You Deserve to Know

Chapter 17

17

NOW

True to his word, Scott is making dinner, a stir-fry with rice noodles, while Aimee sits on the living room floor with three backpacks, surrounded by crumpled papers, folders, broken pencils, fidget spinners, and other detritus.

“Do you still need this, Benji?” she calls out, holding up a sheet of math problems that has not been written on. “It doesn’t look like you even filled it out.”

“Nope!” Benji zooms by. “That’s so old.”

Aimee looks at the sheet. Calling it math might be a stretch. It’s number patterns. She’s not sure who decided it was a good idea to give first graders homework. She doesn’t remember getting homework when she was in first grade, but she may have just blocked it out. Academics weren’t her strong suit.

Normally she would be happy to be doing busywork. Watching the recycle pile grow larger usually filled her with a sense of accomplishment. But not tonight. Tonight, her nerves are jangly and she is jumpy. She needs to figure out what she’s going to say to Scott. She’s been going over various approaches in her mind all day, but nothing seems right. If she confronts him about Jon Block outright, he might shut down, or turn the tables on her, accuse her of spying. She feels justified in what she did, but she doesn’t want to derail the conversation. So how to bring it up without putting him on the defensive right away? She hasn’t figured that out yet.

You deserve to know.

Anton’s drunk rambling barges into her thoughts. What had he meant by that? Maybe he was trying to tell her something about Scott. Maybe he was trying to tell her that her husband had hired a private detective. Then why did he show up here later that night? None of it made sense.

She gets up, her arms filled with papers, and heads to the recycling bin. The kitchen smells like ginger and garlic.

“Dinner in five,” Scott says.

After depositing the papers, Aimee goes to the bottom of the stairs. “Dinner!” she calls. “Wash hands!”

As she waits at the bottom of the stairs, her mind wanders back to afternoon tea with Lisa and Gwen. She had been tempted at first to confide in them about what she had learned when she followed Scott, but she is relieved she didn’t. Gwen seemed to be losing her grip, not that she blamed her. But for a moment there, this afternoon, it almost felt like Gwen thought Scott had killed Anton. It was crazy. Scott might be hiding something—in fact, it was obvious he was—but the idea that he could murder someone was absurd. Aimee could only imagine how Gwen would have freaked out if she told her Scott had been sneaking around and had hired a private investigator.

She can’t shake the feeling that this is all connected, although she can’t piece together how. Scott is the only person who can help her do that.

She has to make it through dinner first. At the table, she’s too distracted by her thoughts to referee Noa and Benji when they get into a spat over elbow room. Scott tells Noa she can stand as she eats, something Aimee normally prohibits, but Aimee doesn’t make a fuss tonight.

She broods about the upcoming confrontation—neither she nor Scott is a fan of difficult conversations. Scott usually makes a joke to avoid discussing anything serious. Just as she learned to avoid speaking of her mother’s death with her father, Aimee has learned to tiptoe around topics with Scott. It is the opposite at work. She can be direct, even blunt, with her crew. But the stakes are so much higher with Scott. She wouldn’t do anything that would risk her losing him, so she’s learned to avoid delicate topics.

They both have the same sore subject—family.

His wasn’t a happy one. Like her, he grew up as an only child, but unlike her, he wasn’t raised in middle-class comfort with loving parents. His dad died when he was so young that Scott barely remembers him, and his mother wasn’t stable. He ended up moving in with his aunt during his senior year of high school.

But those conflict-avoidant skills they both honed to help them get through the traumas of childhood aren’t helping them now.

It isn’t until after dinner has been eaten, the dishes cleaned, the kids bathed and put to bed, that Aimee has a chance to talk to Scott. He’s in the kitchen, taking inventory of the fridge and getting ready for the big shopping of the week.

“Can we talk for a second?” Aimee sits at the counter.

Scott turns his body from the open refrigerator. “Now? I want to get to Giant soon. It’s getting late.”

“Well, I need five minutes.”

“All right.” He shuts the fridge and leans against it. “What’s up? You okay?”

No , she thinks, I’m not okay . She tells herself not to be scared, that his explanation will illuminate everything. She delivers the line she has practiced, one she hopes will allow him to tell the truth without getting too defensive.

“I feel like you are holding something back from me, like something is going on,” she says.

Scott scratches his head. “Not sure what you mean.”

He’s not going to make this easy for her. “Who was that friend that you met? At the bar?”

“I told you. A guy I met at the gym.”

This lie stings. Aimee knows she has to push through, but she’s never been a pusher. She has no choice.

“I followed you to Tatte.”

He straightens up, on alert. “You did what?”

“I followed you, and I saw you meet a man. And then I spoke to him. I met him. He gave me his—”

“Hold on—you followed me to Tatte? And you’re just telling me this now?”

“Why did you hire a private investigator, Scott? You need to tell me the truth.”

He laughs bitterly. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“What does that mean?”

“When were you going to tell me that we got the report back from the psychologist about Noa?”

Aimee recoils. “How do you know about that?”

“The psychologist’s office called me to schedule the follow-up. They said they wait a week after the report has been emailed so there’s time to read it. And it had been a week.”

“I was going to tell you. Last week was crazy, and then this whole thing with Anton happened.”

“You didn’t tell me because you’re in denial. You don’t want to hear there’s anything wrong with her.”

Aimee feels like she’s got whiplash. Where is this coming from? How is she the one on the defensive all of a sudden? “You’re not being fair.”

“You didn’t want to get her tested, and now you don’t want to face what those tests might say.”

The words pierce her. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” She is reeling. She has never seen him angry like this before.

“I have to go to Giant.” He goes to the basket where they keep the reusable grocery bags and grabs a few.

She follows him. “But we’re not done talking.”

“I’m done.”

“Scott.” she touches his shoulder and he spins around. “Why did you hire a private investigator? Does this have something to do with Anton?”

Genuine surprise spreads across his face. “Anton? No, it has nothing to do with Anton. It’s work related. We are running into some intellectual property theft issues.”

“It’s work related.”

“Yes. Work. You know, my job?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s not something I’m supposed to talk about. We’re having some problems with one of our consultants and things are kind of tense right now. Jon Block is helping us out. But we don’t exactly want to advertise this. You get that, right? So, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”

“Who would I mention it to?”

He shrugs. “Anyone. Lisa. Gwen.”

“Is your job in trouble? Should I be worried?”

“No. It’s going to be fine. It’s just a rough patch.”

“I wish you had told me. With everything going on, with Anton, and then you being at Villain & Saint—”

“I went to Villain & Saint to meet Jon Block. If Anton followed me there after I left him, I had no idea. I swear. The last time I saw him was on the stoop of his house. And if the police talk to Jon Block, which I’m sure they will, he will say the same thing.”

Aimee nods.

“We good? Can I go grocery shopping now?”

Aimee winces at the sarcasm in his voice. “Yeah. We’re good.”

Scott grabs his keys and heads out the back door. Aimee stands there, as if frozen on the spot. She doesn’t feel good . It’s the first time Scott’s ever come close to raising his voice with her, and she still can’t decide what exactly he was so upset about. He had a right to be angry that she followed him, but the way he turned it around on her so quickly makes her uneasy. Her head is spinning.

But that isn’t the only thing bothering her. It is something she can barely admit to herself.

She doesn’t believe her husband is telling the truth.