Chapter 8 – Adrian
ADRIAN
Yet again, I can’t sleep. I’ve rowed until my arms are numb and emptied my inbox, including the annoying emails that Delaney has been sending—articles from Forbes and questions that she’s fully capable of answering herself.
I was clear with her that I’m not interested in a repeat. She seemed to take it in stride, and she’s done nothing that I feel compelled to call out, but still—what the hell do I care about “leadership mindset for the new AI economy?”
It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’ve already had several nightcaps.
I’ve walked around the house and checked the doors and windows.
I strolled down to the gatehouse and surprised the shit out of the night guard.
Now I’ve got to call Logan and have the man fired because he reeked of weed and didn’t notice me until I was almost in his face.
I have to call Logan anyway. Every day, when I text for an update, he says his guy in Baltimore is still digging into Cora’s missing months.
Apparently, a few years ago, the city government was targeted in a ransomware attack, and they declined to pay, which caused a lot of chaos that’s posing problems for the investigator.
Based on what happened earlier in the kitchen, the urgency of the situation has bumped up a few notches. Cora wouldn’t even bring the girls down for dinner. She’s not going to tell me what the hell that scene was about.
It came out of nowhere. One second, she was scowling at the sink, her disdain for me seeping from her pores, and then she just snapped. I didn’t move quickly enough. I should’ve hauled her away after she shoved the knife in the drain, but I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Cora is not a dramatic or hysterical person.
She’s simple—she loves her family and her home.
If I didn’t take her out, she’d never leave.
She spends her days with the children, feeding the ducks down by the river, making messes with fingerpaints, blowing bubbles, building castles in the sandbox, that sort of thing. Cora is happy. She’s even-tempered.
She was even-tempered.
What was she like before we met? I know what the file says. No discipline issues in school. No run-ins with the law. Unblemished work record. She was in foster care, but her social worker’s reports were unfailingly positive.
What has Cora said about her past? Not much. Fairly early on, she confided in me that she’d spent time in foster care after her mother and grandmother passed. She didn’t elaborate.
She doesn’t like to talk about her childhood, and I was sensitive to that.
I never pressed. She’d occasionally mention Baltimore.
The prairie dogs at the zoo. Lemons with peppermint stick straws from the carnival.
A witch’s hat on a playground that spun so fast she almost threw up, too scared to let go and fall.
All those details made me feel like I knew her.
I never considered how Cora’d react if she caught me fucking another woman, but if I had, I wouldn’t have predicted this. I would’ve expected more tears, maybe, more scenes like when my mother caught my father.
She’d turn the household upside down until he assuaged her with promises and extravagant gifts that he couldn’t afford. Then, when the money eventually dried up, she decided apologies weren’t good enough anymore and left for a new life, presumably with a new man with fresh pockets.
Cora isn’t like my mother—I wouldn’t have picked her if she was—but I suppose our imaginations are limited by our experience. Even when Mom was breaking dishes and tossing her wine in his face, she was in full control of herself.
I don’t think Cora was entirely there when she lost it in the kitchen. Her eyes were so far away. The blue was frozen. Her face was almost slack.
I polish off a final finger of bourbon, and restless, I head upstairs. If I call Logan now, there’s a good chance he’ll be up, but he’ll also have nothing to tell me, and that’ll leave me more irritated, more unsettled.
Something has to give. I am unwilling to accept the current stalemate between Cora and me. My natural inclination is to push. Play hardball. But she was shaking so damn bad on the floor. She felt so fragile. It reminded me of when Winnie was born.
The doctors decided to induce Cora a week early since Winnie had a single umbilical artery, and they didn’t like how she was growing.
The first twelve hours of labor progressed as expected, but then, in the middle of the night, Cora began to shake so hard, I thought she was having a seizure. The night nurse assured us it was just anxiety, or perhaps a reaction to the Pitocin. She encouraged Cora to do her deep breathing.
Cora stared at me, panting with pain, teeth chattering, absolutely terrified—but trusting. I demanded that they call the doctor. He, at least, made a show of checking the equipment and examining Cora, but in the end, he also suggested it was “new mom nerves.”
When I pointed out that this was Cora’s second time at bat, he’d said, “You know what I mean.” I didn’t, and afterward, I enjoyed making the hospital administrator try to explain it to me.
In that moment, though, I was livid. Cora’s jaw was clacking so bad, she could hardly talk.
She couldn’t hold her phone. She was hooked up to all these machines, wires everywhere, but I managed to wedge enough of my body on the edge of the bed to lie beside her.
I couldn’t hold her, and she couldn’t cuddle up to me, so she clutched my shirt with her trembling fingers and held me there, shuddering and miserable.
But she’d calmed down, even though the shaking didn’t stop.
She’d felt fragile then, too. I’d felt useless. Off-balance.
Everything turned out fine. A few hours later, at dawn, Winnie was born.
Mother and baby were both healthy. We never knew what caused the shaking, whether it was the vapors or the medication.
We were moved to the mother and baby floor.
Cora napped in bed with the baby. I sat in a chair, catching up on emails. We returned to our respective roles.
Except, when we came home from the hospital, I started leaving work early so I could read Pearl her bedtime story, crowding onto her princess bed to hold my whole family in my arms. Afterward, I could have a late dinner with my wife and listen to her talk about the kids and the house, the only things we had in common, the only things I really cared about.
And then, a few months later, Delaney Pierson stripped for me, and I sat down on a sofa, unzipped my pants, and let her ride my dick.
Why?
Because I was on edge, all the time, every moment of every day. Like I was waiting for something, and every second that passed, the unbearable tension ratcheted up another notch. What was I waiting for? I don’t know.
What does it matter?
I slow as I pass the nursery door. It’s closed. If it were possible, I’m sure it would be locked, but Cora thought that locks were a safety issue, so we had the knob switched out before Pearl was born.
For a few seconds, I pause in the hall, listening for Winnie fussing, but there’s no sound coming from the room. I slowly push the door open anyway.
Winnie is passed out in her crib. Cora is asleep on her side, the covers kicked down by her feet. She’s curled up in an oversized T-shirt, her arms tucked to her chest like chicken wings. Her face is etched with worry. My throat tightens.
I’ve never blamed her for marrying me for my money. I married her because I wanted a wife and a family. She checked my boxes. I assumed that I checked hers.
I never promised her anything that I didn’t deliver. I never tried to make her believe that this is something that it’s not.
Even though I keep telling myself this over and over, my chest still burns. I rub it with my palm. It must be heartburn. It feels like I’ve held my breath too long and run out of air.
The daybed is a twin, but she seems lost in the middle of it. She’s so beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
I was obsessed with polo for a few years in my twenties. The boarding stable where I kept my horse was on a farm out in Terryville. Cora has always reminded me of the days I spent riding the trails on their property—the cornflowers in the fields, and the silks on the ears of corn.
The peacefulness.
She sniffles and curls tighter in on herself. She must be cold. The ceiling fan is blowing down on her, of course. Fans reduce the risk of SIDS. It’s never off.
She looks alone.
A soft snore comes from Pearl’s bedroom. I quietly duck in to check on her. She’s sprawled out on her back, surrounded by stuffed animals. She must’ve buried herself in them before she fell asleep. She’s a great sleeper. Both girls are. She looks so warm.
An idea occurs to me, and I’m drunk enough that I don’t second guess it. I gently scoop Pearl up from her stuffie pile. She doesn’t even twitch. She’s out cold.
I carry her into the other room and lay her gently next to Cora.
Without opening her eyes, Pearl whines and squirms, nestling into Cora like a newborn kitten.
I hold my breath. Cora uncurls to make room for Pearl and tucks her close.
Soon, they’re both snoring again. I pull the quilt over them both.
The flat sheet is too entangled in Cora’s legs to fix.
I watch them for a while. They’re a few feet away, but the distance feels like a chasm. I did this. I cut myself out of the picture.
What did I ask Cora?
Would you hurt yourself?
It’s an interesting question.
Would I?
Yes. For no good reason, without a single thought, I’d throw everything away.
I’d take the fragile woman who’d clung to me, shaking in my arms as she gave birth to my baby, and I’d break her from across a room. I’d tell the woman riding my dick to stay there because the worst thing to happen would be my kids seeing my dick.
Did I hate myself then as much as I do now? I must have. I just didn’t know it.
I blow out a breath and straighten the quilt. I’m fucking drunk. I need to crash.
Before I leave, I check on Winnie one last time and shut the door quietly behind me.
I briefly consider going back downstairs for another drink.
The European markets open soon. In the end, though, I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.
I leave my door open in case Pearl wakes up and comes looking for me.
She won’t. The few times she woke up early and ended up in our room, she was looking for Cora.
But I leave the door open anyway.
Just in case.