When You Were Mine

“Okay.” He absorbs that for a moment before asking, “So what did you find?”

“Money.”

“Money?” He sounds incredulous, very slightly sneering.

“Six hundred and fifty-four dollars, to be exact, rolled up with a rubber band and hidden under his boxer shorts.” I collapse onto the sofa, exhausted by everything. I want Nick to take control of this, to have a man-to-man chat with Josh, to sort it out, make it better. But I can already tell from his frowning expression, the way his gaze is darting around as if searching for probable answers, he’s not going to do that. I suppose it isn’t really fair for me to expect him to.

“Obviously there’s a reasonable explanation,” he states.

“Yes.” The word escapes from me like a sigh.

“What are you thinking? Drugs?” He sounds accusing, but of me.

“It crossed my mind,” I admit. “I mean, it would, Nick. He doesn’t have six hundred bucks. He has no way to make that kind of money.”

“He mowed lawns last summer…”

“At ten bucks a pop, that’s what? Sixty-five lawns? No way.” I shake my head wearily. “I thought maybe he was keeping it for someone, but why would he?”

“Maybe he sold something. His phone…?”

“He hasn’t sold his phone.”

Nick shrugs. “There has to be a reason. Josh isn’t into drugs, Ally. He’s varsity cross-country and baseball. They get tested for doping. Anyway, he wouldn’t be that stupid.”

He isn’t thinking anything I haven’t already considered, several times. “You don’t know that,” I tell him. “Besides, the anti-doping tests are random, and only once in a blue moon. Josh hasn’t actually had one yet.”

“And you just want to assume he’s into something bad? That he’s some druggie?”

“No, of course I don’t want to. I don’t want to at all. But it’s the first thing that leaps into your head…” I rub my forehead wearily. “Why are we fighting about this, Nick?”

Nick slumps back against the sofa, the TV remote control sliding out of his hand and onto the floor with a thud. “I don’t know.”

We are both silent, absorbing the fact of that money, of the disconcerting ripple on the still surface of our lives that hints at something darker and deeper. Am I wrong to be suspicious? Does it say something about me? Maybe drugs wouldn’t even cross most mothers’ minds.

“Do you honestly think he’s doing drugs?” Nick asks at last, his voice low and drained. He is staring blankly ahead, looking somehow smaller.

“Doing or dealing?” I shrug. “Most people doing drugs don’t have the money, do they? They’re the ones spending it.” Although I’m no expert; I’m garnering my information from half-remembered episodes of The Wire. This is so outside my realm of experience… and yet now perhaps it isn’t.

“Dealing drugs? Josh?” Nick lets out a huff of hopeless laughter. “How can you even think that?”

“I don’t know.” I shiver suddenly, even though the room is warm. “I don’t think I ever would have before.”

“Before what?”

I shake my head. I’m not even sure how to explain it, how sometimes, since Dylan came into our lives, everything feels so fragile. It only takes a moment for something—everything—to shatter, like it did for Beth. Like it could for us. Or am I just being paranoid?

“Ally, what?” Nick leans forward. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I know I don’t. “I just have this… feeling.”

“A feeling.”

“I’m just scared, Nick.”

His expression softens then, and he leans forward and puts his hand on my knee. I cover his hand with my own, grateful for the touch bringing us together, anchoring me to our marriage, our real lives.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, but I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for.