Never Knowing

head rested on his chest.

He said, “You weren’t very nice.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But you were being all alpha-male guy.”

“I am alpha male. You just need to accept that.” I heard the smile in his voice.

He grunted into my neck. I grunted back. It had been a long time since we’d done that. I smiled against his cheek. His left hand crept down and grabbed my butt.

“You know, you could make it up to me.…”

I giggled into his shoulder.

“Evan?”

“Yeah, baby.”

“I won’t meet him, okay?”

“Good, because I have to go back to the lodge in the morning and I don’t want to worry about you.”

“First thing in the morning, I’ll change all the phone numbers.”

He pulled me in tight and gave me a kiss, then our bodies relaxed against each other, my head on his shoulder, his arms loose around my back as he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning after Evan left I changed my cell and my landline. I gave the police the new numbers. My family would wonder why I changed them, so I just told them that since the article had come out we’d had a lot of newspapers and wackos calling. When I talked to Melanie she said, “I heard Evan was home.” “Yeah, for a bit.”

“What’d he think of the CD?”

“Um…” Before I could make up an excuse Melanie said, “You’re unbelievable. Some sister,” and hung up.

When I tried to call her back and apologize, her phone just rang. Then my guilt turned to anger — I didn’t need this crap. I had a serial killer messing with my life. Okay, so she didn’t know that, but she could just wait for once.

Since I changed my numbers the calls from John have stopped. The first couple of days were hard — I checked my locks and the alarm constantly — but when nothing happened I started to relax. Evan was right, I should have done this a long time ago. No more jumping up, no more checking my cell every ten seconds. I haven’t watched the news or Googled anything. I’m even getting caught up with some projects — yesterday I returned a ton of e-mail quotes. It’s like I was addicted to some horrible drug, and now that I’m sober I can’t believe how much it had taken over my life. But this is it. I’ve quit for good.

SESSION SIXTEEN

You know what really bugs me? From the outside looking in, everyone thinks Evan is the calm rational one and I’m the crazy one. I even go along with it. I think, God, I shouldn’t have flipped out like that, why do I always overreact so much? It’s not until later when I trace it back to try to figure out why I blew up that I realize Evan tossed a lit match at my feet when he already knew I was standing in a pool of gasoline.

Like this morning. I’m trying to get Ally ready for school and she’s going through all her clothes trying to decide what to wear. She finally picks a red shirt, but then she’s worried her headband doesn’t match, so she has to go through all her clothes again. Then Moose, who decided this is a great time to get some sort of bacterial infection that requires antibiotics three times a day, will not eat anything that has a pill in it no matter how cleverly disguised. So I’m chasing him around the kitchen, trying to get the thing down his throat, while Ally’s screaming, “You’re hurting him!” Food is landing on me, on the dog, on the kid, and on the floor. Then Evan, my sweet, kind, rational fiance, walks in, looks at the mess, and says, “Jeez, I hope you’re cleaning that up.” Are you kidding me?

So of course I lose it. “Get the hell off my back, Evan. If it bothers you so much, clean it up yourself.” Then he storms outside, pissed at me for yelling at him. He didn’t talk to me for an hour, which isn’t like him at all. I can’t stand it when someone gives me the silent treatment, so I end up apologizing, then later I’m like, wait a minute — why didn’t he apologize for picking the worst time in the world to get on my case?

We talked about it right before I came here and he said he was sorry for his comment, but I know he’s still pissed off. Then on the way here I remembered what you said last session, that Evan might be feeling resentful of all the time I’m spending on the John situation. I didn’t think so then because we’d been getting along great, but this week something changed, and now everything’s changed. No one’s having much fun right now — except maybe John.

The day after our last appointment I got a call from Sandy.

“Julia would like to talk to you. She tried to call you but you’ve changed your numbers.”

“What does she want to talk about?”

“I don’t know, Sara.” She sounded annoyed. “She just asked me to give you her home number.” I could imagine how much Sandy loved playing messenger. The thought made me smile.

“Thanks. I’ll call her right now.” But I didn’t. Instead I made a cup of coffee, then sat at the table with the phone in front of me. The woman could make me feel horrible and I had enough of that going on. Maybe I shouldn’t call her back at all. Give her a taste of her own medicine. I lasted two minutes.

She answered on the first ring.

“Sandy said you wanted to talk to me?”

“I’d like to see you in person so we can talk privately.”

“Oh. Okay. I, um, can’t really go anywhere today, I have to pick up Ally soon, and—”

“Tomorrow’s fine. What time can you be here?”

“Maybe around eleven?”

“I’ll see you then.” She hung up, leaving me with no explanation and the urge to call her back and tell her I wasn’t coming. But there was no way I could do that, which pissed me off. She probably knew it too. That pissed me off even more.

Evan wasn’t keen about me driving all the way down to Victoria when we still didn’t know where John was, but he understood I had to find out why Julia had called. I promised I’d be careful, then proceeded to speculate about a million possible reasons she might want to see me, until he finally said, “Sara, you’ll find out tomorrow. Go to bed.” “But why do you think she—”

“I have no idea. Now go to bed. Please.”

I did, but I stayed awake for hours, wondering what to wear, how to speak. This visit felt so different. She’d asked to see me. She wanted to see me.

The next morning I headed straight down to Victoria after I dropped Ally off at school. I was almost a half hour early, so I grabbed a coffee from a shop near Julia’s house, remembered there’s a public beach close to her place, and drove down that way. As I passed by her house I noticed a woman coming out the side door. She ran her hand through her hair.

No way.

I pulled into a neighbor’s driveway, then watched in my rearview mirror as Sandy crossed the street and got into an unmarked police car. What was she doing in Victoria? She called yesterday and never mentioned it. Of course, I didn’t mention my upcoming visit either. After Sandy drove by I pulled out and continued to the beach. For twenty minutes or so I stared out at the ocean, sipping my coffee and thinking about what I’d just seen. They might’ve been going over the case, but the timing seemed odd.

I drove back to Julia’s house. She smiled briefly as she answered my knock, her lips tight against her teeth. Even though it was the middle of June, she was dressed all in black in a long skirt and a sleeveless tunic. She