Page 20 of I Know She Was There

“...so, you know I can see Emmy anytime I want to.”

My face flushed as my emotions surged upward from my chest. “I’d never keep her from you,” I snapped, but my voice echoed into dead air space. Tim had already disconnected.

I threw the phone onto the couch and huffed. Why had I married the most obstinate man on the planet?

Butyouwon’tbemarriedmuchlonger.

I slunk onto the sofa as the truth hit me. He was cutting me loose and tossing me away, just like that overused hammock from all those years ago. The comfort and enjoyment worn away as he eagerly anticipated new experiences.

* * *

I stewed over Tim’s indifference all day, worried it would turn into wariness—maybe even distrust—if he discovered what I’d witnessed at Pine Hill Road. Worse still, he’d have reason to be skeptical of my story. One call to the police would blast apart my tale and make me seem delusional. Not an ideal quality in the mother of his child.

Taking panicked breaths that left me unable to get enough oxygen in my lungs, I tried to remember the events of that awful night at Melanie and Matt’s house, but my mind refused to release any more hints. Panting through my chores, mixing together the nighttime formula, feeding Emmy, and giving her a sponge bath, my anxiety mounted. Needing release, I strapped on my running shoes, settled Emmy in thebabyzen, and headed toward Deer Crossing in the waning light. Maybe the Pine Hill house held answers to my many questions about that night. Answers that would become evident to me once I was standing before it.

I entered the neighborhood and made a quick pass up Pine Hill, glancing into the many homes that had blinds up and occupants on display. The only passingly interesting activity was in an oversized Colonial. Its spacious living room was the scene of a strenuous mat Pilates class. Women in form-fitting tanks and leggings holding the impossible poses I’d seen on exercise segments ofGood Morning America. I suppressed a sigh and pushed on, pausing at Matt and Melanie’s house. It was completely dark inside. Were they really gone for good? If they’d indeed moved out, why had I seen Melanie that fateful night? Shaking my head, I stood there for a long time, staring at the dark building. It revealed nothing other than the suspicion I was truly losing my mind. Eventually, I looked away and turned toward Muzzy’s house.

Reaching in my pocket to clutch the small canister of mace Tim had given me a few years earlier and I’d decided to carry every evening, I studied Muzzy’s place. Only one light on in its center. I scanned left, my reluctant gaze settling on the pond, twenty yards ahead. My nemesis. I had to ignore the damned hole in the ground, and all the misery it encapsulated. My mind flashed back to the other night, and how I’d ended up in the water. My breathing turned shaky, and my body trembled. I backed up. I couldn’t take even one step in that direction. I glanced back at the Pine Hill house—and saw a flickering light in the upstairs bedroom. I blinked, convincing myself what I was witnessing wasn’t real. The light flashed again, almost like a signal. I whipped my head around, scrutinizing the shadows surrounding an enormous split-level across the street. That house also had a light on somewhere deep within its center, but no outside lantern. I could discern no movement in the yard, yet I had the eerie feeling someone was watching me. Keeping Matt and Melanie’s place to my left and the split-level on my right, I began backing up the road.

Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing to see here.

I stood tall. There was absolutely no reason to cower. I couldn’t let my overactive imagination fool me into feeling vulnerable. I pivoted until I was once again facing 21 Pine Hill. I settled my gaze on the window I’d seen Melanie fall against, my eyes unwavering. No light greeted me this time, but a rustling behind me made me flinch. I whipped my head once more to the shadowy behemoth of a house facing Matt and Melanie’s. Silence. But when I turned away, I heard it: a voice as soft as the stirring of leaves, but the message not so benign.Go away, go away.

I turned on my heel and shoved Emmy’s carriage forward, running up the street as fast as I could, but a quick exit was impossible. Each time I veered off an outcrop of Pine Hill looking for a shortcut, I’d dead-end in the center of a cul-de-sac. Feeling like a mouse in a maze, I pushed back onto Pine Hill and ran straight down the road, the baby carriage in front of me, breath coming in uneven gasps. Emmy began to howl.

I raced across Route 55 and into my neighborhood. As I passed the ever-present dogs who never seemed to get inside their owners’ houses, their piercing barks joined Emmy’s wails in a horrid chorus of misery that made me want to scream.Tell the world to shut the hell up.

I reached my ranch as the baby worked herself into a frenzy, her little limbs pumping like pistons, her tiny mouth emitting a baleful yowl that echoed my agony every time I thought of a bloody Melanie pressed against the window on Pine Hill Road.

No! Mustn’t think of that now!

Instead, I thought of Muzzy, and how things might be different if our friendship had been allowed to develop. Had she created an alliance with Tim? Against me? I grimaced. Perhapsalliancewasn’t the right word for the kind of intimacy between them. Tim’s voice from earlier in the day boomeranged in my head, telling me he was seeing someone else.

As soon as I made it into the house, I shoved Emmy into the chest carrier I found cast across the back of the sofa. Corralling her flailing legs until her little body was pressed snugly against mine, I crossed from room to room in a crazy-eight pattern. From coffee table to kitchen, then back. Losing track of how many times I’d paced the same area, I focused on calming Emmy. I couldn’tthinkwhen she was screaming. I had to get her to stop. Taking deep breaths to still my jangling nerves, I slowed my pace, and Emmy, always adept at tapping into my moods, eventually quieted.

I stopped in the center of the room and began rocking back and forth, feeling guilty for exposing Emmy to my anxiety. It was difficult enough that she was going to be raised by a single mom, just like I had been. I dimmed the lights and pulled the curtains closed, making sure nobody could peer in. Prying eyes could judge. Who knew that better than I?

I hummed the tune Daddy often sang to me when I was little, a Led Zeppelin song about love transcending all odds—even tumbling mountains and a world without sunshine. It still made me tear up. And it always soothed Emmy into sleep. Eventually, her fuzzy head nestled against my chest, and the deep, even breaths of her slumber signaled the opportunity to transport her, ever so gently, to her crib.

As I was tiptoeing out of her room, the baby suddenly wailed. I whipped around in the doorway, watching her limbs jerking like tiny ghosts, popping in and out of the shadows. I rushed back to the crib, gently rubbed her belly and legs until they eventually stilled. I backed out of the room, afraid to breathe.

Emmy’s sleep was often riddled with wakeful moments, as though she never wanted to fully surrender to slumber. I, on the other hand, had always eagerly anticipated a languorous reprieve. Lounging in bed watching a movie and dozing off, no matter what time of day it was. I’d been a voracious sleeper before we had Emmy, except for the first months after Tim and I met. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to recall how much time we’d spent in bednotsleeping. I remembered one night: we’d made love three times in the span of two hours and wanted to keep going, despite our fatigue.

“Just lie on top of me,” I’d whispered, not wanting to sever the sensual bonds securing us to one another. “We’ll just doze a bit.”

“Five minutes,” Tim whispered back, settling himself so we were both comfortable, skin on skin, breath mingling.

We’d awoken the next morning in the same position. I’d felt dull aching around my knees and elbows. After I’d gently dislodged him (we were so tender with each other in those days!) I sat up, noticing the darkening bruises on my lower thighs, just above my knees where his kneecaps had lodged all night. I studied the unintentional injuries in wonder before inspecting the same blossoming discolorations above each elbow. I swallowed the lump in my throat at the memory.

It had taken two weeks for the bruises to fade. Oh, how I’d enjoyed the affliction. How I’d reveled in his marks on me, fool that I was. Had I known anything even remotely wise about human nature then, I’d have realized it was the constant pressure of love and longing that ensnared us. The weight of expectation—outwardly expressed or even hidden in our minds. Expanding exponentially. It burst the very stuff we were made of. How we wandered through life bruised and broken. Waiting for the wounds to heal, even as we cherished them.

CHAPTER10

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24

Coming back from the supermarket during a deluge, I drove along Main Street into the bustling business section of the village, careful to avoid pedestrians dodging across streets in vain efforts to stay dry. Slowing at a light, I noticed a young woman with wet, limp hair entering Catherine’s Hair Designs just as an old lady exited Budget Beverages next door. I squinted, realizing it was Mary making her way heavily through the door, hugging a cardboard box. Instinct made me grip the steering wheel and look away, but guilt got the better of me. Mary was old, and it was pouring rain. I pressed the button on the driver’s-side door to lower my car window and realized with a start the window was open. They were all still open. Emmy was probably drenched. I’d get her right home, but I should probably bring Mary to her house too.

“Mary!”

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