Dirty Red (Love Me With Lies) (26 page)

I wanted to gloat after I won the trial. I wanted her to know that he was mine and always would be. She needed to know. We were celebrating the win at a restaurant. Olivia arrived late. Honestly, I don’t even know why she came. Whatever debt she felt that she owed Caleb was paid. She’d won me my freedom and I would have gladly parted ways, content to never see her again. Yet, here she was, at my celebration, walking on my happy home with her short dress and spiked heels.

I made my way over to her, intent on expressing my displeasure with her being there. I glanced at Caleb who was preoccupied across the room. I didn’t want him to see me speaking to her. I wanted her to leave before he saw that she was
there.

When she saw me coming, the smile dropped from her face.
I had to give it to her — the bitch was exotic. One dark eyebrow rose as I strolled up, champagne in hand. Her mouth pulled into a pucker. She looked down her nose at me. I’d gotten used to it during the trial, but tonight it made me furious. Tonight was mine … and Caleb’s.

I hadn’t gotten four sentences in when she looked at me and said, “Go back to your husband, before he realizes that he’s still in love with me.”

Shock.

Why

Did

She

Think

That?

It wasn’t true. She was hung up on him. Who could blame her? I looked at Caleb. He was everything I wanted to be. He protected me. He stood with me. He was the only man who said he’d never hurt me.

He laughed at something someone in his group said. My heart swelled at the sight of him. Olivia was jaded, and he was mine. I looked at my Caleb, so sure in that moment of our strength as a couple. It was as if he could sense my eyes on him. I felt the beating of butterfly wings in my stomach, just as his head came up. I smiled. We’d shared intimate looks like this in the courtroom. When I was afraid I looked at him, and he’d meet my eyes and I would feel better immediately. This time was different. I felt a groundswell of confusion. The room tilted. The beating wings stilled. He wasn’t looking at me.

As suddenly as he looked up, the smile was gone from his face. I could see his chest rising and falling beneath his suit like he was taking deep breaths. In those five seconds, I saw every piece of Caleb’s mind splayed across his face like someone had made a thousand little cuts and everything was coming out at once: anguish, love, belief. I turned to see where he looked. I knew I shouldn’t. But, how could I not? The answer was too bright for me. It made me want to shield my eyes and duck back into the cover of darkness. Olivia was the target of his eyes. I felt like he’d dropped me from the highest building. Shattered. Every part of me. He was a liar. He was a thief. I wanted to crumble to the ground right there, admit my defeat. Die and die again. Die and take Olivia with me. Die.

I opened my mouth to scream at her. To regale her with every insult and name I’d collected over my
twenty-nine years. They sat on the tip of my tongue, ready to hurl toward her. I was going to throw my champagne in her face and rip at her eyes until they bled. Until Caleb thought she was so ugly and deformed, he would never look at her like that again.

Then she did the most dumbfounding thing. She set her glass down, her wrist wobbling like it couldn’t handle the weight of the dainty glass. Then she tucked her chin to her chest and left.

I took a breath — a deep, satisfying breath — and went back to Caleb’s side.

Mine. He was mine. That was that.

Present

I rock back and forth after I get off the phone with Caleb. What is wrong with me? How did I worship the ground my father walked on after all those years of neglect? It was pathetic. I hate myself for it, and yet I know I’d do it all over again. And this baby — she is my only blood family and I do everything to stay away from her. She hasn’t done anything wrong. What type of person am I to isolate my own child?

How can
chocolate covered raisins bring such clarity? It isn’t the chocolate covered raisins. I know that. It’s what Sam said to me, the part about me giving my loyalty to all the wrong people. The only person who really deserves it is the little girl I grew in my body. And yet, I can’t assemble the right feelings for her. I open my computer and search
postpartum depression
. I read through the symptoms, nodding. Yes, that has to be it. There's no way I am this bad of a person. I need to get on medication. There is something very wrong with me.

In the morning, Caleb brings my baby back. I clutch her to my chest and smell her head. He has her shock of red hair tied up in a little pink bow. I eye her gingham dress and give him a dirty look.

“Why are you dressing her like she’s Mary Poppins?” I say sourly. He deposits her diaper bag and car seat next to the door and starts to leave.

“Caleb!” I call after him. “Stay. Have some lunch with us.”

“I have somewhere to be, Leah.” He sees the disappointment on my face and says in a much gentler voice, “Maybe another day, yeah?”

I feel like someone has reached out and slapped me across the face. Not with his rejection of my lunch offer, but with that very simple “Yeah?” dripping off the end of his sentence. That
yeah
, is an acidic memory, burning painfully across my hippocampus. I think of Courtney and her summer in Europe. The way she came back, speaking as if she were born a Brit.

Wanna
go to the mall tomorrow, yeah?

You have that shirt you borrowed from me, yeah?

You’re the worst sister in the world, yeah?

I am the worst sister
in the world. Courtney, who always stuck up for me, always reminded my parents that I was alive … where is my loyalty to Courtney? I haven’t been to visit her once since…

I kick the door shut with my foot and carry Estella to her nursery. I take off the Mar
y Poppins dress. She gurgles and kicks her legs like she’s glad to be free of it. “Yeah,” I coo. “Let Daddy dress you in middle school and you might not have any friends.”

She smiles.

I start screaming Sam’s name. I hear his heavy footsteps as he charges up the stairs. “Wha—?” he says breathless. “Is she breathing?”

“She smiled!” I clap my hands.

He peers over my shoulder. “She’s been doing that.”

“Not at me,” I argue.

He looks at me as if I’ve grown another head. “Wow,” he says. “Wow. You grew a heart, and all it took was seven boxes of chocolate covered raisins.”

I flush. “How do you know about that?”

“Well, I took out the trash this morning, for one thing. And I’ve been finding them all over the floor.”

I’m quiet for a long time as I dress Estella in something more fashionable. It’s like dressing an octopus, all the limbs moving at the same time. I contemplate telling Sam that it was his words that shook me up a little, but decide not to. I tell him about Courtney instead. “Sam, I have a sister.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Great. So do I...”

“I’m having a serious moment here, Sam!” He motions for me to carry on.

I brush Estella’s hair. “I haven’t seen her in a very long time. She’s never even met Estella. Do you think that might have something to do with my…postpartum?” I test the word out, glancing at him sideways to see his reaction.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Yet,” I say.

“Yet,” he smiles. “But, anything is possible. You
are
a pretty vile human being.”

I ignore him and brush Estella’s hair.

“So, take Estella and go see her,” he says, finally.

“Yeah,” I say. “Will you come with me?”

“I don’t see why — “

“Okay, great. Get your things. Also, I need you to make an OB/GYN appointment for me. I need drugs.”

“I’m not your secretary. We’ve had this discussion before.”

“See if you can get something for Tuesday.”

I walk out of the room.

“Leah,” he calls after me. “Your baby…”

“Oh, yeah.” I head back for Estella and pick her up.

She looks so cute. “We’re going to see your
auntie,” I say.

We don’t go see Courtney. Cash calls. Normally, I don’t take her calls. Or her e-mails …  or her Facebook messages. But since I am reforming my life, I pick up when her name flashes across my screen.

“What do you want, Cash?”

“Oh, you picked up!”

“Would you rather I not have?”

There is a pause. I assume she’s gathering all of her words together. God knows she’s been saving them up for two years.

“Leah, I’m so sorry,” she says. I hear her sniff and wonder if she’s crying.

“That’s a given,” I snap. “You are a liar.”

“I was just doing what he asked,” she says.

“Courtney is my sister,” I say firmly. “And I will do everything I can to protect her.”

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”

I wrap my free arm around my waist. I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Why did this woman think she could talk to me about
my
sister?

“I’
ve tried to see her. They won’t — “

“Stay away from Courtney,” I say. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

I hear Cash sob and feel a pang of pity. Maybe, I’m being too harsh. I wonder what Courtney would say to her.

“I need to tell her I’m sorry. I need
— “

I cut her off.
“I have to go. Don’t call me again, Cash. I’m serious.”

I hang up and immediately
go to the closet and pull out Courtney’s umbrella picture. I hold it against my chest, gnawing on my bottom lip. How could I stay away from her as long as I had? What was wrong with me? We used to be so close.

I start to laugh,
covering my mouth at first, trying to stifle the hyena-like noises. I can’t control it. The laughter rolls out of me, climbing in volume. It’s the easiest thing I’ve done all day. When Sam comes to stand in the doorway of my closet, I abruptly stop.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

I straighten up, stashing the painting away before he can see it.

Past

He left me after the trial. Not right after. We had three months of silence during which I learned what it was to be married and utterly alone. Caleb went back to work right away, leaving me at home alone for most of the day. I roamed the house and watched daytime television, feeling depressed. I had expected things to go back to normal after the trial was over, never considering that I would be out of a job and my high profile case would tarnish my name, despite my non-guilty verdict. My father’s company was dismantled. What was left of it was used to pay settlements to the families of the deceased and my attorney’s fees. Caleb’s moods were remote. He wouldn’t look at me anymore. It was the stress of the trial, I decided. I suggested we take a vacation together. He said he had already taken too much time off of work for the trial. I suggested marriage counseling. He suggested time apart.

One name kept ringing in my head over and over:
Olivia. Louder and louder and louder.

She had driven a wedge between us. Again. She was like a disease that came along every few years, contaminating everyone in her path.

Caleb lost a lot of weight the first month. I thought he was sick. I made him go to the doctor, but his blood work came back normal. There was nothing wrong with him. But, there was something very wrong. He hardly smiled, hardly spoke. When he was home, he spent hours alone in his office with the door closed. When I asked him about it, he blew me off.

“I can’t always be perfect, Leah. Sometimes, I get to have bad days too.”

What did that mean? Had he always had bad days and just never told me? I tried to think about the last time I remembered Caleb having a bad day, and I couldn’t. He was always smiling, teasing, encouraging. Did that mean he never had bad days? Or that he hid them from me? I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked.

“I don’t have an appetite.”

“You’re under a lot of pressure. Let’s go away for a few days.”

“I can’t,” he said, without looking at me. “Maybe next month.”

I asked again the following month. He said no. He was having more than a few “bad days”.

Finally, I’d had enough. I had lunch with his mother. If anyone would know how to handle Caleb, it would be Luca.

Or maybe Olivia…

No, I wasn’t going to give her that. She had some sort of power over him, yes, but he’d been mine for five years. I knew him. Me!

Luca arrived to our lunch ten minutes late. I was on my second glass of wine when she gracefully lowered herself into the seat across from me. It was rare that we both had free time to get together. After we ordered and got through ten minutes of small talk, she looked me right in the eyes, like she knew something was up.