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SEVENTEEN

MY EYES POP OPEN, fear seizing me, though the tendrils of the nightmare have faded from my memory. My heart pounding, my eyes stinging from perspiration, I turn to David’s side of the bed, which is empty, the covers pulled down, the indentation of his head on the pillow.

I pat the bed for my phone and find it. The phone glows back at me with a time of 2:38 in the morning. Lulu, sleeping at the foot of the bed, lets out a loud sigh but otherwise doesn’t move.

I hear movement downstairs, footfalls, as if pacing. The faint murmur of David’s voice, low and deep.

I don’t have my contacts in but fumble for my cheater glasses on the nightstand. Then I send him a quick text message: Everything ok? I hit Send.

A ping sounds from inside the bedroom. David’s phone, resting on his nightstand, a power cord stuck inside it.

He doesn’t have his phone with him? Then who is he talking to and … how?

My feet drop onto the rug. My head swims in fogginess. I’ve tossed and turned all night, with all the craziness happening. I’ve hardly slept. Though I somehow managed to miss David’s getting out of bed.

I walk into the hallway, lean on the banister that spirals down to the foyer by the front door.

“It’s not that simple, okay?” David whispers, almost a hiss.

I take the stairs down, my hand on the railing, as I hear David say something quickly that I can’t make out.

“Hey, Marce. You okay?” David, who must have heard me, walks into the foyer as I’m halfway down the stairs.

“Who were you talking to?” I whisper.

“Just … a private security company,” he says.

“At two thirty in the morning?”

“Those places have 24-7 service. I was thinking about hiring somebody.” He meets me on the stairs. “Maybe I’m overreacting, getting creeped out in the middle of the night. I just wanted to talk to them at least.”

“Okay. But … how?” I ask. “Your phone’s on the nightstand.”

“Oh, yeah, I know — the landline.”

“The landline?” I ask as we head back up the stairs. We never use the landline phone. We debated even installing one when we built this house.

“My phone was dying.”

“You were — you were saying it’s not that simple? What’s not that simple?”

David falls into our bed. “They’re going to call back later today. We’ll see if it makes sense to have someone stay around here for a while.”

I climb into bed. “Okay.” But it feels like it’s not okay.

“I need sleep,” he says. “I’m exhausted.”

I put my head on the pillow and stare at the ceiling, thinking about the words I heard him say, the tone of his voice. Feeling like I’m missing something.

David rolls over, facing me, touching my arm. “I was just explaining to the guy on the phone that I had been thinking all these things happening to us were silly coincidences, but maybe it’s not that simple. That’s all it was.”

That doesn’t land well with me. That’s not what it sounded like. It sounded like the resolution of an argument, something more emotional, more personal, more intimate. He was snapping at someone. He was flustered, upset.

It’s not that simple, okay?

I look at him but don’t say anything.

What’s not that simple?

David closes his eyes and goes silent. I stay silent, too, but don’t close my eyes for hours.