Grand Avenue Read Free Page A

daughter, Montana, singing down the hall; three-year-old Wyatt playing with the train set he got for Christmas; Tony opening and closing kitchen cupboards directly below. Within minutes, paralyzing fear had been reduced to mere unease, which was much more manageable, and ultimately much easier to dismiss. Another few minutes and Chris might actually be able to persuade herself that what had happened last night was all a bad dream, the product of her overheated—
overwrought
, as Tony might suggest—imagination.
    “It’s a heartache!”
Montana belted out from her room at the end of the hall.
    “Choo-choo-choo-choo, choo-choo-choo-choo,” Wyatt whispered loudly, mimicking the whirring of the trains.
    Somewhere beneath her, another cupboard door opened and closed. Dishes rattled.
    “Nothing but a heartache!”
    Chris opened her eyes.
    I’ve got a secret, she thought.
    Her eyes scanned the small master bedroom, although her head remained still in the center of the oversize, down-filled pillow. Sun was filtering through the heavy ivory curtains, bleaching the pale blue walls a ghostly white, throwing small spotlights on stray particlesof dust dancing in the air above her head. The black turtleneck sweater Tony had worn to dinner last night was flung carelessly across the back of the small blue chair in the corner, one empty arm extended toward the worn blue broadloom, still sticky with long-ago-spilled apple juice. The door to their small en suite bathroom was open, as was the closet and the top drawer of the wicker dresser. The clock on the night table beside her said 9:04.
    Probably she should get up, get dressed, see how Wyatt and Montana were making out. Tony had obviously fed them breakfast, which didn’t surprise her. It was Sunday, his day to get up with the kids. Besides, he was always extra nice to her after a big fight. She’d felt him quietly slip out of bed at Wyatt’s first audible rumblings, feigned sleep as he’d hurried into his clothes before bending over to kiss her forehead. “Sleep,” she’d heard him whisper, his breath reassuringly gentle against her skin.
    She’d tried to drift off, but she couldn’t, and now, just when she felt sleep mercifully tugging at her eyelids, it was too late. Any minute, the kids would grow bored with their solitary pursuits and come charging through the bedroom door, demanding her attention. She had to get up, shower, prepare herself for the busy day ahead. Chris threw the covers off with a determined hand and slid her legs over the side of the bed, invisible cookie crumbs crunching beneath her bare toes as she padded toward the washroom. “Oh, God,” she said, confronting the swollen face of her reflection in the mirror over the sink. “I know you’re in there somewhere.” Her fingers prodded the puffy flesharound her eyes. Wasn’t she getting too old to cry herself to sleep?
    Except she hadn’t slept. Not once all night. “Chris,” she’d heard Tony whisper in her ear at repeated intervals throughout the night, withdrawing to his side of the bed when she failed to respond. “Chris, are you awake?”
    So, he hadn’t slept either, she thought with no small degree of satisfaction as she splashed cold water on her face, held a cold compress against her eyes, gradually feeling her tired skin shrink back to its normal size. “Who are you?” she asked wearily, not for the first time, pushing several strands of matted blond hair away from her cheeks. “Beats the shit out of me,” her reflection answered in Vicki’s voice, and Chris giggled, the sound scratching at her throat, like a cat at a screen door.
    “It’s a heartache!”
Montana sang out from behind the bathroom wall.
    You can say that again, Chris thought, stepping into the shower, turning on the tap, welcoming the assault of hot water on her arms and legs, feeling it whip across her back like thousands of sharp, tiny lashes. What had happened last night had been her fault as much as