Chapter 8 Sara Batcher
Sara Batcher
“Everyone in the neighborhood knew Sara as David’s wife.
It was like everyone ignored the fact that she started InkRose while an undergrad at Harvard, built it into a massive stationery brand, and then sold it for mid–nine figures.
They all acted like she married David for his money, but she was the breadwinner in that relationship.
He did well in pharmaceutical sales, but nothing close to her. ”
In the five years since David had disappeared, Sara had toyed with doing something else with the space, but in a house of twelve thousand square feet, it hadn’t been a top priority.
And now . . . the mystery of her missing husband was finally solved. After all the rumors, the whispers, the theories . . . David was dead and right here in the neighborhood.
Asshole.
Of all the times for his body to pop up, it would make sense for her narcissistic husband to choose this moment out of them all.
After all, Sara had finally adjusted to an empty house, a clear schedule, no drop-ins by detectives or pesky questions from the insurance companies.
Everyone had finally stopped thinking of Sara as a widow and started to think of her as all the other things that she encompassed.
She was, as her therapist loved to preach, so much more than just the former Mrs. David Batcher, and that’s what she should embrace!
The problem was that Sara had spent seventeen years as a wife, and that identity was hard to shake off, especially when that connection didn’t get a clean ending.
Instead, with David just dropping off the face of the planet, it had left everyone in limbo, not sure what to think, who to support, who to suspect, or who to blame.
Of course, everyone had blamed her. His mother had been horrific about it, but then again Nora had always been a bitch about everything regarding Sara.
No one was good enough for her baby, especially not a Jewish girl from Brooklyn with a nose ring.
Let it be known for the record that Sara had removed the nose ring prior to meeting Nora, had covered up the tiny hole with concealer and powder, yet the woman had still managed to spot the jeweled stud in a photo of her and David and had never gotten over it.
The decision, as she had told David over and over again, just went to show what kind of judgment Sara had.
The type of mother she would be. The sort of reckless decision-making he would have to live with for the rest of his life, should he make the unfortunate decision to marry her.
They say that mothers know best, and maybe she did.
After all, David had regretted the marriage.
He’d never said that, but he’d shown it, over and over again, in tiny ways.
The disappointed sighs. The lack of invitations to group events.
The long business trips. Rushing her through dinner without allowing for dessert.
The repeated wearing of his favorite cologne even though she was allergic to it.
Nora’s concerns over Sara’s suitability as a mother had also been a nonfactor, because they’d never conceived a child.
Another strike against Sara; it would have been better, in Nora’s book, to be an unfit mother rather than a barren one.
The retired science teacher couldn’t visit without tsking her tongue over the empty bedrooms on the third floor.
“No children?” she had wailed. “You want me to die without any grandchildren, is that it?”
They hadn’t, but she did. They’d buried her three months before David’s disappearance in a huge mausoleum with a long list of achievements underneath her name.
Philanthropist. Teacher. Mother. Aunt. Grandmother had not been on the list. Sara had noticed the absence but hadn’t felt any regret.
She’d taken the vitamins, the hormone injections, the tests.
She’d gotten in the proper positions, timed her ovulation cycles, and always been willing, sexually instigative, and enthusiastic on the days that promised maximum potential.
Leaning forward, she reached down to the mat as her back leg lifted higher into the air, transitioning into standing splits.
It was for the best that they hadn’t gotten pregnant.
By now, the kid would have been five or six.
Instead of doing yoga, Sara would be chasing them around a playground, a cell phone in the crook of her neck, trying to keep them entertained while juggling the rest of her life.
She’d be miserable, and maybe that was what Nora had seen. Not so much that Sara couldn’t have a child, but that she didn’t really want one.
Maybe David had sensed that as well.
Maybe all this could have been avoided and he’d still be here, they’d still be married, there would be no investigation at all, if she’d done a better job of hiding her feelings.