Chapter Nine #2
We met the first week of kindergarten. I was waiting outside the school for Zach to come out, pushing Rachel back and forth in the stroller so she wouldn’t fuss.
Yumi had cut through the cliques of chatting moms, a pencil keeping her long hair in a topknot, and made a beeline for me.
“Hi, I’m Ryan’s mom. Can Zach come over and play? You guys are welcome too.”
Yumi was my first “mom friend” in the neighborhood, and she is still as direct yet warm as she was that first day that we met fifteen years ago.
We’ve seen each other through rough times—Yumi’s divorce and diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, and Rachel’s issues in high school—and celebrated each other’s wins.
If there’s one person I could call on a rainy night to ask for help in hiding the body, it’s Yumi.
Now we both sit in our favorite seats as we have over so many years, I on the settee with the striped cushion and Yumi in a wicker chair, legs folded underneath her.
“I told him I didn’t take it,” I say, my voice rising. “And you should have seen the way he looked at me, like—like I was lying. Like I had something to hide.”
“I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t he believe you?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about that the whole walk over here.
” I slip off my sandals and dig my toes into Kugel’s fur.
“I mean, I get why he was like that in front of the police. I don’t like it, but I get it.
He’s so analytical and logical, and seeing the empty wine bottle in the trash just didn’t make sense to his brain.
Fine. But he had time to sleep on it, reflect, and this morning, it was almost worse. Like he had decided for sure.”
“Maybe he’s scared,” Yumi says, shifting the binoculars she uses for bird-watching so she can stretch out her legs and put her feet up on the coffee table.
“I mean, he comes back from Rehoboth, you’ve got a concussion.
You’re in the ER. Maybe the whole thing freaked him out, and he just wants the most obvious answer because he wants the problem fixed. Because the alternative is too scary.”
“It is scary, isn’t it?” I ask. “I really do think that someone came into my house and put that bottle in my trash.”
“And you’re a hundred percent sure you didn’t drink it?” Yumi asks it gently, but without hesitation. It’s the same gentle firmness she uses as a college coach when she has to let parents know their little Jaxon might not be Harvard material. “You can tell me.”
I shoot her a look. “Of course I’m sure. I would tell you if I did. You know that.”
“I know you would. And the Millie’s takeout?”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t me. I know it in my bones. Don’t ask me to explain how, don’t tell me, ‘Oh you don’t remember Saturday night so blah blah.’ I just know.”
“Whoever ordered the Millie’s would have to be someone who knows you. Someone who knows you use CJ as your name.”
“That’s in my DoorDash account. So anyone who accessed my phone to order a meal…”
“Oh,” she says. “You think someone hacked your phone.”
“They wouldn’t have to hack it if I was passed out. You just need my fingerprint to get in. If I’m lying there unconscious? Anyone could have gotten into my phone. Tell me from your perspective what happened that night.”
Yumi adjusts herself. “All right. I called you and you were walking the dog. You had just left the Allards’ and you sounded tipsy, for sure.
You were even slurring your words at one point.
” She stops and looks out the screened window for a moment.
“I remember you saying that you thought you saw someone or were startled by something? Then the phone went dead. I called you back after a minute, but it went to voicemail. Then I got a text from you saying you were calling it a night.”
I nod, recalling the text that I have no recollection of sending.
“What if someone else sent that text?” I ask. “What if I was unconscious at that point?”
Yumi meets my gaze but says nothing.
“I don’t like feeling like this,” I say at last. “Out of control. Like I can’t explain myself well enough to be believed. Not being able to remember.”
“We’re going to figure this out,” Yumi says. “You’re not alone. I’ll help you.”
I’m so grateful for her empathy, I feel like I could cry.
The past few years I’ve become more introverted and less connected to people.
We all used to hang out before Covid—Yumi, Kenya, and me and the guys—but since the lockdown, since Yumi got sick, and since our kids grew up and apart, we’ve all splintered.
Combine that with the hypercompetitiveness of social media, the problems with Rachel and my career, and sometimes I feel utterly isolated. At least Yumi makes me feel less alone.
“Thank you,” I say. “I mean it. You always say the right thing. Do you remember exactly what I said?”
“I don’t remember the exact words, but I remember your tone.”
“What do you mean?”
“At first, you said they spooked you or something, but then you sounded relieved. So you must have seen someone that you knew. Miguel, maybe?”
I shake my head. I’m about to say, Can’t be, he was in Rehoboth, but I stop myself. I don’t actually know for a fact where Miguel spent Saturday night. He says he came back early Sunday morning, but I don’t actually know that.
And that scares the hell out of me.