House of Glass (8 page)

Again her mind refused to accept the possibility; whatever Dan wanted from her, she was convinced it wasn’t sexual. But still, he had an idea in mind of who she was. How was he to know that she’d come from nothing? She’d worked so hard to expunge all traces of the past, the faint rural Great Lakes accent, the bad haircuts and the unschooled manners. But she’d been poor, and she’d been desperate. She remembered what it felt like.

Jen toweled off quickly, trying to push those thoughts away. She folded her towel and hung it from the rack. She dressed, her heart racing. It felt like her pulse hadn’t slowed down since she first opened the bedroom door last night and saw their lives, changed forever, reflected in her daughter’s terrified eyes.

She brushed her teeth and rinsed twice, trying to get the sour taste out of her mouth. For a moment she stood motionless, staring at her reflection, her feet cold on the tile floor. Her face looked dead: pale, expressionless, the faint lines bracketing her mouth and at the corner of her eyes more pronounced than usual. But she could do this; she could paint herself to look like what he wanted. She smoothed on foundation, dusted with powder, lined her eyes with the charcoal pencil. A swipe of eye shadow, two coats of mascara, lipstick in a shade of berry that the Chanel girl said complemented her coloring.

Jen considered the result. She hadn’t been able to conceal the hollowness of her eyes, but she’d done a passable job with the cosmetics. It would have to do. She picked up Livvy’s brush and did her best with her hair, dampening it where it stood up, smoothing it as flat as she could.

When she was finished, she took a deep breath, let it out slowly and opened the door.

Dan was gone.

She walked quietly down the hall, her bare feet making no sound. She heard voices when she got to the stairs.

“...
my
operation.” Dan’s voice, angry but controlled, came from the kitchen.

“Yeah, Uncle Richie, it’s all you, ain’t it. You’re the big guy.” Ryan didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

When Jen entered the kitchen, Dan—Richie?—glared at her, turning his back on Ryan. “Tell me where the car keys are, Jen, and we’ll go.”

“Not until I say goodbye to my family.” Jen’s heart thudded so hard she could feel it in her throat.

“They’re fine. I took Livvy back downstairs,” Dan said.

“She’s fine, all right,” Ryan said, ignoring Dan. “She’s so damn fine...” And then his tongue caressed his lower lip and he pantomimed a shudder.

“That’s my
daughter,
” Jen snapped. She took two steps toward him, clenching her fists. “That’s my
daughter
you’re talking about, you—you
cocksucker—
”

Dan grabbed her, his hands on her shoulders, maneuvering himself between her and Ryan, yelling at her to calm down. The word she’d said, the worst one Jen could think of, hung in the air, and Ryan’s smirk broadened.

“Ignore him,” Dan muttered, backing her out of the kitchen, his grip strong enough to hurt.

“I need to see them. My children. Before we go. I can’t—I can’t do this if I don’t know that they’re all right.”

She twisted her hands around his wrists so they were locked together. She dug her fingers into his skin above the gloves, trying to hurt him with her nails. But Dan’s arms were hard and corded, and he didn’t even wince. Not like her husband’s at all, not even with all those years of squash, all his home improvement projects.

“Ryan,” Dan said in a low and dangerous voice, without taking his eyes off Jen’s face. “Go upstairs
now.
”

Ryan shrugged, pushing himself with exaggerated effort away from the wall, and exited the kitchen. Jen heard his footsteps, taking his time, through the living room and up the stairs. Not until she heard his tread on the hall above did Jen relax her grip on Dan. “Please,” she repeated.

Dan walked her to the basement door, pulling her by the upper arm, and turned the dead bolt. It was a good lock, and Jen recalled how she’d had the lock replaced when Teddy started walking. The man at Calumet Hardware told her it was the finest available. A small price to pay for the sense of security she had whenever she turned the key that Teddy couldn’t reach.

Dan opened the door but didn’t release her. “Five seconds,” he said. “Just to look.”

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. But there they were—Teddy was watching the washing machine again, a mesh bug net dangling from one hand. Ted sat on the sofa, holding Livvy in his arms. They stared up at her, the two of them, as if they didn’t recognize her. It looked like Livvy had been crying.

“See, they’re fine. Everything’s fine,” Dan said, pulling Jen back into the hall and closing the door, sliding the lock into place.

He looked at her appraisingly. “You look nice, by the way.”

Chapter Ten

They were barely out of the cul-de-sac when Dan told her.

“We’re going to the bank. It’s payday and you’re paying.”

The bank. So it
was
just money, nothing more. Jen closed her eyes with relief, said a silent prayer.
Thank you. Thank you.

She didn’t dare show how relieved she felt, in case Dan somehow decided it wasn’t enough, that they weren’t taking enough from her. She had to resist, at least a little. “There’s only a few hundred dollars in my checking account,” she said. Her voice sounded strained even to her; she had never been a good liar.

“I don’t give a shit about your checking account.” He took his eyes off the road, his eyes boring into hers. “You know it damn well. I want the money market.”

“How do you—”

“Never the fuck mind how. Now we need to be smart about this,” Dan said. “It’s not like you can take all that money out of the ATM.”

The balance in the money market was seventy thousand, eighty-two dollars and some change the last time she looked. But how could Dan know that their balance was that high? The vast majority of people didn’t have that much liquid cash, especially in today’s economy. Even in affluent Calumet, a lot of families had drawn down their savings and were living paycheck to paycheck. What made Dan think the Glasses were any different?

The way Dan looked at her at the next stop sign made Jen shiver: it was like he somehow saw inside her. Like he knew that having a lot of cash on hand was one of the ways she reminded herself of how far she’d come from the hardscrabble way she grew up. Seventy thousand covered six months of fixed living expenses and medical deductibles, but that was only part of it. In the back of her mind was another list, a secret one called Things That Can Go Horribly Wrong At The Worst Possible Time, and it included every shameful episode from her childhood as the daughter of an unlucky and eternally broke single mother: running out of milk before payday, not being able to go on class trips or play sports, never answering the phone because it might be a bill collector.

But no one knew about that. And no one but Ted and the bank—which, nowadays, was so disconnected from any human interface as not to count—knew about the money market. So how did
Dan
know? Could he possibly have made such a lucky guess? Or did he think every affluent family had cash squirreled away?

Jen’s nerves tightened, squeezing her lungs, making it hard to breathe. She forced herself to look at Dan. He was driving right at the speed limit, his right hand draped casually on the wheel. In profile he looked relaxed, just a regular guy headed into town for a few errands.

“All right,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I’ll get your money. I’ll talk to one of the personal bankers and get a cashier’s check.”

“That’s more like it.”

She bit her lip, thinking it through. “You made me come instead of Ted because it won’t look as strange this way. You and him together, two men, that would raise eyebrows, but they’ll just think we’re...”

“Married,” Dan said. “You can say it. I guess I’m not your type. You think I couldn’t get a woman like you.”

“I never— I don’t—”

“You wouldn’t give me the time of day,” he went on, ignoring her. “We met in a bar, you’d tell me to fuck off. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it.”

His hands were tense on the wheel now. She’d made him angry; his jaw was tight and his shoulders stiff, a stark contrast to how relaxed he’d been moments earlier. But what was responsible for the change? Just because he thought she considered herself...too
good
for him?

She wondered again if he had thought of her...that way, if he was even now thinking of pulling the car off the road, after he got what he wanted at the bank, and doing things to her. If she was somehow giving off signals that she found him repugnant, and that made him want to hurt her, defile her. Humiliate her.

She stared at his large hands. They were fleshy and sun-spotted, reddish hairs springing from the knuckles in clumps. She imagined them fumbling at her blouse, yanking down her pants. Covering her mouth when she tried to scream.

“I wouldn’t tell you to...” she started, but her voice trembled and she couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t say the words.
Fuck off.
“I don’t think I’m better than you.”

Dan laughed, a harsh and abrasive sound. “That’s a good one. That’s right, you’re not—and we both know it, don’t we? We both know you came from nothing. Your daddy didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Took off on you and your sister and never looked back.”

He leered at her, giving her a complicit wink as the car started moving through the intersection. He turned his attention back to the road, where he’d drifted from the center of the lane, earning a dirty look from the other morning commuters.

Jen fought the numbing horror of his words. How could he know? But the answer was right there, glaringly obvious, and she must have been working hard to stay in denial, because everything pointed to it, once she gave it a moment’s thought.

“You knew my dad,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Oh, I’ve known plenty of guys like him. And I’ve known their dirty little trailer trash kids, too. Not too often one grows up like you.
Princess.
You act so high and mighty. But in my book if you come from trash, that makes you trash, too.”

His voice had hardened with disgust. He didn’t glance at her as Jen tried to absorb what he’d said. He switched lanes without signaling, cutting in front of a slow-moving sedan full of old women.

“What did Sid tell you?”

He snorted. “That’s enough of that,” he muttered. “Shut up now. I’ll tell you when to talk.”

In her mind, the pieces reshuffled, like the gears of a music box spinning. Dan knew Sid. Maybe they worked together at one low-end job or another. Ryan, too. Maybe they drank at the same bar. The few friends Sid used to have were always drinking buddies, men he met at dives and taverns all over town.

How would it have happened? Sid’s life, practically empty from the looks of his pathetic apartment, wouldn’t have given him much conversational fodder. Sitting at the bar late at night, talk among the regulars would turn to bragging and blaming: the scheming ex-wives, bosses who were out to screw them, cops who had it in for them.

Ungrateful children.

Never even write to me,
she could imagine Sid saying.
Live a few hours away and I ain’t never even met my grandkids. Not even a fuckin’ Christmas card.

He’d get a lot of sympathy for that, Jen imagined, his drinking buddies egging him on. Over a few nights, or years maybe, he’d refine his bitter tale.
One of ’em rich enough to buy the damn town, couldn’t even help out with a few bucks
. He might easily have talked himself into believing Jen didn’t deserve all her good fortune—how hard would it be to convince strangers?

And then he’d died—

He’d died, and what if Dan and Ryan had actually been
good
friends? Sid could have convinced them he had been screwed over by his life. As the bitter seed planted during those drunken conversations took shape into a plan, they could have felt justified in coming after Jen and her family. In some twisted way, maybe they even felt like they were honoring his memory.

She wanted to protest. She wanted Dan to know exactly what kind of father Sid had been, but what good would it do? And who cared, anyway? Sid was
dead.
Let Dan have the money. She could get more; she could cash in some investments and replenish the rainy-day fund. Once she got through this ordeal she would put it behind her just like she had put Sid behind her. She would choose not to let it matter; she would move on.

She just had to get through it. One step at a time.
Focus.
It was hard, but each moment on its own was manageable. Walking into the bank. Getting the money. Returning home, being locked up in the basement again. Dan and Ryan leaving with their money. They would wait for help to come. Livvy and Teddy didn’t show up for school today; that wouldn’t go unnoticed. Jen would be absent from her yoga class and her assigned hour helping in the high school library. And she was supposed to meet Elaine Cavanaugh tonight at a wine bar for a drink. Elaine would wonder why she didn’t show up.

Maybe Elaine would be worried enough to stop by the house when Jen didn’t answer her calls. Or if not Elaine, maybe one of Livvy’s friends, when she didn’t come to school tomorrow and didn’t answer her texts.
Someone
would come for them. There would be cops and investigations and calls from the media, insurance adjusters and counselors to make sure the kids were processing their emotions, and they would get through all of it.

But what about Ryan? Here in the car with Dan, even with what he’d said about Sid, Jen could convince herself that he wouldn’t hurt her family. He only wanted their money. But Ryan was another matter. She couldn’t put his face out of her mind, that sneer that never left him, those pale eyes that lingered on Livvy’s body. Jen felt her pulse quickening, her blood pressure rising, and she tried again to think only of the moment. Walk into the bank, get the money....

Breathe in. Let it out slowly.
One...two...three...

There was construction along Glenn Road, and traffic was down to one lane. Flaggers in orange vests stopped traffic for the cars coming the other way. Dan drove slowly through the construction, keeping pace with traffic.

Away
from town. In the opposite direction of the bank.

“Where are you taking me?” Jen demanded, her voice shrill and frightened.

“You think I’m taking you to your own branch? That make sense to you? Risk running into one of your friends, or your neighbors?” Dan signaled and eased into the turn lane. And Jen figured it out a second before he said it: “We’re going to Hastings. I don’t guess you know many people there.”

They crossed the ravine, and Glen Hollow Road turned into 17th Street and curved straight into the blighted part of town that was hidden from Calumet by the thick band of trees that grew along the bluff. Erosion was slowly claiming the trees, but erosion was also to thank for keeping the bluff from being built on, so that Calumet could continue to ignore its neighbor to the east.

Dan drove past Tanya’s street—if Jen craned her neck she could probably see her sister’s building—and into Hastings’ struggling downtown. There was a pawnshop, a halal market, an Ethiopian restaurant. In the next block, a tire shop and a discount grocery. And, of course, the bank.

A car pulled out of a parking space right in front, and Dan gave the driver a thumbs-up before pulling in. Jen felt oddly detached, looking at the bank’s familiar logo on the sign above the doors. The bank branch was blocky and unattractive and small, a humble brick building that might have been an insurance office or a drugstore before, nothing like the beautiful restored granite building that housed the Calumet branch. This, it occurred to Jen, was where Tanya banked.

Before getting out of the car Dan turned in his seat to face Jen. “I never hurt anyone, never served any time. I got a plan and I mean to stick to it. But that don’t mean I won’t do what I need to. Don’t fuck with me in there. You draw attention to us, do something stupid like call for help—you’ll regret it. If Ryan sees anybody but me come through the door of your house today, it’s your family that’s going to pay.”

“I—I understand.”

He nodded and reached into the backseat where he’d tossed Jen’s purse. He handed it to her, but didn’t let go until he finished talking. “Don’t look for your phone because it’s not there. You got your ID, your ATM card. That’s all you need to get the money. Now let’s go inside and get this done.”

Dan peeled off his gloves and stuffed them into his pocket as they went into the bank. There were two customers talking to bankers in cramped cubicles, and a few more standing in line waiting for tellers. Most of the customers were elderly. None of them looked like they were dressed for work.

A man who couldn’t be more than twenty-five stepped toward them, smiling.

“May I help you?”

Jen felt the slight pressure of Dan’s hand on the small of her back. She forced a smile. “I need to make a withdrawal. A significant one, actually...I’d like to close out a money market account.”

“I see. All right. I’m happy to help. Why don’t we sit...over here, please.”

He led them to the only empty cubicle, and Jen and Dan took seats in the two chairs across the desk from him.

“If I could have your debit card, I’ll be able to access all your accounts....”

Jen took it out of her wallet and slid it across the desk. She watched the man carefully as his fingers tapped at the keyboard. The little nameplate on his desk read Terrence Jurgenssen, which seemed like a lot of name for his bland features.

“And which of your accounts are you interested in withdrawing funds from, Mrs. Glass?”

“The money market account ending in 4611.”

“And you want to take the funds in...?”

“A cashier’s check, please.”

“All right.” He reached for a slip of paper and began to write. “Now with a cash withdrawal of over five thousand dollars, I will need to ask my supervisor to join us.”

Jen watched him write. He worked slowly, his movements laborious and careful. Terrence Jurgenssen’s handwriting was precise, and Jen had no trouble reading the figure he wrote, even upside down.

Ten thousand eighty-two dollars and sixteen cents.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait. What is my balance, please?”

“Ten thousand eighty-two dollars and sixteen cents.”

When Jen didn’t respond, immobilized by shock, Terrence spun his monitor around so she and Dan could see the screen. There—there was the list of accounts: Livvy’s, with eight hundred some dollars at the top, and then the household account and their personal accounts—and then the personal line of credit that had been at zero since the day she opened it all those years ago, a prudent precaution she’d never had to use and never meant to.