“High school,” I tell him, “is not forever. You’re going to graduate. Go off to school. Move away from here. You’re going to live your life, Eli, and it’s going to be amazing.”

After a moment, he nods. “But Mom … what about you?”

I think of a bank account with a balance big enough to take care of everything. No more financial worries. No more unhappy housewife. All it will take is a little more working on Christian and an unfortunate accident.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m going to live my life too.”

CHAPTER
28

I WAKE UP WHEN the body slides into bed behind me. I try a scream, but all that comes out is a puff of air. I fight against the blankets. I’m soaking wet. Terrified.

“Jewel,” my husband says. “It’s just me.”

I twist around in the tangle of my sheets to face him. He’s naked. Wet. He must’ve come right from the shower. He smells of soap and toothpaste and mouthwash, but there’s something beneath all of those scents. Musky sweat. Something sour. It’s the smell of the air before a storm. Thick, oppressive, full of threat.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying not to wake you up. Go back to sleep.” He gathers me close, my face pressed to his chest. My nose is squished.

I turn my face to the side, mouth open to take in a breath. I won’t be able to go back to sleep tucked up against him this way, not with my ears still throbbing from the pressure of my heart pounding. Not with the odor swirling around him. I push at his chest until he releases me. The covers are still snarled around me, too tight. Moving is a struggle.

When I’m on my back at last, I pull the blankets to my chin. “Why did you come home in the middle of the night?”

He’s silent except for the slight whistle of his in-out breathing. I know he’s not asleep. I roll toward him, my knee nudging his.

“Ken,” I say sharply. I draw in breath after breath, smelling him, seeking proof that he wears the stink of another woman on him, no matter how hard he tried to wash it away. There’s no perfume, but there is … still … something.

He gathers me close again, crushing me against his bare, damp chest. One of my arms is trapped between us. I put the other around him, my fingers stroking over his back. Feeling for what? The marks of fingernails? I don’t know. Something.

Ken buries his face against the side of my neck. Nothing about this position is comfortable. My body aches, twisted and held too tightly. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

“I needed to come home,” he says.

A decade ago, his confession to me that he’d “strayed” had started out much like this, with clinging desperation. My heart kicks into another round of pounding. I tighten my arm over his back as I try to shift and give myself some small relief.