Page 48 of Room 553: A Psychological Thriller

“Lisa?”

She shrugged. “You dated her for months.”

“Yeah, that was Lisa. You have a good memory,” I told her. Lisa became a dermatologist, which made sense. She was smart, very smart, and that birthmark wasn’t a birthmark, it was psoriasis.

“Not really,” Laurel countered. “Anyway—I think I saw you together once. At a Christmas party…maybe…? Anyway, you must have been about sixteen…”

“At the Weatherfords. We had sex in the bathroom.”

She seemed surprised. “You remember the party?”

The truth was I didn’t really recall Laurel back then. However, to have said as much seemed like it would be an insult. At the time, I had only been focused on two things: going pre-med and getting laid.

My brow rose. “I remember because it was my first time.”

“For her as well?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have enough experience back then to notice that.”

She turned further toward me until her naked belly rested on mine. “Well, I hated her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, for months, I thought of ways to make her suffer.”

“And did you find any?”

“No, I settled on hoping it would happen by accident.”

Dr. Jones listens as I recant the story, but she doesn’t seem that interested. Her expression tells me she’s already in the process of changing her line of questioning. This is a thing I’ve noticed with people. They lack stamina. They’re always flitting from one thing to the next, without giving any particular thing too much thought. I suppose I, too, was in the habit of that once. “Would you say Nina was a good wife?”

“She was my first and only, so who’s to say?”

“But she took care of your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“And she was good at home? She enjoyed domestic life?”

“She worked too. I can’t say whether she enjoyed it, but yes, she did the lion’s share of work at home.”

“Is that why you married her?”

“When I married her, I had no way of knowing what kind of wife or mother she’d be.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“Because she was intelligent.”

“Intelligent…”

“I assumed that she would offer good genetic material. And she was a hard worker.”

She narrows her gaze. “Is that all?”

I shrug.

“So you had no reason to be disgruntled with her?”

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