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“I’ll try to be more open with you when I can, okay?”
She nodded. But as she’d lain awake last night she’d decided that if they didn’t have trust, they didn’t have a marriage. She’d have to accept that he was faithful and good, until he was walking out the door with another woman. She wasn’t going to be a snooping, accusing, and anxious wife. She’d never been that in her life. She wouldn’t let baby brain, new mom anxiety, whatever, turn her into a person she didn’t want to be.
She glanced down at her phone.
“You’re not still watching them,” said Bruce, eyes back on the road, hands back on the wheel.
They’d passed the last town what seemed like hours ago and they were on some winding back road, trees all around. She noted the beauty, the peaceful silence of it. But barely. She only had one bar on her phone. Her connection was wavering. The video feed was glitchy and slow.
“They’re having lunch. Gigi loves it when Lou cuts her cheese sandwich into little squares like that.”
She watched guiltily on the security camera, Gigi in her chair at the table happily eating her sandwich, Lou slicing an apple at the counter. Lou knew about the cameras, of course—one in the great room, one in Gigi’s room, one monitoring the outside front and another from the back. She probably didn’t know that Hannah would be tuning into it obsessively over the long drive.
“Hannah,” said Bruce with a patient smile.
She envied his calm, his ease. In all her years with him, she’d only seen him truly angry twice and never with her. For her, and for Gigi, he seemed to have endless patience with all their isms and quirks. Obviously, even with his wife snooping in his office.
“You’re a good mom, the best mom,” he said.
How pathetic that she needed to hear that.
“Good moms don’t leave their babies,” she countered.
Bruce gave her a light eye roll. “In the care of a loving, competent grandparent? Yes, they do. All the time.”
“Right. They do. Of course they do.”
Reluctantly, Hannah clicked off the camera, stowed the phone in the door side pocket. She looked out the window. Trees towered, creating a canopy over the road, blocking the sun so totally that the headlights had flipped on.
“Wow,” she said. “Middle of nowhere, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Bruce. “It’s nice. Except, I’m not sure we have a signal anymore.”
He glanced at his phone, which was mounted on the dash with the maps app running. They were just a blue dot in a sea of green.
She looked at her own phone. No service now. She’d had it just moments ago.
“I think we’re officially off the grid,” he said.
She pushed back a little wave of panic. Makohad swornthere would be Wi-Fi at the house. He knew she didn’t love leaving Gigi and wouldn’t be comfortable out of contact with Lou. Mako himself would have to work some; no way he could—or would—go all weekend being disconnected. He wouldn’t promise that just to lure her out there, just to get his way—this fantasy of an Instagram-able friends and family weekend for which he’d pushed so hard. Would he?
She forced herself to relax, to be present.
The road wound, and Bruce followed it. She rolled down the window to be greeted by a fresh-smelling coolness. Something in her loosened and relaxed. She inhaled deeply, looking into the spaces between the trees. She remembered how she liked the solitude and calm she found in nature, so different from their busy, chattering, town life. How she could hear herself think when things went quiet. She liked the sound of her own inner voice.
Bruce was calm; he always seemed to know the way to places. Even places that they had never been. They called it BPS, Bruce Positioning System. She took her husband’s hand, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. He was solid. The rock in her life.
“It’s all fine,” he said. “Liza said we might lose service, texted the directions. We’re good.”
And sure enough, after a while they saw a glow up ahead.
When they made the final turn, a huge home hulked at the end of the drive, the sky a vibrant blue punching into the deep green black of the trees behind it.
Mako had called it a “cabin.” The pictures she’d seen online hadn’t done it justice. Maybe it was a cabin—in that it was constructed from wood. But the photos on the site had made it seem woodsy, cozy.
“Wow,” she said.
Thiswas anArchitectural Digestdream, expansive with towering windows and vaulted roof. There was a huge wraparound porch, another big balcony on the level above, both furnished with plush seating. Elegant landscaping cast shadows on the circular drive as Bruce brought the car to a stop. Through the double-height glass front doors, she could see inside to the beautifully appointed living space. Was that a bear head mounted over the mantel, though?
