The Perfect Wife

Strange, you think. Strange and frustrating. But perhaps Abbie just heard him speak at a convention.

Or are you chasing up the wrong path altogether? The fact remains that, for whatever reason, Abbie ended up leaving Danny behind.

You spend the rest of the time until Tim gets home making pasta. The repetitive movements are strangely soothing. A simple sauce of anchovies, capers, chili flakes, and tomatoes simmers in the pan while you knead and fold and push. Puttanesca sauce, it’s called, from puttana, meaning “whore.” Nobody knows why it’s called that, the cloud whispers to you silently, though you’re betting it was a man who named it.

Tim arrives, crackling with energy.

“We’ve been given a time for our court hearing. Or at least, our initial appearance before a judge.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Don’t worry, it’s only a formality. The judge will read the depositions to make sure they’re acceptable. Then he’ll tell us to go away and try to reach a settlement.”

“Will we? Settle, I mean?”

“In the end, sure. Why not? It’s money for nothing as far as the Cullens are concerned.”

You still doubt that’s how Lisa sees it, but you don’t say so. “Do I need to be there?”

Tim nods vigorously. “Definitely. We should show the judge we’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

You’d rather spend the time looking for Abbie, but of course you can’t say that. When, over supper, Tim asks if you’ve made any progress, you fob him off with some vague stuff about intuitions that led nowhere.

It’s Tim who brings up the subject of Meadowbank again. It clearly matters to him that he has your endorsement, however retrospective, of the choice he made sending Danny there. But how can you tell him what you really feel, when your very existence depends on him thinking you’re of one mind with him on issues like this? When you don’t voice your reservations, he talks eagerly about stepping up the program, setting new targets. “Soon it’ll be time to stop him flapping his hands. Or playing with those trains. The problem with letting him have an autistic behavior as a reward is that you just reinforce the behavior. Now that you’re on board, it’s time to bite the bullet.”

You try to think how Danny’s going to cope with having his beloved trains taken away, and fail.

“Today I remembered a therapist Danny had, right at the beginning,” you tell Tim. “A man called Julian. What happened to him? We liked him, didn’t we?”

“You remember Julian, do you?” There’s a strange edge to Tim’s voice.

“A little.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to think about him too much.”

“Why not?”

“Julian turned out to be a pain in the ass.”

You frown. “I remembered him as being so nice.”

“Well, that’s not how it was,” Tim says with finality.

* * *

—

After supper you go upstairs, just as you did last night, to remove your skin.

“Tim,” you say, when you’re back downstairs again. “There’s something in particular I need to ask you about.”

“Ask away. You know how I love to fill in the gaps in your knowledge.”

“Did you tell the police that you and Abbie had an open relationship?”

For a long moment he stares at you. “How did you—”

“Detective Tanner told me. So it’s true? You did say that?”

Just for a moment, Tim looks cornered. “It’s true I told them that, yes,” he says with a twisted shrug. “Some bright spark in my legal team came up with it. The police were fixating on the idea Abbie might have been having an affair—that finding out she’d been unfaithful would have given me a reason to kill her. So we told them it was fine by me if she was. I don’t think they believed us, but we knew there was no evidence to contradict it. And just as my lawyers hoped, it was enough to make the prosecution think twice about using it as part of their case.”

“You lied, in other words.”

“It was a legal tactic—”

“I meant, to me,” you interrupt. “When I asked you about it before, you said someone else must have been using her photograph.”

A long silence. “Yes. I’m sorry. The fact is, I couldn’t bear for Abbie to be anything less than perfect. So I kept quiet about that aspect of her.”

“That she was sexual, you mean?”

“That she was flawed.” Tim looks haggard. “Abbie had so few faults that, when I came across one, it was always a shock. It’s hypocritical, I know—I’m hardly a saint. I’m sorry.”

“If I’m going to find her, you have to be straight with me.”

“Yes. I get that, I really do. And from now on, I will be.”

* * *

—

Eventually he announces he’s off to bed. You tell him you’ll stay up for a while, to keep thinking.

But the truth is, you just want to be alone. Was what Tim told the police really just a tactical lie? Is it possible he’s playing some kind of psychological chess game, even now? And if so, why?

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it was Tim who pushed Abbie into flirting with strangers on dating sites…For Abbie, might that have been the final nail in the coffin of her fairy-tale marriage? Combined with the realization that she and Tim were never going to agree about Danny, could that have been what tipped her into deciding to leave? But if so, something went wrong; something that prevented her from taking Danny as she’d planned.

What would she do in that situation? Would she just give up?

Maybe she’d do something you haven’t even hypothesized yet. Something that explains all these dangling loose ends— And that’s when you have it. Another flash of intuition.

You go and get the burner phone, the one you installed Messenger on. Opening the app, you find your exchange with Friend. The last message reads: When you’ve figured it out, we’ll talk.

You type in two words, then press SEND.

And the response comes back within seconds.

At last.

65

You’re Abbie, you wrote.

It’s so obvious, really.

You type:

What do you want?

Again the response is immediate.

I want you to find me.

You type:

Why? Where are you?

This time the pause is longer. As if she’s deleted a couple of different responses before finally pressing SEND.

Sorry. Not safe. You have to work it out. Then you have to come.

You type:

Why? What do you want from me?

Again the response is just two words. Two words that make perfect sense.

Bring Danny.

66

You send a dozen more messages—What happened? Are you still in the US? Are you with someone? Are you OK?—but there’s no reply.

Eventually you give up and put the phone down. So Abbie’s definitely not dead. You’d been sure of it anyway, but it’s good to have this confirmation. And while you still can’t be sure why she failed to take Danny, it seems like it was a mishap of some kind.

A mishap she’s relying on you to put right.

You realize something else, too. If Abbie expects you to bring Danny to her, she’s still in America. She must know you’d never get through a border.

For a moment you consider how strange it is that she trusts you. But then, she’d assume you share the same maternal instincts—that at some level, her feelings are your feelings.

And of course she’s desperate. Just as, for a different reason, you are, too.

TWENTY-TWO

We didn’t see so much of Abbie after Danny was born. She’d come into the office sometimes, pushing a high-end Stokke stroller and greeting old friends. The women cuddled the baby with a mixture of delight and envy. The men did the same, but more briefly, and principally because Abbie might be a mother now but she was still really hot. Generally, though, these visits occurred because she was en route to Tim’s office to collect him for some function or other, so there was never much time to chat. Occasionally someone would ask about her art, and she’d say it was difficult with a little one, so she was effectively on a career break.