Chapter 48 Katie Morrow
Katie Morrow
“I remember when Mark called to tell us Katie was pregnant. It was about two months after the wedding, and my mom thought that was probably why he married her. And it tracked, since I remember him saying that he’d never remarry after Willow left.
So, why marry Katie? It had to be because of a baby.
But joke’s on him, because she lost the baby, like, two weeks after he told us.
He should have waited until she was further along.
Or even better, should have just let her have the baby out of wedlock.
This isn’t the fifties. It’s not like her honor is at stake. ”
“She has a key and the alarm code. There’s nothing we have to do,” Mark said from inside the toilet room, his voice muffled through the door.
“It’s rude. You don’t stay at someone’s house and then come back late.
She didn’t even tell us that she was missing dinner.
” Katie used a soft cleaning pad to rub the disinfectant in, flipping over the pad to wipe up the excess.
The smell, which normally soothed her, didn’t touch her mood. If anything, it irritated her.
The toilet flushed and the door swung open. Mark moved past her, heading to his sink. “You didn’t want her to eat dinner with us. I think you made that pretty clear to her.”
“I’ve been extremely nice to her,” Katie objected, tossing the pads in the trash, then using the glass spray on the mirror. “You can’t say that I haven’t been nice to her.”
“You’ve been a bit stiff.” He squirted some hand soap into his palm, and Katie wanted to point out that Willow would have never hunted down the black currant blend from their Maui honeymoon.
Mark had commented twice during that stay that he had liked the smell, and Katie had spent a solid three days contacting the hotel’s corporate headquarters, then the soap manufacturer, then four different private distributors before finding one that would sell direct to her.
She’d had to buy eight cases of it in order for them to agree to the purchase.
Mark had glanced at the bottle and said, “Neat,” before asking her what they were doing for dinner.
You’ve been a bit stiff. Well, Willow had been a bit of a bitch, but to point that out would only make Katie sound like a scorned wife, so she swallowed the retort. “She said that you two got things from each other. What does that mean?”
“What?” Mark turned to her as he dried his hands with a monogrammed towel. “What are you talking about?”
“She said that you two had an unhealthy relationship, and that you ‘got’ things from each other.” She wiped down the glass and surveyed the counter area, making sure that everything was in line and place.
It was a quirk, her need for everything to be in perfect order at the end of each day, but it was a quirk that worked for her and gave her a sense of calm that typically carried her through to sleep.
Typically. Tonight, she had a feeling she could clean the grout with the electric scrubber and she’d still crawl into bed with a belly full of knots.
“I don’t know what she was talking about. But yeah, it was unhealthy in ways. We were both young. We fought a lot. She’s probably talking about the chaos. We both liked chaos, her more than me.”
We both liked chaos? Chaos was the opposite of their household. If anything, Katie bent over backward to make sure their home was a sanctuary of calm and serenity. Mark had enough stress at work; she didn’t want him to worry about anything here at home. “So, you like chaos?”
He hung the towel on the ring and pulled her into his arms. “I did, back when I was young and too stupid to know better. Now what I need is what you give me. Only you.”
The towel was crooked. It was all front loaded, with barely enough on the back. He pulled her tighter, squashing her against his chest, and she tried not to let it bother her. “I love you,” he said gruffly.
The entire bathroom was pristine, except for the water droplets by his sink and the sloppy towel.
She squirmed in his grip and he released her.
She opened the cabinet under his sink and removed a replacement towel from the rolls there.
Grabbing the spray, she quickly spritzed the entire area, then used his dirty hand towel to clean the sink, faucet hardware, and counter.
She ran the new towel through the bar and proportioned it correctly, then stepped back, examining the area.
“Katie.” He sighed. “Come to bed. It’s almost eleven. I want to finish before it gets too late.”
She turned off the bank of lights on the wall and considered telling him that she didn’t want to have sex tonight.
He would understand, given the fight they’d had earlier about Willow.
There would be some light complaining, but then he would get on his phone and she would read her book, and they would go to bed.
But she didn’t say anything. She removed her silk night set, folding the top and the pants and placing them on the bench by her side of the bed.
Then she climbed onto the California King and lay on her back, spreading her legs and waiting as he climbed up on the mattress and lowered himself on top of her.
As usual, it took a few minutes of quiet movement, and when he was done, she redressed and lay in the dark next to him.
Their sex had been, at the beginning, a little more exciting.
He had been a big dirty-talker at the beginning, but Katie never seemed to say the right things, and he’d done it less and less as time went on, until their sessions became a quiet and quick event that satisfied his needs but never hers.
Beside her, his breath changed tempo and got slower and deeper as he fell asleep.
It wasn’t fair, for him to fall asleep so easily.
How was he not concerned about her feelings, about her reactions and concerns about his ex-wife?
Ten hours ago, she had all but assumed that Willow was dead or, at minimum, someone she would never see or have to deal with.
Now she was their houseguest, one who had a much closer relationship and bond with Katie’s husband than she had ever anticipated.
She stared up at the ceiling, which had an elaborate print covering of a jungle.
It was all hand drawn, from the point of view of the jungle floor, looking up into the trees.
It was a piece you could study for hours and still not see everything.
It was Katie’s favorite part of the room, and one of the reasons why she had three night-lights scattered over the large space.
In the dim light, she could study it, and examining the details gave her overcrowded mind a chance to relax.
Willow had picked out this ceiling—had found this print, brought it to a wallpaper shop, had them print it out at one hundred times the size, then mounted it on the thirteen-foot-high ceilings.
How could a woman with the insight and passion to do all that be the same horrible drunk who had just bulldozed her way into their home?
She couldn’t. Or maybe she could and then she’d changed.
Or maybe good interior design tastes had nothing to do with being a good person.
Yes, that was it. It was just funny that, for the past three years, every time Katie looked up at this ceiling at night, she had felt a sort of kinship with Willow.
They both liked the same man. The same art.
The same books. Katie had gone through Willow’s junk room and discovered a box of CDs from the nineties and flipped through the titles, smiling at the familiar covers. LFO. Sublime. Matchbox Twenty.
While she had assumed that she would never meet Willow, she’d also thought that, if she did, she would like the woman.
And Mark had always been kind in his references to Willow, which was such a refreshing change from so many men who were venomous about their exes, especially if the women left them.
But maybe that was a bad thing. Who wanted a husband who was still hung up on their ex? Maybe it wasn’t fond memories—maybe it was love that was still fierce and strong.
She heard a sound. A door. She pushed herself upright and reached for her phone. Pulling up the alarm app, she checked the log.
Disarmed at 11:29 p.m. Armed at 11:30 p.m. Willow was here.
“Willow’s back,” she announced into the dark.
Mark rolled onto his side. “Go to sleep,” he murmured. “She’ll be fine.”
Sure, stumbling around the house. Looking at things. Touching things. It would be impossible to know how many items she would have infected, if not tonight, tomorrow. Or the next day.
Maybe Katie should go downstairs to see what she was doing. Find out where she’d been all night. Mark had said she went to Sara’s house, but she couldn’t have been there this entire time. It had been almost six hours. No guest stayed at someone’s house for six hours.
She returned the phone and lay back down. Maybe Willow would just go straight to sleep. If the time at their house was any indication, she was probably trashed and would collapse in bed.
Mark rolled over and wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her into him. He smelled slightly of sweat, and she hugged his forearm, and the thought of going downstairs died, at least for the moment.
She kissed his arm and closed her eyes, ordering herself to relax and go to sleep. There was no better feeling than being held by Mark, and she refused to let Willow ruin that for her.