Which I know sounds really sappy. It must be the postpartum hormones or all this thinking about the past, I guess. I haven’t thought about that summer for years, because it was always painful to think about after Mommy and Daddy died. It was the last summer on the Cape before the accident, and I feel like I should have better memories of them. What I remember most about that summer, besides almost drowning, is throwing all those seashells back into the sea at the end and that when I got back to the city Mommy had to take me to Vidal Sassoon and have all my hair cut off. When I try to picture Mommy and Daddy they’re small and blurry like those people on the beach when I was drifting out to sea.
Which is strange because they’re the ones who died, not me.
But sometimes I feel like it was me who died that summer. That I floated farther and farther out on the tide until a wave took me down to the bottom of the ocean and I drowned.
Sometimes I wish I had.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s quiet in the Green Room without Laurel’s voice but I’m not there long before I have another visitor. At first I mistake the man in pressed khakis and golf shirt for the crazy golfer, but then one of the nurses says, “Your husband’s here to see you, Mrs. Hobbes,” and I realize it’s Stan.
He looks older than I remember, his skin sallow under the fluorescent lights, the flesh around his jaw looser. There’s a patch of gray hairs on his chin and a dab of shaving cream on his earlobe. He’s really gone to seed since Laurel’s death. For a moment I feel sorry for him, but then I remember he’s the reason I’m here.
And a potential ticket out. I remember that there are hidden cameras in the rooms. While Stan thinks no one is listening I have to make him say something that reveals he knows I’m not Laurel.
“Stan,” I say, or try to. What comes out sounds more like Thaarrggh. The drugs they’ve given me have numbed my lips and swollen my tongue.
Stan stares at me as if I’m a piece of dog shit he’s just noticed on his Tod’s loafers. Surely the nurses must notice that he’s not looking at me with the loving indulgence of a husband.
I lick my lips, swallow, and try again. “Thstan,” I manage this time. “I’m sorry about Laurel.”
His eyes widen and he looks around nervously for the nurse, but she’s left the room.
“I should have realized she might kill herself,” I continue carefully, my speech starting to come more easily. “You warned me that she’d tried before.”
Stan clears his throat. “Did Daphne tell you that I told her that?” he asks, adding a rather loud and stagey, “Laurel.” Surely anyone listening can hear how fake he sounds.
“No, Stan. I’m Daphne. You know that. The woman in the tub was Laurel.”
He leans forward and touches my manacled hand. I’m sure he’s going to confess the truth. I only hope he’s loud enough for the sound equipment to pick it up.
“Dr. Hancock explained to me that when you saw Daphne in the tub you had a dissociative psychotic break. You recognized your own ‘death wish’ and saw yourself in the tub, like looking into a mirror. That’s why you think you’re Daphne.”
I almost laugh. All this psychobabble coming out of Stan’s mouth! He must have spent hours memorizing it. I decide to switch tactics. “How’s Chloë?” I ask.
To his credit he doesn’t ask “Which Chloe?” “She’s fine. I hired a new nanny.”
“What happened to Simone?”
“Don’t you remember? You fired her. She went back to France.”
I shake my head. “Laurel would never have fired Simone. What happened, Stan? Were you afraid she’d identify the body in the bathtub as Laurel? Who did identify her?”
“My God, Laurel, it was Peter, of course. It was his wife, in his home. Thank God it wasn’t you. You have a child to think about. I can’t imagine what could have driven a mother to do such a selfish thing. Or what possessed you to take her baby and drive to the middle of nowhere—” He breaks off, breathless, looking around him as if remembering where we are.
I search in my head for something to say that will make him slip up. “I suppose if it had been Laurel, you would have inherited all her money.”
“My God, Laurel, what a terrible thing to say. As if I’d care about that. Besides, you know your money’s all in trust for Chloë.”
Something about this tickles at my brain. Something Laurel said to me the last time I saw her about the money being all in trust—
“So it wouldn’t have actually been convenient for you if Laurel had killed herself?” I ask. A muscle pulses in Stan’s jaw and I think I may have stumbled on something. “Is that why you had to pretend the body was me, not Laurel? Because you still need to have Laurel alive?”
“I can’t do this, Laurel,” he says, getting up.
And then I remember what Laurel told me. “You’re her mental-health conservator. That’s why you can keep me in here. You have more control over Laurel alive than dead. Is that what happened? Did Laurel kill herself and you realized you’d lose control of her money? Is that why you had to pretend the body in the tub was Daphne? I should have believed Laurel when she said you were trying to poison her. When I get out of here I’ll
