HOW TO MURDER A MARRIAGE Page 3

  I bring my wandering attention back to my four grown children who are waiting patiently to call me out if I attempt to present them with anything less than complete honesty. “No, I did not get any weird junk from Dick. Really. It’s just a work thing. I read something that kind of threw me, but I’m fine.”

  Ella is stern. “You’re not supposed to be working this weekend. You promised.”

  “You’re right. Technically, I didn’t work, but I did check my email, and I shouldn’t have even done that. I’m sorry. Anyway, it’s all good. I’ll deal with it when I’m back in Canada.” I dig into the hummus. “C’mon. Let’s eat.”

  Heath wraps his long arm around my shoulder. “Love you, Mom.”

  The others chime in, “Love you, Mom.”

  “Love you guys, too.” I can’t help but smile, and it is definitely a genuine one now.

  The conversation picks back up, and the noise level rises once again. After the party gets rolling afresh, I’m free to secretly turn my thoughts back to the creepiness of the message from Lillian’s husband. Not that I want to, but it’s skulking in a dark corner of my skull. How can I help it?

  I’m worried about Lillian. She managed to get out. She escaped her controlling husband, a monumental feat, but that bully is already hunting her down like a baying hound in pursuit of a frightened little fox. I hope she’s safely tucked away in a women’s shelter. With her wee dog. Lillian said her husband promised he’d find her. I hope she’s wrong about that. Truth be told, I’m a little worried about myself, too. I don’t need another maniac tracking me down. Not that anyone ever needs any maniacs coming after them. But really, one stalker is quite enough, thank you. For now, I’m glad my kids live in Europe, an ocean away from the shit hitting the fan back in our homeland.

  I’m on my third glass of wine now, and the more I consume, the more I’m convinced the nectar of the gods is helping me rationalize the situation. Lillian’s husband is threatening to pay me a visit, but the fact is, he doesn’t know where to find me. I never post my address online, of course. Does anyone? If he tried hard enough, maybe he could track me down through the Internet, but I’m moving the day after I return to Canada, so I’m probably safe. I’ll be disappearing into the wilds of the Great White North. Flipside, disappearing into the wilds of the Great White North sounds more scary than protective.

  The ping-pong match between my left brain and right brain is exhausting. Gavel smash, gavel smash, the jury has returned a verdict—the wine is actually not helping me sort out the situation. I need to make a decision here. Stop drinking or stop thinking. Tough one. I open another bottle, top up everyone’s glass. It’s a no-work weekend. Cin cin!

  The rest of the evening is a blast, and we end up partaking in one of my very favorite pastimes, kitchen dancing. Who can resist when the playlist loops Drake and Rihanna?

  * * *

  There are two bathrooms upstairs in our flat, so the lineups for bedtime won’t be long. I turn out the lights in the kitchen and living room, double-check that the exterior doors are securely locked. I pick up my phone. See the number thirty-two in a tiny red bubble next to my email icon. I’m tempted to click on it. Working, or thinking about working when I shouldn’t, is as close as I get to masochism. I’m not a fan of pain. Didn’t make it past the first twenty pages of Fifty Shades of Grey—and that wasn’t only because of the BDSM theme. But no, I won’t check my inbox. Not tonight. Not this weekend. Turning my phone off, I stumble up the stairs in the dark.

  There is way too much laughing, screaming, and roughhousing thumping coming from the kids’ shared sleeping quarters. I crash their party with multiple bags of salt-and-malt chips, or crisps, as the Brits ineptly call them. I squeeze my wine-logged body into a narrow, vacant space on one of the mattresses between two extremely silly boys and pass the snacks around. The bottomless pits that are my sons welcome more sustenance.

  Even when drunk, my mothering instincts prevail. “Now you guys will have to brush your teeth again.”

  Leon, “There’s always tomorrow, Mom.”

  Me, “I have failed as a mother.”

  Sleepiness is settling into our sacred space at last. Ella turns the lights down, and we’ve got some smooth Ella Fitzgerald (her namesake) playing softly to carry us into dreamtime. We’re all finally mellowing out. It would have been story time not so many years ago. It was hard then to keep my eyes open at the end of a fun-filled day of child wrangling, but it seems even harder now.

  The weight of my lids is too much to bear, and my heavy eyes slowly drop to shutter my blurry vision. Relief. But only for a fleeting moment.

  Miles drops what, for our family, is considered a bomb. “I got some weird stuff from Dick yesterday.”

  My shuttered eyes fly open. My mind is way too tired for this, but my body doesn’t care. It’s instantly alert and back in fight-or-flight mode. My children need protecting—hormones are at the helm. “What did you get?”

  Leon chimes in, “I did too. Super weird.”

  I’m sitting up now or perhaps levitating. “Was it the same old weird or a new kind of weird?” Making this distinction is imperative.

  Leon doesn’t attempt to spare me. “A next-level weird. Like a reeking-of-desperation weird.”

  This is scary stuff, and we all know it. Dick is constantly on the verge of being on the verge. His nervous strain could unsettle a meditating monk. Desperate Dick is the worst kind of Dick.

  “I think he’s freaking out because you sold the house.” Miles was imbued with logical thinking long before his science education honed it to perfection.

  Leon’s voice is drenched in disdain. “Yeah, it was like five hundred words on how the courts stole everything he owned and how you made out like a bandit.”

  I pointlessly make a point I’ve made a thousand times before a hundred judges. “That might be one way to look at it if he ever coughed up the million in child support the courts ordered him to pay.” I am an old vinyl record that skips mercilessly over the same lyric. Six years later, still pointless.

  Leon continues, “He was asking a lot of questions about where you’re moving to and if you’re moving in with anyone.”

  “It’ll make him crazy not knowing where I’m living. Correction, crazier.” Anger is flooding my muscles with adrenaline. If I hadn’t had so much wine, I could probably lift a car off a small child. The equivalent in my current exhausted/inebriated state is, I’m able to walk. I pace back and forth in the couple of square feet of floor that is not covered with mattresses. I am aware this basically means that I look as if I’m gesticulating hysterically.

  Heath deduces, “He probably thinks you’re moving in with a boyfriend.”

  Ella’s eyes are huge again. “I’m scared, Mom. He’s such a jealous jerk. If he thinks you’re moving in with someone, he might really go off the deep end. Your selling the house could set him off.”

  I try to placate her, tone down my nervous twitches. “Anything could set him off. We can’t live in constant fear of that. Anyway, he doesn’t know where I’m going. I’ll be fine.”

  I haven’t succeeded. Ella pulls the blankets over her face.

  She talks through the sheet. “Why would he care if you had a boyfriend? He’s been with the cockroach for four years already.”

  The cockroach is what the kids call Dick’s girlfriend, Rochelle. I also refer to the nasty beatch as the cockroach although I do restrain myself in front of the children. In my defense and theirs, the cockroach has been truly horrible to us and has caused us much unnecessary anguish. At this point, knowing she’s still breathing causes me anguish.

  Heath has been my great protector since he was a toddler. “It’s probably not safe for you to go back to the house alone. You never know how far Dick might go. Why do you have to stay there another night? Isn’t all the furniture gone already?”

  I have to do whatever I can to lighten the load of stress my children constantly carry on their shoulders because of their deadbeat dad.
“The movers took most of the stuff I didn’t sell, but there are still a few things I have to grab. Anyway, I won’t be alone. I’m picking up the dog and cat from the boarding kennel on my way home from the airport, so we’ll be three Power Rangers watching each other’s backs. And to be perfectly honest, I need to say a proper goodbye to my dream home where I raised my dream children.” I reach out to ruffle a few dreamy heads. “I’ll miss that beautiful farm so much.”

  Miles sounds sad, “I miss the pets.”

  Heath reaches for my hand. “We’re going to miss the house too, but there are lots of new adventures in store for us. So many great times yet to come. As long as we have each other, we’re good.” He leads the cheer, as usual.

  “You’re going to fix up the cottage, and we’re going to have a blast visiting you there. I’m stoked.” Leon’s voice is genuinely excited.

  I squeeze Heath’s hand tightly. “You’re right, my sweethearts. It’s just a new chapter in this wild ride called life.” I hate rides.

  Ella joins in the rah rah-ing like a good sport although a little weakly. “An exciting new chapter.”

  “Agreed. Time to sleep now.” I kiss my four once-little munchkins on their foreheads, flip the light switch off, and head to a bedroom down the hall where I crawl beneath a white cotton duvet that feels like a cloud.

  First thought when my head hits the downy pillow: How did I end up with a colossal asshole like Dick? My great kids deserved so much better. Second thought, in my deceased best friend Sinead’s voice: Come on, you must have known what you were getting into. You married a guy named Dick.

  My left brain tells me to think good thoughts, and before my right brain can come up with an argument in favor of worrying, I’m out, more unconscious than asleep, I think, but it hardly matters. I sleep the sleep of the dead.

  * * *

  I wake to one of my favorite smells in the world. Strong coffee. I follow my nose down the stairs into the kitchen, and a broadly smiling Heath hands me a huge mug. Heaven.

  Once my caffeine levels are sufficiently elevated, the breakfast brigade begins, and I go through an entire loaf of organic sourdough making avocado toast with feta, drizzled olive oil, and crushed chilli peppers for five ravenous vegetarians.

  By noon, we’re off to Hackney City Farm, my favorite place in London. I’ll always be a country girl at heart, and few things make me happier than a massive muddy pink pig and a coop full of chicks. Late in the day, we hit up my second-favorite place in London, Tate Modern. Swoon. Double swoon. I’m on inspiration overload. Excited by the prospect of finally getting settled after my move and starting to paint again. Yay.

  A hearty dinner of grilled portobello mushroom burgers dripping with provolone, roasted red pepper, and caramelized onion, at a cozy pub, is followed by shenanigans at the flat, followed by two more days that should be blissful. But I can’t get my hackles down. Do I now have two stalkers? I think I might. My gut tells me Lillian’s husband is the real deal.

  Heartbreakingly for me, all too soon, my boys are back on trains and planes returning to their studies. Ella now has bedding and teacups and a fully stocked miniature kitchen in her tiny new flat in a somewhat sketchy area of East London. She melts into my arms the way she has done since the moment she was born. A puddle of tears forms at our feet on the sidewalk next to my Uber.

  I’ve raised four intelligent, ambitious, resourceful adventurers who have all struck out into the wide world to manifest their dreams, but at this moment, I wish I’d failed at parenting. I wish my kids were unemployed dropouts, playing Dungeons & Dragons in my basement and smoking weed well into their thirties.

  At least I wouldn’t be jamming my shattered heart into a carry-on bag and flying home alone to face an unasked for, entirely new chapter in my life, the details of which are still unknown. I might as well draw those details out of a hat and make that my game plan. In this dreaded new life, I’m no longer permitted to identify as a primary caretaker of dependent children, which conveniently happens to be a very effective method of avoiding focusing on oneself, shielded as one is by the martyrdom of motherhood.

  Who am I, if not Super Mom to my four super kids? The new me, who must surely be lurking just around the corner, feels like a strange visitor from another planet. Hopefully, she can change the course of mighty rivers and bend steel in her bare hands. That would be cool.

  I suppose I’m meant to leap tall buildings in a single bound to rescue myself, rather than others, for the first time in twenty-five years. It would appear that I have no option other than to create a wildly successful, fabulous new life in which I play the heroic, starring role, Super Me, whether I like it or not.

  Change, you are a cruel master.

  Chapter Four

  Another entire season of Veep and another sleepless night, sans fugly neck pillow, and I am home not-so-sweet home.

  A full moon lights the way as, for the very last time, I drive up the long laneway of my hundred-acre farm toward the beautiful house that I built for my beautiful family. Twenty years later, I’m still struck by the dreamy design of this Nantucket charmer. Salty shingles and sea-kissed shutters are surrounded by an ocean of wavy wheat instead of water, but it’s just as gorgeous. I love this place, but it would have been ridiculous for me to live here on my own. Running costs aside, it’s far too big for one person. It was more space than anyone needed when there were six of us living here. Go left brain, go. Logic is what I need to get me through the next twelve hours. Don’t want the new owners to call the authorities and have me bodily dragged from the premises.

  The moonlight floods the cornfields in the valley and illuminates two deer sauntering toward the forest. I slow my Jeep, and they stop and turn to stare, their goodbye to me, I’m certain of it. The deer hold me in their gaze for a lingering moment before slowly moving along. Their wild beauty hurts my heart. Emotion is my frenemy and has decided to plonk itself in the middle of my throat and swell like a mother. Bye-bye logic.

  The dog and cat, Zoe and Spook, wild from a ten-day stint in their boarding kennel confines, whine and meow incessantly in the back seat. They know they’re finally home. I haven’t told them it’s only for a night.

  I park in the garage and carry out my ritual as I’ve done for the past six years since my marriage ended. Before I exit my vehicle, I check my surroundings for any signs that my ex-husband may have been lurking around the premises. Then I cautiously open the door between the garage and the breezeway, peeking through the widening crack, hoping I don’t find Dick’s body swinging from the rafter outside the door.

  It sounds paranoid and dramatic, I know, but I’ve held that frightening picture in my mind since the day we separated. I’m an early riser, and every morning for six years, I’ve tiptoed downstairs and flinchingly checked my front door to make sure my ex isn’t hanging there all bright blue and bulgy-eyed.

  In our excruciatingly drawn-out divorce proceedings (embarrassingly, we’ve actually set records for numbers of hearings held in one case), Dick has filed thousands of pages of material, including hundreds of pages of medical reports that he hopes will get him off the hook for the ridiculous crap he’s pulled and also to offer excuses for his never paying the child support he owes. The judges don’t buy any of it, but still, he persists, and our overburdened, broken judicial system allows him to do so.

  The eerie thing is that, about two years ago, I read one psychiatric report where the doctor stated that my ex has “suicidal ideation” and described the details of his suicide fantasy, which entailed his wanting his death to have as great an impact on me as possible. Dick’s plan was to hang himself outside the door of my home so I would find his body.

  Yup, intuition is a powerful thing. In truth, I don’t think Dick has the balls to do himself in. Rather, he weaponizes suicide threats and attempts to use them against me. I wouldn’t want him to know this, but it’s quite an effective strategy. He’s a textbook narcissist.

  No noose. The coast is clear. Th
rilled to be free from the boarding kennel, Zoe bounds out of my truck, and before I can stop the mammoth oaf, she’s halfway across a field of alfalfa, chasing a petrified rabbit. I yell after her, but she doesn’t listen. Nothing new there with my dumb as a stump Giant Schnauzer. My indoor cat, Spook, incarcerated in a large animal crate, is terrified at being this close to the great outdoors. I place him on the grass, he yowls, and hisses as befits his black-cat name, and I pursue the damn dog, screaming at the top of my lungs.

  After two minutes of jogging, I throw in the towel, head back toward the house. It’s humid for mid-September—the night air hot and still. My T-shirt is already damp and clinging to my chest. The cat is traumatized and growling at having been left in contact with the elements. The dog never goes too far away, she’ll be back soon enough. As I cross over the front lawn, I notice a whole lot of footprints in the soft ground below my windows. Large men’s boots. Naturally, my mind goes immediately to my ex, and my heart begins to pound, but I calm myself quickly. There was a house inspection while I was away, and the new owners were probably here as well, excitedly snooping around their future home.

  I carry the cat crate indoors, and before I can turn around, the dog is also at my feet, nervous herself now. I lock the door but can’t switch the security system on—the service was canceled along with the landline and internet for the house closing tomorrow. Forgot about that slight detail.

  I said I’d never leave here, but I’m leaving here. The stalking didn’t drive me out. The specter of a hanging man didn’t drive me out. For a long time, even Dick’s debts didn’t drive me out—they made me work harder, made me more determined to stay. But after six years of scrapping, it’s time for some ease. I repeat my mantra, I am deserving of peace.

  An uncharacteristic strangeness is starting to creep into the space around me. For the most part, I’ve never felt frightened in my home, even though the nearest neighbor is a good quarter mile away and out of earshot of even the shrillest of screams, which by the way, I am more than capable of producing. But a house never feels the same when it’s empty.