House Rules Read online

  When he turns around again, I draw in my breath. Somehow, his T-shirt has gotten lost between the cushions. His shoulders are wide and strong, his waist tapered, his sweats riding low. He has the easy beauty of someone young enough to dismiss how lucky he is to look like that without trying.

  Me, on the other hand: I'm lying on a ratty couch in a cramped room with a jealous dog in the nearby closet, with freckles and wrinkles and fifteen more pounds than I ought to have and--

  --Don't,|| Oliver says softly, as I pull the edges of my cardigan together again. He sits down on the edge of the couch beside me. --Or I will have to kill Thor.||

  --Oliver, you could have any girl you want. Any girl your age.||

  --You know what young wine is? Grape juice. There are some things worth the wait.||

  --That argument would have been much more convincing coming from someone who hadn't just finished off a trough of Mountain Dew--||

  He kisses me again. --Shut the hell up, Emma,|| he says amiably, and he puts his hands over mine where they rest on the edges of my sweater.

  --It's been forever.|| The words are quiet, hidden against his shoulder.

  --That's because,|| Oliver says, --you were waiting for me.|| He slips aside the sweater again and kisses my collarbone. --Emma. Is everything okay?|| he asks, for the second time this night.

  Except this time, I say yes.

  I should have gotten rid of the king-size bed. There is something horribly depressing about only having to tuck in half the sheets each morning, because the other side always remains pristine. I never cross the Mason-Dixon Line of my marriage and sleep, every now and then, on Henry's side. I've left it for him, for whoever might take his place.

  That turned out to be Theo, during thunderstorms, when he was afraid. Or Jacob when he was sick and I wanted to keep an eye on him. I told myself that I liked the extra space anyway. That I deserved to spread out if I wanted to, even though I have always slept curled on my side like a fiddlehead fern.

  Which is why, I suppose, it feels perfect when the pink fingers of the morning stroke the sheet that Oliver's tossed over us sometime in the night, and I realize that he's curled around me: a comma, his knees tucked up behind mine and his arm tight around my waist.

  I shift, but instead of letting go of me, Oliver tightens his grasp. --What time is it?||

  he murmurs.

  --Five-thirty.||

  I turn in his embrace, so that I am facing him. There's stubble on his cheeks and his chin. --Oliver, listen.||

  His eyes squint open. --No.||

  --No, you're not going to listen? Or no, you're not Oliver?||

  --I'm not going to listen,|| he replies. --It wasn't a mistake, and it wasn't just a onetime, what-the-hell night. And if you keep fighting me on this, I'll make you read the fine print on the retainer you signed, which very clearly states that the attorney's sexual services are included in the fee.||

  --I was going to tell you to come over for breakfast,|| I say drily.

  Oliver blinks at me. --Oh.||

  --It's Thursday. Brown day. Gluten-free bagels?||

  --I prefer Everything,|| he answers, and then he blushes. --But I guess I made that fairly obvious last night.||

  I used to wake up in the morning and lie in bed for thirty seconds, when whatever I had dreamed might still be possible, before I remembered that I had to get up and make whatever breakfast fit the color code and wonder whether we would survive the day without some schedule change or noise or social conundrum triggering a meltdown. I had thirty seconds when the future was something I anticipated, not feared.

  I wrap my arms around Oliver's neck and kiss him. Even knowing that, in four and a half hours, this trial will start again; even knowing that I have to hurry home before Jacob realizes I am missing; even knowing that I have likely made a mess of things by doing what I've done ... I have figured out a way to stretch those thirty seconds of bliss into one long, lovely moment.

  Three letters: a place where hope was found.

  Joy.

  Him.

  Yes.

  If this happened ... well, maybe anything can.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and gently pushes me away. --You have no idea how much it's killing me to say no,|| Oliver says, --but I've got an opening argument to write, and my client's mother is, well, incredibly demanding.||

  --No kidding,|| I say.

  He sits up and pulls my camisole out from under his head, helps me stretch it over my head. --This isn't nearly as much fun in reverse,|| he points out.

  We both dress, and then Oliver frees Thor from his banishment and hooks a leash onto his collar, offering to walk me partway home. We are the only people on the streets at this hour. --I feel like an idiot,|| I say, glancing down at my slippers and my pajama bottoms.

  --You look like a college student.||

  I roll my eyes. --You are such a liar.||

  --You mean lawyer.||

  --Is there a difference?||

  I stop walking and look up at him. --This,|| I say. --Not in front of Jacob.||

  Oliver doesn't pretend to misunderstand me. He keeps walking, tugging at Thor's leash. --All right,|| he says.

  We part ways at the skateboarding park, and I walk quickly with my head ducked against the wind--and the view of drivers in passing cars. Every now and then, a smile bubbles up from inside me, rising to the surface. The closer I get to home, the more inappropriate that feels. As if I am cheating somehow, as if I have the audacity to be someone other than the mother I am expected to be.

  By 6:15 I am turning the corner of my street, relieved. Jacob wakes up like clockwork at 6:30; he'll be none the wiser.

  But as I get closer, I see that the lights are on in the house, and my heart skips a beat. I start running, panicked. What if something happened to Jacob in the middle of the night? How stupid have I been, leaving him? I hadn't scribbled a note, I hadn't taken my cell phone, and as I throw open the front door, I am nearly bent double by the weight of what might have gone wrong.

  Jacob stands at the kitchen counter, already making his own brown breakfast. There are two place settings. --Mom,|| he blurts, excited, --you'll never guess who's here.||

  Before I can, though, I hear the downstairs toilet flush, and the running of the faucet, and the footsteps of the guest, who enters the kitchen with an uncomfortable smile.

  --Henry?|| I say.

  CASE 10: WOODN'T YOU LIKE TO

  GET AWAY WITH MURDER?

  On November 19, 1986, Helle Crafts, a Pan Am flight attendant from Connecticut, disappeared. Her husband was suspected shortly after she vanished: Richard Crafts told authorities that he hadn't left the house on November 19, but credit card records showed that he'd purchased new bedding. Shortly before his wife disappeared, he also had bought a large freezer and rented a wood chipper.

  When a witness recalled seeing a wood chipper near the Housatonic River, police searched the Crafts home. Blood found on the mattress matched Helle's. A letter addressed to Helle was found near the Housatonic, and divers recovered a chain saw and cutting bar, which still had human hair and tissue in its jaws. Based on this, a more thorough evidence search was begun.

  Here's what they found:

  2660 hairs.

  One fingernail.

  One toenail.

  One tooth cap.

  Five droplets of blood.

  (A fingernail in a U-Haul rented by Crafts chemically matched nail polish in Helle's bathroom, too, but it was thrown out of court because of the lack of a search warrant.) From this evidence, in 1989, Crafts was found guilty of his wife's murder and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.

  This case made Dr. Henry Lee famous. Leave it to him, a forensic hero, to secure a murder conviction ... even without a body.

  10

  Emma

  For just a moment, I am certain that I'm hallucinating. My ex-husband is not standing in my kitchen, is not coming forward to awkwardly kiss my cheek.

  --What ar