AllFreeNovel
Share Us
On the tip of my tongue was the simplest alibi—that I left the party at around ten and had driven straight home to my son. Except it isn’t true. All Reardon would have to do was call up sweet Lucy, the babysitter, with her college textbooks and her nanny bag of special games and toys to entertain Freddie, and she’d tell him that I didn’t come home until almost 2:00A.M. Lucy was asleep on the couch, Freddie snuggled in next to her.
And how wouldthatlook?
Now, I swallow hard, thinking about what I’d told Reardon instead. Ollie couldn’t have read my alibi statement, could he? He’s too much of a Boy Scout to break police protocol. He knows nothing. Not about the benefit—and not about what happened a year ago, either. About Greg, that night. The night that started it all. These are things I didn’t tell Reardon, either. Things I haven’t told anyone. And now, Greg has taken them to his grave.
It was a bitter cold, early January evening a year and three months before. A snowstorm was imminent—the air tasted of it—but we’d had a hard day, and we were both eager for a drink. I pushed inside to the lush darkness of the Modern, the sexy hotel bar in the new boutique hotel across from the hospital. Icy crystals were stuck to my hat. Greg’s, too.
Greg and I settled into a private banquette next to an aquarium full of exotic fish. I ordered a glass of wine. When we received our drinks, Greg held his up for a toast. “After a day like today, I needed this.” He rolled his head on his neck. “I don’t know how we stand some of those people in that hospital day after day, you know?”
It was always flattering when Greg said he saw me as “one of thegood ones.” I wonderedwhyhe saw me this way.I liked the idea that he detected something deep and special in me, something that set me apart from others, something I couldn’t even see myself.
In the next hour, we covered our usual topics—benign patient gossip, the latest show on Netflix we enjoyed, funny trends from the nineties. I’d desperately needed this night. Things had been so tense and sad at home; it always felt like I was on the knife-edge of either throwing something at a wall or bursting into tears. It was as though every time Ollie and I looked at each other, all we saw was failure to become a family. I didn’t know what was going wrong. Things seemed so healthy on my end. I ovulated normally. My periods were regular. I scheduled preliminary infertility blood work, without Ollie knowing, and the results were fine. A terrible thought had begun to creep over me—that maybe the problem was with my husband. But I had no idea how to broach the topic with Ollie and didn’t want him to feel like I was accusing him. And so I just languished in wanting. I needed to be somewhere else, talking about something else. Not how badly we wanted and how cruelly we’d been denied.
By the time I finished my wine, I felt unleashed. I deserved to have fun, damn it.
Somehow, Greg and I got on the subject of porn. This was probably because one of his patients that day was a woman with porn-size breasts and a face for adult television—she had congenital heart disease and possibly needed surgery. “Do all men watch that kind of stuff?” I asked, dangerously close to crossing a line.
Greg reached for the bowl of almonds we’d ordered to share. “I suppose all men do. Unless their wives get pissy and forbid it.”
I couldn’t imagine telling Ollie what he could or couldn’t watch, though the thought of him indulging in porn gave me pause. Our lovemaking had become prescriptive and uninspired—the moment I brandished a positive result on the ovulation predictor stick, he seemed to acquire sudden onset performance anxiety. I struggled just to get him to come, which led to him barking at me to back off,and that led to me bursting into tears, inevitably with my legs in the air because it was supposed to help sperm motility. If his sperm was even motile. Perhaps, though, porn would help take our minds off our troubles.
As a puffer fish darted past in the aquarium, Greg lifted his arms over his head. Stretched. Then gave me a saucy smile. “And what aboutyou?”
“Me?”
Greg looked at me expectantly. “Women need to get off, too.”
Get off.It was funny to hear Greg use that term; I wouldn’t have imagined it. Here was yet another tidbit for my collection on what made Greg Strasser tick. I’d been a witness to so many intimate moments of Greg’s life, but it was in a fly-on-the-wall sort of way—he probably didn’t even realize. Did Greg remember I’d been there the day he and his wife met?Isure did. The way Greg looked at Kit in that patient exam room when she and her first husband came in. The way his magnetism pulled her in, paralyzed her. Afterward, I’d locked myself in a supply room, feeling like I’d just climbed out of a cold, choppy sea. It was the first time I’d ever seen Greg set his sights on a woman, and he was so determined—soconfident. In contrast, Ollie was always so tentative, always asking if this was okay, that was okay. But didn’t every woman want to be swept off her feet? Didn’t every woman want to be just a little overwhelmed?
Thatwas my porn: Replaying the memory of Kit and Greg meeting. There was no way I could tell Greg that, though. And so I thought of the opposite of that, a story that would bury my desire for him deep: I told him about my quest to have a baby with my husband.
It just spilled out of me. All those negative tests Ollie and I endured. All that heartbreak. The next step was to see a reproductive endocrinologist; one round of IVF was covered by my health insurance. But Ollie was digging in his heels. He said IVF felt like playing God.
Greg took a long pull of his beer. “I regret not having a biological kid,” he said softly. “My wife and I talked about it... but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go through the baby stages again. Sienna and Aurora are awesome—really, it’s such a gift to have them in my life. But it’s very different when it’s your own.” And then he slid his hand toward mine. “I’m so sorry, Laura. So fucking sorry. Of all people, you deserve to be a mother. You deserve everything good in the world.”
His hand lingered on mine, and I didn’t pull away. There were three empty bottles of beer in front of Greg, lined up like a fortress wall. A mirror reflected Greg’s face in sharp profile as he looked at me hungrily, a new light in his eyes. I was reminded of the way he’d looked at Kit in the patient room years ago. His eyes had hooks in them. They drew me in.
If I had been smarter, I would have left. But the alcohol—and the flattery—blurred my judgment. It also awakened a sense of entitlement. I’d longed for this man forever. Why not indulge in the way he was looking at me?
So I let Greg buy me a shot. The vodka sliced its way through my veins, reviving me, dooming me, and when I found myself pressed up against the bar’s sleek, sexy back hallway wall with him, deep in the shadows, my mouth clashing against Greg’s, our hands mapping each other’s bodies, I didn’t think, only acted. In that silvery-lit corner, I was no longer Laura the nurse or the beleaguered woman who couldn’t have a baby. A conquest like Kit had been in that exam room. I was whoever I wanted to be.
But then Greg pulled back. “Wait. Wait.” His gaze slid sideways. A shadow loomed against the wall. We waited, but no one appeared. I stared at Greg hungrily. The inch of space between us felt like too much. Greg panted, waiting. After it was over, I wished I could go back to that anticipatory moment of Before, the heady tension of it, when it was just intoxicating possibility. When I hadn’t chosen yet. When I was still pure.
There’s a crash downstairs, and the baby laughs. I stare at my pale face in the mirror. My eyes have purple circles beneath them. The corners of my lips pull down. I look like a ghoul. I pull the dress over my head, slip on some heels, and fluff my hair. My phone sits facedown on the bureau, and I regard it suspiciously. Has it moved to the left since I set it there last? Has Ollie looked at it?
Fingers shaking, I unlock the screen. Something has occurred to me. Phones can track one’s movements, recording the various locations where the phone has traveled. I need to make sure that hasn’t happened. I need to erase all traces of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.
I’m able to find the location services in the settings.Common locations,reads the banner at the top. I see my home address, and then the hospital. But underneath, there are a few locations that stand out. If someone thought to look, they might grow suspicious. Nausea coils in my gut. I tap on two addresses in particular, horrified at their date stamps:Wednesday, April 26.The night of the benefit. The night of Greg’s death.
A button in the upper corner readsClear History.I press it, holding my breath. After a moment, all of the locations logged in my device are gone. I blink at the blissfully empty screen, praying this isn’t a mirage. But they don’t return.
The ringing in my ears begins to recede. I’d never, ever admit that I’m glad Greg is dead, but if I’m honest, it’s a great weight off my chest. Without him, my life can continue as planned. Without him, I have a chance at happiness... even if I’m not sure it’s happiness I deserve.
12
KIT
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2017
