Page 77 of Count My Lies

As I started up the walkway, I paused, noticing the car parked in their driveway. It was ours; our rental car. Relief pummeled through me. Jay was here. He was here to get Harper.

I’d heard his fight with Violet as I’d walked up the path to our house after dropping Harper off at Anne-Marie’s, the disgruntled shouting as I stepped onto the porch, both of their voices loud, enraged.Before I’d had a chance to go inside, the front door had opened with a bang. Jay had his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his face twisted into an angry scowl. He’d brushed by me, barely registering my presence, muttering something about going back to the city. I’d been stunned, slightly hurt, but mostly confused. Now it made sense. Of course he’d come here. He would never leave without Harper.

Half sobbing, I climbed the stairs to Anne-Marie’s front door. But then, on the top step, when the living room window came into view, I stopped abruptly, my breath catching, a hand squeezing my heart.No.No, it couldn’t be. I wanted to cry out in pain, but I didn’t.

Through the glass, I could see Jay. And Anne-Marie. Together. Kissing. They were leaning against a wall, his body pressed against hers, Anne-Marie’s hand groping the front of his pants. I stared, gaping, the image not quite computing.

Jay with Anne-Marie. Jay kissing Anne-Marie. Kissing her like he’d kissed me, just the night before. It felt like a kick to the gut, like someone had reached down my throat and ripped out my insides. Five minutes before, I thought I might die; seeing Jay with Anne-Marie, I wished I had. When had it started? During their morning runs? Or some other time, after we’d all gone to sleep?

Since we’d arrived on Block Island, my feelings for him had intensified until it felt like I was on fire, my body aflame, hot, burning. I thought I had found my soulmate.

That first day, when he took me on the island tour, his hand rested on my lower back as we walked into a restaurant, lingering. In the booth, our thighs brushed. Our chemistry had been palpable. He’d teased me, grinned at me, his eyes on mine. I told myself it was all in my head, but I spent every night in bed, hoping it wasn’t, heat between my legs. He was all I thought about, all I wanted to think about.

Then, the night we went to dinner. “I’ve never felt this way before,” he whispered into my ear, Harper asleep in the darkened back seat of the car. “Me either,” I breathed. By then, he’d told me about the divorce, and while I knew what it would do to my friendship with Violet, I was in too deep.

I thought Jay and I would be together when we got back to New York. He’d said as much. “I can’t wait until we’re alone,” he said. “Until we don’t have to sneak around.”

But I’d been a fool. As I watched him through the window, watched his mouth open into Anne-Marie’s, I remembered Violet’s words.

“You think you know him,” she had said plainly, “but you don’t. He’s a liar. Just like you.”

I assumed she was angry at him for leaving her. The bitter, cast-aside wife. But then, when I saw him with Anne-Marie, I realized she meant something else. He’d only told me what I wanted to hear. He told everyone what they wanted to hear. How had I been so blind?

So I went back. To Violet. Without Jay or Anne-Marie seeing me, I walked back down the steps, back to our house.

“Violet?” I called out, easing the front door open. “You’re right. I’m a liar. A good one. Let me help you.” I wasn’t scared anymore. She didn’t want to hurt me; she wanted to hurt Jay. And now so did I.

She was still in the upstairs bathroom, on her knees, the gun tossed aside. Her face was pale, eyes red and puffy. She looked so young. When she looked up at me, tears ran down her cheeks.

I sat down in front of her and told her what I saw. Then she told me everything.

Jay had started cheating on her when she was pregnant with Harper. Well, that’s when she first found proof. When she accusedhim, he told her she was jealous, making things up. He almost convinced her, too, but then she found the messages on his phone. Nudes from a coworker, plans to meet at a hotel.

He cried when she confronted him. Told her he’d felt lonely, was scared about becoming a dad, that it wouldn’t happen again. Except it did. When Harper was only six months old. And again, a year after that. Those were the times she knew about, at least. Every time, he swore things would change. She wanted to believe him. Needed to.

So when he asked her to start over with him in New York, she agreed. He said it would be his chance to be the breadwinner, to prove to himself that he could provide for their family. They’d relied on her family’s money for so long that he’d lost sight of who he was as a man. That he’d looked to other women for validation. In New York, he promised, things would be different. Things would be better.

And they were, even after she found out he’d known about the trust. He’d been devoted, focused on his start-up. That’s what she thought. Then came the request for a cash infusion, the admission he’d gambled the company dry. And only a few weeks later, the final kick to her gut.

Violet came home early one afternoon to find the house seemingly empty, a Disney movie playing on the living room TV. Nina, their nanny, hadn’t mentioned plans to take Harper anywhere. “Hello?” Violet called out. Then, rustling. She followed the noise into the kitchen, found Harper standing on the counter in front of their snack cabinet. Harper turned at the sound of Violet, wobbled, almost falling, a guilty smile on her face. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be up there. “I was hungry,” she said. She didn’t know where Nina was.

Violet settled Harper back onto the couch with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, then went to look for Nina. The door to Jay’s office wasclosed. Slowly, barely breathing, she opened it. Jay was in his desk chair, head leaned back, eyes closed, Nina on her knees. Violet pulled the door shut and went back downstairs. Quietly, she packed Harper up and took her to the park.

Suddenly, it became clear to her, like a match had been lit in a pitch-black room. She was living her parents’ life. The one she’d tried so hard to run from. She’d become her mother, her head buried so deep in the sand she was choking on it, married to the same type of man as her father. At the expense of her daughter. Her darling Harper. She was incensed. At herself, yes, but at Jay, too. Finally at Jay.

She waited until Harper was asleep that night before shutting the door to their bedroom. He was already in bed, head crooked over his phone. Texting Nina, probably—maybe a picture of his dick he’d taken earlier that day.

“What?” he asked when he looked up, saw the look on her face.

“How could you?” she yelled. “You left her alone! And for what? Ablow job?” Her voice was shrill, tight.

At first, he acted dismayed. Harper was fine; nothing had happened to her. And Violet was confused; it wasn’t what it looked like. Eventually, he stopped lying, but this time, he wasn’t remorseful.

He just looked at her with awhat do you expect?expression. “You’re not the woman I married anymore,” he said. Like it was Violet’s fault that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, that he did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.There’s nothing wrong with me, he meant.Nothing wrong with what I did. There’s something wrong with you.

That’s when she saw red. That’s when she told him she wanted a divorce. That’s when the fighting escalated, when he followed her downstairs, where she smashed every photo of them together, when she screamed so loudly that the neighbors called the cops. That’s whenshe threw the glass at him. When it shattered, a shard nicked the side of Jay’s face. The cut wasn’t deep, but blood rushed from the gash, ran down his neck. He played it up, holding his hand to it, wincing like a wounded puppy. No one was arrested, but a report was filed. Violet was drunk, and even though so was Jay, it was her broken glass, his dripping blood.

Jay could have pressed charges, but he didn’t. He would, though, he told her when the police left, as the sun was rising, if she tried to divorce him; the officer on the scene said he had a year to file if he changed his mind. Then he would apply for sole custody. If there was a hearing, what judge would grant custody to a mother with a domestic violence record? He’d take Harper and as much money as he could. If she left him, he threatened, she’d be leaving alone and broke. He was holding her hostage, her hands tied, dirty rag stuffed into her mouth. Their marriage, like her childhood, was a prison.

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