“Where is Jake? What did you do to Jake?” she asks, her voice turning shrill. “I saw your car on that video, Christian. I know it was you. I know you were in my house. What did you do to Jake?” she asks again.
“Nothing,” I say. “I didn’t do anything to Jake. He’s your husband, Nina. Why don’t you tell me where he is?”
She asks then, “Why didn’t you throw that bag in your own trash if it’s from the baby? Why did you hide it down the street?”
“Because I didn’t want Lily to come across it by accident. She’s devastated,” I say, “as you can imagine.”
The first baby we lost hit the hardest for Lily. She cried for weeks. I think it’s because we went into it with so much hope and optimism that we didn’t consider all the possible outcomes. The only one we considered was that at the end of nine months, we’d have a healthy baby. With each subsequent miscarriage, Lily was less visibly sad, as if somehow accepting of our fate, though she died a little inside every time.
“I don’t believe you,” she says.
“Believe whatever you want. I’m not lying, Nina. I didn’t do anything to Jake.”
I reach in through the open window. Nina flinches, drawing back. The street is quiet. It has to be close to ten o’clock. I left Lily in the house. I said I’d be right back. I’ve been gone much longer than I intended, so that I wonder if she’s gazing out into the night, looking for me. People on the street are going to sleep for the night. Interior house lights are switching off, the street becoming somehow darker.
Fully present and completely aware of what I’m doing, I reach in with both hands. Nina sinks back into her seat, recoiling from me. “Stop it, Christian,” she says, fighting my hands. Nina’s neck can’t be three inches from my hands. She’s restrained in her chair. Standing outside, I have leverage. I have the advantage of power and height. It would be so easy to strangle her.
But I’m not a killer.
I wrap my hands around the bag of Lily’s clothes, lifting it from Nina’s lap. It’s only in the last second that she tries to resist. Her fingers come down on the bag, but I wrest it easily from her.
Later I wonder if I’ll regret letting her leave.
NINA
I call Officer Boone as I drive. He doesn’t answer. I didn’t think that he would—it’s late—but I leave a message and he calls me back almost immediately. I tell him what happened. I’m practically hysterical.
“What were you doing at the Scotts’ house, Mrs. Hayes?” he asks.
“I went to see Christian and Lily.”
“But you said you were following Mr. Scott. Why?”
“Because I thought he might be up to something. I was curious what was in the bag and what he was doing with it. I think he may have killed my husband, Officer. There was blood in that bag, all over someone’s clothes.”
“Where is this bag of bloody clothes now? Would you be able to bring it to me?”
“I don’t have it. Christian took it from me. Ask Christian where this bag of clothes is,” I say, knowing that Christian would have done something with it already. He would have gotten rid of the bag, and then there would be no evidence, nothing for Officer Boone to see.
But the blood. So much blood.
“Talk to him. Talk to Christian Scott. Ask him where he was last Saturday morning when some man was breaking into my home.”
The other end of the phone goes quiet at first. Officer Boone’s words are deliberate when he speaks. “Are you saying Mr. Scott is the person who broke into your home, Mrs. Hayes?”
“His car is a Honda Accord. It looks very much like the car in the video. Please. I know the quality isn’t great, but just speak to him. Ask him where he was last Saturday morning when my home was being broken into. And ask him about this bag of bloody clothes. Ask him why I found his wife’s earring in the back seat of my missing husband’s car.”
My mother is waiting for me when I come home, upset. I tell her what happened.
She wraps me in her arms and holds me close. “You shouldn’t have done that, Nina,” she says, stroking my hair. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”
“I’m sorry,” I say as she releases me. “It was stupid, I know.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. You’re trembling, Nina,” she says, and I am. It’s something violent and uncontrolled. She sets her arms on me and asks, “Are you cold, honey? I can turn up the heat.”
“No. I don’t think so.” It’s fear, not cold, that makes me tremble.
She gazes at me, her eyes warm and indulgent. “Why don’t you come sleep in my room with me tonight?” she suggests, cradling my face in her hands. “Would you like that?”
Nodding, I find and take my pillow from my twin bed and carry it into her room, where, despite being thirty-eight years old, a grown woman, my mother and I lie together on the queen-size bed like we did when I was young and had a nightmare or felt scared. I feel safer beside her like, no matter what happens, as long as she’s here I’ll be fine.
My mother sleeps, but I don’t sleep.
The next morning, my mother has breakfast laid out on the table for me when I step into the kitchen to get ready to leave for work.
“You have to eat something, Nina,” she tells me when I try to avoid her breakfast.
“I can’t, Mom. I’m not hungry,” I say, while helping myself to coffee.
My mother notices how my hands still shake when I fill my cup. I don’t know that they’ve stopped shaking since last night. “Look at you, Nina. Your hands. You’re not well. Why don’t you stay home today and rest?”
“I can’t. I have to work,” I say, though the idea of going to work, of risking running into Lily, makes me physically sick. Every time I so much as blink, I see Christian’s face in the car window. I see his hands reaching in the open window. I see blood.
My mother is sitting in the large picture window as I leave. It’s still dark outside and she’s backlit by the inside lights. I worry she won’t be okay without me. What if something happens to her while I’m gone?
I’m too busy watching my mother. I’m thinking about what happened last night and wishing that my mother would get away from the window, that she would back up into the house where she’s less visible.
I’m not looking where I’m going. I reverse blindly into the street so that I don’t see the other car come barreling down the street.
The sound of a car horn blasting gets my attention. Instinctively I slam on the brakes. I don’t yet see this other car, and yet I see in the window how my mother’s eyes have enlarged to full moons. She presses her hand to her mouth, watching as a passing car, going something like thirty-five or forty miles per hour, far too fast for this residential street, almost crashes into me before I stop. It would have been my fault too. I should have yielded to this other car, despite the fact that it’s speeding.
My heart beats hard. My body trembles. I wait for the other car to pass. I wave at my mother to let her know that I am fine, that everything is fine. I’m far from fine.