“You won’t lose me,” I promise her. “I’ll be right ahead of you the whole time.”
I lean in toward Lily. She wraps her arms around my neck and I kiss her like it might be the last time I kiss her in my whole life.
“You ready?” I ask, pulling back. She nods. “Switch places with me,” I say, so that she can drive my car and I’ll drive Jake’s. She does. By now, Jake’s is the only car here. I slip my hands into a pair of gloves and go to it, letting myself in. I pull out onto the street. Lily follows, her headlights in my rearview mirror. I drive to a budget hotel in Bridgeview not too far from the airport. I drive slowly. I don’t go over the speed limit. I never once pass through a yellow light. I use my turn signals unfailingly. But still, I’m fucking scared.
I watch Lily’s headlights in the rearview mirror the whole way, to be sure we stay together.
I thought long and hard about where to leave the car after moving it. All I could come up with is somewhere without cameras, which meant that things like the parking lots of big box stores were out of the question.
I decided on a budget hotel in Bridgeview, the reason being that recent reviews alluded to car damage and things getting stolen from the parking lot, and the general lack of security and safety measures. I thought that we would be safe going there. I hope I’m not wrong.
I drive there now. I take side streets so we don’t have to risk passing through a toll booth, where there are also cameras. I’ve never been in a situation like this before but, now that I am, the cameras are endless. They’re everywhere. I’ve read op-eds from private citizens raising privacy concerns about all the surveillance cameras in the Chicagoland area. I thought these people were idiots for feeling the way they did. Why worry if you’re not doing anything wrong? But now that I am in this situation, it feels very Orwellian, like Big Brother is always watching, and maybe he is.
I get there, relieved when I see it start to take shape in the distance. I park behind the hotel, in the shadow of the building so that a person can’t see Jake’s car from the street.
I get back in my car with Lily. I get into the passenger’s seat this time, letting Lily drive me home. I’ll have to find a way to get the key fob back into the Hayes’s house before Nina notices it’s missing. I don’t know how.
And then, maybe, when that is all said and done, Lily and I can put this behind us and move on.
We can forget Jake Hayes ever existed.
NINA
In the afternoon, after I get home from Lily and Christian’s house, I post something to the neighborhood Facebook page. I’m not someone who likes to post often, if ever, but I do enjoy lurking and seeing what other people are complaining and arguing about. It’s mostly petty stuff, people in violation of HOA rules and the like. But the page is helpful too, like when people need referrals or general advice or help, like finding a missing dog.
I think for a long time about what to say. Eventually I write:
FedEx says I received a package today. It wasn’t on my porch when I arrived home. Wondering if it was delivered to someone else by mistake? If not, would anyone have video of the truck making deliveries this morning so I can see if it did indeed deliver the package to my house? Hoping it hasn’t been stolen. Online tracking says it was delivered just after ten this morning. TIA.
I feel confident someone will rise to the bait and check and share the notifications from their video doorbells. Many of my neighbors have them, and they’re all too happy to become vigilantes when it comes to minor infractions like speeding and lost packages.
I’m hoping that someone got a video of Jake. I want to see him, on camera if not in person. I miss Jake, maybe not the Jake he is now, but the one he used to be. I’m feeling nostalgic all of a sudden. I find myself going through old photos of Jake and me from the early days of our marriage and from when we were dating. They bring tears to my eyes. Jake used to be such a different man. I loved that man. I loved the relationship we had, before things started to deteriorate, to atrophy, to wilt and waste away like dying flowers in a vase. I want the man I married back, the one who whisked me away to Ibiza, who eloped with me, who I spent days alone with in an oceanfront villa as if we were the last two people on the planet. I hardly remember that man. Jake has changed so much over the years. I blame it on his work because he’s so serious, so hardened all of the time, and I think it’s because of what he does, how he spends his days trying to bring the dead back to life. It must do something to a person, to know that whether his patients live or die is up to him. There is an unbelievable amount of stress that comes with it, but also power. What must it feel like to pull someone from the brink of death?
As the days go by, I feel more sorry than ever that I argued with him and that I said what I did about him leaving. I put the idea in his head. And then, when he said something about how I’d like it if he left, I didn’t object. I watched in silence as he took his pillow and walked from the room, feeling like I’d won at something, when our marriage was not a game to be won or lost.
It’s only been five days since I’ve seen him, but it feels like years.
After I post the message to Facebook, I decide to go for a walk in the neighborhood. It isn’t the best weather for a walk, but I need to get out of the house and I need fresh air. I need to breathe. I can’t just sit around staring at Facebook, waiting for someone to reply.
The street is quiet because of the weather. It’s windy. It rained earlier and there is the threat of more rain in the forecast. The clouds move quickly in, growing thick, turning the sky the color of pewter. I’ll have to take a short walk so that the skies don’t open up on me and I get drenched.
I sink my hands into my coat pockets and drape the hood over my head. I walk down the long brick walkway for the driveway. The wind comes at me, pushing the hood from my head. I keep having to fix it until eventually I tie the strings so that it doesn’t keep coming off. Despite the nasty weather, the movement, the exercise feel good. I need something to do with the angst I’ve been feeling. As it is, it’s just been left to fester.
I’ve just reached the end of the driveway and turned right onto the street when there, at the fringes of my awareness, I get that feeling that someone is watching me. It’s a prickly feeling along my back, that grabs hold of me, and I turn without hesitation, searching over a shoulder and behind me. There is a car much further back. It rolls along the street without headlights on, moving so slowly that I have to wonder if it’s moving at all or if it’s not just idling in the street. I watch it and decide that the car is definitely moving. I turn my back to it. I keep walking, but the feeling of being watched doesn’t leave.
I don’t know that I feel afraid, but I notice that, by instinct, I’ve sped up. I walk with more urgency now. I don’t even know that I’ve done it until my breathing becomes heavy. I throw a glance again over a shoulder, relieved to see that I’ve put distance between the car and me. Still, I’m overcome with a feeling of seclusion, of the greatest sense of being alone. The street is empty but for me.
If something happened to me right now, no one would know. No one would see.
I try and shake it off, to reason with myself. I’m too old to be scared.