Cutting Teeth(59)
Online. Griff met a woman online. Darby is trying to process. She reads the woman’s name tag. Sarah. Sarah with an h. Sarah and Griff met online.
“And then later we connected at Hideout,” Sarah continues. “When we got serious, though, I had to move on, it just wasn’t a good fit for me. No hard feelings.” She hands Darby back her credit card.
“Right.” She presses her lips together. “UCB.” What on earth is UCB? She’s sure she’s never heard of it. And Hideout? Is that a bar? She could ask, but then, she’s Griff’s wife and she doesn’t want to show anyone, especially not some floozy with great auburn hair and a figure that won’t quit, that she doesn’t know what her husband is doing with his free time, not even a little bit. Not one clue. (Also, she should note that she does regret that first bit. Sarah is probably not a floozy.)
“Well, you’re all set.” Sarah smiles. “Plan to arrive fifteen minutes early each time and bring plenty of water.” She lifts her motivational water bottle. “Look forward to seeing you around the gym.”
Darby thanks her. Thanks for the information. Thanks so much for cracking open my happy marriage, Sarah.
For the first time in as long as she can remember, Darby doesn’t turn on Spotify or a podcast or the radio on the way home. She drives in deafening silence while the thoughts racing through her head roar loud, louder, and louder still.
How has she been so stupid? Of course she’s known that something’s been going on with Griff lately. Or has she? On some subliminal level. At least. She can’t actually decide. It’s like she’s looking back on the last several weeks with a different-colored lens and it’s definitely not rosy. The late nights at work. The primping. Wearing black sweaters back to the “office.” Definitely shady behavior, but she thought his weirdness, his coolness toward her, must have something to do with Lola and how they couldn’t agree on how to parent her. She thought somehow her husband discussed their daughter with Miss Ollie behind her back, against her wishes. Now she doesn’t know what to think.
Liar. The word is sharp in her mind. Liar, liar, liar, you are such a big, fat liar.
When she enters her front door, she’s prepared to confront the issue—to confront Griff—head-on, come what may. She will demand answers. Right now.
“Griff!” She barrels through the door. “Gri-iff!”
Her eyes pass right over the couch and then—and then back again.
“Darby.” There, in lieu of her husband, is calm, serene, at peace Rhea. Except not her usual Rhea. This Rhea looks like garbage.
“The kids,” Darby whispers. Fear wraps around her body and she simultaneously feels frozen inside it and as though she could leap out of her skin to get away. “What’s happened to them?”
“Everyone’s okay,” Rhea says softly.
“Jesus, Rhea.” Darby sniffles. “You scared me.”
“The police have brought Lola in for questioning.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Rhea could have sworn she heard Darby hiss the word liar as she unlocked the door. Really. That’s what it sounded like. But then again, maybe Rhea’s ears are simply primed to hear it. Liar. Playing it back in her head, she can’t be sure anymore. Like one of those viral memes where different people hear different words: Yanny-Laurel or something equally ridiculous.
She feels like a home invader. It’s obvious Darby had no idea Rhea would be waiting inside and here she is, shoved into Darby’s space. Rhea would hate that if it were the other way around. She doesn’t believe in friends dropping in uninvited. It’s aggressive.
Why didn’t Darby check her phone, though? Darby is glued to her phone. Edward Phonehands, she’s been known to call herself. She has a very self-deprecating sense of humor that Rhea doesn’t share.
There was a certain stage in their shared lives when Rhea and Darby used to text regularly in the middle of the night during the time Bodhi and Lola were both boycotting sleep on principle. Back then, Darby’s phone obsession was something of a welcomed feature of their relationship. Rhea would get a small jolt of energy and joy when a text came through at 2:00 A.M. and she was already up. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, Darby would text. My mother was right. They played a game called “You wanna know what?” sending weird facts back and forth, each trying to outdo the other, each trying to keep the other awake. Looking at her friend, she realizes she doesn’t know when the last one of those texts was sent. Just that one of them was the last and that was it, they were gone forever, the game ended, without anything to mark the occasion, just as, one day, it will be the last time Bodhi sits on her lap or calls her Mommy or asks her to sleep next to him. It all will come crashing down eventually.
“Where’s Jack?” Darby asks after the immediacies have been pushed out of the way.
“He’s in his room playing Star Wars toys with Bodhi,” she says. “I heard your car pull up and figured I better catch you alone.”
Darby’s house is eerily quiet with the boys tucked away. There are spiderweb scratches on the hardwood from where somebody’s moved furniture around. A damp hooded towel has been dropped beside the rug. Obviously, the Mortons weren’t expecting company today.
“So you think Lola and, uh, Griff, you think they’re still at—at what? At the police station? Is that where they take children? Or is there some other place more suitable for kids maybe, with blocks and stuffed toys and crayons? That seems like a long time, doesn’t it?” She seems overheated. The splotches on her neck and cheeks look rash-like, as though she’s having an allergic reaction to the news.