Page 31 of Stay Away from Him

An envelope, sitting dead center on the dining room table.

Maybe Lawrence had brought it down. Maybe she’d gotten a piece of mail, and he had delivered it to her when she wasn’t around.

But somehow she knew that wasn’t true. Someone else brought it here. Someone she didn’t give permission to enter her home.

She stood and approached the table slowly, as though the envelope were some kind of creature, a scorpion or a poisonous snake, that might lash out and hurt her.

It was unmarked. No writing on the outside. Unsealed too, the folded flap underneath lifting the envelope just a little off the flat of the table.

Melissa picked it up and turned it over. Pulled out the piece of paper inside: a notebook page, lined, the edges jagged and torn where it was pulled from a wire binding.

She gasped when she saw the message, let the paper drop back to the table.

The words were jagged, messy, scribbled—bearing the evidence of haste. Uncapitalized, unpunctuated, written in black ink from a pen. The chaotic shape of the letters seemed to communicate some unsettled state of mind in the person who’d scrawled them. She stepped back, her shoulder blades hitting the wall behind her, but the piece of paper, open on the tabletop, kept sending its threatening message toward her where she stood.

stay away from him unless you want to die

Transcript of Recording

Thomas:Do you ever think about…us?

Amelia:Us?What do you mean?

Thomas:You know, you and me. Before Rose came along.

[pause]

Thomas:Amelia?

Amelia:I’m just a little surprised at the question. Your wife is missing. You’re a person of interest in the investigation. And you’re asking an ex-girlfriend if I still think about when we were together?

Thomas:But this is a safe space, isn’t it? That’s why I came toyou, not to someone else. I can’t admit this kind of stuff to a stranger. They’d just run to the police.

Amelia:Admit…what? What is it you want to confess?

[pause]

Thomas:I’m ashamed to say it. Even with you.

Amelia:You’re wishing you’d ended up with me, is that it? You regret marrying Rose?

Thomas:Is that terrible? You think I’m a bad person now. My wife is missing, presumed dead, and here I am acting like I’mgladshe’s gone. It’s only a part of me, a small part of me, that thinks that way. Ninety-nine percent of me—I’m desperate to get her back, Amelia. Desperate to find her alive. You have to understand that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Amelia:It’s all right. I think I understand. Emotions are…they’re complicated. Our genuine feelings aren’t always what others would recognize as socially appropriate. You’re going through a trauma, and your marriage has been difficult attimes—of course some small part of you would be speculating about if you’d made different choices in the past. It’s just…

Thomas:What?

Amelia:It’s nothing. We’re here for you, not for me.

Thomas:But we’re notreallytherapist and patient, remember? Just two friends, talking during a difficult time. Come on, just tell me.

Amelia:Well, I’m feeling a little annoyed, Thomas. A little angry, actually. If I’m honest.

Thomas:Angry? Why?

Amelia:Well, my recollection is that it wasyouwho decided to move on, all those years ago. It’s not my fault we didn’t end up together.

Thomas:So youdothink about us.

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