Night, Forgotten

Original Edition - Chapter 25: Now

I start to descend the stairs, looking for Owen. Now that I've cleaned up the wound from the grilling fork, we can make some plans for our fifth anniversary. And, if all goes smoothly, maybe we can finally talk about what is going on with the Dolans' creepy shed.

Admittedly, I probably wouldn't believe that story I'd told him about the shed, either, if I hadn't been there and heard the screaming with my own ears. I hope he's willing to talk about it with me, even if what I say sounds like the rantings of a crazy person.

From the stairwell, I hear Owen's voice in the kitchen. "Thanks, Mom," he says.

I stop in my tracks. He's talking to his mother? What is Diana doing here? Again?

And where's Sadie? From the sound of it, she hasn't come along with her godmother for the visit.

"I mean, I figured..." Owen's voice trails off, apparently soothing Thomas. "Shhh..."

Breathe in together.

And breathe out, together.

"November 14th is next weekend," Diana says, as if she's read my mind about our upcoming anniversary. "Are you going to do anything special? For Julie?"

I should let them know I'm here, right now. This definitely qualifies as eavesdropping. And if Owen is planning something special to surprise me on our anniversary, part of me wants to let him keep it a surprise.

But another part of me wants to know the answer immediately, and that part is victorious. I crouch on the landing behind the corner where the staircase splits and descends into the kitchen.

"Actually, I've been working on making something from the cedar planks we used to build the porch. Five years is the wood anniversary, right?"

"Is it?" Diana asks, pretending not to know the gifting etiquette surrounding specific wedding anniversary years.

"That's what you told me when you gave Cindy's nephew and his wife that fancy cribbage set for their five-year." Good for Owen, calling out his mom on her passive-aggressive bullshit.

I'll be impressed if he can manage to fashion some kind of gift for me from the leftover cedar planks we used to rebuild most of the house's wraparound porch. He's not the most naturally gifted woodworker. That fact only makes his aspiration to build me something more endearing. It will be a sweet gesture, whether or not he pulls it off artistically.

"That's right, of course," Diana says. "Wood is the traditional gift for the fifth year. And that sounds like a beautiful plan." But the lack of emotion in her voice undermines her words.

Owen's still soothing the baby.

"What are you going to do about Thomas?" Diana asks. I hear a fork click against a plate. They've started eating without me.

Owen doesn't answer right away. I wait on the landing, listening intently.

"That's mainly what I wanted to talk to you about," he finally says. "It's really tough, Mom. I mean, I'm doing most of what needs to get done, but it's a lot."

Clink.

"Could you..." Owen searches for the right wording. "I know you'll have to figure out things with Sadie's schedule, but would you be able to stay with us? Just until I can figure things out."

Stay with us?

My heart contracts. All the softness I felt toward Owen a moment ago shrinks and burrows downward into itself, becoming denser and denser until it is an icy ball of resentment in my gut.

He's inviting his mother to move in. Into our house.

He hasn't even asked me how I feel about it. Probably because he knows exactly how I feel about it.

"Of course I will, Honey," Diana answers. I can't breathe.

No fucking way is Diana going to live in our home. She thinks she's going to be eating every meal with us, sleeping under our roof, feeding our baby?

If she's living here, around all the time, how am I supposed to learn how to take care of Thomas? How is Thomas ever supposed to get used to having me as his mother?

That's not even the part that worries me the most.

Because whenever Diana's been over to visit recently, she hasn't just gone about her business peacefully. She's made a point to start private conversations with Owen, when she thinks I'm napping upstairs or otherwise out of earshot.

She still suspects I haven't been honest with him about the night I can't remember. She's been trying to talk him into testing Thomas's DNA, to find out who his biological father is. Of course, running that test is an inevitability; at some point, Owen and I will have to learn the truth, for the sake of making decisions regarding Thomas's healthcare, if nothing else.

But notably, Diana has never mentioned the DNA test to me.

Now, the reason couldn't be more obvious. She doesn't believe me, and she wants to see for herself. She wants to turn my husband against me and take my baby in for a test, to find out if I've been lying. To make sure I've been telling the truth about what I remember and what I don't remember about the night Thomas was conceived.

Until now, I've felt positive that Owen would never go behind my back and listen to his mother. He'd never let Diana talk him into betraying my trust, or into believing that I would have betrayed his.

Would he?

I hear his words again in my mind, the way he phrased his request to Diana just now. He didn't ask her to stay with us until we could figure things out. He asked her to stay until he could figure things out.

What is that supposed to mean? What kinds of things does Owen need to figure out on his own?

Amid the tumult of questions tearing their way through my brain, a strand of anger burns steady and bright. He should have asked me. Why wouldn't he ask me first, before inviting his mother to come live with us? What was he thinking?

And what would he say to her now, if he knew I was listening?

I am about to storm off the landing, around the corner, into the kitchen, and demand that the two of them explain themselves. I should be included in whatever conversation they think they're having. How dare they talk this way behind my back?

But I stop myself.

Owen might have asked his mother to move in, but that doesn't mean she's won. He hasn't completely given up on me yet.

He's still making me a gift from scratch for our anniversary, after all, and he wouldn't put in that kind of effort if he was planning to leave me. Right now, he seems to be struggling with what to do next.

But if I confront him, it might just prove to him that I'm an unfit partner. What if I storm in there and look so unstable that it only confirms his decision to give up on me? What if it convinces him to leave me for someone who can be a better mother?

Because that's what I'm afraid of, after all: Owen's patience running out.

Neither Owen nor Diana has seen me or knows that I've overheard their conversation. If I go in and confront Owen in front of Diana, I can't be sure he'll take my side over hers. He might say something out loud that he can't take back and that I can't pretend not to have heard.

So I make a wretched calculation. I decide to wait. I'll just go back upstairs and pretend I never heard them talking in the kitchen.

I can fix this. I'll tone it down, I won't talk about the shed or anything else that could be construed as crazy, and I'll start pulling my weight when it comes to taking care of Thomas. Later, maybe I can even find some way to prove to both Owen and Diana that I'm not completely insane, that there really is something sinister going on with the Dolans' shed.

Maybe I can make Owen change his mind. Or maybe he hasn't even made up his mind yet to leave.

But as I turn and climb back up the stairs, careful not to let them creak beneath my feet, I can't shake the fear that has hooked itself into my heart. What if, eventually, the love that compelled my husband to take care of me through an unwanted pregnancy and raise a stranger's baby – what if that love runs out? What if I lose Owen?

What if I've already lost him?