Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller. Alexandra Burt

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СКАЧАТЬ That’s more like him. Just get on with it.

      ‘Life, get on with life. Take the baby out, meet other moms in parks, I don’t know, whatever moms do.’

      I was tired of him selling me his logic like a snake oil salesman offering a cure for ulcers. It was laughable. Mingle with other moms and a pill a day will take my sorrows away.

      ‘It’s not complicated if you really think about it.’ He put his arm around me, pulling me towards him. ‘You overanalyze everything, that’s what your problem is. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about changing a diaper, warming up a bottle.’

      His embrace felt staged. I looked out the car window, focusing on a tree almost as tall as the building behind it. I wondered if the roots of a tree were really as deep as a tree was high. It seemed impossible almost, a secret part of the city, invisible to its inhabitants. Once you knew it was there, it seemed terrifying.

      The pills gave me strange dreams. I hardly slept at all and I was so tired I couldn’t care less about anything else but pretending to be okay. When I told Jack I wanted to stop the medication, he frowned.

      ‘But they make my hair fall out,’ I complained.

      He glanced at my hairline. Are you sure? his eyes seemed to say as if I was attempting to fit a round shape in a square hole.

      ‘Those are not side effects according to this,’ Jack said and flipped over the medication flier. ‘Dry mouth, skin rash, nausea, vomiting, and shallow breathing. Hair loss is not one of them. Maybe you should take some vitamins.’

      ‘What about numb hands and feet?’

      ‘Go to a gym, one that has childcare. Maybe you’re not moving enough.’

      What about the fact that I’m just pretending to be okay? I wanted to ask. What about being a con? Is that a side effect?

      Other than that I just cared less. Cared less about not caring, my body in the grasp of nausea and dizziness from the pills. Mia and I muddled through. There were days I felt better followed by days that were worse. Everything seemed lulled and life had lost its edge. Mia grew and gained weight, yet the crying never stopped.

      Jack seemed to be in a better mood and I continued the medication. About a month or so later, Jack came home early from work. He was cheery and handed me a box of Chinese takeout.

      ‘Your favorite,’ he said.

      ‘I think you’ve been doing a lot better,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think so,’ he asked, but didn’t wait for my response. He spoke of money and our credit, and that the high mortgage payments of the brownstone weren’t going away anytime soon. And no one really knew how long it’d take to find a buyer with the market the way it was. He couldn’t be in that amount of debt and have a possible foreclosure hanging over his head and expect to get a DA job. But that he’d come up with a plan.

      ‘A plan,’ I said, ‘what kind of plan?’

      ‘We’ve run out of options. I had to make a decision.’ His words flew by, hardly reached me. ‘Here’s the deal,’ he said, ‘the economy is in a shambles, huge salaries for associates at big law firms are no longer, but there’s money to be made in foreign exchange deals, equity and debt. There’s a company in Chicago.’

      ‘We’re moving?’ I asked.

      ‘Kind of. The brownstone is part of my plan. Renters won’t put up with the noise of the construction. With the money I make in Chicago we can pay the mortgage, finish the renovations and in a year at the most we’ll be able to either sell it or rent it out.’

      There was so much energy in his voice. Plans were his thing. The coordinated and organized formation of solutions. I had also been part of the plan once, before I changed. Now it was all about getting out of debt and everything else would just fall into place. I had my pills and I was getting on with it. He looked at me with his eyes blazing as if he’d just solved all our problems. He was smart, I knew that, I loved that about him, but he was also shrewd. Driven. He was hardwired to get what he wanted, and whatever Jack wanted, Jack was going to get.

      ‘I’ve accepted a job with Walter Ashcroft, a legal staffing firm in Chicago,’ he said. ‘I’ll be moving to Chicago. And I’ve arranged for you to stay in the brownstone in Brooklyn.’

      Jack wasn’t a bad man. I was neither seeing him with rose-colored glasses nor was I overly critical. We used to be gentle with each other. We both had good intentions. We had hope, no, more than hope, faith even. Tender moments when unpacking groceries, putting up the Christmas tree, spending a Sunday afternoon on a blanket in the park. And now he was moving me into a brownstone in Brooklyn, one that was, according to him, under renovation but quite habitable. I needed him to be there but I didn’t know how to ask for that.

      Two months later I was in my car on the way to North Dandry while Jack was at the airport waiting for his flight to Chicago.

      ‘I can’t say I like it but I don’t see any other way right now,’ he said when I called him from the car on my way to the brownstone. ‘The project manager is living in the upper apartment while he’s supervising the construction on the other two units. His name is Lieberman. If you need anything and I’m not available, call him. You won’t have to lift a finger. The movers will unload and unpack. It’ll be the easiest move you’ve ever made.’

      ‘I don’t need anyone to check up on me, Jack.’

      ‘I’m just saying if you need anything, call him. I’ll be gone for three weeks, four tops, after that I’ll come home for a weekend. I told you that last week, remember?’

      Was he trying to tell me that I was senile?

      ‘I’ll fly home as often as possible, I promise, depending on the workload.’

      I heard muffled voices and the sound of him switching his cell from one ear to the other, then a metal detector alerting and a voice telling someone to step aside. I imagined Jack, his arms raised, the handheld metal detector following the contours of his body.

      ‘I’m at the gate. Take your meds, okay?’

      ‘Sure.’ I knew Jack had been counting the pills and only stopped after I had phoned in the refills. The truth was I could no longer remember how it felt to be normal and I wanted to believe that I would get better, eventually. It could take weeks or months, the doctor had told me, and I didn’t see any alternative. And so I appeased everybody and told myself any day now it would all be better.

      I swerved to the right and hit the curb. It took me only a few seconds and the car was back under control.

      ‘Bye, I’ll call you, okay?’

      I didn’t answer, hung up the phone and threw it on the passenger seat. I had always been a careful and defensive driver, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I was acting like a lunatic. If I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a foil beanie on my head, I wouldn’t be surprised.

      I spotted the North Dandry sign and pulled up to the curb. I killed the engine and looked at the brownstone. In the back Mia’s contorted body was hanging over the side of the seat, her head turned at an odd angle. She had fallen asleep. And I had failed to buckle her seatbelt.

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