Page 66 of I Know She Was There

Jeffrey ran a hand through his hair. “Did you discover why Annie was at the ER?”

“Domestic abuse.”

His eyes widened. “That prick! I knew it. Stupid professional bodybuilder. More like pro wife beater...” He looked at me, his face bright red.

“What’s Ray Connolly like?” I thought again about the man I’d called Matt.

“I don’t know.” His voice notched up as his fury grew. “Like I told you, I never met him. Only saw him in the yard when I drove past their house.”

“Could bodybuilding be a hobby?” I asked. “And maybe he had another job, like... um... an engineer?”

“An engineer?” Jeffrey’s laugh echoed around me. “I doubt the guy even knows what an engineer is. When Annie met him, they were teens. According to her, the attraction was purely physical. But then she grew into an adult. And he didn’t. He honestly thinks he’s going to make a living off of endorsements, but the only deals he’s been able to get are for free supplements and sports clothes. Meanwhile, she’s been supporting him for years. She’s sick of it.”

“Oh, okay. I was just wondering.” I didn’t want to press my luck with Jeffrey’s patience. I’d let him process the news I’d just shared. “I’ll be going, but I thought you’d want to know about Annie. It might be useful.”

He nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

I turned away and let myself out. Jeffrey had treated me as an oddity, like the barely tolerated neighbor living with seventeen cats and smelling of tuna. As I walked back to my car, I realized my story was far worse than that. To be relegated to the status of a cliché seemed almost mundane. An outcast others avoided rather than a monster everyone feared. I recalled the gossiping girls at the drugstore weeks earlier. Now I knew they were talking about me, the woman who killed her own baby.

Mustn’t think about that.

I thought instead about what Tim had told me about Ray Connolly. I got into my car and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. I quickly called the main phone number for Kinney and McKean Engineering. When their longtime receptionist, Gloria, answered, I hoped she wouldn’t recognize my voice.

“Ray Connolly, please,” I asked, adopting a lower pitch.

“Excuse me?” Gloria asked. When I repeated the name, she didn’t even pause before saying, “I’m afraid we don’t have an employee by that name.”

“Oh,” I feigned surprise. “When did he leave the firm?”

“I... think you have the wrong number. I’ve been with this firm for eight years, and I’ve never heard of Ray Connolly.”

“So sorry,” I mumbled, clicking off. Why was I even surprised that Tim had lied to me? I’d suspected he hadn’t been truthful about a lot of things during the course of our marriage, but why lie about Ray? Did Tim even know the guy? Uneasiness slid through my chest and churned my stomach. What else had Tim lied about?

CHAPTER33

MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18

Ihovered in front of Emmy’s closed door. I’d noticed it was shut the first time I’d walked to my own bedroom after arriving home from the hospital, but up until this moment, I’d refused to even look toward the nursery. I couldn’t ignore it forever. As difficult as it was going to be, I’d have to clean out the room. Now was a good time to tackle the task; with my mind focused on Tim’s lie, I’d mull over his motives while I packed up the tiny clothes, crib, and baby monitor. I’d already decided to bring everything to Goodwill. Blinking back the sting in my eyes, I placed my hand on the metal doorknob and twisted.

As the door swung open, I caught my breath. The room was nearly empty—only the two small dressers still in place, their tops cleared of the baby monitor, stuffed toys, and music box. Gone were the crib, the bassinet, and the rocking horse in the corner. I crossed to the closet and flung it open. The gaping emptiness hit me with an invisible force.

As I looked around, I noticed something else: the room and closet had been repainted a cream color. A toned-down version of the sunny yellow Tim and I had painstakingly layered on just before Emmy’s birth, recalling how we’d laughed each time my bulging belly got in the way of my efforts, sending the paint roller veering in different directions.

I stood in the center of the alien space, more alone than I’d ever felt in my life, my eyes searching for anything that would remind me of her, my Emmy. A dropped pacifier under a dresser, a tinge of yellow in the corner where the cream shade hadn’t completely concealed it. Nothing. My knees buckled and I dropped to the floor, a strange keening coming out of me. A sound so primeval I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of making it. It didn’t sound human.

I howled, long and hard, my eyes seeing nothing but empty space, my body feeling under attack from the hard floorboards under my knees and elbows. My mind darted like a victim trying to elude an attacker.

The shadows deepened around me, twilight turning into night. My howls eventually dwindled to whimpers. What was the point of going on without my girl? Flashes of Emmy motionless in the tub invaded my mind, and guilt wrapped me in its vise-like grip. I shook my head, trying to physically dislodge the image from my mind. I’d never get past what had happened. It had seemed possible when the medical professionals had held my hands at the hospital and reassured me. Like angels whispering inspirational messages into my ears. But the reality was nothing like that. It was as lonely and bleak as the empty space around me.

I thought about how Dr. Ellison had advised me to write down everything in my journal. I stirred and began to get up, but the thought of revealing the wrenching story of my loss, self-recrimination, and grief overwhelmed me. I paused halfway between standing and sitting, feeling like a one-winged moth, unable to get where I wanted to be. Destined to flit endlessly in circles until all my energy drained.

I thought about Tim packing up and moving Emmy’s belongings while I’d been hospitalized. Had kindness prompted him to remove every trace of the child we’d once shared? Perhaps he thought my fragile mind couldn’t handle the process of removing Emmy permanently from our lives. I should be grateful, right? Then why did I feel so empty, thrust into a life as barren as the room I’d once rocked and soothed my daughter in?

“You should have warned me,” I whispered, as if Tim were standing next to me. “A text to let me know...”

I didn’t even know what he’d done with Emmy’s things. Probably sold them. He never passed up an opportunity to make a buck. I felt my face getting red, but, standing and leaving the room, I sighed, realizing what was done was done.

I couldn’t expect Tim to change when I seemed unable to. And, in truth, I knew very little about his childhood or family. Growing up in a lower-middle-class suburb of Seattle with three brothers whom he wasn’t very close with—who all still lived on the other side of the country, near his parents—Tim had become independent at an early age. The only one in his family to go to college, Tim once told me mechanical engineers made a lot more money in New York, so he’d headed east upon graduation. And he’d seldom gone home.

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