Leigh had not really understood that at eighteen, but she clearly understood it now as a mother. When Maddy had turned twelve, Leigh had gotten a front-row seat to the magic of a twelve-year-old little girl’s life. She knew how sweet they were, how desperate for attention. She knew you could convince her to do cartwheels with you up and down the driveway. You could watch her break into giddy laughter one moment and burst into inexplicable tears the next. You could tell her that you were the only person she could trust, that no one else would ever love her the way you do, that she was special, that no matter what, she had to keep what was happening a secret because no one else would understand.
It was no coincidence that Leigh had crashed and burned her marriage when Maddy had turned twelve. Callie had been twelve years old when she had first started babysitting for the Waleskis.
The understanding of how profoundly vulnerable her sister had been, what Buddy Waleski had stolen from her, was a cancer that had nearly killed Leigh. There had been days when she could barely look at her own daughter without having to run to the bathroom to break down. Leigh had kept herself so tightly wound around Maddy that she had spun out of control with Walter. He had put up with Leigh’s erratic behavior until she had found the one thing that would make him leave. It wasn’t an affair. Leigh had never cheated on him. In many ways, what she had done was far worse. She’d started binge drinking after Maddy had gone to bed. Leigh had thought that she was getting away with it until one morning she had woken up still drunk on the bathroom floor. Walter was sitting on the edge of the tub. He had literally held up his hands in surrender and told her that he was done.
“What was I going to do?” Maddy asked. “I mean, for reals, Mom. Tell me.”
Leigh was at a loss, but she had been down this road before. “I think what you did was exactly the right thing, baby. She’ll either come around or she won’t.”
“I guess.” Maddy sounded unconvinced, but she pivoted. “Did you talk to Dad about the party this weekend?”
Leigh had taken the coward’s way out and texted Walter. “You can’t sleep over, and you have to promise everyone will keep their masks on.”
“I promise,” Maddy said, but, short of peering through the basement windows, there was no way of knowing. “Keely said she finally called.”
Leigh’s daughter was the Where’s Waldo of proper nouns, but she usually planted enough clues. “Ms. Heyer?”
“Yeah, she said something about how one day Keely would understand but she met somebody and she still loves her dad because he would always be her dad but she had to move on.”
Leigh shook her head, trying to extricate the meaning. “Ms. Heyer is seeing someone? She’s cheating on Mr. Heyer?”
“Yeah, Mom, that’s what I said.” Maddy fell back into her comfort zone, irritation. “And she keeps texting, like, hearts and shit and I mean, why won’t she call again to talk about what’s going to happen next and how this is gonna work out instead of texting?”
For Maddy’s sake, Leigh said, “Sometimes, texting is easier, you know?”
“Yeah, okay, I’ve gotta go. Love you.”
Maddy abruptly ended the call. Leigh assumed someone more interesting had made themselves available. Still, she stared at her phone until the screen went black. Part of Leigh wanted to jump into whatever mom text chain was going around about Ruby Heyer getting her groove back, but that was not why Leigh had driven out to the suburbs at eight in the evening. She had come here to find Walter and blow up her entire life.
Andrew clearly considered Tammy Karlsen nothing more than collateral damage in his war of mutually assured destruction. What he really wanted was for Leigh to live in fear. For her to know that at any moment, her perfect mommy life with its PTA meetings and school plays and her stupid husband could disappear the same way that Andrew’s life had disappeared when she had murdered his father.
The only way to take away Andrew’s power was to take away his control.
Before Leigh could lose her nerve, she texted Walter—are you busy?
He wrote back immediately—Love Machine.
Leigh looked up at Celia’s RV. They had started calling it the Love Machine after Walter had accidentally walked in on his mother and the man who ran the Hilton Head RV park.
The front door to Walter’s house opened. He waved to Leigh as he walked toward the Love Machine. She glanced around the cul-de-sac. She should not have been surprised that one of the neighbors had ratted her out. Six firemen fanned out around Walter’s house. He had gone to bat for each of them on several occasions, negotiating pension settlements, medical bills and, in one case, sending one to rehab rather than jail. They all treated Walter like he was a brother.