the room. Jen had read my mind. Had sensed how nervous I was after my stint in the garden. I had thought about pouring myself a glass anyway—the taste, the relief, the sheer bliss of it—and Jen knew. Of course Jen knew.
She floated back to the bathroom and set the champagne glass and bottle at the side of the tub. It was like a Roman bath, practically, oval in shape, edged with Italian glass mosaics all around, which served as a ledge for magazines, drinks, even a laptop. Sometimes I’d spend hours catching up with work or reading. Jen poured me out a glass, and I took it from her, the pink bubbles fizzing with a beautiful hiss. Juan knew I loved pink champagne, especially Mumm, and had ordered it specially. Lucky. I wanted to just take a sip, but downed the glass almost in one go, like lemonade on a boiling hot day. So refreshing. My tongue rested on the myriad flavors like a weary head on a pillow.
Jen poured me another. I felt ashamed but couldn’t resist. This was all wrong: me naked in the tub, drinking at seven in the morning, and Jen, practically a teenager, administering me my “drug of choice.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I swilled the bubbles around my mouth and gulped the next lot down. “It tastes delicious,” I said, letting out a gasp of satisfaction. The lemony-rose tang danced on my taste buds. “You don’t want any?” I said this out of politeness. That bottle had my name on it; I knew I’d down the lot.
“No, sweetie, I’m good,” she said. Jen made to leave, but before exiting, leaned languidly against the doorway. “We kind of need to talk,” she said, her deep tone a far cry from the “back-in-a-jiffy” voice five minutes earlier.
Adrenaline spiked through my solar plexus. The reality of the situation came rushing back. What had Jen seen? My mouth puckered at the thought of what I’d buried; my heart vaulted. I took another gulp from my glass. “Oh yes?” I said, trying to sound unfazed. “What about?”
“You’ve been acting kinda weird lately. Spending time on your own. Why didn’t you join us this morning for breakfast?”
I made my mind up I wouldn’t deny being in the garden. I knew she’d seen me. “Because you were in a rush. And I was cold outside in the garden, in my bare feet. Came in for a hot bath.”
“What were you doing outside so early?”
I splashed some water on my face. “It’s my house, Jen.”
“You keep saying that. And reminding Kate it’s your car yet you never even use it and she’s busting her ass for you. Shopping, driving you around. We get hurt feelings, you know.”
I pressed my clammy hands to my eyes.
“Don’t you want us here? Maybe you’d prefer it if we weren’t around at all.” Jen’s pretty mouth pouted and she stared at the floor.
The quiet words are the ones that stab the hardest. The cold jab of them sank in. The idea of getting rid of them after the whispers had crossed my mind, true, but now she was suggesting leaving herself, the notion of being alone again was abhorrent. The looming silence. No banter. None of their music playing, or Kate’s clompy footsteps. Nothing to distract me from my loss of Juan. Christmas was coming up soon. “No! No, I love you being here, Jen.” The whispers, I decided, had been in my head. Perhaps I had dreamt them, the way I had dreamt about Juan and the blotting paper. Choppy sleep patterns, mixed with even the mildest tranquilizer, can do that to you—distort your mind, make fantasies and dreams seem so three-dimensional. Even a regular dream can spin you way off-kilter.
“We can leave, you know,” she offered, “if you’re uncomfortable having us around. My friend Janice said I can sleep on her couch.”
I shook my head in a decisive “no” and looked down at my nibbled, ripped cuticles. The shape of her words smothered me with rising panic. I’d be a sitting duck for the drone operator without Dan here to protect me. It wasn’t just a coincidence that drone hadn’t come back, surely? Not to mention the isolation. I’d feel like a widow once more. A sad, lonely, grieving widow.
“If you don’t feel like sharing,” she continued in a somber voice, “if you’d prefer to go back to the way you were before. Before you met us… we’d totally understand. No hard feelings.”