EIGHTY-THREE

EIGHTY-THREE

DAWN. THE SUN PAINTS the sky a bright orange out my bedroom window. Not that I'm asleep or even in bed. I gave up any hope of that hours ago.

My phone buzzes. I tiptoe out of the bedroom, where my kids and dog are sleeping, all nestled together like one ball of vulnerability and love and heartbreak. I answer Blair's call in Grace's bedroom, staring at a poster of Taylor Swift looking up into the rain.

Blair. He broke me last night. Over these last days, as I've started to learn and suspect things about David, my imagination traveled to various places, but never to the place Blair took me last night. My husband, responsible for a mass murder. No, he didn't pull the trigger, but he gave up information that directly led to a massacre.

I have tried it on, but it doesn't fit. Not with the man I know, the man I love. Can someone really walk away from a past like that, lock it in a dark dungeon, and become a completely different person? Were the kids and I his repentance, some internal promise to do better this time, to be a loving father and husband?

I don't know. But Blair broke me. I told him everything.

"I think we're all set," he says to me now. "You're going to the hospital at eight in the morning?"

"Correct."

"And at nine, your car pulls out of the hospital parking garage and heads down to Prinell Bank in Champaign."

I told him where the money is.

"And Silas will be waiting for you."

I told him about Silas, too. He wanted a physical description, peppered and hammered me for one, but all I could see was those eyes. Those eyes.

"We'll be following, too," says Blair. "From a distance. Don't worry. Silas won't make us."

"And what if he does?" I ask, my voice flat, unrecognizable to me. Who am I now? I'm just a puppet. Do what you're told, dancing puppet, and maybe, possibly, there will be some semblance of a life left for your family.

"He won't make us. Don't worry."

Don't worry. Sure. Why would I worry?

"There's a store down the street from Prinell Bank on Springfield Avenue called U-Move," he says. "You can't miss it — a big black-and-yellow sign. One of those places where people rent moving trucks and moving supplies. There are rental trucks all over. Silas will like that choice. After you've loaded the money into your car, drive to U-Move and park in the customer lot. Park midway in the lot. Not too close to the street, because Silas wouldn't like that. But not too far back, either, because we want to see everything."

"Midway in the lot," say I, the dancing puppet.

"Right. After you park the car, and remember to leave it unlocked, you get out and walk westbound. There's a little diner called Dino's. Go sit there, have some lunch or coffee or whatever. Someone will come get you. That's it. We'll take care of the rest."

Same plan we discussed last night, minus the details of the particular places he wants me to go. But simple enough.

"You didn't talk to Camille about this, right?"

"Right." The dancing puppet did as instructed. I kept Camille in the dark.

"Okay, well, so — we good?" he asks.

I hiccup a chuckle.

"Okay, put it another way — are you and I clear?"

"Clear," I say.

"Just do what I say, Marcie," he says, "and this will all be over soon."