s read it, but I am. “You’re sick, Eve. There’s a difference.”
“I’m going to kill you, George. I’m sorry, but I have to.”
“No, you’re going to drink this water,” I say as I squat next to the safe under the sink and quickly punch in the code. I retrieve Eve’s medication, holding it up for her to see. “And you’re going to take these pills and then you’re going to rest.”
