The One I Trust (21 page)

I moved my hand up to rub her neck.

“I know you do,” I said. “I wish I could do something to help you.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Emily,” I said. “Don’t cry. It’s going to be okay.”

She cried.

“Come here,” I said, pulling her closer. I stroked her hair while she sobbed softly on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Things are going to get better. It’s going to be okay.”

I held her for a little while longer and then she pulled away and said, “I’m going to go make us some lunch now.”

“Do you want some help?” I asked, but she shook her head.

“No. I’ve got it.”

Fifteen minutes later she brought chicken salad sandwiches and some macaroni and cheese back into the living room.

“Looks good,” I said as she set it all down on the coffee table. She gave me a little smile. I added, “I made you something, too.”

She looked at me and then at the picture I had drawn while she was in the kitchen. It was a caricature of her assistant, Julie, frantically trying to get Gracie’s teeth off her bleeding ankle. Emily took it from me and put her hand to her mouth to cover a smile.

“That’s mean,” she said, but she was still smiling.

I shrugged. “I think you should take it in to work on Monday, you know . . . as a warning.”

Emily laughed and sat down next to me.

“You’ve only been teaching three weeks,” I reminded her. “Things are going to get better. It’s just going to be hard until you get used to things.”

She nodded at me and seemed to be in a much better mood. I was glad, and frankly relieved.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too,” she replied.

I reached over and gave her another hug, and then we ate our lunch.

Hale and Anneka came over late that afternoon so that Molly could meet Gracie. She was thrilled by how large Gracie was and spent no small amount of time touching Gracie’s dark face and ears. Gracie put up with that for a while but then laid down on the floor and rolled over on her back, scratching at the air with one paw to beg for a belly rub. Molly was only too happy to oblige, dropping down on her knees to pet Gracie’s tummy with both hands. While Gracie and Molly were bonding, Hale pulled up sanitation reports on his phone and—after about thirty minutes of hard studying—finally picked a place that would not only deliver pizza to our house but from which he was also willing to eat.

On Monday morning I asked Ray if he would feed Gracie the following weekend since we had made plans a long time ago to go to the beach to celebrate Anneka’s birthday. He came in that evening when he dropped me off to meet her and to see where her food was. He rubbed her behind the ears, making a friend for life.

“She doesn’t seem very vicious,” he remarked, scratching that sweet spot at the base of her tail.

Why did everyone think German shepherds were vicious?

“No,” I agreed. “She can sense that you’re not a threat, and as soon as you give her something to eat, she’s going to love you forever.”

Emily came out onto the deck while Ray and I were talking.

“Have you seen those library books that were on the floor by the couch?” she asked.

“No.”

“They were right
there
,” she cried. “They’ve been sitting right there for two weeks, and now they’re gone!”

“Maybe you returned them?”

“No,” she said, shaking a piece of paper at me. “They sent me a notice saying that they’re way overdue.”

“I’m sure they’ll show up,” I assured her and she stomped back into the house.

Ray gave me an uncertain look after she left.

“She’s been under a lot of stress at work,” I said.

“Teaching’s hard,” he acknowledged.

“I keep telling her it’s going to get better.”

He nodded.

“It is going to get better,” I said. “Right?”

The next morning when Ray picked me up, I asked him if we could swing by a convenience store so that I could get a doughnut or something.

“Run out of cereal?” he asked.

“Milk, actually.”

He laughed.

“You’re in a store
every
day.”

“There was like half a gallon yesterday morning,” I said. “This morning the carton was completely empty.”

“Emily have a lot of cereal or something?”

“Apparently,” I mumbled, but that didn’t explain why she would put an
empty
carton back into the fridge.

I didn’t want to get into it with Ray, but the truth was that I was getting more and more concerned about all the “forgetful” things that Emily was doing. I complained to Hale about it that evening when we got together for our weekly game of one-on-one at the rec center. He assured me that it was probably just because Emily was under so much stress from her new job.

I guess that was also why she had accidentally put dish soap in the dishwasher instead of dishwasher detergent. When I’d come out into the kitchen that morning—an hour after she’d already gone to work—I had found the floor completely flooded with water and suds.

“Maybe you could try to kind of alleviate some the stuff she has to do at home,” Hale suggested. “You know, give her less to worry about?”

“I’ve been trying,” I said. “I vacuumed this afternoon after I got home, and guess what?”

He looked at me expectantly.

“There was no bag in the vacuum cleaner,” I said. “I discovered that
after
I was finished.”

“And she was the last one to use it?”

“Yes,” I said. “But that’s the thing—she says she didn’t. She also said she didn’t start the dishwasher this morning. That’s what bugs me the most. She denies everything! She never once just says, ‘Oops, I made a mistake. Sorry.’ I mean, if she would just take responsibility for something
one
time . . .”

“Maybe she thinks you’ll get mad at her.”

“I have never gotten mad at her,” I said.

Well, except for maybe when she bleached my jersey …

I
did
get mad at her the next evening though, when Hale and I were headed to the shooting range for a couple of hours.

“Emily?” I called to her from the bedroom.

“What?”

“Come here.”

“I’m busy.”

She was
always
busy.

“Come here,” I repeated.

She sighed heavily and came into the bedroom.

“What?” she asked again.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing into my open gun safe. My shotgun and rifle were both completely upside down, with the barrels resting on the floor of the safe and their butts sticking straight up into the air.

“What?”

“Have you been in here?” I asked. The keys were in the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, so she had easy access anytime she wanted it.

“No.”

“Somebody put these in here upside down.”

“Well it wasn’t me.”

“Emily,” I said angrily. “I never would have put these in there
upside down
!”

She looked at me defiantly and said, “I haven’t touched your guns.”

On Thursday evening she wondered out loud if she really had to go to the beach the next day to celebrate Anneka’s birthday.

“Are you serious?” I asked. “We’ve been planning this for weeks.”

“I know,” she said, “but I was thinking that it would be really good if I could just stay here and get caught up on some schoolwork.”

“You’re already spending too much time as it is on schoolwork!” I exclaimed. “What you need to do is get away for the weekend and forget about school for a few days and relax a little bit.”

“Maybe if I was able to get caught up for a change I’d be able to relax.”

“We told them we were going,” I reminded her. “It’s Anneka’s birthday . . . her feelings are going to be hurt if you back out.”

Emily finally agreed to come. I was hoping that she would loosen up a bit while we were there, but instead she wound up being withdrawn, moody, and buried in schoolwork for most of the weekend. She also had absolutely no interest in anything I threw her way in the bedroom, but by this point that’s pretty much what I was expecting. By the time we left on Sunday, I was almost sorry that I hadn’t just let her stay behind.

When we got home that evening, we came in through the carport door and I immediately went into the kitchen and out to the deck to find Gracie. She was waiting for me, wagging her tail.

“Hey, there, ol’ girl,” I said, rubbing her head and letting her lick my hand before reaching to pick up her bowls. “Did you have a good time while we were gone? Did Ray take good care of you?”

At least someone was interested in showing me some affection. She followed me inside, wagging her tail as I refilled her water and licking my hand again as I set it down on the floor.

“I’ll get you some food in just a minute,” I promised her and she cocked her head.

Emily was in the bedroom unpacking her bag, so when I heard a “click” behind me, I knew it wasn’t her. I turned around to investigate.

The oven was on.

“Emily? Did you turn the oven on?”

“No,” she called back from the bedroom.

“Great,” I said. “That means it’s been on since Thursday night.”

“Since Thursday?” she asked, joining me in the kitchen.

“Or Friday,” I said. “Did you turn it on when you got home from work on Friday?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe Ray turned it on.”

“Ray didn’t even have a key,” I said. “All of Gracie’s stuff was in the carport.”

“Well, I didn’t do it,” Emily said.

Of course not.

“This is just great,” I complained. “Our power bill’s going to be through the roof!”

Hale caught an earful Tuesday night.

“It’s the fifth week of school,” I said. “I think she should be getting a handle on things by now.”

“You said she’s under a lot of stress,” he reminded me.

“I know,” I admitted, “but I don’t think she should be this bad. I mean, she can hardly function. If she acts like this at school, she’s going to lose her job.”

Of course I was actually starting to think that this might be a blessing in disguise. We needed the money for sure, but I couldn’t imagine putting up with this for nine more months.

“She did great when she was working with Molly’s class,” Hale mused.

“Our cable got cut off yesterday.”

“What?”

“Our cable got cut off.”

“Why?”

“Because she was supposed to pay the bill, but she didn’t. And guess what?”

He looked at me questioningly.

“It
wasn’t her fault
,” I said. “She claims she had it set up for automatic payment out of our bank account and it got paid fine last month so she has
no
idea why it didn’t get paid this month, too. Now we have to pay a reconnect fee before they’ll turn it back on.”

“Do you need to borrow some money?” Hale asked.

“This isn’t about money,” I said. “You’re missing the point. The point is that I’m getting pretty sick of this.”

“Sick of what?”

“Everything.”

He hesitated for a moment. I think he was at a complete loss as to what to say.

“I’m sorry,” was what he finally came up with.

SATURDAY EVENING I did some laundry. To be honest, part of me was thinking that I could earn some brownie points on a day when Emily had gotten to sleep in late
and
didn’t have school the next morning. Maybe—just maybe—she would be feeling up to something other than doing school work or crashing as soon as her head hit the pillow. Realistically, however, I was out of clothes again and needed to get some washing done or I was going to find myself naked for a completely different reason.

The washer was almost full, but I decided that I had enough room for one or two more things. I reached into the pile of clothes on the floor of our closet and chose Emily’s favorite pair of jeans—again, hoping for some brownie points.

What I found instead, however, was something in her pocket. I reached in, grasped it with my fingertips, and pulled it out. It was a little baggie with pills in it.

I stared at it for a long moment and then I stepped into the living room.

“Emily?” I asked. “What is this?” I held the baggie up for her to see.

“What?” She looked up at me from her schoolwork.

I walked closer to her and extended the bag toward her. She looked at it more closely and then shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“It was in your jeans,” I said.

She furrowed her brow.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “What are they?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “I’ve never seen them before.”

And that was the first time I really knew for sure that I had a problem on my hands.

I didn’t say anything else to Emily about it, but on Monday I asked Ray if I could use his car during lunch. He said it was no problem, and I took the little baggie of pills by the Raleigh Police Department and left them for Dale to take a look at for me. I didn’t know the receptionist who greeted me and I didn’t see anyone that I recognized. For that, I was glad.

That night, I finished brushing my teeth and came out of the bathroom to find Emily standing near the bed looking at something in her hands.

“What is this?” she asked, holding it up.

It was black and lacy and I was pretty sure she knew exactly what it was. What I was confused about was why she was asking me.

“A sneak peek at what’s to come?” I asked hopefully.

“It’s not mine!” she exclaimed.

“Whose is it?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you. I found it in our bed.”

“In our bed?”

“Yes!”

“And it’s not yours?”

“No, it’s not mine!” she cried. “Have you ever seen me wear this?”

“No,” I admitted, taking a step closer. “But I’d
like
to see you wear it . . .”

“Reid! This isn’t funny. Where did this come from?”

Suddenly I realized that she was shaking and her voice was trembling and that she honestly expected me to tell her where it had come from.

“Emily,” I said calmly, taking another step closer and putting my hand on her arm. “I don’t have any idea where it came from. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

She pulled away from me angrily. “Then how did it get in our bed?”