Page 39 of Thicker Than Water
If my mother were still alive, she would have sniffed this out a long time ago.Never trust a man. Pregnant at twenty-two, I wasdesperate not to repeat her misery, so I opted for the opposite. I buried my feelings that, even with Aiden growing inside me, marriage was too sudden a step, and I decided to trust Jason. Then I latched onto that trust as if it were a trapeze, like if I ever let go, I’d plummet through the air with nothing to catch me.
In December, my grip began to slip, fingers loosening, palms sweating, and now I’m no longer suspended there at all. My nausea feels like a free fall, like a crash is coming. I grip the door handle to brace myself, watching the GPS close in on our destination.
When Sienna parks in front of Maeve’s town house, I don’t move to unbuckle my seat belt. The house has a gray brick façade, its windows and door bordered by sleek black trim, sharply lit by the porchlight. Last time Jason and I were here, I remarked how well suited to Maeve the place is.Classy and stylish, just like her,I said, and Jason hummed his agreement. Now I wonder how many times he’s been here on his own since then. Was it only last Friday? Or have he and Maeve been sleeping together for a while?
“Hey,” Sienna says, squeezing my hand. “I really do think there’s another explanation for why Jason was here that night, but I know this isn’t easy right now, coming here when you’re misinterpreting the emails like that. So I’ll take the lead in there, okay?”
I’m grateful and annoyed. I love that she knows I need her to be the one to speak to Maeve. But her phrasing just now—misinterpreting the emails like that—feels like she’s invalidating my response, like she’s stuffing my voice even deeper down my throat.
It’s my fault, though. How can I expect Sienna to imagine her brother being unfaithful when she has no idea about the money he siphoned from our account, or that this is not the first time he’s betrayed me in the last few months?
“And this is good,” Sienna says, voice springy with excitement. “We’re about to get Jason’s alibi.”
Opening the passenger door, I’m overwhelmed by the need to run. Instead, I follow Sienna up the walkway, then stand in her shadow as she rings the bell.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Sienna mutters, bouncing on her toes to peek through the window at the top of the door.
I close my eyes against a surge of vertigo, praying that Maeve isn’t home. But then I hear the swoosh of the door opening, and there she is, Jason’s… girlfriend? Lover? The woman I hugged just yesterday in the hospital?
“Hey, guys…” Maeve says uncertainly. She’s swapped the work clothes we saw her in this morning for a pair of black leggings and a white T-shirt, through which I glimpse the outline of her black bra. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s removed her makeup, but she still looks beautiful, her skin clean and bright, a stray red lock framing one side of her face. For a second, I picture Jason sliding that hair behind her ear, and flinch so hard that Maeve must notice.
“What’s going on?” she asks. Her expression clouds with concern. “Is it Jason?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Sienna says. “You lied to us, Maeve.”
Before Maeve squints in confusion, I think I see a flash of panic in her eyes. “What—” she starts, but Sienna breezes past her.
Maeve remains still for a second before following Sienna into her own living room. I trail behind, gaze pinned to Maeve’s slippers: gray, furry things that remind me of Aiden’s old Bugsy Bear. Has Jason ever seen them? Did they make him think of Aiden, who once howled himself hoarse when I put Bugsy in the wash? Or did he not even consider his son at all, these slippers just the things that Maeve kicked off before she and Jason—kissing, laughing—rushed into bed?
“Lied about what?” Maeve asks.
The living room floor is cluttered with tote bags, whichtransform the hardwood into some kind of garden: hand-painted hydrangea and peonies, branches of cherry blossoms and wisteria.
“Sorry,” Maeve says as Sienna navigates the mess. “I’m doing a shop update, and—”
“We know you were with Jason last Friday,” Sienna says. “After the conference.”
Maeve’s lips pop open. “No, I wasn’t, I—”
“Don’t.” Sienna takes out her phone and pulls up the shot she took of Jason’s emails, then aims it at Maeve.
Maeve leans toward the screen, eyes flicking back and forth across the messages—until they stop, freezing in recognition, in fear.
“We asked you yesterday,” Sienna says, “if you knew where Jason went after he left the Marriott. You told us no. And justhoursago, you helped us look into Gavin, which we wouldn’t have even needed to do if we knew Jason’s alibi. An alibiyou’vebeen keeping from us, and I sure would like to know why.”
With each new sentence, Maeve takes a step back, her feet tangling with the tote bags strewn across the floor. When her legs collide with an armchair, her knees give out. She falls into the chair like a marionette whose strings have been snipped, but her spine remains erect. Across from her, I let myself sink onto the couch. Only Sienna stays standing.
“Julia has a theory about why you haven’t told us,” she says. “And it doesn’t paint you in the most favorable light.”
As Maeve shoots her gaze to me, color floods her cheeks, blaring her guilt and shame, staining the air I’m trying to breathe. Even without her saying a word, that blush is all the confirmation I need.
“We—we didn’t intend to hurt anyone,” Maeve says. “You have to trust me on that.”
“Trustyou?” The question bullets from my mouth. “Maeve, Itrustedyou and you slept with my husband.”
Surprise blasts across Maeve’s face before backfiring onto mine. I hadn’t meant to chime in, hadn’t wanted the brunt of Maeve’s attention, and now I recoil on the couch.
“See? That’s Julia’s theory,” Sienna says. “I, for one, am sure it was something else, but what I’m not sure of is why you’d keep it from us. So tell us what’s going on.”
