Chapter 17 - The Husband I Buried

Then

I had a bad feeling about our new home the day we moved in.

The moving truck rattled down the narrow Charlesville street, jarring harder than my nerves. I’d warned Luis this neighborhood was too picture-perfect: colonial homes pressed cheek to cheek, clapboard siding in cheerful creams and blues, wide porches draped with flower baskets. Who had time for flower baskets?

It was eclectic in a way only Massachusetts suburbs can manage – a mix of artsy urban culture and suburbia. It was exactly what Luis craved. I’d thought the price we paid was too high. I had no idea that was just the beginning, that we’d end up paying a whole lot more.

Luis noticed me fidgeting and took a hand from the steering wheel, placing it over mine. ‘Everything OK?’

It was quiet. Eerily quiet. Not the kind of quiet where people respect each other’s privacy, but the kind of silence that felt like they were avoiding each other.

I looked at the gardens as we drove, and thought I saw a woman peering out from behind her curtains. When she noticed me looking, she disappeared, leaving the curtain swinging. Not even a wave.

Not the friendliest welcome.

I felt it still as we pulled into the driveway and saw a chalk symbol graffitied on our porch, a circle that had been looped over and over by whoever drew it, but, determined to make moving day the best it could be, I didn’t listen to my gut.

That was my first mistake.

Luis’s dream was to find somewhere we could raise a family, somewhere quieter than Boston, but still vibrant.

I’d tried to be enthusiastic. Really, I had. But part of me still longed for our two-bedroom Boston apartment, high above the city streets. I loved the hum of other people living their lives, proof that the world kept moving, even when mine, as it would do later, stopped.

‘It’s just nerves. This is a good neighborhood,’ Luis said, slinging an arm around my shoulders. His confidence always carried a kind of gravity I couldn’t resist. ‘Good schools, quiet streets. Plenty of restaurants, festivals . . . everything we need.’

Everything you need, I thought.

I already felt out of place here. Without the noise of Boston, I could hear a ringing in my own ears, like a fly buzzing.

‘Don’t worry, honey. You’ll still be just a short ride to work, and you get to live here.’

I looked at the house. It was beautiful.

He kissed me and I tried to smile. I wanted to give this place a try, for Luis.

Neighbors emerged like creepy clockwork, as if our arrival had triggered some invisible alarm. A man with a laptop bag hurrying to his car, a woman in yoga pants juggling a golden retriever and her cell phone. Two teenagers on bikes who slowed to stare at our moving truck, curious about their new neighbors.

I forced a smile, trying to match Luis’s enthusiasm.

*

Later that evening, we ordered takeout and sat at our new table with unpacked boxes stacked neatly around us.

Someone knocked on the door.

‘Probably the neighbors,’ said Luis, already wiping his mouth with a napkin. ‘I’ll answer it; you enjoy your dumplings while they’re still warm.’

I smiled as Luis’s hand brushed my shoulder on the way out.

I heard the door open and then voices. Luis was talking to a woman.

I didn’t want to be rude, so I sat and finished the rest of my dumpling.

‘Luis, it’s so good to have you here,’ I heard the woman say with enthusiasm.

Had he told her his name? If he had, I hadn’t heard it.

The sound of a car passing outside drowned out some of what they were saying, and I had to strain to hear. I pushed away my dumplings, about to get up and join them, when Luis’s voice cut in sharply again.

‘Well, thanks so much for stopping by,’ he said. Polite, but firm.

She snorted, as if she were about to protest. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘That’s OK,’ he said, his voice tense.

I got up. Walked out and into the hallway. Luis had his hand on the door, which was halfway closed, like he was trying to shut her out. It meant I couldn’t see her.

‘I just wanted to say hello.’ Her voice remained cheery, not getting the hint.

‘Luis?’ I said, stepping closer.

He turned and gave me a tight smile, an eyeroll, as if to say, sorry about this. ‘My wife’s not feeling well,’ he said, closing the door just a little bit further, ‘so it’s not the best time . . .’

‘Oh,’ I heard. ‘I didn’t realize there were two of you.’ She laughed uncomfortably. ‘OK. Well, goodbye, then.’

‘Bye, Aimee.’ Before Luis could shut the door on her, I darted to it, catching her back view, the flash of auburn hair in the porch light, as she walked away.

Luis finally shut the door, then turned to me, running a hand through his hair. It was a habit that showed sometimes when he was nervous.

I waited, seeing if he’d try to explain why he looked as if he just got caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to find out about.

‘That was Aimee. She lives nearby and just popped by to welcome us to the neighborhood,’ he said, trying to sound pleasant. He gave me a look that said, ‘She seems a little crazy.’

But I wasn’t so sure. The way he spoke to her, his tone, his nerviness.

I stared at him for a second, but the smile he gave me was calm now, reassuring even. I decided to drop it, for now, at least.

‘A bottle of welcome wine might’ve been better,’ I joked.

Luis slid the front door lock into place with a deliberate click.

‘Why did you tell her I was sick?’

He laughed. ‘To get rid of her,’ he said. ‘And it worked.’

He glanced at the door, as if she might still be on the other side, listening to our conversation. ‘She was a little . . . over-friendly,’ he said, sounding wry.

But now I couldn’t let it go.

‘You never met her before?’ I asked, trying not to make it sound like an interrogation.

‘Never.’ He shook his head, but ran a hand through his hair again, uncomfortable.

Good. I wanted him to be. ‘She knew your name, though? I heard her say it.’

‘I think I introduced myself when I opened the door,’ he said, his smile quick and disarming. The smile he used when he wanted something to sound smaller than it was, or when he wanted to move on.

‘Right,’ I said, and he looked at my hands. I was pressing my fingers together into a steeple, the way I did sometimes in the courtroom in front of a witness.

‘Kenz, I don’t know her. I swear. Maybe she heard my name from another neighbor when we were moving in. People talk,’ he said, crossing the room. ‘Come on, let’s get some dessert.’

He leaned in and kissed my cheek, already steering me back toward the kitchen, as if the matter was settled.

I knew there was a chance he was right, that we were the new neighborhood gossip, that maybe the woman was the type to have loose boundaries. Maybe she lived alone and had pounced on Luis as someone new to talk to, I told myself.

But it didn’t feel like he’d been too surprised to see her.

It felt like he’d been expecting her to show up on our doorstep.

Luis cleared away the dumplings and got some ice cream out of the freezer. I watched him, watched his body language.

Stop it, Mackenzie, I told myself.

‘So, you said she was our neighbor?’

‘Well, kind of. I think she lives on our block.’ He turned and started spooning out ice cream into bowls. ‘Why are you making such a big deal of this?’

Because I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth.