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Chapter Fifty-two
Aiden sits in front of the TVin his living room, watching his mother sleep on the couch beside him. The television is on, tuned to some awful British series about the lives of a bunch of boring people speaking in posh accents he can’t understand, talking about things he couldn’t care less about.
And neither, it would appear, can his mother, since she fell asleep half an hour ago.
Still, he can’t risk waking her up by trying to change the channel. If she wakes up, she’ll want to talk, and he doesn’t want to talk. Not to her. Not anymore. God knows they’ve talked enough. He doesn’t want to hear any more of her negative thoughts about Heidi.
So instead, he watches his mother sleep and wishes she were dead.
That would solve all his problems. His money worries would be over. He would no longer care about disappointing her. He wouldn’t give a good goddamn whether she was happy or not.
Heidi would come home.
He leans forward, checking on the gentle rise and fall of his mother’s breathing. Her head is back, her mouth is open, a strange whirring sound, like a tiny motor, emanates from somewhere deep in her throat. For a second, he wonders if she’s his mother at all, if it’s possible she’s been replaced by some sort of unfeeling alien being, like what happened in that old black-and-white movie he and Heidi watched on TV a few months back.
Or maybe she’s a robot,he thinks, and laughs softly. Maybe she was never human at all.
That certainly wouldn’t surprise Heidi,Aiden thinks, extricating his phone from his pocket and clicking onto his wife’s Instagram, flipping from image to image: Heidi inhaling a colorful bouquet of spring flowers, Heidi walking along the beach, she and Aiden wrapped in each other’s arms in front of a spectacular sunset, Heidi proudly displaying the chicken dinner she’d prepared for his mother.
God, he misses her!
He wonders what she’s doing, if she’s happily ensconced in front of Shawna’s TV, enjoying herReal Housewives.Or maybe she and Shawna are out at a bar or a club; maybe she’s letting some guy buy her a drink or lead her onto the dance floor; maybe she’s relishing her life without him.
Without Lisa.
Maybe she doesn’t miss him at all.
He tried speaking to her at work, going around to Lola’s Lingerie yesterday morning, but Shawna informed him that Heidi would be in the storeroom all week doing inventory and was unavailable. When he’d gone around again after he finished work, he was told she’d already left, even though she was staying with Shawna and Shawna was still there. “It’s probably better if you don’t keep coming by,” she’d advised him. “Give Heidi some space. She needs time to think.”
Except, how much space? How much time?
What exactly is she thinking about?
People don’t separate to get back together, his therapist told him this afternoon. They separate to get divorced.
Is that what Heidi is thinking about? Asking for a divorce?
There were always three people in your marriage, the therapist had elaborated. And that was one person more than Heidi had signed up for.
Clearly, Dr. Patchett said, the time had come for Aiden to make a choice: his mother or his wife?
Except it wasn’t quite as easy as the good doctor made it sound.
His mother had made it clear that if he got back together with Heidi, she’d be forced to take drastic measures, if only to save him from himself. She would cut him off financially. She’d write him out of her will. She’d put the house up for sale and stop the monthly payments on his car. She’d even stop funding his weekly visits to the therapist.
“Do you really think that girl is going to stick around once she finds out you’re broke?”his mother had asked.“Trust me, darling. She’ll be gone in two seconds flat. And don’t come crying to me then, because it’ll be too late. You’ll be on your own.”
Aiden understands that his mother isn’t bluffing. Indeed, the more he thinks about it, the more certain he is that she means every word she says. And he realizes that the best solution for all concerned would be for his mother to die.
Although his mother might disagree.
He laughs and jumps to his feet, as if trying to distance himself from such thoughts. Lisa stirs, her mouth opening and closing, like a fish. But her eyes remain shut and the strange little whirring sound from deep in her throat soon resumes. Aiden goes upstairs to his room and sits on the edge of his unmade bed, staring at his phone and willing Heidi to call.
Miraculously, she does. Aiden answers immediately. “Heidi?”
“Hi,” she says.
“I’m so glad you called. I think about you every minute of every day—”
