She tears her eyes away from Chloe to give me a quick once-over. “Why don’t you have a nice soak while I give little missy here her breakfast.” She plucks the bottle out of my hand, efficient and bossy like the nurses in the NICU when Chloe was born. “Miss Bennett will be waiting upstairs for you in the library when you’re ready.”
Without waiting for an answer Billie turns and leaves me standing in the doorway, my arms empty and curiously light.
BILLIE IS RIGHT that I need to clean up, but when I go into the bathroom I’m startled to see that the big claw-foot tub has no shower attachment. I don’t really like taking baths—have avoided them since I fell asleep and nearly drowned in one once—but there’s no choice. I turn on the taps and watch the water rise with a sick sense of apprehension, as if the water might leap over the edge of the tub and drag me down into its depths.
It does feel good, though, when I finally lower myself in. I soak away all the days of grime and fear, scrubbing at my skin with the brand-new loofah and rosemary-mint soap that’s been left for me. The only scary moment is when I tip my head back to wash my hair and my ears fill with a roaring that sounds like someone screaming. For a moment, I can’t move. My limbs feel frozen. I’m convinced I’ll drown in here.
I come up gasping for air, splashing water over the rim of the tub. I use a chipped China ewer to rinse my hair after that. I pour scalding-hot water over my head again and again until my hair is clean and the last echo of that scream is gone.
Only when I’m wrapped in a towel do I remember that all my clothes are still in the trunk of the car. I can’t bear the thought of putting my discarded dirty clothes back on, so I wrap myself up in a terry robe that’s hanging on the back of the bathroom door. There’s a pair of slippers too. I feel like I’ve come to a spa, one of those places that Laurel was always talking about. We’ll get the husbands to watch the babies and go to Canyon Ranch for a weekend.
When I come out into the living room I find that my suitcase and stroller have been brought in. Which means I forgot to lock the car last night.
I have a moment of panic. Was there anything in the car that would give away my identity? I borrowed the suitcase from Laurel, so it has her monogram on it. LSH. Laurel Sutton Hobbes. The car is registered in my name but I’ve hidden the registration, along with my license and passport, at the bottom of Chloe’s diaper bag inside a package of Huggies.
I look for the diaper bag and realize it’s gone. Billie must have come in and taken it. Of course she’d need diapers for Chloe. How could I have been so stupid! If she uses that pack of Huggies, she’ll find Daphne Marist’s driver’s license, registration, and passport—along with the packet of papers I took from Peter’s desk. God knows what she’d make of that! She’ll take it all to Schuyler Bennett, who will only have to make a few phone calls to determine that the woman sleeping in her guesthouse isn’t who she says she is. She’ll kick me out and probably call the police.
I’m starting to sweat under the terry robe. I strip it off and get dressed. The clothes I packed only a few days ago feel foreign to me—creased and stale smelling and too big. I must have lost weight since I packed, I tell myself, but still they feel like they belong to someone else. Someone who actually thought she could get away with this preposterous ruse.
I look at my watch and see it’s nearly ten. Should I go up to the second floor to keep my appointment with Sky Bennett or should I grab Chloe and get the hell out of here? But where on earth will I go? Back to Peter? He’ll take Chloe from me. He’ll sue for divorce and full custody. He’ll have me declared an unfit mother. He could even have me arrested for kidnapping.
So I climb the spiral stairs, around and around, like a rat on a wheel. When I come up into the second floor of the tower I find Sky Bennett sitting at the table, a china teacup at her elbow and papers spread out in front of her. I’m so certain I’ve been found out that I fully expect to see my own license and passport and the packet I took from Peter’s desk, but when I get closer I see that these pages are yellowed with age and the photos scattered among them are sepia-toned. They’re from a past older than mine.
At the sound of my step, Sky looks up. “There you are. I hope you slept well. You look worlds better. Billie says your baby is a treat. She’s taken her out for a walk in the stroller so we’ll have plenty of time. I hope you don’t mind if we get started right away. I’ve been up since dawn looking through old things. I thought we’d get the juvenilia out of the way. Tiresome as it may be, it’s the underpinning. It’s what makes us who we are, isn’t it?”
I see, as I pull out a chair, that she’s really expecting an answer. What in the world am I supposed to say? I think of what my childhood and Peter’s made us into. Peter’s parents were so strict that he’s a bit of a perfectionist. And
