Chapter 11 #2
Henry reaches into his pocket. For a moment I’m rigid with terror. I have something in the pocket of my fleece that I should not have, and I think maybe I dropped it and that’s what he has found. But then he removes his hand and drops two white pills on the table.
“I don’t know how much you take,” he says.
I swallow one pill and tear the other in half with my front teeth. “Fifteen.”
Henry nods. “I just went up to twenty.”
It’s like when a hissy house cat comes and sits in your lap.
You are afraid to move, to breathe wrong, to do anything that might make it change its mind about choosing you.
I adjust my tone accordingly. This is fascinating, that we are speaking about this, like this, and I want to know more about when Henry realized he needed Lexapro and what happened that made him increase his dosage, but I do not want to scare him off either.
“I go up to twenty sometimes. Usually when I have a bunch of press to do.”
Henry sets down his fork. His hair looks blonder than usual, artfully tossed without any effort, and his cheeks are dewy and flushed from the wine.
Lovely, a repugnant word, but he looks lovely.
“I really did think I was dying that day, Faye.” He is speaking about the day we broke up.
The air in my lungs feels sharp and cold.
I have the sudden urge to hold him, which disgusts me.
“You were having a panic attack,” I say.
“I never would have thought to put those words to it. I know that must sound idiotic to you.”
I lean forward and I nearly put my hand on his. “It doesn’t, actually. I didn’t know that was happening to me either. I just thought, this is normal. Everyone feels like this at times.”
“When did you realize not everyone does?”
“You’re not going to like this,” I warn him.
“I’ll live.”
I fold my hands on the table primly. Take a beat to figure out how I want to say this.
“It was after the episode came out. And it got so much attention. And I was asked to speak about it ad fucking nauseum. There were so many stars on that show but that was what made me pop. That episode and the fact that I wrote it became this, like, feminist battle cry that I resented to my core. Talking about coercive control in relationships, and the inference was that I had written it so realistically that of course I must have had some experience with that sort of thing when really, what we had, it was what I wanted. And it felt horrible, like I was pretending to be a victim. I felt like the loneliest person on the planet and, really, that there must be something wrong with me for wanting the things I did.”
Henry looks at me in a calm and exacting way. “You’re far from the only woman who likes that.”
I hide my face in my hands. “Oh my God. Kidnap me, starve me, ruin my hair with silicone shampoo, but please don’t talk to me about your sex life with your wife.
” I peek between my fingers, make sure he’s not planning on elaborating, then realize something else.
“Where does she think you are while you’re sitting here eating steak with me? ”
“It’s her week with the kids.” Henry picks up his fork, the pin to the grenade, and resumes eating as though the shock wave he has set off is not still reverberating through the room.
I drop my hands from my face. “You’re divorced?”
“We’re in the process.”
I just went up to twenty, he said, mere moments ago. “Henry,” I say, and I do not need to play my shock. I find it abundantly shocking every time I am reminded I lack the gumption of half the citizens of this country, or whatever the divorce rate is now. “What happened?”
“What happened with yours?” He is looking at my ring finger. Though he took all my jewelry, there wasn’t anything on that hand to take. “I’ve gathered enough from your conversations there is an issue there, though you don’t expressly say why to anyone. Does he cheat?”
I force myself to maintain our chatty, civilized tone. “Oh God.” I busy myself cutting a piece of my steak. “It’s much worse than that.”
Henry’s eyebrows lift slightly in amusement. He thinks this is hyperbole, I can tell. “I’ll get it out of you. Give me time.”
“How much time? How long are we going to stay here?”
“Until I tire of you and drown you in the lake.”
“Okay, so forever,” I quip.
“Let’s see what you look like when your Botox wears off.
” He notices I have cut the perimeter around my steak and left the rare parts.
“Can I?” He lifts his fork. I nod. He reaches across the table and his elbow catches in the mouth of the decanter.
It toddles, off-balance, and I swear this inanimate object is momentarily imbued with free will, because just when I think it will right itself it decides to spill spectacularly, all over my lap.
I leap up from the table, dripping red like a gutted fish.
“Shit,” Henry says. And he goes over and grabs a dishrag and hands it to me. I dab and dab at the lap of my borrowed fleece, but soon the dish towel is soaked and I’m still dripping all over the carpet. “Take that off,” Henry says. “I’ll get you another one.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s not that bad.”
Henry stares at me with his brow furrowed. “You cannot be comfortable like that.”
“It will dry.”
“And stain,” he says. “It needs to be soaked.”
“Okay,” I relent. “Just let me go to the bathroom quickly.”
Henry reaches for my upper arm as I try to walk past. I collected the bristles from the cheap hairbrush and stuffed them into my pocket so I could put them in Henry’s food and watch him choke and claw at his throat in bulge-eyed terror, and when he discovers this, I do not know what he will do to me and so I do not hesitate.
I grab the decanter by the neck and swing its fat lower body at Henry’s head.
Henry stumbles back, landing in a seething sprawl and taking two of the dining room chairs with him.
I grab the boat keys off the brass hook and fly out the door.
I feel nothing—not the shiv of the night air nor the delayed scream of my ankle.
I clear the steps to the dock, stumble for the far pipe cap, and unravel the spring lines.
I dive into the boat, running a mental checklist from the other day: Ventilation cap—open.
Get the motor in the water. I don’t have time to worry about the kill switch.
I push away from the dock as Henry comes hammering down it, his light hair soaked dark with Cabernet.
He dives gracefully into the cold water and surfaces, reaches the boat’s ladder in a few strokes.
“Help!” I am screaming, the word catapulting against the slate walls of the mountains, coming right back to me in a diminished, mocking echo.
I am turning the ignition pointlessly. I forgot the primer bulb.
There is no gas in the motor. The boat rocks forward as Henry hauls himself onboard, the weight of the water pulling his clothes tight to his furious, panting form.
“I’m sorry!” I scream. “I’m sorry! Henry, don’t!
I’m sorry!” He stalks toward me in slow-motion horror and grabs me by my ponytail, drags me to the swim step ladder.
I have the good sense to suck in one last breath before he buries my head underwater.
It is quiet in Lake Wanika, clear and bracing cold.
I count. I can hold my breath for a long time.
I discovered this special skill with Henry.
Nineteen seconds. I’m usually good for longer than that, but I’ve never been in water this cold or this panicked.
I suck in a breath and scream for help again.
Henry shoves me back under, my entire torso this time.
It no longer feels cold anymore, and that’s how I know I am in trouble.
A slinky kind of sleep is calling for me.
Sleep has a woman’s voice, a voice I recognize but cannot immediately place.
“Faye?” she is calling. “Faye? Are you okay?”