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“No, no. Everything is fine.”
“Let me guess. She stormed off and won’t return your calls.”
“Something like that. Have you heard from her?”
“I haven’t seen or spoken to my daughter in weeks. By the way, thank you for the cruise. The Adriatic was amazing. You should take her sometime.”
The sudden urge to confess, to shake this venal woman from her self-absorbed life, was overwhelming, and the words spilled from his mouth.
“She’s gone, Siobhan. She left a note and walked out on me. I’m worried about her. She didn’t take her things—her phone, her computer, her wallet are all here.” As if that would explain it all.
And it did, enough at least that his mother-in-law reacted. “I’m on my way over,” she said, and hung up on him.
Oh, bollocks. All he needed was Siobhan wandering the house looking for clues. Looking in the corners, at the dust and secrets.
You’re an idiot, Ethan. Whyever did you tell her? That desperate, are we?
He poured himself a fresh cup of tea, looked around. Fuck cleaning up. So the place wasn’t pristine. Who cared? Siobhan would find a flaw, a fault, no matter what. They could scour the place top to bottom, have it Architectural Digest photo-shoot ready, and she’d still want to move a vase or find a small part of the counter with a smear.
Siobhan Healy—Shiv-awn, for the uninitiated, which she delighted in sharing, loudly—took pride in being different. Her friends, and some of her enemies, Sutton included, called her Shiv for short. She was Sutton’s opposite in every way. Looks: small and dark, Black Irish with her ebony hair liberally streaked with gray, and cobalt eyes, face pinched and mean. Temperament: brash and extroverted; Siobhan adored attention, good or bad. Speech: lowbrow; though she didn’t have an accent, she claimed she was from a Dublin slum and never hesitated to share the story of her continually upward journey.
She’d come to the United States and married a succession of men, each wealthier than the last. She was on husband four now, a meek-mannered man named Alan, who liked to make jokes, corny jokes—hey, we should go into business together, call ourselves...Ethan Alan. Ha, ha, ha, ha, get it? Ethan Alan—when he drank too much.
Ethan wasn’t sure how this woman could have created her daughter, often wondered about their storied past, but Siobhan and Sutton both refused to ever talk about her childhood, or the one-night stand sperm donor who was her father. He wasn’t, as Sutton said, one of the husbands. He was anonymous. Never around. Sutton had never met him.
Ethan found that wretchedly sad. His own parents had been kind, generous people, though he hadn’t understood them well, nor they him. They were both gone now. They’d died quietly and unobtrusively four months apart when he was twenty-two. He’d been quite upset, but not devastated. They’d sent him off to Mount St. Mary’s as a boarder when he was a wee lad, and he’d only seen them at breaks. Ethan had always been bookish; it was the school he attended that shaped his personality: cocky and wildly creative. It was a fine way to grow up, but Ethan wanted something different for his life. He’d always dreamed of a close-knit, exuberant household for his own family one day. Children running in the backyard, dogs playing and barking, a knockout wife, madly in love. Safe and stable.
The American Dream. That’s one reason he’d moved to America, after all.
Safe and stable. He’d tried. Lord knew, he’d tried.
A text dinged. Ivy.
I haven’t seen her or talked to her since I left on my trip. We chatted Thursday and she seemed fine. Do I need to come home? Do you need help?
Ivy, always the one willing to lend a hand, pitch in, make their lives easier.
He texted back. No, I’m sure she’s just gone off to upset us all.
Ivy sent back an emoji that he took to mean “eye roll.” He didn’t understand emojis. Or text abbreviations. LOL. BRB. For God’s sake, when had it become so difficult to actually use words anymore?
The doorbell sounded, impatient, as if it were being stabbed repeatedly with a thick finger—which of course it was. He opened the door for his mother-in-law, who sailed through like the Queen Mary, then turned on him. “So what did you do to upset my daughter now?”
Her dyed black hair was shoved under a dingy Nashville Sounds baseball cap; she was unkempt and smelled like stale liquor. She and the mister must have been hitting the bottle hard the night before. They liked to party, liked to hang out at their country club with other well-soused individuals, eating good food and drinking good wine and lamenting their fates. Such a lovely couple.
“I didn’t do anything. I woke up this morning and she was gone. She left me a note.”
“Show me.”
Biting back the response he wanted to give, he instead led her into the kitchen and handed her the paper. She read it three times, lips moving as she did, and he wondered again how this dull, crass woman had created the glorious Titan he’d married.
Though during Sutton’s bad times, the breakdowns, he saw bits of Siobhan in her.
Siobhan set the note down and crossed her arms on her chest. “Where do you think she’s gone?” Her voice was curiously dispassionate, missing its usual aggression toward him.
He shook his head. “I was hoping you’d have an idea. I’ve called her girlfriends. They say they haven’t heard from her.”
“Did you tell them about the note?”
“I mentioned it to Filly and Ivy. I got the sense Filly might know something but wasn’t willing to say.”
She waved a hand. “Filly has always loved Sutton’s drama, and is hoping it will rub off on her. She’s a sad little woman living through everyone around her. She doesn’t know anything, or she’d already be here, glorying.” Siobhan played with the edge of the paper, sat down at the table.
“Sutton’s been in bad shape since the baby,” Ethan offered, almost unwilling to open that door. But he needed help, damn it.
Siobhan nodded, surprisingly grave. “Can you blame her?”
“Of course not. But I kept hoping... Siobhan, is there something else I should know? Did she tell you she was leaving me? You don’t seem terribly surprised by this.”
She gave a windy sigh that smelled suspiciously like dirty martinis. “Sit down.”
Ethan wasn’t used to taking orders in his own house, especially from a woman he wasn’t fond of, but he perched on a stool and set his hands on his knees. Siobhan watched him for a moment.
“When we spoke last, a few months ago, Sutton told me she was very unhappy. It wasn’t like her to confide in me. You know we don’t always see eye to eye about her choices.”
“If you mean how you suggested she leave me last year after Dashiell...I know. She told me all about it.”
“Do you blame me, Ethan?” That strange, dispassionate tone again. Almost as if they were confidants here, not enemies. “You treated her badly. You handled things poorly. She was in bad shape and you were too busy with your little fling to notice.”
His little fling. His stomach clenched. No one could know the truth there. It would destroy them all, Sutton especially.
“I made a mistake. I came clean, I apologized. We were getting things back on track. We’d talked about... We talked about moving, maybe, getting away from all the bad memories. Starting over.”
“Moving? Where?”
“Back to London.”
“I see. And Sutton was happy to do that?”
“We hadn’t made any concrete decisions. We were talking. Planning. The future... Bloody hell, Siobhan, at least she was talking to me again. You have no idea what the past year has been like, not really, for either one of us. It’s been torture. Oh, yes, we’ve put on a brave front. But once the door closed and the people disappeared, once the funeral was over and the neighborhood stopped tiptoeing around, we were left alone to try and muddle through. It was hell.”
“I can imagine,” she said, and she sounded almost like she cared. He knew she didn’t, not really. She was in it for the money. Siobhan and Sutton had a weird, twisted relationship, more like catty girlfriends who despised one another than mother and daughter. But despite all his advice, Sutton refused to cut her out completely. Ethan would never understand.
“I don’t care what Sutton told you, or didn’t. She’s been on edge lately, secretive. Something has definitely been going on with her. Do you know what she’s been planning?”
Sutton’s mother suddenly looked gray and old. “No. But her note doesn’t sound like someone who’s gone gaily off to do the Lord’s work. Why don’t you call the police? If you have nothing to hide...”
“Give me a break, Siobhan. I didn’t hurt her. It’s not like she’s a missing person, either. She left a note, after all. Besides, they won’t even take a missing persons report for seventy-two hours on an adult.”
“How do you know if you haven’t talked to them?”
“I do research my work, Siobhan.”
“For your books. Yes, of course.”
Oh, the disdain in her tone. Ethan tried not to place his very large hands around his mother-in-law’s neck. Siobhan had never understood the creative gene that he and Sutton shared. Sutton said Siobhan wanted her only child to find a rich man to marry, one who would allow her to play tennis at the club and host fabulous backyard garden parties. His temperament was optional. What were a few black eyes and broken ribs in the face of never-ending wealth and comfort?
They’d never told Siobhan how much Ethan was worth, how much he made on his novels. It was none of her business.
The uncomfortable silence grew between them. Finally, Siobhan stood.
“I’m sure she’s simply run off. She is always very dramatic when she gets upset.”
“And if she isn’t being dramatic?”
“You’re worried. I understand. You asked my advice, and here it is: Sutton’s been unhappy, and she probably doesn’t want to be found. But if you’re not content with that answer, call the police. Let them look for her.”
“You don’t seem very upset by the news that your daughter is missing. Or that she could have been harmed somehow.”
“Because I don’t think she’s missing. I think my daughter finally left you. Something she should have done long ago.”
“Thanks a lot, Siobhan.”
“You’re welcome. Now, my check? It was due today. If Sutton’s not here, perhaps you should see to it.”
And there it was. She didn’t give a flying fuck about Sutton, just wanted to get the money she wrenched out of them. That’s why she’d called, and then come over. Not to help. To take her cut.
Sutton generally handled the quarterly allowance she stubbornly insisted on paying her mother. It was a sore spot between them; having Siobhan standing with her greasy paw out all the time nearly sent him over the edge.
“You must be joking.”
“I’m leaving town this evening. We have a trip to Canada. I’d like to deposit it before I go. And who knows when Sutton will resurface.”
“You are a seriously cold woman, Siobhan.”
“You have no idea.”
Ethan went to his office, pulled out the checkbook. He filled in the check, dated it, and stormed back to the kitchen.
“Here.” If only I could lace it with rat poison and watch you die, you miserable, uncaring witch.
“Thank you. Keep me apprised if she shows up, will you?”
“Why would I? You’ve made it quite clear you don’t care about Sutton, or about me. All you care about is your precious money.”
“I care more than you realize, Ethan. But you’re her husband. You do what you think is right.”
“I will. Trust me.”
As the door closed on her, she turned. “Ethan? Even after all these years, I don’t think you know my daughter at all.”
THERE ARE CRACKS IN EVERY MARRIAGE (#uc4aac95c-bcda-5b38-b6a5-c4120ac2f064)
Ethan shut the door on Siobhan, proud of himself for not slamming it. He went into his office and poured a crystal lowball half-full of Scotch. He had a nice mirrored bar cart set up in the corner; it felt very Fitzgerald to him, and he’d always taken pride in it.
Now it looked like failure. He’d been drinking too much this year. Understandable, of course, but he’d been using it as a barrier against Sutton.
It was early to get pissed, he knew this, but he downed the Scotch and poured another. If it was good enough for Fitzgerald and Hemingway, it was good enough for him.
He sat at his desk, glanced at the picture of the three of them placed discreetly in the corner, between the drooping spider plant and the phone. He’d never had the heart to put it away. He liked the photo. They were all happy. Smiling. They’d been at the beach, noses sunburned, the baby wearing a silly sun hat, a breeze blowing Sutton’s gorgeous red hair around. Toothy smiles and hugs and goodwill. Their lives, captured, a moment in time that could never be re-created.
He reached out and touched the silver gilt frame, then drew his fingers back as if burned.
He’d thought having a baby would fix things.
It was a stupid thought. Barmy. He should have been committed for thinking a baby would make things perfect again. But at the time, he hadn’t thought it through. He’d been driven by his own emotions.
Yes, that was it. His emotions had led him astray. Men weren’t supposed to have such deep feelings. It was the artist in him. He wanted things from this life—a career writing, a wife to love him, a home to call his own. Heirs were simply part of things, a fact unstated and understood.
Still, the baby. He didn’t think the concept was terribly complex. Sutton was a woman. All women wanted babies. Right? She said she didn’t, that her life was perfect the way it was, and really, how would they write with a tyke underfoot, but more than once, he’d caught her looking after women with prams with such bald yearning on her face that he expected she’d start hinting it was time. And she’d told Ivy that she loved kids; he’d heard them in the kitchen one day, gossiping over the teapot.
But she never did hint, and every time he broached the subject, Sutton always told him no.
Maybe it was selfish of him, maybe it was wrong. But he’d wanted a baby. He’d wanted to change things between them. He’d wanted Sutton to look at him with wonder in her eyes again. Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Sutton used to love him.
He just wasn’t sure when she’d stopped.
He shook himself like a wet dog, the old images of their once-happy life shedding onto the floor. He didn’t know what to do, so he got up and paced through the house. Went from room to room, replaying memories, seeing shadows of his wife in all the right places—the couch, her feet tucked up under her legs like a cat; her office, head bent over the keyboard in that odd way that made her chin look pointed like an elf’s; the bedroom, where she lay willing and open, ready for him to come into her and make her scream.
Their life had always been amazing. Sutton used to make him feel sexy, witty, smart. Every word he wrote was meant to impress her, everything he did was a subtle bit of bragging. Look at me, wife. Look at all that I am for you.
He tried harder for her than anyone he’d ever been with. Gaining a smile, a laugh, made him happy to his core.
He didn’t know when things went south. Didn’t know when she’d stopped loving him, when she gave up on their marriage. It was well before Dashiell, that he knew. Was it when they’d renovated the behemoth? Weren’t renovations a major driver in divorce cases, like Facebook and affairs? He thought he’d read that somewhere.
Or was it when the words he wrote for her dried up, and he stopped working entirely? Before he got desperate. Before he made the greatest mistake of his life.
No, he thought it was maybe before all of that when his warm and sexy wife had grown cold. Frigid. Unwilling. Distant.
The laughs had become few and far between. She’d looked at him with a mix of derision and bemusement, as if she’d woken up one morning married, and to a stranger, to boot.
He’d asked her, one very drunken night, why she’d stopped loving him. She’d laughed, harshly. “I love you more now than the day we met. That’s the problem.” And she wouldn’t say anything more.
And here they were. Five years later, parents of a dead baby, their ruined marriage strewed on the rocks, mistakes piled like a stack of ancient newspapers against the door.
He was responsible for Dashiell’s death. For Sutton’s madness. For the missed deadline, the stalking, the canceled book contract. Ethan knew this, knew it to his bones.
He’d made so many mistakes, there was no recovering from them all.
