“Michael has no reason to lie,” Gully says simply.
“My son is not a liar,” Alice says sharply.
Then Gully asks Derek, her voice casual, “I’m just wondering—where were you on Tuesday afternoon?”
Alice feels as if she’s been yanked out of her own life and dropped into someone else’s. The detective is asking her son for an alibi. This can’t be happening. Her husband seems too shocked to speak.
“I left school at three thirty and came home.”
“Anybody in the house with you?”
Alice’s alarm grows. She knows no one was home that day. Pete was at work, she was out running errands, and Jenna was at choir practice. She picked her up at school after choir and took her to buy shoes.
“No,” Derek says.
“I got home with Jenna shortly after five,” Alice says. “Derek was at home, like he says.”
“Okay, thank you,” Gully says, getting up. “I think that will do for now.”
When Gully leaves, Alice closes the door behind her and returns to the living room, where her son and her husband are suspended in a deeply uncomfortable silence.
Derek looks up at her then and cries, “I didn’t touch her, I swear. I don’t know why they think that!” And he bursts into tears.
Alice believes him, of course she believes him. She wants desperately to believe him. She sits down beside him and pulls him into a hug. “Of course you didn’t,” she says soothingly, glancing over at her husband, who is still shell-shocked, his face gray.
“What if they think I had something to do with—？” Derek cries.
“They can’t think that,” Alice says. She refuses to believe it.
* * *
? ? ?
The police search team has finished at the Blanchards’ house. They have sole possession of their home again. Nora wonders what they found, if anything, other than her hidden phone. Supper is much later than usual, and quiet, but emotionally charged. Even Faith seems unnaturally subdued, Nora thinks, observing her daughter. But it’s no wonder, with everything that’s going on.
“How was your time with Samantha?” Nora asks her.
“Fine,” Faith says, avoiding her eye. Nora gives up on any possibility of conversation. Her daughter knows they were all at the police station that afternoon, stretching into the early evening—that’s why she had to go to her friend’s. She knows their house was searched, that Ryan’s car has been taken away. They told her that the police had to do it because of that anonymous caller. But there was nothing to worry about because the caller was making it up, and the police would soon realize that. But Faith clearly isn’t buying it, Nora thinks, because they are all obviously petrified and trying to hide it.
They are all anxious to leave the table. Al pushes his plate away first, stands up, and leaves the kitchen. Nora hears him go into the living room and turn on the television. Ryan gets up without a word and trudges up the stairs to his bedroom. Nora hears his door close.
“I have homework,” Faith says, and grabs her backpack from the floor near the door and goes upstairs to her room.
Nora sits alone at the kitchen table, as if paralyzed. She must talk to Al. She forces herself to get up and clear the dishes, taking her time. When she can put it off no longer, she goes into the living room. Al is waiting for her. He sees her come in and increases the volume on the television—he’s watching a basketball game, and the noise will mask their conversation. Unless it becomes very heated. But then, she thinks, maybe it’s better if everything comes out now. Her infidelity might soon be in the newspapers anyway. She doesn’t trust the police.
She sits down beside him on the sofa. Who will fire the first salvo? She decides to wait. Her nerves are drawn so tight she feels as if she might snap.
“You’ve been sleeping with William Wooler,” he begins, eyes firmly focused on the television. His voice is low but laced with bitterness and disgust.
“Did the police tell you?” she asks, her voice dull.
“I already knew.” He pauses. “And now everyone will.”
“I thought you might,” she says. She’s surprised she sounds so calm, because she’s churning inside. “Did you have me followed?”
“No. I followed you myself.”
Her stomach lurches. The thought of it, of Al following her to the motel, of him watching, seeing her with William. She never noticed him. And they thought they were unobserved. What fools they were.
“When?” she asks, finally looking at him. She wants to know how long he’s known.
“Every Tuesday for the last couple of months.”
That astounds her. She feels her mouth drop open.
“That surprises you, does it?” he says, turning to face her. “That I can pretend as well as you can?” He leans closer to her so that his face is just inches from hers—as if he’s leaning in for a kiss—and hisses, “I parked there, behind the dumpster in the back, every Tuesday afternoon and waited for you to come out of that sleazy motel with your lover and back to your car. And do you know what I did while I sat there, while you were in there with him? Breaking your marriage vows? Destroying our life together? Let me tell you,” he spits. “I imagined what you were doing in that room, in that bed—all those things you won’t do with me. I imagined you naked with him, enjoying yourself, enjoying your sin.”
She looks back at him, mesmerized. He’s not so detached now, he’s fully present. He seems so different, so angry, so menacing. She wonders how she ever married him, how she ever loved him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It was wrong,” she admits, her voice breaking. It was a sin. Her mind flits to thoughts of hellfire and damnation. She doesn’t want to believe in hell, and she doesn’t, not really, not most of the time. But sometimes she fears hell really does exist, and she is going there. Maybe Al will be there with her. Maybe that’s what hell is, other people, she thinks as she stares at him for a long moment. “What now?” she asks finally.
“I should throw you out,” he says viciously.
She recoils. Then she asks, “How long were you going to pretend you didn’t know?” She wonders, if the disappearance of Avery hadn’t brought all this about, whether he would have gone on pretending for the rest of their lives. But now he can’t pretend; other people know. The police know. The news media will find out somehow, and then everyone will know. There’s nowhere to hide. She feels sick to her stomach.
“I don’t know,” he says, and covers his face with his hands and begins to sob.
She watches in pity, but she can’t bring herself to comfort him. Not now. It sickens her to think of him hiding behind the dumpster every week while she was making love to William, and then coming home and pretending he had no idea. But who is she to judge, considering what she has done? “We have to think of the kids,” she says finally, when he has pulled himself together. He nods. She has to ask him. “Does Ryan know? Did you tell him?”
He turns to her then, the disgust he feels for her plain on his contorted face. “Why the hell would I do that?” He narrows his eyes. “And why would you ask me that?”