me, but confronting him wasn’t an option. It would give him an excuse to leave me. And who knew? This woman might well be playing games. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen. He’d want her all the more because of her attitude. I’d have to wait it out, bide my time, nibble the crumbs that came my way.
I couldn’t risk losing him.
Just a few days after I found the note, Juan proposed to me. For real, this time.
Keeping my mouth shut had paid off.
“Babe, I’ve been thinking,” he said, one evening. “It’s time you and I tied the knot. You’ve—we’ve waited long enough.”
“Marriage? Legal marriage?” I asked, my whole body aflame with excitement.
“We’re going to Vegas today. Pack your things.”
“I’ve got nothing to wear.”
“Who cares? Wear jeans, if you like. The main thing is we’ll make this legal. Man and wife, till death do us part.”
“Really?”
“Really. Come on. Let’s get this show on the road. We need to leave in half an hour.”
“You’re sure you want to tie the knot?”
“Are you crazy, second guessing me? Don’t you see how happy you make me? My life was empty before I met you, honey. Marrying you is all I ever wanted, believe me. It has just taken a while to get there.”
That was three weeks before he bought Cliffside. After we moved in, the feeling was priceless. The feeling of partnership, of ownership.
Cliffside was mine, too.
Thirty-Seven
Dawn crept into morning, light gradually spilled into the bathroom, but Cliffside was silent. Nobody was up yet.
Then I heard footsteps. Two pairs of clunking feet. Dan and Kate. Not the right moment for my eyebrow pencil attack. My eyelids fluttered half-mast as they unlocked the door. The bath water had turned cold. I must have been asleep, dreaming about Juan. I shivered. I’d feign sleep. Garner my energy for later. They strode into the room. Dan not caring I was naked in the tub.
“She’s so strung out,” he whispered.
Kate clomped over to the bath. I could feel her breath on my clammy wet skin. She sang “With A Little Help From My Friends,” bursting into a fit of breathy giggles every time she hit the word “high.”
What were they saying? I kept my eyes squeezed shut.
“Should we lift her out of the tub?”
Dan cleared his throat. “If she drowns, she drowns.”
I heard them march off, the key turn in my bedroom lock.
Silence.
I sprang up, spluttering, but crashed back down, icy water spilling over the sides of the bath. My bruised ankle had given way, golden-green like a rotten apple. I slowly levered myself out of the tub, careful not to slip, mustering up all my strength just to stay standing. Clutching a towel, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and nearly screamed. My eyes were hollow, my hair stringy and matted. I looked like something out of a zombie movie. “Strung out,” Dan had said.
I rummaged frantically through the box of chocolates Jen had given me, picked out my reading glasses and scuttled to my bedroom. Grappling the canisters of pills with tremulous hands, I double-checked the labels: a tub of extra-strength headache pills for my migraines, Excedrin Migraine, and the vial of antihistamines, basic over-the-counter Benadryl.
But the pills themselves?
I tried to prize open the caps, my weak fingers fumbling. The caps swiveled round and round. Finally I got them off with my teeth. I let the meds spill onto the table.
No wonder the triplets had hidden my reading glasses from me. So I couldn’t see the tiny stamp on the pills.
I inspected them now. I knew the Excedrin had an “E” etched on each pill, as in the past I had sometimes cut them in half. No E. And the pink and white Benadryl capsules? They appeared to be legit, but when I examined closer, they looked like they had been tampered with, the join not perfect. I pulled one apart. Too easily. I shook out the white powdery content. Benadryl? Or something else? The reality of what a halfwit I’d been came crashing down on me. I’d been in so much pain from that phantom “hangover” of supposedly mixing vodka and wine, I’d been guzzling down pills like Smarties. Opiates the triplets had got their hands on? Stuff they’d bought online then crushed up and placed into the capsules? You could buy any old shit online these days without a prescription. I wracked my brains, back to when I had started feeling out of sorts. It was even before the supposed