Chapter 23 - The Woman of the House

The cold is sobering as it hits my warm skin. I follow the path along the lake until I’m standing in a pool of neon light. Bob’s Bar doesn’t seem as desolate as it did the other day when I walked by with Frances. From outside, I can see a few small groups of people scattered between booths. I don’t want to go in, but the back of my throat burns from walking in the cold, and the tips of my fingers are starting to go numb. I push the wooden door open and climb onto the nearest barstool. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been inside a bar. When I lived in Chicago, I went to the bar underneath my apartment only a few times. The couples leaning over the small tables with their noses practically touching and the groups of friends huddled together laughing over an inside joke intimidated me. I preferred to stop by the liquor store on my way home from my run and drink by myself until I forgot I was alone.

“What can I get ya?” the bartender asks. She’s round in the middle, and her cheeks are permanently rosy from enjoying too many drinks from behind her own bar.

“Vodka,” I say as I rub my hands together to warm them.

This place seems frozen in time. Pictures of bar goers from the ’70s and ’80s hang in small wooden frames nailed to the wall. The men’s hair is long and the women’s hair is short. A banner from 1972, the year the local high school basketball team won the state championship, is pinned up behind the bar. Regulars are hidden away in their respective booths. The smell of beer, and maybe mold, hangs in the air while a Bee Gees song plays from the jukebox. A man in the corner signals to the bartender for another. She nods, already knowing his order. There’s an old TV in the corner playing a baseball game from a few years ago. No one bothers to change the channel.

A few moments later, my drink appears in front of me. I take a big sip and try to ignore the old men with bald heads who keep eyeing me from a few stools over. They know just as well as I do that I don’t belong here. I bring the glass to my mouth again, feeling it light up every cell in my body. Even though I’m surrounded by people, I feel very much alone.

I think about the fight with Brian. My shoulders tense. Normally, I would concede on the spot. I’d shower Brian with apologies and admit I was wrong even if I didn’t think I was.

Like a good little wife.

I’d do it to make up for the fact that most of what I’d told him about myself is a lie.

So many lies.

I’d do it so I wouldn’t lose him.

It was never going to last.

I’d do it because losing him, and the life Mother said I’d never have, would mean letting Mother win.

Too late.

But tonight was different.

Very different.

Brian was already slipping away from me.

Just like you knew he would.

And I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. I told him what I wanted to say.

Where did that get you?

Nowhere.

Nowhere.

He didn’t believe me.

He never will. Why should he?

Behind me, the door to the bar swings open and a cool breeze passes through. A man in a beat-up brown leather jacket walks in.

“Hey, Reid,” a man in the corner says, raising his drink. The man in the leather jacket nods but says nothing.

I shift in my seat uncomfortably as I realize I’m in a bar full of people who all know each other well.

The name Reid is familiar. I drum my fingers along the edge of my glass as I try to remember where I’ve heard it. It’s a last name, I’m sure. The man in the leather jacket is standing next to me at the bar. That’s when I realize: I haven’t heard it; I read it in the article about Angela’s disappearance.

“Hey, Paul, the usual?” the bartender asks.

He nods. “Thanks, Pam.”

I swallow hard. Angela’s brother, Paul Reid, is standing next to me. He smells like alcohol, but it’s not on his breath: It’s seeping out of his pores. His skin is rough and leathery. He looks like he’s in his mid-forties, but he’s probably younger. A patchy beard is scattered along his chin and down his neck. I’ve seen him before. Once out in the yard, helping Vick, and then again in the marina when I was following Sara. Of course, I didn’t know it was him at the time. I think back to the picture of Angela from the newspaper. Her bright eyes burning through the page with her arms wrapped around her two kids. It’s hard to see a resemblance between the two, but maybe he hasn’t always looked this way.

“Hey,” I blurt out, surprising myself.

Before he can respond, the bartender places his whiskey in front of him.

“Thanks, Pam.” Paul picks up his drink and walks toward an empty booth along the opposite wall of the bar.

I take another sip of my vodka. It’s empty now. I nod to Pam and she refills my glass. The next thing I know, I’m up off my stool. My legs are tree trunks, but I navigate them past the pool table without stumbling or spilling. Finally, I’m standing in front of Paul Reid’s table.

“Paul?” I ask. “Paul Reid?”

His head is turned away from me, looking out the window toward the water that’s too dark to see. It’s like I’m not there at all.

“I’m Rose Crawley—”

“If you got a problem with your boat, mind taking it up with me during business hours?” He holds up his glass of whiskey and tilts it in my direction before taking a sip.

“I don’t have a boat,” I say, clutching my drink. “I live in your sister’s old house.”

“Hmm,” he says. “Is that so?”

I slide into the seat across from him. He sits back in the booth and sighs.

“Listen, I don’t know what you want from me, but—”

“I want to know what happened there,” I say.

“Yeah?” Paul says as he leans on the table, hunched over his drink. Bags hang under his bloodshot eyes. His fingers tremble lightly against the glass. “Me too.”

We sit like this for several moments, him crowding the table and me sitting straight up against the booth.

“You’re from Chicago?” he asks.

“How do you know that?” My jaw tightens. He chuckles to himself. I don’t know what’s so funny.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s a small town. People talk.”

I take a big gulp of my drink. Ice hits my nose. My hands scramble for the napkin on the table to wipe the water off my face.

“How’d you end up here?” he asks.

I shrug. “It was time for a change.”

He mulls this over, nodding to himself.

“You said the people here talk. What else do they say about me?” I ask, not sure if I really want to know the answer.

“Nothing worse than what they’ve said about me.” Pam appears at the side of the table with another whiskey. “You’re a saint, Pam. A real saint.”

She gives him a sheepish smile in return.

“Did people in town talk about Angela?” The question catches us both off guard. Paul stiffens. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He looks over my left shoulder, seeing something that isn’t there, and takes a long sip of his drink.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, they talked about Angela.”

“What did they say?” I ask.

He looks in his drink as if it’ll give him the courage to answer.

“That she was crazy,” he says at last.

“Was she?” I lean in closer. My hands tighten around my glass. If I close my eyes, I know I’ll see the woman. Her straggly hair, gray skin, and long fingers wrapping themselves around her own neck. I know I’m not crazy, and despite what other people may say about Angela, I don’t think she was crazy either.

Paul shakes his head. “No, she wasn’t crazy. She just—” He sighs. “She just wasn’t like people in this town. She had an imagination, dreams. She wanted to get out of here, but—”

“But what?”

“She was depressed.” He takes another swig from his glass. “People around here, they don’t get stuff like that. They don’t get that sometimes sadness isn’t a choice, it’s chemical. Instead of trying to understand it, they just chalk it up to crazy.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

Paul wipes his face with his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve gone over it a million times, but nothing makes sense. I even hired a private investigator for a bit to try to find her since everyone else seemed so convinced she ran off.”

“And?”

“Nothing. Couldn’t afford to keep paying the guy, so now it’s just up to the cops. I didn’t think he was going to find her anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she loved those kids. She wouldn’t leave them. If she left, it wasn’t by choice.” His eyes are glassy now, and I look away to give him some privacy.

After a moment, I lean in closer to make sure no one else at the bar can hear what I’m about to say. “Weird things have been happening, things I can’t explain,” I whisper. I choose my words carefully, but Paul doesn’t flinch, and I get the sense that I’m telling him something he already knows. I wonder if Angela did what I’m doing now. I wonder if she came to her brother, confused and upset, unable to put into words what was happening to her. Was he as stoic as he is now? Or worse, did he dismiss her like Brian dismissed me? Heat rises up from my chest and spreads itself across my face just like it did when I was standing in the cornfield, pleading with Brian to believe me. “Maybe Angela saw something or someone—”

“Listen, lady.” Paul’s voice is louder now, steadier. “I’m sorry you live in that house, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”

It’s the same vague response Jonathan gave me. “Why are you sorry?” I ask. The annoyance in his eyes has been replaced with pity. I don’t dare move or breathe. His mouth parts. He’s going to tell me more. I can feel it.

“You should get out of here,” he says as he brings his drink to his lips before nodding for Pam to bring him another. “You should get out while you still can.”