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There has always been chatter about Ben, I suppose, the same way there has always been chatter about me. The parents are the two most logical suspects, after all, but I had always dismissed it. Always sided so strongly with Ben. We had been together. We had been asleep the entire night, limbs like tentacles intertwined in the sheets.
But then again, Waylon had asked about that, too.
“So your husband could have gotten up and you wouldn’t have noticed?”
I remember Margaret sliding her little body beneath the dead weight of my arm. Me, waking up in the morning without any memory of her arrival. Without a clue as to what had happened in the night. Before the insomnia, I was always such a heavy sleeper… so how do I really know that he was there all along? How do Ireallyknow that he didn’t get up, slip out from beneath the covers, and do something in the night? Something he’s keeping from me?
Maybe some part of me had always wondered, the way I so desperately hoped that our stories aligned. The way I had strained to hear what he was saying on the other side of that wall being interrogated on his own, like there was some flicker of distrust between us that I never wanted to acknowledge. The way I never asked about Allison—about what happened to her, what he thought about it all, like I didn’t even want to know.
Maybe, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind—the same place where I had exiled those thoughts about Mason and those memories of my childhood, my mother, Eloise; the ones that hurt to think about and were easier to just ignore, or even better, recreate into something altogether different, molding them like putty in my hands until they looked the way I wanted them to—maybe, I had thoughtit then: the convenience of her death, the unanswered questions. The easy lies he constructed, jumping so quickly from her to me.
“It’s not what I think I know,” Waylon says at last, his voice measured and calm. “It’s what Idoknow. He was my brother-in-law for ten years, Isabelle. I know him better than anybody.”
“He was my husband for seven,” I respond. “I think I know him pretty well, too.”
“That’s what Allison thought.”
I hesitate, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. For the first time, I try to put myself in Allison’s shoes. I try to make myself imagine it: how it would feel if Ben did to me what he did to her. Whatwedid to her. If he lied about his whereabouts, spent hours on end with another woman at some dimly lit bar, looking at her the way he had once looked at me: chin tucked low, an intensity in his eyes. A playful grin tugging at his lip, like he was imagining the two of us together in some other, private place. If he texted her late at night, after I was asleep, our naked bodies pressed together but in two entirely different places. If I woke up in the morning and climbed on top of him, oblivious to the fact that he was picturing her instead of me.
In this light, it actually seems worse than cheating. It’s more calculated, more cunning. More manipulative.
“So, what?” I ask. “You actually think he killed her? You actually think he’s capable ofmurder?”
“Isabelle,” he responds, his voice clinical and cold, as if he’s delivering a diagnosis that he knows will be the end of me, “Iknowhe killed her.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Mason was six months old when I approached Ben about working again.
I never consciouslystoppedworking, really, it just seemed to happen without me even realizing. Ben took the news of my pregnancy well—he was surprised but excited, the way I said I was, too—but still, he was busy. The work never eased up, his schedule never thinned, so it wasmyidentity that had to shift, a slow, gradual, seemingly inevitable progression, like aging, that I didn’t really notice was happening until I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and hardly recognized the face staring back.
I had tiptoed fromwritertofreelance writertoworking motherto, at last, justmother.And I loved Mason—Ilovedbeing his mother. I loved spending my days belly-down on the carpet, reading him stories or watching him squirm around on the floor. I loved watching him learn how to flip over, hold up his head. The awe in his eyes as he opened them wider and discovered the world around him. That initial feeling of regret was gone, and I did come to see it as my second chance, reminiscent of Margaret, getting to take care of him the way I once took care of her.
It was starting to get easier, motherhood—or at least, more manageable—but still, something was missing.
I often thought of that passion I had as a child: my fingers dancing over that plaque in our yard, my eyes tearing through magazines, drinking up words, as fast as I could. Sometimes, I would dig up old issues ofThe Gritand flip through the pages, eying my byline, rereading my own words like I was dredging up the last drops of something delicious through a straw before I hit the bone-dry bottom. I could almost hear the frantic slurping of me trying to get one last taste of the person I used to be before it dried up forever.
I decided, before bringing it up, that I would see what was out there first. Besides, maybe I didn’t have it in me anymore. It had been almost a year since I wrote anything, so I scoured through my old contacts, grazed the most recent articles of some of my favorite magazines. I spent Mason’s midnight feedings flipping through social media, my phone alight in the dark, and finally came across an article about a boiled-peanut salesman in North Carolina who had recently lost his entire operation after a propane tank exploded in his backyard. It was covered on some small local news station—he had lost over ten thousand dollars’ worth of equipment—and I could just imagine the piece, something bigger: a feature on his family, who had been in the little-known industry for decades; a behind-the-scenes tour of his backyard business that went up in flames. The history of the food, its overlooked origins, maybe even a fundraiser set up to help him get back on his feet. It would be like the stories I wrote forThe Grit, the stories I loved: meaningful and muddy and real.
I pitched the idea to a regional magazine, they loved it, and they offered me three thousand dollars, plus travel, to get it done.
“That’s more than I’ve ever made doing freelance,” I had said after I explained the idea to Ben. I had been sitting on the bed with Mason, bouncing him on my leg, as Ben stripped off his tie after work. “With that kind of money per story, I could make a real career out of this—”
“We don’t need money,” he had said. “You know that.”
“Well, it’s notjustthe money—”
“How long would you be away?” His expression was blank, unreadable. Mason was getting squirmy, and as if it proved his point, Ben gestured to him. “He’s still so young.”
“A week, tops,” I had said, moving him from one knee to the other. “Maybe only a couple days. I think you can handle it.”
I had smirked, teasing him, but he didn’t smile back.
“Or I could just go every morning and come back at night, but that would be a lot of driving—”
“No,” he said, unbuttoning his collar and flexing his neck. “No, you should do it. If that’s what will make you happy.”
“Iamhappy,” I said. “I just… I guess I just need something for myself, too. You have the magazine—”
