Page 56 of Stay Away from Him

The day before he went missing, Regan’s husband bought her a lake house. A surprise, for her birthday.

She was annoyed at first. Regan had planned the day painstakingly—booked a babysitter months in advance, reserved a table for brunch at her favorite restaurant, a couples’ massage at a little spa in the mall after that.

Small pleasures, but Regan was looking forward to each of them in turn.

She’d been so busy with the kids lately, frenzied even.

Etta was four, Philip one and a half, and they both needed her so much, stretching the limits of her ability to give.

The two of them had devoured every single moment of her free time, every ounce of her energy.

John worked long hours, barely helped with the kids, and Regan hadn’t done anything for herself in ages.

So yeah, she was a little irritated when, kid-free for the first time in what seemed like forever, John took a wrong turn, away from the brunch place, and pointed the car toward Lake Minnetonka.

“John,” she said as he navigated the car down a twisting road, lakeside mansions rising up on one side of them, a grove of trees huddled thick on the other. “What the fuck?”

“Just a little detour,” he said. “You’ll like it. I promise.”

She crossed her arms, sighing as the car reached the end of the winding lane and the Edina Realty sign came into view.

This was something she and John used to do together, in the early days of their marriage—they’d go to an open house in a rich part of town, walk around some huge home pretending like they had a chance in hell of owning it, and dream together about what might be someday.

But times had changed. She wasn’t interested in reliving their old days.

Wasn’t interested in dreaming. They were in their thirties now, their late thirties.

They had little kids. She hadn’t had an uninterrupted night’s sleep in months.

She didn’t want to waste time walking through a house they couldn’t afford.

She wanted French toast, a mimosa. She wanted to close her eyes and lie face down on a table while someone put their hands on her body and made her feel good.

But then, as they walked up to the house, the front door opened and a real estate agent stood inside. She knew John’s name, and he knew hers: Diane. And inside there was nothing. No other people. Not even furniture.

“This isn’t an open house,” Regan said, looking between John and the agent, her annoyance morphing through confusion to a kind of free-falling giddiness. “What’s happening?”

John’s lips were pressed together. He looked like a little boy, one who had a secret he wanted to share.

Bursting with it. Then his face cracked open in a smile, and God, he was beautiful when he smiled.

Regan had almost forgotten. They’d both been so busy, him with work, her with the kids, that sometimes they went days, weeks even, without really noticing each other.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at his face.

Really looked at it, and saw him looking back at her with adoration in his eyes, as he was now.

“It’s ours,” he said.

Regan felt dizzy. She put a hand to her chest, reached the other behind her to brace against a wall. John went to her, but she waved him away; she was fine. He stepped back, the smile gone, replaced by a look of concern.

“Do you want it?”

Regan let out an airy laugh. “Maybe I should look around a little.”

They raced together from room to room, the agent making herself scarce, giving them privacy.

The house was huge, three stories, built into a hill sloping down to the lake.

A broad deck past the kitchen and dining room on the main floor, and a walkout from the bottom level to the dock and an empty boat lift at the water’s edge.

“But how?” Regan asked, once she’d seen it all.

“I started looking a couple months ago,” John said. “I wanted it to be a surprise, for your birthday. Wanted to time it just right. I did everything—made the offer, set up the financing, scheduled the appraisal and the inspection. We close in an hour.”

“No, not that, I mean— how? How could we, I mean… You know, can we really—”

“We can,” John said. “It’s been a good year, Regan.

A great year. I didn’t want to say anything at first, in case things went bad, but they haven’t—it’s been two really good quarters now, and it doesn’t look like it’s a fluke.

I’ve doubled my client base, doubled my revenue.

I’ve been making some good picks recently, and a lot of people want in. Everything I invest in goes up.”

Benevolence flooded Regan’s body. All the late nights, the dinnertimes he’d spent on the phone, ignoring her while she struggled with the kids, sleeping obliviously through Philip’s midnight wakings, missing playdates, working weekends.

At the time these things had enraged her, made her feel abandoned, but it was all forgiven, now—now that she knew what it had been for.

She loved him, at this moment, for working so hard, for being so good at his job. He’d made a future for them.

John looked down, swallowed hard, pulled at the back of his neck.

“I just thought, you know, you’ve been so busy.

With the kids. I know you don’t think I notice, but I do.

I notice. I see everything you do. How hard it all is on you.

But you’re so good, Regan. You’re such a good mom, and a good wife, and you deserve this.

It’ll be your name on the deed, not mine, because I’m thinking of it as your house, your place—a place you can go when you need to get away.

Leave the kids with me, or your folks, and just… relax.”

His voice was full with emotion, and now Regan was crying. She threw her arms around John’s neck. He laughed into her hair and clutched her to him—and here was something else she’d forgotten. The feel of his body against hers, his breath blowing hot in the crook of her neck.

At the closing Regan was still too stunned to follow all the details of the documents that passed on the table before her.

But still she signed every time the closer asked her to, a flurry of signatures and dates and initials, her handwriting becoming wilder, more shaking and swooping, on every dotted line.

And then she was done, the house was hers, and they were driving back, walking through the rooms once more, running their hands over the walls.

In a closet they found a left-behind duvet with its cover still on, and like a couple of horny teenagers they brought it to the living room, stripped down to nothing, pulled the duvet over their naked bodies, and made love right there on the carpet.

Afterward, Regan rolled off John and walked out onto the deck, the duvet draped around her shoulders.

The cold fall air pricked at her calves, tugged goose bumps to the surface of her skin.

She looked out at the lake, listened to the waves lapping lightly at the shore, reflecting on the fact that this, too, was hers now: this view, these sounds.

This was something that could be bought.

This happiness. This peace of mind. Her stomach rumbled—they’d never gone to brunch—but she didn’t care.

In every way that mattered, she was full.

John padded up beside her a few seconds later, in his boxer briefs and a T-shirt.

“Think the neighbors can see us?”

Regan looked to the right and the left. They were shielded on each side by trees.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “We could fuck out here if you wanted to go again.”

John laughed. “What’s come over you?” he said, then grabbed at her through the duvet, put his hand on her hip, and pulled her close. “I like it.”

She leaned into him. “I like my present is all,” she said. “Thank you.”

He draped an arm around her, and they stood like that for a while.

Regan’s eyes wandered down to the dock, where the sellers had left something else behind: a little wooden boat lashed to a post, bobbing on the waves.

The back-and-forth motion soothed her, and she simply watched it for a while, setting her cheek against her husband’s chest. He was a good man, all things considered.

Not perfect by any means, and they’d been through their share of storms—the early money troubles, the issues with her family, the strain of caring for the kids.

But they’d weathered them all, went on bobbing on the surface through every swell, like that little boat at the dock.

Somehow they’d found their way, together, to a safe harbor.

It was a nice thought, a perfect crystalline moment. Then John spoke, and almost ruined it.

“I have to head into the office tonight,” he said. “I might be home late. I hope that’s not a problem.”

Regan struggled for a moment with a surge of annoyance.

He was always doing this, springing things on her, using work as a blanket excuse to leave her with Etta and Philip.

John at the office meant that she’d have to feed and put both kids to bed that evening, that she’d have to do it alone, that she’d go to bed stressed and exhausted and be woken up by John hours later, when he crawled into bed sometime after midnight.

I hope that’s not a problem , he’d always say, seeming not to know or perhaps not to care that his sudden absences were a problem, every time.

She felt herself about to snap at him, felt it rising up inside her like a reflex, until she remembered where she was standing, what had happened today, and her anger sank down as quickly as it had risen, like a pot of boiling water removed from a flame.

“It’s fine,” she said placidly.

“Is it really? Or does fine mean you’re angry?”

“It’s really fine,” she said again, and was surprised to realize that she meant it.

John’s work took him away from her and the kids too often, left her with far more than her fair share of the parenting—but also, John’s work had made this possible, had brought in enough money that this house now belonged to them, to her.

Maybe this was the trade-off, and maybe it was even a payment of sorts, a reward: in exchange for everything she’d done for their family, for giving up her own career to parent two small humans, for all the times she’d agreed to look the other way—a house.

Regan closed her eyes and set her cheek once more on John’s solid chest, felt it rise and fall with his breathing. At that moment, she felt no regret, no resentment, as she thought about the choices and compromises that had led her to this.

It had all been worth it.