Chapter Eight—Julie
I WAKE MONDAY MORNING facing Dalen. Sometime during the night, I rolled over.
He hasn’t moved closer. There’s still a strip of mattress between us, and his hands are tucked beneath his pillow instead of reaching for me.
He’s awake and blinks when I open my eyes.
“Morning.” His voice is rough from sleep.
“Morning.” I pull the blanket higher over my shoulder.
Neither of us moves.
Usually, one of us gets up first. Dalen starts coffee while I shower, or I get ready while he lies in bed pretending the alarm hasn’t gone off. There’s no reason for us to be staring at each other at six-thirty on a Monday.
I don’t know how to get around him without acknowledging last night.
Dalen finally pushes himself up and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m going to shower.” He reaches for the T-shirt he left on the floor.
“Okay.”
He pauses with it in his hand. “My nine o’clock is still on.”
It takes me a second to understand why he’s telling me. He didn’t cancel it to babysit me.
“Thank you.” I sit up and pull my hair away from my face.
Dalen nods and goes into the bathroom.
I listen to the shower start before reaching for my phone. Meg sent another message after I went to sleep:
Okay, rude. Call me tomorrow.
I stare at her name.
Yesterday, she was still my sister who worried too much. She was annoying, nosy, and far too willing to tell my husband things about our mother that weren’t hers to tell, but I understood that version of Meg.
Then Dalen told me she’d spent a week calling him about my sleep and my behavior. She showed him proof that I made a phone call I know I didn’t make.
I need to know why.
I type Are you working today?
The answer comes before I put down the phone:
Unfortunately. Why?
I rub my thumb over the edge of the case.
Lunch. Noon. Toby’s Bistro.
Three dots appear.
Am I in trouble?
I stare at that one longer.
Yes.
Her response is a grimacing face.
I don’t smile.
By the time Dalen comes out of the bathroom, I’m standing at the dresser choosing earrings. He has a towel around his waist and another in his hand.
He stops when he sees me dressed. “I thought you didn’t have to leave until eight.”
“I don’t.” I put in the second earring. “I’m going early.”
He rubs the towel over his hair. “Okay.”
I look at him in the mirror. Our gazes meet and hold in the reflection.
“I asked Meg to lunch.”
Dalen lowers the towel. “Okay.”
“That’s all?”
He considers the question before answering. “Do you want more?”
I turn around and lean against the dresser. “I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll stick with okay.” He crosses to his closet and pulls out a shirt.
As he puts one arm into the sleeve, I ask, “You don’t want to tell me what to say?”
Dalen stops.
I shouldn’t bait him. I know I’m doing it but do it anyway.
He finishes putting on the shirt before facing me. “I want to tell you like twelve things.”
Despite myself, my mouth almost twitches.
Dalen sees it and doesn’t push his luck. He buttons the shirt while I reach for my watch. “I won’t,” he says.
“Won’t what?” I fastened the band.
“Tell you what to say.” He fastens another button. “You asked me last night to stop making decisions about you without you. I’m trying to start there.”
The ache from last night eases slightly but doesn’t disappear. “I need to know why she did it.” I fasten my watch and pick up my phone. “Why she’d show you a call I didn’t make.”
Dalen’s hands stop at the next button. “I get that.”
“Do you?”
His expression tightens.
I regret the question immediately, but I don’t take it back.
He finishes dressing while I go downstairs. Coffee is already brewing because he remembered to set the auto-brew timer last night. I had completely forgotten.
I pour mine and add cream. A minute later, he comes into the kitchen knotting a tie. I glance at it. Dark blue with a subtle pattern. “Monday acquisition?”
He looks down. “Board.”
“That’s the stripe.”
“Apparently, I’m slipping.” He loosens the knot and pulls off the tie.
The normal exchange hurts because it’s so forced.
I take my coffee to the sink and stare out the window while Dalen gets another tie from the coat closet where he keeps several emergency options because he often forgets to select one while upstairs. I usually tease him about it being a subconscious protest against neckwear. Today, I stay silent.
He returns with a solid navy one.
“Better?” he asks.
I look at him. “Yes.”
Dalen loops it around his neck. “Thank God. Dorsey Capital survives another day.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
He smiles.
For about three seconds, we’re okay. Then my gaze catches the knife block beside the stove.
Dalen follows it, and his smile disappears.
I pick up my bag. “I should go.”
He doesn’t try to stop me. “Drive safely.”
“You too.”
I make it to the mudroom before he speaks again.
“Julie.”
I turn with my hand on the door.
Dalen stays beside the island. “I am sorry.”
My throat tightens. “I know.” I leave before either of us can turn that into another conversation we’re not ready to have.
TOBY’S BISTRO IS A cozy European restaurant near my office. I eat there at least once per week. They have the duck breast salad with cherries, crisp romaine, and citrus vinaigrette today, which is one of my favorites. I hope I’ll have an appetite today.
I arrive at eleven-fifty and take a table near the front windows. Meg walks in seven minutes later wearing black trousers, a cream blouse, and her work badge clipped to her waistband.
She spots me and makes a face. “You really are mad.”
“Angry is more appropriate,” I say coolly. “I’m definitely not mad.” Not like Mom was during that terrible time. I look at the chair across from me. “Sit down.”
Meg pulls it out. “That tone hasn’t worked on me since I was sixteen.”
“You listened when you were sixteen.”
“Rarely.” She drops her purse beside the chair and sits. “What’s wrong?”
A server approaches before I can answer. Meg orders iced tea and a chicken salad sandwich. I order soup I probably won’t eat, deciding I can’t do justice to the salad today.
Meg waits until the server walks away before leaning forward. “You’re scaring me.”
“Wonderful.”
Her eyebrows rise.
I immediately hate myself. I rub both hands over my face. “Sorry.”
“Julie, what happened?”
“You called Dalen.”
Her expression changes. It’s small, but I see it.
Meg looks down and straightens the paper napkin beside her silverware. “When?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me tell you what I know so you can figure out what I’m asking.”
Her head comes up. “I’m not.”
“You called him last Monday morning and told him I called you Sunday night.”
Meg is quiet, and I wait.
She reaches for the water the server left. “You did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Her fingers stop around the glass.
“I was in bed with Dalen.” I keep my voice low because there are people at the next table. “I didn’t call you.”
Meg takes a drink before setting the glass down. “You did, Julie.”
“Show me.”
She frowns. “I showed Dalen.”
“I want to see it.”
She reaches for her purse and pulls out her phone. Her movements are slower now. She unlocks it, taps several times, then turns the screen toward me.
There’s my name and photograph: Incoming call. 11:21 PM. 3 minutes.
Exactly what Dalen described. I stare at it until the numbers start to blur.
Meg lowers the phone. “Why would I make that up?”
“I don’t know.”
Her face crumples. “Seriously?”
“I know I didn’t call you.”
“Then somebody spoofed your number or something.” She spreads one hand across the table. “You already got that weird text. Dalen said there are ways people can fake phone stuff.”
I stare at her.
She knows about the text because I told her.
She knows Dalen said there are ways because she was sitting at our kitchen island when he said it.
There’s nothing strange about that. I hate that I’m looking for something strange anyway.
The server brings Meg’s tea. She waits until we’re alone again before leaning closer. “What did Dalen say?”
“He told me everything.”
Meg’s face loses color, and my stomach knots.
“Everything?” she asks.
I sit back. “What are you worried he told me?”
“Nothing.” She grabs the paper from her straw and starts tearing it into strips. “I just know you’re pissed that I talked to him about Mom.”
“You told him Mom was hospitalized.”
Meg drops the paper. “She was.”
“I know.”
“You never told him?”
“That was my choice.”
Her mouth closes.
I lean my forearms against the table. “You also told him Mom forgot conversations and moved things.”
She tenses. “Sometimes she did.”
“You told him she was paranoid.”
Meg looks toward the window.
“You told my husband that our mother thought people were in the house when they weren’t while I’m telling him somebody has been in our house.”
Her eyes fill. “I was worried.”
“About me?”
“Yes.” She looks back at me. “Who else would I be worried about?”
The answer should make me angry. Instead, she suddenly looks about seventeen.
It’s the way her mouth pulls down when she’s trying not to cry. She’s done that since we were kids. Mom would be screaming in the kitchen, and Meg would come find me with that exact expression because she knew I’d fix whatever I could.
I sit back.
Meg wipes beneath one eye. “You think I was trying to make Dalen think you’re crazy.”
I shake my head. “Of course not. I think you told him things you had no right to tell him.”
“I know.” Her voice shakes. “I know that now.”
The server arrives with our food, and neither of us speaks while she puts the plates down.
Meg stares at her sandwich while I stir my soup once.
“You scared me,” she says quietly.
I look up.
She tears a corner from her sandwich. “When you called that night, you sounded weird. Then Dalen told me about the bedroom and the door. You told me about the necklace and the text.” Her fingers crumble the bread instead of eating it. “All I could think about was Mom.”
I’m still angry but understand her reasons. “I’m not Mom.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
Meg flinches.
I put down my spoon. “Dalen went to a doctor.”
Her face changes again.
“You knew.”