Page 63 of Fever Dream

Chapter Thirty-Two

Dr.Jay Branson

Journal Entry

At approximately 1800 hours, Mrs.Grace Solomon and Ms.Elizabeth Yarring are scheduled for session.An argument among roommates must be resolved.At least this is how it has been presented to the staff.It’s not difficult to imagine.Ms.Yarring and Mrs.Solomon are both firecrackers.Which makes this the one thing I have had to look forward to all week.

So much so that I’m willing to stay late.

Darcy will not be happy.Despite our separation, things are moving along nicely.I haven’t yet forgiven her, but I’m getting even, and that’s almost the same thing.

It doesn’t help her case—her suicide mission, as I like to call it—that it wasn’t the institutionalization of the competition that she’s mad at, as much as it was the disappearance of her lover boy.

But she can’t very well say anything, now can she?She’s complicit in this too.Just as much, if not more, than I am.She was the one who planted those maps.She was the one who wanted to make Grace Solomon think she was losing her mind.She was the one who concocted the ridiculous plan to make it look like Grace’s husband was some international spy doing God’s work, when in reality he was simply using that as a cover to meet and bed my wife.

I only hired the men to make the game my wife was playing interesting.It’s not much of a game, is it, if you have a weak opponent?

I said this to her, and it wasn’t supposed to be funny, but she laughed.

When a person destroys your life, when they destroy your family, you destroy theirs right back.Darcy knows if she wants to reconcile, she has to play by my rules.An indiscretion is an unforgivable sin.An indiscretion in which you plan to run off into the night with your lover?Well, what is that?

It is worse than unforgivable.

What my darling, simpleminded wife doesn’t know is that if you are underestimated, you have an advantage.Now, I’m about to one-up her.I’m going to beat her at her own game.Not only am I about to stand her up for dinner, I’m going to sleep with the enemy.