Lovely Wild Read online

  Ryan’s always been the one to tell the kids about the Tooth Fairy, Santa, the Easter Bunny. Myths of childhood Mari never learned from experience and therefore couldn’t share. This is the first time she’s ever consoled them with a statement she’s not sure is true.

  “Oh, God!” Kendra bursts into sobs. “It’s bad! It’s really bad, isn’t it? Is he going to jail? Did he do something that bad?”

  Mari wasn’t terribly put off by Kendra’s bland description of the dead woman’s demise, but she is disturbed by how easily her daughter assumes her father could be guilty of something worthy of jail time. “Kiki. No. Daddy’s not going to jail.”

  “But it’s bad, isn’t it?” Kendra’s sobs taper off, and she swipes at her eyes, smearing her mascara.

  Ethan’s crying silently, silver tears slipping down his cheeks. Mari gestures and he moves close enough for her to hug. She reaches to snag Kendra’s wrist, even though the girl’s not much for hugs anymore, and pulls her close, too. The three of them hug tight. Mari’s arms are still long enough to go around them both. She holds them as hard as she can.

  Her children have never really known anything terrible, and she will do whatever’s necessary to make sure they never do. “It’s going to be fine. I promise.”

  They both sniffle against her. They both pull away before she’s ready to let them go. Ethan rubs his nose with a sleeve while Kendra has the sense to use a tissue. Mari looks again at the ceiling. Somewhere above is her husband, the father of her children.

  “I’ll be back,” she says. “You two take some change from the jar near the phone and walk down to the Wawa for some slushies.”

  She doesn’t need to tell them twice. It’s a privilege their dad would squawk about; even though he wants them to “get out of the house and do something,” walking a few blocks to the convenience store isn’t one of them. The world’s a dangerous place, Ryan says. Mari knows he has no real idea of what that means.

  He’s locked himself in his office, where she hears the shuffle and thump of him pulling open drawers. When she peeks inside she sees he’s pulled out half a dozen file boxes from his closet. The papers are spread out all around him and he’s bent over them, studying them so fiercely, he doesn’t even notice she’s opened the door until she raps lightly with her knuckles.

  “Ryan?”

  “Yeah, babe.” He pushes his hair back from his forehead.

  The sight of him looking so rumpled when Ryan is always so put together lifts another current of unease inside her. “What are you doing?”

  He gives her a smile so broad, so bright, so full of even, white teeth, there is no way she ought to be afraid. “I’m doing it. I’m going to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “I’m finally going to write a book.”

  Mari isn’t sure she ever knew Ryan wanted to write a book. Frankly, she can’t recall ever seeing him read a book. Magazines, yes. Medical journals and Sports Illustrated and Consumer Reports when he’s on the hunt for some new toy. But books? Never.

  “What kind of book?”

  His gaze shifts just a little, cutting from hers to look over the piles of folders and papers. “A case study.”

  “So, not fiction.” That made more sense to her.

  “No.” Again, that shifting gaze, the cut of it from hers. “But that’s not the best part, babe. This is even better.”

  He holds up a folder. The front of it says Dimitri Management Rental Properties. She doesn’t know what that means, but something about it doesn’t sit well. “What?”

  “C’mere.” Ryan gestures, and Mari goes.

  He settles her onto his lap and nuzzles against her, hiding his face for a moment before lifting it. His eyes are shiny bright, his smile, too. He looks so much like his father that her breath catches. Ryan doesn’t notice.

  “You know I love you, right?”

  “I hope so,” Mari says. “You married me.”

  He laughs a little too loud for the space and for being so close to her. “And you know I’ll always do my best to take care of you, right?”

  Something twists deep inside her. “I know that.”

  His hand tightens on her while the other puts the folder on the desk. “And you trust me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “We’re going to move.”

  Alarmed, Mari shifts on Ryan’s lap to look into his eyes. “What? Where? Why?”

  “Just for the summer,” he says quickly. “Someplace that’ll be great for the kids. For us, too. A place that’ll be perfect for me to write and for you all to just get away from the city.”

  She doesn’t point out that they don’t exactly live in the city. “Ryan. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I don’t want you to worry,” her husband says. “Let me take care of this.”

  “What about our house?”

  “I’ve arranged to rent it to a psych fellow.”

  “And where are we going?” He’s taken care of everything, made all the arrangements, but she still has to ask.

  Ryan draws in a deep breath. “Pine Grove. Babe, I’m going to take you home.”

  ELEVEN

  MARI HAD MADE dinner. Nothing special. Pasta with sauce and some salad from the cold box...no, the refrigerator, she reminded herself. She’d set the table. Two plates, one. Two. She stopped herself from counting them out on her fingers. When she caught herself singing under her breath, she stopped herself from that, too. Leon didn’t like it when she sang. He said it distracted him.

  He enjoyed the food, though. “You’re becoming quite the little cook.”

  His praise, as always, warmed her. She wanted to stretch herself like a barn cat, rub herself beneath his hand. But Leon never touched her. Not since she was small.

  He asked her about her studies. What lessons she’d completed. Had she practiced her handwriting? She must get better at cursive. Had she read the book he’d left for her on the desk?

  “I tried.” Mari pushed pasta around on her plate, her belly full but appetite not sated. Sometimes, she felt like as long as there was food in front of her, she would eat it until it made her sick.

  “What do you mean, you tried?” Leon’s fork spattered red sauce on his white shirt, which Mari will put in the laundry later to soak so that it doesn’t stain. “I expect more from you than trying. You can do better than that. It’s not too difficult for you. You’re a smart girl.”

  She has explained in the past, or tried to, that it wasn’t that the books he chose for her were too difficult. She could read the words. She could understand the meanings. She simply couldn’t understand what they were about.

  “Anne of Green Gables is a classic,” Leon continued. “All girls your age should read it.”

  Anne of Green Gables was about a girl with red hair who is adopted by a family who really wanted a boy. Mari supposed Leon thought she might be able to identify with the concept of being adopted, and in a way she did. But the rest of it, the talk of clothes and school and friends and love...that, Mari did not comprehend.

  She said nothing. She ate her dinner and packed away the leftovers carefully, letting her fingertips dance over the plastic containers stacked in the refrigerator when Leon couldn’t see and tell her to keep her hands still. She washed the dishes and put them away, and she remembered not to sing under her breath.

  “My son,” Leon said from the kitchen doorway. “Ryan. He’ll be here in about an hour.”

  Leon had spoken many times of his son. He’d shown her pictures and video movies of Ryan as a child. Leon had even given her some of Ryan’s old things, not like they were hand-me-downs but as though they were precious gifts she should be honored to claim.

  In fact, a few of the things he gave her were precious to Mari. Not the cast-off football jersey that didn’t fit and still smelled slightly of sweat. And not the boxes of plastic bricks she’d never really learned to put together to make something bigger. But the stuffed bunny, fur worn off on the ea