Just Between Us Read online

  Seeing that huge welt on Heather’s torso had unsettled me, unearthing old fears and insecurities, taking me into the past.

  I hadn’t wanted to move back to my hometown. Michael does IT in financial services, and when his company transferred him from Philly to Pittsburgh, I’d been afraid of the dark memories that would come flying at me, like bats at twilight, every time I passed something familiar. It was one of the reasons I’d insisted we keep away from the east of the city. We moved north instead, trading the Monongahela River for the Ohio, and except for the occasional trip to Kennywood Park, I stayed far away from the neighborhood that I’d once called home.

  Despite my trepidation about being back, I’d been charmed by Sewickley. The first time we drove through town, Michael and I had seen a row of unlocked bicycles outside the library. We’d already been awed by the lovely houses and quaint shopping district, delighted that it was a walkable community with good schools, but it was those unlocked bicycles, the sense of security they conveyed, that had confirmed for us that this was the place we wanted to settle and raise a family. I remember resting my hand on my very pregnant belly and thinking this small town was a safe place to raise our child.

  Now that sense of security had fled. It didn’t help that Michael had raised the possibility of being transferred back to Philly, when I’d assumed we’d be here forever. Or that the year was turning, the days shorter and the leaves dying, the plants in my backyard garden withering. I could feel bad things coming. One night after dinner, I was washing dishes and staring out at the darkness when Michael’s hands landed on my shoulders, startling me.

  “Wow, you’re jumpy,” he said, holding his hands up. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I said automatically, and then a minute later, as his hands came to rest on my shoulders again, kneading gently, I repeated, “Nothing, I’m fine.”

  But I wasn’t. I had trouble sleeping, lying there in the dark long after Michael was softly snoring beside me. I’d stare up at the fine cracks in the old plaster ceiling while a past I had stored as far away as I could unspooled in my brain until I’d finally fall into a restless sleep filled with haunting dreams.

  “You’re a whore.” A face contorted with rage. “You’re nothing but a whore.” A rough hand grabbed my arm and I looked down to watch the formation of a purple mark that looked exactly like the bruise I’d seen on Heather’s wrist.

  Shifting in my seat at the coffee shop, I tried to remember why I’d insisted on having this meeting when it was clear that neither Sarah nor Julie was willing to see the truth.

  “If Heather says nothing is wrong then what can we do but believe her?” Julie said, stirring sweetener into her coffee. She took a sip and made a prune face. “Oh, yuck, that’s far too sweet.” She dropped the cup and picked up the three empty packets of artificial sugar discarded on the table, genuinely surprised, as if she hadn’t been the person who’d just stirred them into her coffee. At least I wasn’t the only one distracted.

  “Even if there is something going on we can’t do anything unless she’s willing to talk,” Sarah said, giving me an apologetic smile over the top of her coffee cup before taking a sip. I didn’t say anything, feeling defeated. Sarah must have taken my silence for a rebuke, because she put down her cup with a decisive click. “Look, all we can do is offer our support and make sure she knows she can turn to us.”

  It seemed completely inadequate.

  * * *

  A group text came from Heather the next day. Would we like to bring the kids to her house Thursday afternoon after school for a playdate? “Daniel gets bored with no one but me to talk to,” she’d told me more than once, although I wondered if she was really the one who got bored. She never hid the fact that she found much of parenting tedious. I texted back, Sounds great; thanks! Feeling fake because it was so cheery, as if everything were perfectly fine.

  Thursday was sunny, one of those perfect fall days when the sky is such a vivid color of blue that it seems almost unreal, and the trees are still heavy with leaves of flaming red and deep gold. There weren’t going to be too many afternoons left like this before winter descended, and for one brief moment I thought of turning back and taking Lucy and Matthew to the park instead so nothing could spoil this beautiful day.

  I pulled in right ahead of Julie and Sarah, who’d carpooled, which I found strange because technically I lived closer to Julie. Had Sarah asked for a ride or had they wanted time to talk without me? As I was unstrapping Matthew from his car seat, Heather came around the side of the house and hugged Lucy, who’d raced to throw herself at Heather with her usual enthusiasm.

  “Daniel’s around back, go find him,” Heather said, and Lucy took off running. I handed Heather a bag with some cookies I’d brought, giving her a surreptitious once-over. If she had any bruises they were hidden.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” she said with a big smile, including Julie and Sarah, who were both struggling to unpack kids and all the things that came with them from Julie’s car.

  Did Heather seem nervous? I caught myself wondering. What if Julie was right and I was conjuring up things to fit my own vision of what was happening? What if I was wrong and there were simple explanations for all we’d seen?

  “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Julie exclaimed, her enthusiasm contagious as always, no matter where my mood started. She was carrying Aubrey on her hip while leaning forward to scrape something off Owen’s face with her free hand. Sarah had a tight hold of Josh while she lectured his older siblings to “remember your manners and say please and thank you—Sam, stop kicking your sister!”

  I was a little surprised when Heather didn’t take us inside and instead led us around the side of the house. We were all bundled in jackets or sweaters except for Owen. “What am I supposed to do?” Julie said, as he ran past us in a T-shirt, his flip-flops smacking on the gravel. “It was either let him wear what he wants or don’t get here at all.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, but I could feel her judgment of Julie’s parenting. Sarah was a big believer in clear boundaries with one’s children. “Who’s the parent?” was a favorite expression of hers.

  The sun was deceptive; it was a lot chillier outside than it looked. I zipped up Matthew’s jacket and wondered if Julie would eventually fetch Owen’s sweater and shoes from the car.

  “They’re running around enough not to feel the cold,” she said, watching our kids dashing about the backyard, their cheerful cries and chatter echoing through the trees as if they were a small flock of birds. “Backyard” was an understatement. The property was vast, with a play structure almost as big as the one at the park, plus a full tennis court back behind that and plenty of wide-open green space.

  “I’ve got coffee,” Heather said, “I’ll bring it right out.” She headed across the lawn to the stone courtyard at the back of the house and in through a back door. Again, I was surprised that she didn’t invite us inside to sit and talk, like we usually did.

  Sarah raised her eyebrows at Julie and me. “Isn’t it a little cold for a picnic?” Julie just shrugged and pulled the zipper of her jacket up before cheerfully heading for the wrought-iron patio set on the courtyard. I admired her ability to move forward, both literally and figuratively, because it wasn’t one of my strengths—I have a tendency to dwell on the negative.

  “I hope the coffee’s hot,” Sarah said in a low voice as we brushed leaves off the table’s matching ironwork chairs. “We’re going to need it.”

  Heather came back out the door carrying a silver tray with a porcelain coffeepot and cups. “Oh! I forgot the cream and sugar—I’ll get them,” she said as she set it on the table. And before any of us could protest or offer to help, she darted back into the house.

  “Does she seem nervous to you?” Sarah asked as Julie began pouring coffee. So I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. I felt a small surge of pleasure at having my observation supported. Before Julie or I could respond, Heather came back out with a small
white porcelain creamer and a glass bowl heaped with sugar cubes.

  “I couldn’t find the matching sugar bowl,” she said. “I have no idea what happened to it.” She chattered away, asking who wanted cream or sugar and adding it to each of our cups as if this were all perfectly normal. The cold metal from the chair seeped through my jeans and I tried to hide a shiver. We all followed Heather’s lead and acted as if it were just another summer day and not late October.

  “Did you sell the Tillman house yet?” Heather asked Julie, referring to a home that had been the bane of Julie’s existence for more than six months. The owners, an older couple whose home was desperately in need of updates, were stubborn and wouldn’t accept the lower offers they’d gotten despite having already retired to Arizona.

  “I can’t wait until their contract is up,” she said. “Let them try to tempt another real-estate agent with the promise of a big commission that they’re never going to see. Good riddance!”

  “Their son is just like the father,” Sarah said. “He’s the soccer coach for the peewee team and everyone’s just waiting for him to step down so another parent can step up and replace him.”

  “Speaking of stepping up, did you decide about the PTA fund-raiser, Heather?” Julie looked at her expectantly.

  “What fund-raiser?” I said, warming my hands on the mug of coffee.

  “The parent-child fashion show. I think it was Shelly Schwartzman who proposed the idea and I immediately thought of Heather. I mean, how great would it be to have our own real-life model modeling?”

  “That was another life, I haven’t modeled in years,” Heather said, shaking her head with a small smile.

  “But you were a model and I can guarantee you that none of the other mothers participating can say that. And we’re not being sexist,” Julie said as an aside to Sarah. “Fathers are welcome to participate, too, but we don’t have any takers so far.”

  “You should do it, Heather,” I said, trying to be supportive of Julie’s idea. “You could teach everybody how to walk the runway.”

  Before Heather could comment, Sarah’s son, Sam, hit Daniel because he’d slammed into Sam and his plastic truck, which he’d been busy running up the slide as Daniel was coming down. Both kids began wailing, and Sarah yelled her son’s name before running toward them.

  “Oh, shit.” Heather dropped her cup on the table and sprinted after Sarah. The wailing increased for a moment as the other kids stopped to stare.

  “Daniel’s got a boo-boo,” Matthew said, looking from me to the two older children, who were being both admonished and comforted by their mothers. He’d found his way to my side, as he did any time something upsetting happened. I put my own coffee down and hoisted him into my lap, relishing the way his small body curled into mine. “He’s okay,” I crooned, rocking him a little as he fiddled with the zipper on my coat. He didn’t like conflict, my little boy, whimpering any time he heard arguing or saw fights between other children.

  “Better hope he grows out of it or he’s going to get eaten alive in school,” Michael had commented recently, but without any rancor.

  “Oh no,” Julie moaned, startling me. I turned to look at her, but she’d stood up and was staring at the children. “He’s bleeding,” she said.

  I slid Matthew off my lap and stood, shading my eyes to see Heather cupping a hand under Daniel’s mouth before lifting him into her arms and hustling back toward the house.

  Sarah was yelling at a crying Sam, and as Julie rushed to help Heather, I hustled over to try to calm Sarah down. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the remaining children, including her youngest, Josh, were standing stock-still, looking from Daniel to Sam and then to us, trying to decide on their own reactions by gauging their mothers’.

  Matthew trailed after me, whimpering and calling, “Mommy, come back,” while Sarah interrogated her wailing son as if he were a hostile witness: “I asked you a question. Did you hit Daniel with your truck?”

  “It was just a little disagreement,” I said, trying to placate, only to have Sarah wheel on me.

  “I’ll thank you to stay out of it, Alison,” she said in her most snippy, lawyerly tone. “This really isn’t any of your business.”

  Before I could respond that she’d made it my business, I heard Julie exclaim “What happened?” in an agitated voice.

  Both Sarah and I turned to see her standing inside Heather’s back door. If Heather responded, we couldn’t hear it. Julie looked back at us, mouth opened in an O of surprise.

  I headed toward the house, hearing Sarah behind me say hurriedly to Sam, “No hitting, you know that.” She caught up with me as I approached the back door.

  Julie had stepped fully inside, but she hadn’t gotten far. Heather’s huge, usually immaculate kitchen was trashed, cabinet doors ajar, plates and glasses smashed across the tile floor. The dishwasher stood open and most of the plates inside it were broken, too, and someone had overturned the cutlery bin.

  Daniel was wailing somewhere off in the distance. Without saying a word, Julie stepped over the mess and began quietly picking up forks and knives from the shards of ceramic and glass, arranging them carefully on the marble island as if that small act could restore order to the space.

  Sarah swore under her breath. “Who did this?” Her question came out as whisper. We were all tiptoeing in the space, because there was no way to deny that this was something absolutely awful and ugly.

  I whirled on her. “Who the fuck do you think did it?” I snapped. “Daniel?”

  She blinked at me, too stunned by my response to reply. I took a broom and dustpan from a tall cabinet and began sweeping up glass and pottery shards. After a moment, Sarah began cleaning out the rest of the dishwasher, putting unbroken plates in the cupboards and gently closing the doors. A block of knives on a counter had been knocked over, the wicked-looking steel blades spilling onto the marble. I set it upright, being careful not to cut myself.

  We worked in silence for several minutes, and I don’t know what they were thinking, but I was feeling that all-too-familiar, sick twist in the gut that I’d felt ever since I saw the bruise on Heather’s arm.

  We’d gotten the kitchen back into some kind of order when Heather came back, still carrying Daniel, who was tearstained but calm, and holding an ice pack against his swollen lip. Heather’s shirt had bloodstains on it, and even knowing they were Daniel’s, I still flinched when I saw them.

  “You didn’t have to clean up,” she said, her voice a mixture of embarrassment and defensiveness. We stood there, all of us, and stared at her. Heather avoided our gaze, focusing on her son, whom she held awkwardly against her hip, smoothing his hair from his face. At last, Julie cleared her throat.

  “What happened?” she said in a hushed voice, fiddling with the lineup of forks and knives.

  “Nothing,” Heather said. Still holding Daniel, she took the broom from me and stuck it back in the cabinet. “Look, I appreciate your help, but I’ve got it from here. Let’s go back outside.” She stepped toward the door, but Sarah blocked her path.

  “Nothing?” she said, her lawyer voice back. “This isn’t nothing, Heather. Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am,” Heather said. She must have seen the skeptical looks on our faces, because she sighed and brushed her hair back with one of her elegant hands, a gesture of stress or impatience—I couldn’t tell which. She reached for the ice pack Daniel held against his split lip and said, “Let me see, sweetie.”

  “No!” Daniel swung his head away.

  “Just for a second,” Heather said in a soothing voice. “Let Mommy see for a second.” She moved the ice pack away, and we could see that Daniel’s upper lip had puffed up, giving him a cute, pouting expression. “No more bleeding—want to go back out to play?” Heather didn’t wait for an answer, already moving around Sarah and putting Daniel down next to the back door.

  “That’s it? Aren’t you even going to explain how your kitchen got trashed?” Sarah demanded.
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  Before Heather could say anything, it was Daniel who spoke. “Daddy says Mommy is clumsy.” He laughed, looking up at the adults with an expectant, chilling smile.

  chapter six

  SARAH

  Heather didn’t react to Daniel—no correction or contradiction. Alison and I exchanged glances, but it was Julie who said, “I don’t think your mom’s clumsy at all—remember, she was a model and models are very graceful.”

  Julie always brought up Heather’s modeling. She thought Heather having been a model was very important even though as far as I could tell Heather had never done any significant work. She wasn’t a supermodel, after all, or one of those lingerie angels. She’d never graced the cover of Sports Illustrated or any other magazine as far as I knew. She’d done a bit of modeling in the United States and apparently some modeling in Europe, too, but she didn’t like to talk about her life before Sewickley, so we knew very little.

  Still, it wasn’t just about fame for Julie; she was like this with all her friends. She always told people I was a lawyer before mentioning that I’d left the law to stay home with my kids. I certainly felt like a lawyer that afternoon, standing among all that debris while trying not to sound as if I were cross-examining Heather.

  I waited until she’d sent Daniel back outside with the kids before pressing her. “What the hell happened in here?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, looking from me to Alison and Julie. “We had an argument; things got a little heated.”

  “So you and Viktor threw all these dishes at each other?” Julie asked, sweeping her arms to indicate the last of the rubble still strewn across the floor.

  Before Heather could answer, Alison spoke hard and fast: “Viktor did this, didn’t he?”

  “He’s been under a lot of stress,” Heather said after a minute, which wasn’t an answer to the question, but answered it anyway.