The Good Neighbor (15 page)

“I have to get out of here,” she said.

“Where will you go?”

She looked up at the cottage, longing in her eyes. “We’re getting a place.”

“Who? You and Adrian?” This couldn’t be happening. She wouldn’t go with him.

She nodded toward the car. Adrian was talking on his cell phone, gesticulating. She looked at me again. “I was waiting for my birthday.”

“Do your parents know?”

Adrian slammed the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. Jessie flinched perceptibly. “I left them a note,” she said, looking at me with defiance.

“Think about what you’re doing.”

“I don’t need to think. My parents don’t get it. They think he’s the pyro, too. They’re wrong.”

Was
he the pyro? I wondered. “Did you return the things you took?”

“I’m going to, I promise.”

Adrian got out of the car and approached us with an overconfident swagger. The air seemed to grow thin around Jessie and me, as if he sucked it all away.

“Don’t go with him,” I blurted to Jess. I grabbed her sleeve. She did not pull away, but she stood steadfast.

“Jess, c’mon,” Adrian said, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. He came close, too close. He wore pressed khaki slacks and a wool jacket, his black shoes shiny, his hair slicked back. He towered over both of us, exuding overbearing smells of mouthwash and metallic aftershave. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Why don’t you go to your interview and leave Jessie with me?” I said.

His dark eyes appeared oddly vacant. “Jess, come on.”

The Minkowskis’ house was closed and dark, both cars missing from the driveway. “Call your parents,” I told Jess. “Right now. They love you. Call them.”

She shook her head, looked at the ground. “I’m not going back there.”

“Come with me, Jess,” Adrian said.

“She’s not going with you,” I said. In the distance, Eris’s front door squeaked open, then slammed. She clattered down the porch steps in parka and boots and strode toward us through the woods.

Adrian gazed at me as if I were merely a speed bump. “You’re the writer,” he said.

“I do write,” I said. My heartbeat knocked around inside me.

“Stories for kids, right?” He snorted.

“They’re awesome mysteries,” Jessie piped up.

“But they’re about a rat or something,” he said. “Should I call the exterminator?”

“Mouse, actually,” I said.

“Oh, a mouse. All that . . . writing about rodents. Is it why your old man left you? All the rats in your brain?” His gaze raked me up and down.

Jessie stiffened. “Adrian, come on. You don’t have to insult her.”

“Jess,” I said. “Why don’t you come inside? Let Adrian leave.”

He took a hand out of his pocket and pointed his forefinger at me. “See, Jess? What did I tell you? Everyone’s going to try to stop us.”

Eris was halfway here, moving at a fast clip.

“Sarah, I can’t stay.” Jessie looked everywhere but at me.

“Let’s go,” Adrian said. He lunged, grabbed Jessie’s arm. “We’re leaving now.” He dragged her toward his car.

“Stop,” I said. “Stop it. Let go of her.”

“Fuck off,” he said. “Leave us alone.”

Eris approached us, waving her cell phone in the air. “Hey!” she shouted. “Hold it right there!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jessie crumpled on the porch in sobs. Eris and I tried to console her, but she had collapsed inside herself, bereft. She kept saying, “I love him I love him I love him
,
” but I did not know to whom she was referring, Adrian or Chad—or maybe both.

Eris drove her home, and I returned to the cottage, shaky and disconcerted, Johnny’s florist receipt in my pocket. I had a feeling this interlude might not be the end of Jessie’s drama.

In the cottage, I could not be still. Now that Adrian knew where I was staying, alone, I no longer felt safe. But why? He had not specifically threatened me or anyone else. But still, I imagined his expressionless eyes watching me.

When Eris’s car returned, she bypassed her driveway and came to the cottage. Ice pellets had begun to plummet from the sky, covering the ground in tiny, glittering shards.

“I did what I could,” she said in the foyer. She looked perfectly put together, despite the weather.

“Is she all right?”

“Who knows? I tried to talk some sense into her, but there’s only so much I can do. Or anyone. I was her age once. Way wilder than she is.”

“She’s home again?”

“For now,” Eris said. She took off her gloves and placed them on the counter. “I’ll make us some tea?”

A few minutes later, we sat at the breakfast nook with two mugs of tea. “Do you want to talk about it?” she said.

“She told you,” I said.

“Divorce?”

“Separated for now.” Outside, the ice pellets dissolved into rain.

“Was he? I mean, did he . . . ?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a near whisper.

“Here I am alone again, drinking tea.”

“You’re learning what you’re made of. Haven’t you heard the saying a woman is like a tea bag, you never know what she’s made of until you dip her in hot water?”

“Ha ha.” I laughed, holding the cup between my hands, letting the heat seep into my skin.

She reached out and rested her warm hand on my wrist. “What an asshole.”

“We’ve been under stress. The fire burned away more than our house. It burned everything I believe in. Sorry if I sound melodramatic, but I feel dramatic. And homeless. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the cottage. It’s just that—”

“I know what you mean.” She looked out the window toward the Minkowskis’ house. “I understand what it’s like to feel homeless. I grew up in foster homes.”

“I didn’t realize—”

“I didn’t have a home until I made one for myself. I learned to take the reins. Nobody else would.”

“You’ve done well,” I said.

“I overcame my obstacles. I always do.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then extended her fingers outward. “I set my sights on a goal, and I get it. Patience and persistence pay off.”

“Good attitude. I admire you.”

She sat back and looked down at her hands, then at me. “What do you want now that Johnny is gone?”

“Not gone for good,” I said.

“The man cheated on you, and you’re going to take him back?”

“No, but I mean . . . he said he didn’t cheat after we were married.” I sounded ridiculously lame, with the evidence in my pocket.

“I understand,” Eris said. She got up, looked at her watch, then at me. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.”

In an instant, I saw Johnny laying me on the bed, kissing my lips, my neck, lower . . . “I’m not sure,” I said. “We’ve already made memories here.”

She looked thoughtful. “I need to show you something. Wait here.” She went back to her car and returned with her briefcase, from which she removed pictures of a perfect writer’s retreat—a two-story cottage, ideal for one person. “It’s been on the market for a while. It’s a little overpriced and remote. But I could negotiate with the seller. I’m good at persuasion.”

The photographs depicted a bungalow built of ecologically sustainable materials. Big bay windows overlooking the ocean. A tower room with windows in all four walls. The atmosphere in the pictures, the storybook quality of the retreat, touched a deep part of my soul. “This is stunning. But—”

“You can use the tower as a writer’s studio.” She pointed at a particularly magical picture of the sunset reflecting off the windows of the tower.

I felt a small spark of excitement. “But it’s two hours away from here.”

“True,” she said. “You would be living in a whole new town, different surroundings. I could set up an appointment for tomorrow.”

I looked around at the shadows and empty spaces.
Nothing is keeping me here.
“Yes,” I said finally. “I would love to see the retreat.”

My first night in the cottage alone, I dreamed of our wedding. I stood at the altar, waiting for Johnny. When I turned around, Monique blocked my way. Monique in her clinging green dress, holding her champagne glass.
Jules va bien? Quelle dommage.
I wore a white wedding gown in the dream, although in reality, I’d worn a cream-colored dress with silver lace. Johnny and I had asked our guests to donate to charity instead of bringing gifts. We’d rented the Sitka Retreat Center, on a hilltop overlooking the ocean. Nothing had gone as planned. The cake had fallen over, and the young justice of the peace, who was new to weddings, had forgotten his lines. Johnny had dropped the ring.

In the dream, I tried to push Monique out of the way. I woke up alone, to the sound of dripping rain, and everything that had happened, and what I had found, pressed in on me.

Later that morning, I rode north with Eris in her SUV, to the writer’s retreat. We chatted the whole way, about real estate, the weather, ex-husbands. Eris had grown up in foster homes in California, and when she’d been emancipated, she had moved as far north as she could go before hitting Alaska.

When we finally reached the fairy-tale-like bungalow perched on a forested hillside overlooking the ocean, I thought I had found the house of my dreams, the one in which I had walked barefoot during my deepest reveries, before I’d met Johnny. Before I had fallen in love with him, I had imagined such a haven removed from civilization, awash in sunlight, replete with vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, plush window seats, built-in bookshelves. Small enough for just me.

“Furnished,” I said, walking into the living room. “Rustic couch, wow—is the house staged, or is this . . . ?”

“All the furniture is available to you,” Eris said, grinning. “Top-of-the-line gourmet breakfast nook, newly remodeled. New appliances. Did you see the granite island? Amazing the architect fit it into the layout, considering the house is so small.”

I pictured Mia playing in the living room in her princess nightgown, running into the kitchen for breakfast, her hair still messy from sleep. Light danced across cobalt-blue countertops, reflecting off inlaid, reclaimed glass. Blue was Mia’s favorite color.

“Lovely,” I said, but I hesitated, my mind pulled back to Shadow Cove. To Johnny.

“Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, another surprise in a small house. You’ll never be waiting for the toilet if you have a guest.”

“How did you know?” I inhaled the faint scent of new wood.

“You were talking about your dream house at dinner, remember?” Eris said, her left eyebrow rising.

“I was?”

“It was a quick comment, but I specialize in extrapolating from quick comments.” Eris laughed. “We all want the same things, don’t you think? A place to call home?”