CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Friday, May 19
Amy
Amy found her husband standing in front of the open refrigerator, his shirt adhered to his body with sweat, his back still heaving from his run. “Good morning,” she said, catching the jerk of his shoulders when she startled him.
Andrew reached for a bottle of water before he turned to face her, letting the refrigerator door fall shut. “Morning.” He cracked the cap and discarded it on the countertop.
Amy had gifted him an expensive thermal water bottle, yet he chose to drink out of the cheap plastic ones they stocked for guests. Andrew leaned against the fridge, downed half the bottle in one swig, took a deep breath, and asked, “Did you sleep well?”
Amy set a hand on her hip. “I suppose. It’s nice to sleep in my own bed. It’s hard to nap at the hospital.” She’d clocked more hours than usual that week, and guilt snagged her. But people needed her, even if her husband did, too. She anticipated his next words, his gentle yet persistent suggestion she dial back her hours. Seconds ticked by.
Hmm . It wasn’t even a word. Just a noise, deep in his throat. The nape of Amy’s neck prickled.
Andrew hadn’t been the same since that morning when they’d fought in the kitchen. Sure, for a while, he’d seemed relieved. But then something else had replaced the friction between them. The changes were subtle, the kind of shifts noticeable only in retrospect. It wasn’t things that happened more, but that happened less. A touch. A look. They occupied the same space, but their circles found fewer reasons to overlap. They used to chat about everything, nothing, before they fell asleep, or while they had their morning coffee. Now they read on their individual devices. And the things Amy had always asked him to do—put his running shoes away instead of leaving them by the back door, make the bed, collect the mail—were now all checked off without fail. Andrew’s shoes were nowhere to be seen, the bed was made, hospital neat, as if it had never been slept in, the mail stacked in a neat rectangle on the counter.
But the night she’d spotted his car at the steakhouse, something had planted itself deep inside her. A seed of suspicion that bloomed every day. Now all her husband’s actions were divided into one of two categories: the behavior of the Andrew she knew, the Andrew she’d married, or the actions of someone who held a secret. This hmm hashed in the latter column.
In the kitchen, Andrew’s eyes darted around the room; he was nervous, like he was anticipating her next question.
“You stopped taking your medication?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yes.”
She’d spotted the bottles at the bottom of the bathroom trash back in April, the tablets rattling inside when she’d examined them. She’d given him time to raise the subject, but he’d never breathed a word to her, a physician . Amy took him in, the toned body she’d once reached for without hesitation. He seemed jumpy, recently, on edge. “Don’t you think you should have a discussion with your psychiatrist before making that kind of decision?”
Andrew straightened. “Amy, twice a year I pay that man one hundred and fifty dollars for a ten-minute slot so he can write me a script. He never even makes eye contact. I hardly think he cares.”
“What if your symptoms return?”
Andrew’s gaze fell to the countertop before he answered. “I’m tired of taking them. They make me numb. I’m sick of it.” The vulnerability in his eyes prodded her. Deep inside, she craved the caress of his fingers on the back of her neck, on her arms, everywhere. But she couldn’t get distracted.
At work Amy carried on, soothing her patients, pacing the hollow hospital corridors in the dark hours of the night, while she sorted her thoughts. She needed to use her brain, to separate her emotions. Feelings couldn’t be trusted. Only evidence could be relied upon.
Naturally, she’d formed a plan. It had taken a few shifts for the opportunity to present itself, but one evening the hospital was uncharacteristically quiet, her schedule briefly overlapped Dr. Sanchez’s, and Amy was allowed a rare indulgent break. Instead of napping or brewing coffee, she slipped into her car and cruised up the highway to Lantana.
She felt foolish. She’d never imagined chasing a man around the dark streets. But this was her life, her partner, she thought as the halo of streetlamps passed. Everything he did affected her. And she spotted it: Andrew’s car in the lot at Angelo’s Bistro, the restaurant’s loopy logo glowing red in the darkness. This time, without the camouflage of a deluge, Amy was certain it was his car. That custom color: Amethyst Gray. Confirmed by his plate.
Amy spent her life reading charts, facts. None had ever struck her like a hot iron.
That fucking car had been the first clue that she and Andrew hadn’t been on the same page. Amy had expected him to choose something safe and practical, like her Volvo SUV. Instead, Andrew had selected the sleek sedan, adding every feature the salesman pitched without hesitation, his face split into a grin like a child set loose in a toy store with a hundred-dollar bill. Amy had been tucked into the back seat on the test drive, nausea swelling as Andrew engaged in a pissing contest of increasing machismo with the salesman. His custom paint job had delayed the delivery of his vehicle by a month. What was wrong with regular gray? “Do you know how dangerous colors like that are in low light?” Amy had growled when the salesman was out of earshot. “One rainy day you’re going to get T-boned. I work in the ER. I see it all the time.”
Andrew had rolled his eyes, leaving Amy feeling like a nagging wife. A title she’d never imagined for herself. At the finance desk, a shrine to etched-glass accolades, Amy had sat with her arms and legs crossed, bathed in the assault of aggressive air-conditioning. She had clutched her opinions to herself while inwardly, swirling questions seeded themselves in a place she didn’t dare visit.
After spotting Andrew’s car at the bistro, Amy stomped the gas on the empty stretch of highway, and the exquisite engine responded; her car sailed over the curves. She knew the consequences of speeding—logged in the back of her mind like bloody Polaroids—but she didn’t care. Had she missed something in him when they’d dated? Andrew had checked all the boxes. He came from a good family, worked hard. She considered the documentary she’d watched about the wives of serial killers, how they each claimed they saw no signs the man they shared their beds, their bodies, their children with, were monsters. Had she married a philandering narcissist? It wasn’t possible.
Amy couldn’t lie to herself; her heart yearned for the man she’d fallen in love with, longed for the vulnerability he showed when he drifted off with his head nuzzled to her body. But this was her life, and maybe her one chance to get what she wanted, and she couldn’t let him ruin it. At her age, she was out of options. Amy had jerked her car back into her assigned space and trotted back to the sterile halls of Boca General, a scummy film tainting her view of her marriage, of the entire life she led.
Now, in the kitchen, with her reactions in check, Amy cocked her head and examined him when she asked, “What do you do at night while I’m at work?”
Andrew’s movements were slow, and he stepped forward, resting his forearms on the island. He collected the cap, examined it between his fingers. “Sometimes I spend time with Nick. You know, grab some chicken wings at Bru’s Room. Watch a Heat game.”
He tossed the cap back onto the marble, and it landed with a click. Amy’s eyes followed his movement, and his finger found the cap again, flipping it over with his finger. Click click.
Silence hummed between them, and Andrew’s eyes lifted, as if he expected her to speak, but the only sound was the click of plastic against the marble. Click click. Click click.
Amy was aware there were things she didn’t know about her husband when she’d married him, but she’d never imagined him to be a liar. And a terrible one at that. Chicken wings. Bullshit.
It was time to form a new plan, one to expose what Andrew was hiding. In the meantime she’d let him dig himself deeper into his own mess while she waited for the right moment.