Page 33 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Mark is everything good, everything right in Hannah’s life. Her clean slate. She hates the thought of her past contaminating it, spreading its poison, corroding the life they’ve built until it crumbles. There has to be something she can do. Something to stop what she knows is coming.
But sometimes it’s impossible. Sometimes reality catches up to you, a storm you can’t outrun, no matter how hard you try. Another vision of the past breaks through as she stumbles through the gym, but this time Hannah isn’t running. She sees herself as a little girl, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped around herself protectively, her spine digging painfully into the back of the small plasticchair in the hospital waiting room. And yet she didn’t move. She sat perfectly still, counted the butterflies painted on the wall: four purple, two blue, three pink. She hadn’t spoken, not one single word, for what felt to Hannah like hours. Though it could have been days, even weeks, and she wouldn’t have known. She was vaguely aware of other people coming and going, some who talked to her, some who talked about her in concerned whispers, using words likemotherandpassed awayandchild protective services.But Hannah couldn’t bring herself to respond. She couldn’t even bring herself to move. She just stared at those butterflies, imagining she could shrink herself down until she was small enough to ride one, that it could take her far away from this place with its strange antiseptic smell and evil things like cancer. Hannah hadn’t even known her mother was sick, and then, in what felt like a heartbeat, she was gone. She simply couldn’t imagine a world without her mother in it, so she didn’t. If she didn’t move, if she didn’t speak, maybe time would forget about her; maybe it would march by without her and she wouldn’t have to face whatever came next.
Hannah doesn’t know how long she sat there like that before the lady came. The one that had the lanyard around her neck, a plastic ID card dangling from the end, who said that she was there to help Hannah. Didn’t she know that no one could help Hannah?
The lady squatted down in front of her. She had kind eyes, but Hannah still turned away from them.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” the woman said, her voice gentle and coaxing. Hannah did not reply.
“Do you have another grown-up at home?” The woman waited, seemingly comfortable in Hannah’s silence. Slowly, Hannah shook her head.
“What about your dad?”
And for the first time since her world had ended, Hannah spoke, using the words her mother had taught her: “I don’t have one.”
Hannah shakes the memory away. If someone found out what she’d done, the lies she’d told, the life that she’s built here with Mark will be over. She’ll be as alone as that little girl.
Hannah pushes open the doors leading to the school’s courtyard. There’s a bubbling fountain in the center, string lights hung like acanopy. There were a few people out here earlier in the evening, but it’s grown colder and they’ve gone inside. September is a strange, transitive month, Hannah thinks, where the days still cling to the warmth of summer but at night the autumn chill slinks in on catlike feet. She’s happy to be alone out here, out of the crowd for a moment while she regains her composure.
She leans against the rough brick of the building, exhaling deeply. That’s when she hears the voices, realizes she’s not alone after all. There are people around the corner of the building, just out of sight. She can’t make out all of the words, but one seems to be a man, and he sounds angry. Hannah pauses, holding her breath while she listens.
“Embarrassment…no respect…”
The voice sounds familiar, but Hannah can’t quite place it. And then she hears the second voice.
“I’m sorry.”
This one is much smaller, and there’s a slight tremor of fear in it. This one Hannah recognizes immediately.Georgina.
Before she has time to think it through, Hannah starts walking, following the sound of Georgina’s voice.
She rounds the corner just in time to see Colin grab his wife by the wrist, his knuckles white as he holds her arm at a painful angle.
“Is everything okay?” Hannah asks, her tone uncharacteristically bold as her voice echoes through the empty courtyard.
Colin releases Georgina’s arm. “Everything is just fine,” he replies, that dazzling smile pinned to his lips.
It’s disorienting for Hannah, how quickly he’s transformed himself into someone shiny and new. It makes her question what she just saw. Maybe she’d been mistaken…but then she looks at Georgina, sees the fear in her eyes, and she knows.
“I was asking Georgina.” Hannah is surprised by her own brazenness as she stands her ground, her arms folding over her chest as she braces herself against the cold.
“We’re okay,” Georgina says, her perfect smile back in place even as she rubs her wrist, which is red and raw. “We’ll be inside in just a moment.”
Hannah doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to leave Georginaalone out here with Colin. But Georgina gives her the smallest nod, the look in her eyes pleading with Hannah to walk away before she makes things worse.
“All—all right, then,” Hannah says, and she turns to go, feeling entirely unsure of whether she’s doing the right thing.
23
Audrey
Hawthorne Lane
Audrey curls up on her living-room couch with a bowl of air-popped popcorn and a glass of pinot noir. She flicks through Netflix looking for a rom-com, the kind of thing Seth never wants to watch with her, as she sips her wine. Seth, thankfully, was asked to speak at a creative writing conference at the University of Rhode Island, which means he’s out of town overnight, and Audrey has the house to herself. She’s hopeful that the conference will give Seth the boost of confidence he needs, and she’s grateful for the time alone it’s afforded her. For the first time in weeks, she feels like she can breathe.
Lately, it’s been impossible to find a moment of peace. Seth is always here, always watching her. It’s gotten worse since those damn roses arrived on her doorstep. She feels like his eyes are always on her now, as if he’s just waiting for her to slip up. She’s constantly walking on eggshells in her own home. And Audrey is supposed to love this house. She designed every inch of it, from the white upholstery of the couch to the coffered ceilings. She’d taken her time selecting the Schumacher wallpaper in the hall bathroom, the slab of marble for the kitchen island with just the right amount of veining, and the perfect shade of snowfall-white paint for the primary bedroom. The house was meant to feel like an extension of her, brick-and-mortar evidence of her and Seth’s success. Not a prison that she can’t wait to escape from every morning.
Audrey clicks through the movie selections, finally settling onSleepless in Seattle.She’s seen it a thousand times, but it’s one of those movies that brings her right back to her childhood. To being curled up on her mother’s floral-print sofa, eating popcorn (the real, full-fat kind) and drinking cherry soda. She’d loved those nights when her father was working a late shift and it was just Audrey and her mom. Both of her parents worked so much—her father as a security guard at the local hospital, and her mother as a receptionist at a dental practice during the day, a waitress at a local diner on odd nights—so between that and having to share their attention with her two older sisters, Audrey rarely had time alone with either of them. It made her appreciate their movie nights all the more, bringing out the big metal bowl and filling it to the brim with buttery popcorn mixed with handfuls of M&M’s. Her sisters couldn’t stand rom-coms. They’d make mock gagging noises, teasing Audrey and her mom as they cried at the same scenes no matter how many times they watched them. But Audrey didn’t care. Those nights belonged only to her and her mom.
