Underwater (28 page)

She wrote that she would no longer allow him to abuse her—not verbally, and not physically. She would not continue to play the victim or walk on eggshells around him, afraid to piss him off. He would have to accept the new, stronger her, and he would have to change.

Her pen flew across the page, strength and resolve flowing through it to the paper. She listed the conditions she would demand that her husband meet. First, he had to end it with Rachel immediately—Helen would have to see her in person and talk to her, to prove that he had. Monty was lucky that Helen hadn’t decided to divorce him because of his infidelity; most women would. She had decided to give him another chance to be faithful, so that Adele could know her father.

Second, Rachel had to move out of the condo. Helen had to have proof of this, too. Then the condo had to be listed for sale. Just like for the house on Arcadia, Monty would have to let Candace decide the listing price. He would have to trust his sister to sell both properties for as much as the market would bear, even if it was much less that what he thought it would. When the condo sold, the funds would go to pay off the HELOC. When the house on Arcadia sold, the money would be applied to the rest of the debt.

Then, if Candace had to write anything off, Monty and Helen would sign a note to pay her back over time. They couldn’t expect her to pay for their bad decisions by forgiving their debt. They would have to take responsibility.

Helen would have to meet Mack and Jeremy, Monty’s so-called employers. She would have to know exactly what he was doing for them and how much he was being paid. If there were no such people—if Monty had been lying about it, which she suspected—then he would have to hit the pavement to look for a job. He would have to find work. He would report everything he did to her. There would be no secret cell phones, email addresses, or anything else.

Monty would have to cooperate in downsizing their lifestyle in the coming weeks and months. Helen would start looking for a new job as soon as she could, but in the meantime they would communicate about everything, especially money. They might have to sell their cars and buy cheaper ones. Anything nonessential would be dropped from their budget: entertainment, restaurants, cable TV, and coffee at Starbucks. They would rent this house until they had a big nest egg, and they wouldn’t rush to buy anything. And they would never again take money from Candace, ask her to make them a loan, or ask her to cosign a loan for them.

After the tragedy that had just happened, Monty would have to earn back Helen’s trust as a husband and a father. He would have to put her and Adele first. He would have to be loving, respectful, and protective towards them instead of mean and self-absorbed. If he wanted a relationship with his daughter, he had to stop ignoring her and start showing interest and involvement in her life. He had to begin helping Helen with her every day, whether they were to have any children in the future or not.

If he decided not to meet her conditions—if he decided to abandon her and Adele, the way Helen’s father had abandoned his wife and kids—then she’d have no choice but to let it happen. She’d build a new life for herself and her daughter, and she wouldn’t look back. She might keep the option open for him to know his daughter, but she wouldn’t insist that he do. She wouldn’t hide from Adele the truth of who he was.

Helen put the notebook on the stool and leaned back, closing her eyes, her pen still in her right hand. The hot water was so soothing, and her muscles were relaxed. She took a deep breath and felt at peace, almost in a slumber.

Then her eyes opened wide. Two hands were gripping her neck and strangling her, pushing her down. Monty’s hands. He forced her head under the surface as water splashed on the floor and wall. She panicked, thrashing and kicking in the slippery tub and banging her elbows against the sides, her core muscles tender and weak. He pushed her farther down as she squirmed and flailed wildly.

Her head was completely underwater. The recurring dream she’d had since childhood flashed in her mind. She had to push him away from her and break his hold on her neck. His hands tightened.

She couldn’t breathe.

She pushed against the end of the tub with both feet, trying to force her head above the surface. Her feet slipped up and out and he forced her head and shoulders farther down. She pushed her arms and elbows against the sides of the tub, finally getting traction. As she pushed and squirmed, she felt his grip slip from her neck. She rose out of the water, clenched her right hand around her pen, swung it backwards, and felt it stop.

Then all at once, his hands fell away and she heard him scream. She felt the pen jerk out of her wet grip and she grabbed the side of the tub. She turned and sloshed, looking around frantically for her weapon. She got up and jumped out of the water, almost falling to the floor but righting herself, arms flailing in the air.

Full of terror, she stood naked on the checkered tile and faced him. Her pen stuck out of his eyeball. Blood spurted everywhere as she stared at him in horror. He staggered toward her, still screaming, his face red and his other eye wild and fixed on her. In that pulsating eye, she saw his madness. She backed away unsteadily toward the closed door.

He came at her, arms outstretched. Her back and head hit the door. She was trapped.

“My eye!” he screamed. “Oh my fucking God! You ugly fucking bitch!
I’m going to kill you!
”

Out of her peripheral vision she saw the toilet tank lid—it was sitting awry, as usual. She turned and grabbed it with both hands. Adrenaline soaring, she swung it hard as he lunged at her.

Blood oozed from his skull as he fell to the floor, writhing in pain. She staggered back, gasping and shaking. He lay on his side, his legs pulled in a fetal position. The lid was in shattered pieces on the floor, surrounded by a mixture of blood and fluid. She jumped over him, ran into the bedroom, grabbed her phone, and dialed 911.

“My husband attacked me and I hit him! He needs an ambulance!”

The paramedics arrived in four minutes, but it was too late.

Monty was dead.

22

Beginning

O
ver eight months later, Helen stood at the door to her apartment and turned her key in the lock. After work, she had picked Adele up and driven her over to Dawn and Frank’s house to spend the night. Helen was looking forward to her date this evening with John Caldwell, Frank’s second cousin and the man she had been seeing since March. John would be here to pick her up at seven for dinner at Gabriella’s, a posh new restaurant.

Helen had met him back in February, only a month after she and Adele moved in to this apartment and three weeks after her first day at Scopa Diboli, a Chicago graphic designer firm. John was a CPA with a major accounting firm; his wife of seven years had died of a brain aneurysm back in 2008.

Helen dropped her keys in her purse and set it on the kitchen counter. She pulled a glass from the cabinet and poured herself some water. Today was Friday, July 1, the start of the holiday weekend, and it had been a hot day, with temperatures rising to the upper eighties. A year-old memory flashed in her mind: Monty’s joke about the two seasons of Chicago, “winter, and the fourth of July.” She shuddered.

How different her life was now from what it had been last summer, and last fall.

That awful night in October, a night that she still couldn’t forget, the paramedics had arrived to find her in shock. She had thrown on a robe and was pressing a towel against her dead husband’s skull, blood flowing from it and tears streaming down her face. Her hair was wet and her throat was covered with purple bruises. Her pen was lodged in Monty’s eye, and his finger marks bulged on her neck.

The police had arrived and had forced Helen to recount the chronology of events over and over. Her story of Monty’s attack on her was more than plausible, as were her claims of his past abusive and violent behavior. Dr. Russell told police that Helen had experienced trauma to the uterus and echoed Dawn’s suspicions that her ruptured membranes were caused by a domestic assault. Records showed that after Helen’s first night in the hospital, Monty had been absent for much of her stay, including the delivery of her twins.

For Helen, the next few weeks had been hell—but a different kind of hell than what she had already experienced.

While the police were still gathering evidence, she recovered from childbirth and buried her twin babies. With Dawn’s help, she organized a private memorial service at the same cemetery where the boys’ paternal grandparents had been laid to rest—and where their father would also be interred.

Helen drained the water from her glass and set it in the sink. Grabbing her purse, she walked into her bedroom and pulled out her phone to check for messages—there were none. She put it on her dresser and opened the top drawer to search for her newest pair of SlimZ.

She planned to wear a clingy short black dress tonight and to take a thin cardigan along in her bag. Not to cover her shoulder, though—she was over that. The sweater would be needed just in case it got cool outside later tonight, as it often did here. Her dress had spaghetti straps and it flattered her figure, one that didn’t look like she’d ever had a baby. She might not even wear the SlimZ underneath—she wasn’t sure she needed to.

When she met John back in February, she’d been ten pounds heavier, but had lost almost all of her pregnancy weight. They’d gone out for coffee at first, then lunch, then to a concert. He hadn’t wanted to rush things, and neither had she. He had adored Adele from the moment he met her. When he and Helen became physically intimate, which was a recent event, he didn’t react when he saw her scar. He accepted it as part of who she was, something unique and uncommon, not imperfect.

She leaned toward the mirror over her dresser and examined it. Funny how the scar had once troubled her so much, had even defined her self-image. Now it didn’t. It still branded her, but as no more of a mark than if she’d had red hair or freckles. She was happy to be who she was—
all
of who she was.

When the authorities delved deep into her private life after Monty’s death, they had questioned her about it. Perhaps they had wondered if Monty had caused it, or if she would say he had. Of course, she’d told the truth: that it was the result of a childhood accident. The only physical marks that Monty had left on her were much more recent.

Everything became more intense a few days later, when the police recovered Monty’s iPhone. The cleaners found it, and after a call to Rachel Benton, identified its owner and turned it in to law enforcement. The information it provided to police pointed to a possible motive for murder: Monty was cheating on his wife and was hiding funds.

The nightmare that had followed felt unreal. At the time, Helen was afraid it would never end. But she had lived through it and had survived. She studied her face in the mirror, then stood up straight and stretched her arms back behind her. She’d had a long day and a long week at the office working on multiple projects. Her upper back and shoulders were a little achy from spending hours at the computer. It was just after six p.m. and she was looking forward to that first glass of wine.

Thank God others had confirmed her account of her life with Monty and had accurately described how malicious and depraved he was. Dawn, Candace, Rob, and David had all come forward to the police with details of Monty’s behavior and had provided emails he had written. The tangle of lies he had told his wife and his sister about the house on Arcadia Lane began to unravel. Rachel Benton didn’t defend her lover and wanted nothing to do with his family. By Thanksgiving, all the evidence indicated that Helen killed her husband purely in self-defense as he attempted to strangle her in the bathtub. To murder her.

She and Adele had driven up north that weekend and had never looked back. The little girl had missed her father at first, but as time passed, she had accepted his absence.

They had stayed with Dawn and Frank for the next six weeks until Helen found this apartment. During that time, Arcadia sold for slightly under a million one, and Monty’s condominium sold for over six hundred thousand. The Carawans’ debts to Candace and to the bank were paid in full, and Candace didn’t have to write off a loss. Helen had felt bad that she couldn’t repay the amounts Candace had gifted the family, but her sister-in-law assured her that gifts were gifts, no strings attached and no repayment necessary.

She heard her phone buzz, turned, and picked it up.

“John?”

“Hey. I know we said seven, but if you’re almost ready, I can come now. If that’s okay?”

“Well—”

“I just—I can’t wait to see you.” He sounded breathless.

Helen smiled. “Then come on. We can have a drink here first if you like.”

“I’m almost there. See you in a few.”

Candace Chandler entered her Manhattan apartment and began to rifle through the day’s mail lying on a table.

“Hello, love,” Rob called from the kitchen. “How was your day?”

“Delightful,” said Candace, not looking up. “My goodness. Did you see this invitation from Jess?”

Rob walked into the room and stopped next to his wife. “Yes, I believe so.”

Candace turned and looked up at him, her eyebrows raised. “An August wedding in Atlanta! It’s going to be so hot and humid then. What were they thinking?”

“Perhaps that it would be easier for relatives with school-age children to attend.”

“I suppose so. Though early June would have been much nicer. And I could have had a drink.”

Rob smiled. “It’s just for nine months. Or eight, now.”

Candace gave a weak smile. “I hope I can do this mothering thing. I certainly have my doubts.”

“You’ll not just do it, darling, you’ll excel at it. Have no fear.” He reached an arm around her and pulled her to him, kissing her. “We’ll be wonderful parents, I’m certain of it.”

After a second, Candace pushed back and placed her hands on his upper arms. “I hope you’re right, Rob. I mean, I know we made the right decision. And even though I’m glad our baby is on the way, I’m apprehensive.”

“That’s natural. I feel somewhat the same.”

“Do you?”

Rob reached around and pulled his wife closer. “Of course. But you’ll see. Life is a wonderful thing, and as you said, we’d both regret it if we had decided not to take the plunge.”

She gave him a tender look and slid her hands up on his shoulders. “You are so good for me.”

“And you, for me.”

She stroked his cheek, then stepped back and out of his arms. “But, practically speaking now. We have a lot of planning to do for the baby, and things are busy as ever right now. I’m so glad I found Lydia.”

“So she’s working out well?”

Candace cocked her head. “Very well. She’s everything Jess was, and then some.”

“Older, wiser, more mature?”

Candace laughed, turned, and slipped off her high heels. “Definitely more mature. Only three years older, but much savvier.”

Rob turned, picked up the pieces of mail, and placed them in a stack on the table. “How’s Jess doing in design?”

“Swimmingly,” said Candace, throwing him a look. “Paula says she’s eager to please.”

“Well, that’s a happy ending then. Or, beginning.”

“Yes,” said Candace. She stepped toward the kitchen. “She’ll learn a lot working under Lucy on the new maternity SwimZ line.”

“Good. If it’s half as successful as the rest—”

“It will be, at least. I’m convinced of it.”

Rob looked over at her. “Your confidence has always been alluring. Even sexy, I dare say.”

“Well,” Candace said while turning around, her eyes dancing. “SwimZ made a huge splash in the stores last winter and spring, just in time for the season. Despite all the issues of the fall.”

“And your stock price has been soaring ever since. You absolutely murdered your competition. Sorry. Bad choice of words. Forgive me.”

“Pshaw, Rob. I mean, let’s don’t deny it—Monty
did
try to kill Helen. He was guilty of attempted murder. But I never thought she was responsible for his death. If anyone was, it was me. I should have gotten her to get a restraining order or something.”

“I doubt you could have done that. Until that night, he hadn’t committed a crime.”

“Yes, well, he was dangerous, and I knew it. Perhaps—”

“My love,” said Rob as he walked toward her. “It’s tragic that he’s gone, but you’re not to blame. Neither you nor Helen was responsible for what happened to him. He was. I’m just glad that Helen protected herself that night, and that she and Adele are doing well now.”

“Yes. The thing is, there’s a part of me that’s—well, that’s relieved he’s gone. That’s so terrible to say, or even to think.”

“No, it’s not. You’re allowed to feel that way. Look at what he put you through. What he put his wife and child through.”

“I know. I can’t help but wonder, though, if it could all have been prevented, if I had just given him what he wanted. Which I could have done.”

“I don’t think it would have, not in the end, anyway. It might only have prolonged Helen’s agony, and yours, too.”

“But—”

“If you’d given him the house on Arcadia Lane, even—let’s say, back in the beginning. If you’d just outright gifted it to him, do you think he would have stopped there?”

“Well—no. I don’t.”

“Right. And if you’d done exactly what you did in the beginning, but
then
done what he demanded of you last year—paid off the bank, given him the house and ten million—”

“Rob, I know where you’re going. No, he never would have stopped coming to me for money. The more success I had financially, the more demanding he would have become. He would have never left me alone.”

“Exactly. And during all that time, his wife would have had to deal with him. He’d probably still be lying to her, and of course he would have continued having affairs. And he would have been dangerous, or at least abusive—that, we know.”

Candace leaned back against a counter. “Though it feels like we’re rationalizing, I think you’re right. In any case, what happened, happened. I can’t change any of it now. Though Helen and I will never be close, we’re more connected through all of this—through tragedy and heartache. That little girl is my niece, Rob. I love her, and I want her to know our child. We need to stay in touch and be supportive, especially after the dark times we’ve survived.”

Rob approached his wife. “Of course, darling. We will. Now, what about your plans for the rest of the maternity lines? Are you doing several?”

“Not that many. We’re just putting our toes in the water, not jumping in the pool.”

“Speaking of water, how about a drink before we go out to dinner? Hard for me, soft for you? Then we’ll continue this conversation.”

“I do need to stay hydrated. Let me take a quick shower, and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Rob gave her a look. “Hmm. Perhaps we should forget the drinks and conversation, and
I’ll
join
you
, right now.”

Candace smiled.
“Bonne idée, mon amour.”