This Is Not Over Part 19

Who am I kidding, I've always been resistible. I'm no Dawn. I bet she doesn't even need to cook when she's trying to put one over on her husband; she can just shake that long hair and flash that smile. My wiles are of another sort entirely.

I put some chicken on Larry's plate, leaning over just so, giving him a glimpse of my decolletage.

Don't think of Dawn; don't think of Thad. Focus on Larry, on the task at hand. I arrange the vegetables around the chicken, making sure he has a little of everything.

"To what do I owe my good fortune?" he tries again. He's not going to let me off the hook; he's too smart for that. I'm not going to be able to pull this off.

"I've been so busy lately," I answer, "that I've been neglecting you." I avoid his eyes as I prepare my own plate. Then I reposition my dress in order to sit down without any wardrobe malfunctions. I can't bring up the Santa Monica house too soon; I need him to finish his gla.s.s of Syrah first. There has to be a respectable distance between his question about my motives and the actual lie.

I'm going to lie to my husband, flagrantly.

I don't want to, but Thad has taken away all my choices.

The fact that he could do this to me when we'd briefly grown closer, when I had hopes that there was more closeness to come . . . "heartbroken" is too mild a word.

That's neither here nor there. I have to do what I have to do. That's what parenthood is. That's what life is.

I hope Dawn gets hers, that's all I can say. She pushed over the first domino, and my whole life's toppling. I hope she's somewhere right now, suffering.

Did I really just think that?

I take it back. I'm not this venomous person. She's young and foolish and needs to do some growing up, that's all. All I'm wis.h.i.+ng is that her growing pains have a little extra emphasis on the pain.

Focus on Larry, that's all I can do.

I force a smile. "How's the chicken?"

"Perfect, as usual." He smiles back, briefly, before he powers through more of the bird. He's a robust eater, and he likes to eat first, talk later. I'm pleased when he takes a long swallow of Syrah.

I sip daintily. I need to keep my wits about me.

"I'm going to look through old pictures tonight," I say. "I want to find some good ones of my family from when I was growing up. Pictures of all of us at Mammoth, that kind of thing. Some visuals might help."

He swallows, Adam's apple wobbling. "Help with what?"

"With my mother's memory."

"That's optimistic." What he means is, it's not going to work.

"There are studies that say stimulation can prolong the early stages."

"She's not in an early stage, sweetie. I just don't want you to get your hopes up."

I set my fork down and say, quietly, "What's so wrong with getting your hopes up? It beats the alternative, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes it keeps you tilting at windmills, until you're crazy as Don Quixote."

I wonder if he's thinking of Thad. I wonder if he knows, about everything. If he's chalking it up to me being crazy. His wife, the windmill tilter.

That's probably the most favorable interpretation: not guilty, by reason of insanity.

He munches silently for a few minutes. I'm too tense to eat, but I do a pantomime of raising my fork to my lips, with a small morsel on the tines.

"You can find a study for anything," he says.

"Hmm?"

"Those studies that show you can delay the disease progression by looking at home movies. I bet there are studies that show the opposite." He drains his Syrah and looks right at me. "I don't have a study to support this, not at hand, but it seems to me that trying to stimulate her memory could have some unintended consequences."

"Like?"

"Like she understands that that's her, and that's her family, but she can't recall anything. It's like knowing you used to be someone, and you're not anymore. You'll be reminding her what she's lost." He sees the expression on my face, the hurt. He reaches for my hand. "I just want you to be prepared. Forewarned is forearmed. You're a tender heart, my love. It's one of your best qualities, and one of the most dangerous."

I nod. Sometimes I wish he could love one of my ideas, instantly, without reservation. But I do know he loves me. His heart isn't tender, exactly, but it's in the right place.

"Talk to her doctor," he says. "See what he thinks first."

"She," I say. "Dr. Wallace is a woman."

"Even better." He grins. "Female doctors often work harder and think longer." Then he polishes off the last of his sweet potatoes and a final bit of chicken. "Bring her some of this food."

"Dr. Wallace?"

"No, your mother. It's her recipe, isn't it?"

I did tell him that, once upon a time. I don't even know why, it just flew out of my mouth, something to make him love my food a little more, to create domestic continuity, maybe. It was a white lie, nothing like what I'm about to say. I make a noncommittal noise that can be taken as a.s.sent. Then I pour him another gla.s.s of wine.

He's used to finis.h.i.+ng first. As I nurse my food, he tells me about his day at work: the consultations, the politics, and the collegial disagreements. He really lights up while talking about The Ignoramus's encouraging a patient to do more treatment when that patient should be advised to begin hospice. It occurs to me that he's doing this with an almost discomfiting amount of relish, like he enjoys sitting in judgment of The Ignoramus more than sitting in compa.s.sion for the poor patient whose life (and death) is being impacted. As if he's forgotten that he wasn't always so perfect himself.

My discomfort right now isn't really about the residency. It isn't about Larry at all. He made his mistakes a long time ago, while mine just go on and on. They say it's not the crime, it's the cover-up, and his crime may have been worse but he was honest. This is about my sins, not his.

Over apricot torte and coffee, when Larry has had two and a half gla.s.ses of wine, I decide it's time. Let the deception begin.

"You know I've been so busy lately," I say. "I haven't even been cooking proper meals for us, like the one we had tonight. Between volunteering, my mother, and the rental house, it's hard to keep up."

"You manage beautifully." He's beaming at me in the candlelight. He's going to try to have s.e.x tonight.

"I'm thinking it's time to cut back on my commitments. I could rent the house out on a longer-term basis. A three-month lease, maybe. Then I wouldn't be fielding questions all the time, and having to get ready for the next guest. Dealing with money. Returning security deposits. It's surprisingly time-consuming."

"Is it?" He swirls the wine in his gla.s.s.

"I do most of it while you're at work, but still, we get calls on the weekends sometimes. Remember that call about the plumbing at three A.M.?"

He furrows his brow, trying to recall the imaginary emergency.

"So I think it's time. I want to focus on other things. It's just not rewarding anymore, being a host. I want to be a landlord. I mean, we can be landlords." I'm trying to sound light about it all, as if it's no big deal. Meanwhile, my insides are corkscrewed. "I'll visit a property management company and let you know how it goes."

"Then they'll take a percentage?"

"Yes, but they'll negotiate higher rents, too." I think of the extensive list of fees that are possible. If I chose a company with fewer fees but let Larry believe there were more, I could skim some off the top. Or if I told him I was using a company and then didn't . . . More lies equals more possibilities. The corkscrew tightens. I don't want to live like this, but I see no way out.

Larry does not look happy. "You said we make more money with the long weekend rentals. We can charge a lot more per night than if someone has a lease."

My stomach manages to tense one more revolution. Right now, I could be murdering my marriage. Right this instant.

But what can I do except continue? Commit to the big lie. "I don't want to stress you out, but the house needs foundation work. That can be expensive. Tens of thousands, possibly."

"How long have you known this?" I'm surprised by how cold he sounds, as if he thinks I've been keeping this from him. If he only knew.

"I'm telling you as soon as I found out."

"So you want to get in a long-term tenant and hire a property management company-both of which mean we'll make less money-at the same time we have to put tens of thousands into a new foundation? What kind of sense does that make?"

"It's not just about money. It's about time and energy. My time and energy."

"I can appreciate that, but Jesus. Tens of thousands?"

I plunge ahead. "I don't have enough in the Santa Monica account to cover foundation work. I'd have to take it from our regular accounts." And funnel it into the secret account, the one with the siphoned money, from which I transfuse Thad. Two months, that was our agreement. Maybe he'll honor it. Maybe he'll get that show, or better yet, he'll go six months clean and Larry will get on board with art school. Thirty thousand dollars will be a good buffer, and then who knows?

Larry's watching me appraisingly. It's not that he thinks I'm lying; it's that he doesn't trust my judgment. He feels like he needs to step in. It's similar to raising Thad. Larry is hands-off until he decides that I'm out of my depth and his services are required.

He'd never say that. But that was the feeling I had, then as now. In both cases, he's probably right. I have let things get out of hand. Thad used my love for him against me, and when that stopped working, he resorted to the ultimate threat and I caved. Larry would die before he caved.

"If you don't want to rent the house anymore, maybe it's time to sell it. The market's booming." Seeing my panicked face, he says, "I know you're attached to that house, but it's worth considering."

"It's more than just an attachment."

"We need to weigh out the emotional and the rational here. But not tonight. Not on the heels of this fantastic meal, with you looking like a million bucks in that dress." Yes, he does want s.e.x. I could not be less desirous if I tried. "Let's table this for the time being. You'll get the estimates for the foundation work. Afterward, we'll visit the property with a Realtor and see if it's a good idea to do the work first or just put it on the market."

"You're talking like it's a done deal," I say, "like we're definitely going to sell. How long have you been thinking about this?"

"Nothing's decided." He takes my hand and kisses it. "Eva can do all the dishes tomorrow."

He starts to lead me up the stairs. All I can think of is what's ahead of me, tomorrow and the day after that. I'm going to have to broaden the lie: get the highest estimates I can for the fake foundation work from disreputable companies, and find a Realtor to say that property values will be even higher in a year, or two, or better yet, five. Then there will be no plausible deniability. Larry will know I created this whole elaborate scheme in order to deceive him.

That's if he finds out. I need to keep that from happening, at all costs.

"I'll be upstairs in a second," I tell him. "I just need to turn all the lights off."

I go to the kitchen and flip the switch, and that's when I notice that the lights outside are on, the pool illuminated azure. I don't actually remember turning them on, which sends a s.h.i.+ver through me, given my mother's condition.

Could all the stress I'm under activate my family's predisposition? It's a cruel irony that my mother was the one to get dementia after she spent all those years acting as Daddy's memory. It was a joke between George and me that even when my father was home, he wasn't all there. He s.p.a.ced out sometimes in midsentence. Fortunately, Daddy's forgetfulness turned around. Once he was retired and in Santa Monica, his memory was fine.

I'm about to turn the outside floodlights off, but something makes me pause. I step outside and scan. At first glance, everything's in order. Then I look more closely at the pool to see what's floating there. I move closer.

It's a drowned rat. Or it could be a mouse, I'm terrible with rodent identification. It's a skill that I've, thankfully, never had to master.

Just my luck. Manuel isn't due to service the pool for a few days. I marshal the energy to go outside and grab the net, steeling myself.

Dead rodents. Is that an omen?

31.

Dawn

Whatcha doing, beautiful?

I've got a new painting on Instagram.

One selfie, that's all I ask.

The secret to Thad's interest-the secret to most men, pathetically enough-is responding to every third contact. One to three, that's the magic ratio. When I do respond, it's often with a nonanswer. I flirt. I deflect. I obfuscate. He begs for more.

While I've spilled a few discreet nuggets, he knows little about me and how I spend my day. I withhold and he pursues. It's a simple formula that I employed with great success from ages nineteen to twenty-five. Then I met Rob and decided I could trust and open up. Look how that's turning out.

It's clear by now that Rob isn't going to confess to me about his conversation with his parents. He might not even think he did anything wrong. Maybe he didn't. He can't help it if he thinks I'm some kind of freak.

Thad, however, thinks I'm perfect.

It helps that he barely knows me. By revealing so little, I don't feel like I'm betraying Rob. If anything, Rob's the one who's betrayed me, dissecting me with his parents like a frog in biology cla.s.s.

Three texts from Thad, so it's time to give him something.

Some of us have more important things to do than selfies.

You can be a b.i.t.c.h, you know that?

I'm definitely not going to respond to that.

But I kind of like b.i.t.c.hes. I was raised by one. She made me what I am today.

It's the first time he's referenced Miranda. I've got to answer.

And what are you?

I'm a charming f.u.c.kup. Haven't you figured that out by now?