She looked at me intently. “She did allude to feeling a bit trapped in her role within their marriage, between you and me. He didn’t want her to work—of course, she didn’t need to—but she . . . expressed some regret about not having more autonomy in their partnership.” She was choosing her words carefully and still studying my face as she spoke. “Did you know him at all, before the other day? Not like know him, know him, but just—know of him, or anything?”
“No, not at all. I mean—I googled him,” I admitted. “After she disappeared. Otherwise, no.”
“Didn’t he say you looked familiar when we were over there?”
He had—I’d almost forgotten about that strange moment. “Yeah. Not sure what that was about. Probably just passed him on the street or something.”
She nodded slowly. “Well. At least he’s got tons of money, so I’m sure he’s doing everything he can to find Isabel and bring her back.” Is he, though? Why are there no news alerts?
Out of nowhere, Clara started wailing. It was already 4:00 p.m.; she would soon be ready for her final short nap of the day. And I needed to get ready for a dinner with my husband that I couldn’t really imagine sitting through right now. I thanked Vanessa for having us and promised to be in touch during the week. I was no closer to figuring out what might have happened to Isabel, but still, it was nice to be leaving feeling closer to Vanessa. Apparently, Isabel had felt the same way about her.
Chapter Fifteen
Tuesday, October 6
Even notwithstanding our fight, going out for a fancy dinner was pretty much the last thing I felt like doing. All I really wanted, all I ever craved these days, was to log some time on the couch after the baby was sleeping. To be by myself without anyone touching or talking to me for an hour while I numbed out to some trashy TV show. But October 6 was our wedding anniversary—three years—so we were obliged to go out and celebrate.
Tim and I had gotten married at a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont. It was unseasonably freezing that day, but I didn’t care. In all our pictures, we’re laughing about how cold we are, my goose bumps visible, since the photographer basically insisted that we take our coats off for the photos. Our wedding was casual. We had lots of good food and local craft beers, only eighty guests, a Ben & Jerry’s truck at the end of the night （which, obviously, we’d booked before we knew it would only be forty degrees）。 I danced with both my mom and my dad, eschewing tradition. I loved everything about that day. I didn’t feel the stress that so many brides describe. And I assumed that our marriage, like our wedding, would be smooth sailing.
But adding a third person to our relationship had presented challenges neither of us had anticipated. It was embarrassing to recall how nonchalant we’d been about having a baby. “We can just bring the baby with us on trips and hikes and stuff; it’s not like she’ll take up much room!” we’d declared, laughing. We’d taken a two-hour childbirth class a few weeks before Clara’s expected arrival. The midwife leading the class had declared, “Partners, the mother-to-be will poop during labor. She will. You need to prepare yourself for that.”
I’d looked at Tim and shaken my head, whispering, “I totally won’t.” Spoiler alert: yes, I did. Suffice it to say, things were not shaking out the way we’d arrogantly assumed they would.
And now, I was rocked by the realization that Tim thought I was a basket case, and that’s if he was even telling the truth about his communication with Isabel. There was still a small part of me that wondered if that’s all it had been. But if not that, then what? I had assumed that I was the only one in our relationship harboring a dirty, unutterable secret. More than one, now, with my deleted note about Isabel. But maybe it was both of us. More likely, though, I was projecting: I knew that I didn’t deserve his trust, and I was unfairly taking that out on him.
Despite where we were, how tired, frustrated, and mixed up I felt, part of me knew we needed this dinner. Even if it wasn’t the romantic night we’d hoped for when we made the plans, we needed more time to talk things through. Plus, I had a ridiculously expensive babysitter lined up: Selena’s former night nurse, in fact. She happened to have a gap in her schedule this week before she started with another family, so she was very happy to help us for a few hours—especially, I imagined, given that she’d likely just be watching TV and eating takeout that I’d ordered for her, since Clara would theoretically be sleeping the whole time we were away, by my own design. As much as I was struggling to meet Clara’s daily needs by myself, the thought of handing over the reins to someone else made me even more anxious. How would they know the angle she liked to be fed at, or that I counted her fingers and toes for her every night before putting her in her bassinet, or the specific way I rocked her upright after a feeding, the rhythm and inflection of my “shh shh shh”？ It was times like these I so wished my mom were around so she could babysit, so that I could actually feel comfortable leaving Clara.