HAPPILY MARRIED
HAPPILY MARRIED
After she disappeared
ABBY
“Tell me again what happened that night.”
“My mobile rang when I was driving home. It was attached to the dashboard displaying my fastest route, and my heart sank when I saw Grady’s name; I was running a little late and I knew he’d be disappointed. It was as though my husband thought my life revolved around his. He’s like a child in that way, always needing attention. So I answered the call and put him on speaker, even though I hate doing that when I’m driving. Especially at night on dark country roads.
“I’m on my way, almost there,” I told him.
“You said you would be here,” he replied, sounding like a whining little boy. “This is important to me.”
I didn’t mention all the things that had been important to me over the years, things which he made it very clear he couldn’t care less about. Someone had to be the grown-up in our relationship.
“I’ll be there soon, promise. I’ve got fish-and-chips,” I said.
Fish-and-chips had become a bit of a tradition. It’s what we ate on our first official date, and when Grady proposed a few years later. When we moved into the cottage we ate fish-and-chips sitting on a sofa surrounded by cardboard boxes, and it was what he bought me for dinner to celebrate when I got promoted at the newspaper. A job I used to love but he always hated. Here’s the thing, I don’t even like fish-and-chips. I often found myself just going along with his choices to keep him happy. But that’s my fault, not his.
It was the night he was going to find out if his new book was a New York Times bestseller. News that he thought would make him happy and I thought would make it easier to tell him the truth.
“Heard anything?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well, get off the phone or they won’t be able to get through.”
I hung up, concentrated on the road.
Grady always resented how hard I worked, but even when I was at home he rarely seemed to notice me. His mind was always elsewhere, normally inside his novels. When we first got together he couldn’t keep his hands off me, but things had changed in that department too. I think there are several varieties of lonely and I have known them all. I actually wondered if he was having an affair at one point—his emotional Morse code wasn’t always easy to interpret—but his love affairs were only ever with his books. He was obsessed with them.
It was his idea to move out of the city and live somewhere more rural. He thought it would help his writing and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. But I missed my friends, so sometimes I met up with them in London after work. Grady got jealous if I came home late. He seemed to think that me wanting to spend time with other people meant I didn’t love him enough. It was as though he thought I only had enough love for one person, and he needed it to always be him. I get that he has abandonment issues because of his mum and dad, but everyone gets fucked up by their parents. It’s almost a rite of passage, and at his age I do think it’s probably time he got over it.
Sometimes he made me feel as though I was invisible.
And I started to wonder what that might be like.
To just vanish.
I was still driving home when he called again.
“Well?” I asked.
“You are speaking to the author of a New York Times bestseller,” he said, and I could hear the pure joy in his voice. He’d worked so hard and I was genuinely happy for him in that moment, regardless of everything else going on and what I knew I had to tell him. I started to cry.
“I am so proud of you!” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check and the car on the right side of the road. “I love you,” I added without thinking. The words sounded strange out loud. Foreign. I couldn’t remember the last time we had said that we loved each other. When he didn’t say anything in response I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. “I’m almost home. Not far at all now. Take the champagne out and—”
I hit the brakes.
“Oh my god. What’s happened?” Grady asked. My heart was thudding inside my chest and I wasn’t able to answer at first. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
“I’m fine, but... there is a woman lying in the road.”
“What? Did you hit her?”
“No! Of course not. She was already there, that’s why I stopped.”
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“I’m on the cliff road. I’m going to get out and see if—”
“No!” he shouted.
“What do you mean, no ? I can’t leave her lying in the lane, she might be hurt.”
“Then call the police. You’re almost home. Do not get out of the car.”
I have never taken orders from a man and I wasn’t about to start.
“If you’re worried about the fish-and-chips getting cold—”
“I’m worried about you ,” he said.
When I started receiving threats at work I actually wondered if it was Grady at first. Whether he was trying to scare me into leaving my job. It wasn’t him. I knew who was responsible for that by then. I’d started recording all of my incoming calls, and with the help of a police contact, I had a good idea who was behind the anonymous messages and hate mail. I only continued to record the calls to gather evidence. Earlier that day, a white box addressed to me was delivered to the newspaper. My editor was with me and more concerned than I was when I opened the box and saw an antique doll with its mouth stitched shut. I wasn’t scared of the people who were trying to silence me, but looking back, I wish that maybe I had been. Perhaps then I might have stayed in the car.
Grady was still concerned that something was going to happen to me because of my chosen career. He even put an app on my phone so that he could see where I was at all times and know that I was safe. It made me realize that he still loved me—even if he’d forgotten how to show it—and that there was a way to fix us.
The woman lying in the road was wearing a red jacket, just like the one I owned. It seemed like a strange coincidence at the time but it was a common enough coat with a hood and large buttons, lots of women wore a similar style and color. I couldn’t see the face under the hood, but I was worried there had been an accident—a hit-and-run perhaps—and that she was hurt. I unfastened my seat belt and opened the car door.
“Please don’t get out of the car,” Grady said.
“I have to. What if it were me lying in the road, wouldn’t you want someone to stop and help?”
“Wait, don’t hang up!”
“Fine, if it makes you feel better. I love you,” I said again, then I quickly got out of the car so I didn’t have to hear him not say it back.
It was cold, and dark, and it had started to rain. We weren’t as happily married as Grady thought we were, but all I wanted was to go home and be with my husband. I was tired after a long day at work, and several sleepless nights spent worrying about what I needed to tell him. I had planned to tell Grady the following day and let him enjoy the success of his book that night. I didn’t want to spoil his big moment. I’d been lying to him for some time by then and there were things I knew I needed to say. But because of what happened next I never got to tell him at all.
The noise of the waves crashing against the cliff down below sounded like a warning. Something instinctive was silently screaming at me to turn back, get in the car, lock the doors, and drive home. But I didn’t do that. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to walk away from someone in trouble. I suppose they knew me well enough to know that about me.
When I finally saw who was lying in the road I felt confused.
Then I felt afraid.
But it was too late.