I see the Katarina who got good grades. A noise begins in my head as Katarina drops out of high school and blurs into smoke. Then I see Kit the maid, who has great friends and a contented life, cleaning homes because there’s no pressure to perform and she can be invisible. I see Kit on a stage under bright lights with her amateur theater group, acting countless parts, wearing masks, being characters other than herself and completely at ease with that. I see her on the streets in the summer doing improv, engaging audiences with interactive theater art, blowing balloons for kids . . . and there are glimpses of other Kits and Kats . . . I can’t see those properly. They slip from mirror to misshapen mirror, sliding deeper into the tunnel shadows—darting, watching, whispering at the edges of my consciousness.
I shake myself, clearing all the Kit-Kats from my head before entering the bathroom. Quickly, I open and close the cabinets, scanning cosmetics and medicines. I see anxiety meds. Uppers. Downers. There’s quite a bit here for me to come back to. My timer sounds. My pulse quickens. I must start cleaning.
I hasten to the last room, open the door, and freeze.
It’s the baby’s room.
I enter cautiously, run my hand along the edge of the waiting crib. There is a little stuffy bear inside. A strange emotion fills me. Above the crib hangs a musical mobile of pastel circus elephants and unicorns. I turn the music on. The elephants and unicorns begin to twirl to a tinkling lullaby that makes me think of little cottages in dark woods and lost girls in red riding hoods seeking grandmas and finding wolves. While the eerie music plays and the elephants and unicorns dance, I go to the dresser and smooth my palm over the changing table. This room sucks my energy. It suffocates my breathing.
I’ll come back another time.
Dear Diary, if I read this entry to my therapist, I know she’ll ask if I want—or wanted—kids. Maybe I’ll tell her I was pregnant once. And that I can’t have them now. That my uterus was damaged the first time round followed by an infection. Maybe I’ll explain how that happened. I might even tell her it’s why my fledgling marriage crashed before it could even take off. Or . . . maybe I won’t.
I go downstairs and carefully examine the ultrasound scan once more.
Maybe if I clean this house fast enough today, I’ll have just enough time to run back upstairs and pose for a selfie in front of the dancing elephants and unicorns while holding this scan in front of my tummy.
#surprise #babyontheway #wearesothrilled #meandmyhoney
I’ll post it on my #foxandcrow account. My secret joke. Laughing in the face of all the other false narratives out there.
This gives me a jolt of pure pleasure. I start the vacuum cleaner.
JON
October 17, 2019. Thursday.
Two weeks before the murder.
Jon sits in the booth at the Hunter and Hound, staring at the business card Henry left.
He’s shaken. He feels a climbing rope has been cut, a belay partner has deceived him. He’s falling, falling, the noise in the wind rushing past his ears. He hears the chant JonJon JonJon JonJon as he spirals down.
Has BergBomber lost his edge—
“Sir?”
He jumps, and his gaze shoots up to the server who interrupted him.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says, placing a fresh whisky and a coaster in front of him. “It’s from the woman at the bar.”
Jon glances across the room. The sultry brunette is still there. She raises her martini glass, smiles.
Confused, then immediately flattered, Jon lifts the gifted drink in reciprocity. He hesitates, then makes a motion with his hand and mouths the words: Would you like to join me?
She shakes her head. Smiles warmly, then turns her back to him.
Curiosity piqued, Jon sips, watching her. Then he gets up, weaves his way through the growing throngs of patrons to the bar counter. He’s forced to sandwich himself between the occupied barstool on his left and the brunette herself on his right, which brings him up close. Very close. She smells good. Music goes louder—the live act has come onstage, an Irish fiddling duo.
“Thank you,” he says.
Her lips curve. Deep-red lipstick. Big green eyes. She’s as attractive up close as from afar.
“You didn’t need to come over,” she says.
“Felt rude not to.”
“I’m sorry—the drink wasn’t a solicitation. Perhaps it was a miscalculation on my part.”
She has a slight accent. Very faint. He’s not sure what it is. German? Maybe a touch of Dutch, or even French. Intrigue deepens, and something in his body that is instinctive and primal begins to stir.
“So why then?” he asks. “I looked like I needed a boost?”
“Do you?”
He huffs. “Maybe. Probably. Yeah.”
She gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I felt bad for staring. You looked so insanely familiar that I was trying to place you, and you caught me,” she says. “I was utterly convinced I knew you. You know that sensation? When you run into a TV star who’s been on the screen inside your home so often that they seem like a friend, and you’re hit with this bolt of instant familiarity? You know them, but you don’t. Then it struck me. You’re downhill ski champ Jon Rittenberg.” She grins, raises her martini glass. “Here’s to the BergBomber. I was a ski groupie once, a million years ago. I was in Salt Lake City for the ’02 games. I was a spectator in the crowd when you won that first gold. My God, it was electric, just being part of that. I also saw your earlier accident at the Alpine Cup. It was devastating. We all thought you’d never walk again, let alone ski and come back to win two gold medals. So forgive me for staring.” She takes a sip from her glass. He watches her lips. “The drink was just my way of saying thanks. For the spectacular skiing and giving us something to root for.”
Jon is galvanized. He feels like he did when he was in his late teens and early twenties and on the ski circuit. This woman sees the hero in him. She knows him, is proud to have reveled in a part of his athletic life. She is thankful. This woman has plugged Jon directly into a magnetic current, and he feels that vestigial part of himself rising. It’s intoxicating. He’s alive again.
She angles her head, holds his gaze, and he has to lean closer to hear her speak as the music from the band goes louder. “To tell you the truth, Jon,” she says, “I’d forgotten all about the BergBomber, until I saw you in that booth. Here’s to glory days.”
He pulls a wry mouth, his body so close now their arms are touching. “Sounds like a sad old Springsteen song.”
“Yet here we are.”
“You a skier yourself?”
His phone vibrates in his pocket. Daisy again. Jon can’t face talking to Daisy right now. He’d have to confront the falsity of all the reasons they moved here. He feels anger at her, too. And something a little more sinister needles into him—could she have known? Daisy is very close to her parents, her mother especially. Why would they not have told their daughter that this move back home might come to naught? Unless . . . maybe he’s been set up. Maybe the Wentworths wanted Daisy home before they cut him loose. His heart begins to pound.
“I am.”
“What?” Jon asks.
“A skier. You asked if I was a skier.”