Page 2 of I Know She Was There

“I saw it on the bookshelf in the study earlier this evening,” Rod said, bending to calm the little dog, who was bouncing between them like a child with ADHD.

“Oh geez, I’m losing it,” she said, laughing.

Not yet, you’re not, I thought.Not yet.

CHAPTER2

SATURDAY, AUGUST 12

The baby’s cry jarred me out of sleep.

I fought with the down comforter, kicking free and swinging my heels over the edge of the bed before I realized there was no longer any sound coming from the adjacent room or the baby monitor. Was that good or bad? Was Emmy lying face down on the crib mattress, a victim of SIDS? Were the cries she’d managed to wake me with the last she’d ever make? I raced across the room, falling into the bedroom door, my left wrist taking the brunt of my weight. I clumsily straightened and yanked the door open with my right hand and ran from the room like a fugitive, breath coming in halting gasps.

She lay in the crib on her back. The gently slumbering infant of diaper commercials: wispy nutmeg curls, cheeks glowing through the night-light gloom like shiny copper pennies. Her chubby limbs and tiny Buddha belly enveloped in warm flannel footed pajamas with no blanket. No toys or stuffed animals crowded the enclosure; the firm,ul greenguardGold and Certipur-uscertified mattress was hemmed by the Babyletto Premium crib’s perfectly proportioned slats, too close together to trap a small child’s head. I’d done my research.

I took a deep breath, arms and legs shaking as the adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream dissipated. Normalcy returning in syncopated tremors. It was going to be a challenge, this day. Like all the others before it. Massaging my left wrist, I felt a sting in my smallest fingertip. Looking at the hand cradled in my other palm, I noticed the gleam of blood seeping into the ridge around my nail bed, the nail tip partially severed. Served me right. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d filed and clipped my nails, much less gotten a proper manicure.

Truth was I couldn’t recall exactly what I’d been doing during the months since Tim left, except worrying he’d take Emmy away. Now I had to endure another day. Close to fourteen hours until twilight would usher in soothing darkness. That’s when I’d gently lift Emmy from her crib or ease her out of the ever-present infant carrier strapped to my chest. I’d transfer her to the state-of-the-artbabyzenbuggy, complete with bassinet top. Tim had scoffed when I bought it because it had cost half a week’s salary, but it was well worth the money, encasing my precious girl in cozy warmth as the soundless wheels rolled smoothly over the paved streets.

I’d always found it soothing to explore the area. Tim and I used to take post-dinner summertime strolls when we first moved into the neighborhood, years earlier. Back when we enjoyed doing things together.

He’d quickly tired of those walks. Despite how I’d forced the issue when I became pregnant—recalling my mother’s adamant advice against letting the baby, once born, come between us—Tim stopped accompanying me. I kept at it, wandering familiar streets and discovering new routes. Keeping myself fit even before I had Emmy, yet something new sprouted in my mind. Realizations and suspicions growing like the child in my womb: Why was I spending so much time alone? Where was Tim most evenings when I returned from my strolls to our stark, empty house?

Emmy was born in January, a dangerous time to take a newborn outside in Upstate New York, but it was an unseasonably warm winter, and by late March I was once again crisscrossing the streets of our development, this time with Emmy for company.

Our walks quickly became a nightly ritual, each foray into the dusky suburban streets calming us more than the previous stroll. Before long, I was walking for hours each evening, widening our horizons and building my stamina. I’d occasionally head out during daylight hours, even though there wasn’t much outdoor activity during cold winter afternoons. I preferred the anonymity of my nighttime strolls.

That was when things started to fall apart at home—or maybe it was a continuation of the downward spiral that had begun with Emmy’s refusal to nurse, my baby blues, and Tim’s inability to keep us or himself happy. I thought about his after-hour stints at the firm. He’d claimed to be overwhelmed by a new project, but he’d never had to work through the dinner hour in the early years of our marriage.

The night I found a matchbook from a local bar in Tim’s jacket pocket, I shoved Emmy in the stroller and beelined it through the front door, anger sparking my movements, spurring me through the dark streets and farther from home. That was the evening I discovered Deer Crossing, just a mile from my house. It changed everything, sparking an odyssey into a realm previously unknown to me. I’d dutifully returned from the exclusive enclave that night and all the others that followed, but I never really made it back to the place Tim and I had been before.

It was to be expected, of course. How could I settle for the dreary happenings around my house when others were living such charmed lives? These people were like my own neighbors, but younger, fitter. Happier. Especially the couple I’d been stalking lately: Barbie and Ken look-alikes I’d named Matt and Melanie at 21 Pine Hill Road. Just like the couples I’d noticed through their unguarded windows that very first night who’d laughed together and cuddled on sofas in front of large-screen televisions and flickering fireplaces, the positioning of Matt and Melanie’s trim, athletic bodies struck me upon first glimpse, weeks earlier: the way their entwined forms rocked in rhythm to the strains of a song I couldn’t hear, their beauty highlighted by the warm wash of incandescent light overhead. Framed by the living-room window, their faces were a blur, but I was transfixed by how her long dark hair spilled against his cheek and mingled with his blond waves. A pang sliced at my throat, making swallowing painful. The pair was maybe a few years older than Tim and me; I couldn’t recall the last time Tim and I danced together. Perhaps our wedding reception? Why didn’t we focus on each other the way the dreamy couple in front of my greedy eyes did? I squeezed my lids shut, trying to recall my husband’s touch on my skin, but I couldn’t arouse the sensation.

I felt nothing.

* * *

I spied on them all.

Every neighbor too careless or too foolish to keep their shades drawn. Hundreds of houses on display, their interiors glowing with life and bleeding it out into the night. A hemorrhage of strangers gathered around dinner tables, texting on phones while gearing up Netflix, doing yoga. The activities were as varied as the people performing them. And that’s what it seemed like: a show, with the homes’ inhabitants cast as theatrical versions of themselves.

I needed this—the feeling of being a part of something without the responsibility of involvement. Oddly, I felt a connection to these blurry-faced strangers—a connection I hadn’t been able to maintain with Tim since before Emmy was born. He blamed me for the divide. I knew he did. His seemingly innocent remarks rankled. Like his comment after my mom’s fatal accident when I’d been three months pregnant:Maybe you’d feel less devastated if you and your mother had gottenalong better.

I stared blankly at him. “My mom was my best friend,” I’d said, amazed that her death seemed to be tearing us apart rather than bonding us in grief—especially since he hadn’t been overly fond of her.

And then there was his advice after the postpartum depression that had set in a week after I’d given birth:If you force yourself to get out of bed and tend to Emmy, the mother-daughter bonding will help you overcome your depression.

I snorted just thinking of his self-righteous remarks. What the hell didheknow, anyway? After Dr. Ellison explained that stress, hormonal changes, and sleep deprivation had combined to create a textbook case of the baby blues, Tim grudgingly attended to Emmy amid my crying jags and unending desire for sleep.

He was always willing to do pharmacy runs. I suspected he just wanted to get out of the house, away from Emmy’s endless crying and my incessant requests for help. Hours after departing for the drugstore he’d reappear with excuses of long lines, drug shortages, pharmacist consultations. Anything to make the extended absences seem believable.

I couldn’t pronounce the name of the script Dr. Ellison had prescribed for postpartum depression, but I’d eagerly anticipate the Xanax the doctor told me to take only in emergencies. The medication calmed me far better than my husband did. Tim, watching me pop the pills like a halitosis sufferer scarfing down breath mints, scoffed at what he called myweakness.

“You can’t be hoovering those pills while you’re taking care of Emmy,” he’d complain.

“That’s why you’re here,” I’d point out. “Until I can get myself back on track.”

He’d roll his eyes and sigh. Often, he’d storm out of the house, slamming the door behind him, not returning until my frantic texts begged him to soothe our wailing child.

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