Page 83 of Soft Tissue Damage
I got on top of the laundry yesterday, so this must be the clothing Cullan wore last night. I take a sip of coffee. What kind of poker games require someone to do laundry?
Now that I think of it, Cullan didn’t leave the house wearing black last night. He was wearing gray jeans and a dark blue flannel shirt. Feeling vaguely curious, I walk upstairs and lift the dirty clothes hamper lid. There are Cullan’s jeans and shirt from last night, waiting to be washed.
Back in the laundry room, I watch the black garments swirling around with water and suds. I wonder what clothes these are. I furrow my brow and stare into my coffee. I wonder who his poker friends are. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention any names.
I get started on my day, though my stomach continues to feel upset for several hours.
In the afternoon, I talk to Justine on the phone while I stack the dishwasher and wipe down all the kitchen counters. When I hang up, I see I have a text from Cullan
Cullan: I’ll be finishing late. Miss you so much. Can’t wait to get home and hold you.
Elena: I miss you too. See you when you get home.
The load in the washing machine finished hours ago, and I pull out Cullan’s clothes and examine them. Black utility pants. Long-sleeved black T-shirt. Black cotton twill jacket. I’ve never seen him wear these before. They lookvaguely professional. Something a man who works in home security might wear.
“Yeah, if he was going to rob the house, not protect it,” I say to myself as I put the clothes in the dryer, and then I smile at my own silliness. “Or maybe he’s an assassin.”
Sitting at the kitchen counter, I check my social media apps and then the news. The first headline I read captures my interest. There was another murder last night, and police have released CCTV footage of the man they’re calling the Red Mask Killer. I click through and watch the very brief clip. It shows a narrow street, and the camera has been mounted up high. A large, masked figure dressed in dark clothes strides along the sidewalk toward the camera, and he looks up at the viewer and seems to hold my gaze. The mask is oval and glossy and molded to his face, and it’s blank apart from the eye holes. A strange feeling overwhelms me, like he’s looking right at me. Like he could reach out and touch me. It’s a deliberate stare. He wants to be seen, and he’s watching us as much as we’re watching him.
I put my phone down, but a sense of déjà vu washes over me, and I pick it up again.
I watch the short clip over and over, studying how the man moves. He reminds me of someone. A character from a movie, maybe, but I don’t watch thrillers or horror movies. Did I watch a serial killer movie recently and forget about it? Did I dream about one? I take a closer look at what the Red Mask Killer is wearing, and I get that sense once more that I’m missing something. I find stills from thevideo and study them. This man really is tall and well-built. His shoulders fill out his jacket, and his thigh muscles are defined through his black utility pants.
The sense of déjà vu dissipates, and I suppose I must be mistaken.
A notification pops up on my phone, a reminder to change my contraceptive patch tonight. I had put a new patch on after my shower, but I should probably place them somewhere I can see them while I’m thinking of it. Were they in my bathroom or Cullan’s?
I go upstairs and check. I’ve been moving things around a lot lately as Cullan has encouraged me to make myself more comfortable in his space. I’ve been enjoying rearranging things, but I also don’t want to overstep any invisible boundaries he has that I might have missed. I check my bathroom cabinet first and don’t find them, but the moment I open the cabinet in Cullan’s bathroom, I spot something else.
Pregnancy tests. I pull them out, accidentally knocking my contraceptive patches over and scattering them all over the floor. Why does Cullan have pregnancy tests?
Maybe they’re old and they’re the ones Rebecca used when she found out she was pregnant with Rosie. I feel a stab of jealousy as I imagine Cullan buying another woman pregnancy tests. Keeping his ex’s pregnancy tests, like he’s wishing he could get her pregnant again. I turn the box over in my hands.
Unless they’re new tests.
New tests that he bought for a new woman.
I check the expiry date, and it’s nearly three years in the future. Rosie was conceived over two years ago, and I doubt tests last that long. The packaging is shiny and new, and they were sitting prominently inside the cabinet, not scuffed and at the back of a drawer.
I caress the packaging with my thumbs. Cullan bought pregnancy tests while thinking about me?
A pleasurable shiver rocks through me. His words the night in the garden as he was touching the patch on my hip come back to me.“Do you know what I’m fantasizing about, Elena? Ripping the patch from your body.”
I picture him buying these tests for me—for us—while thinking about doing just that, and heat ripples through my body. What if I don’t put a new patch on tonight? What if instead I ask him to tear this one off, and we have wild, unprotected sex where he does and says all those delicious, intense things that I enjoy so much?
Cullan, I’ve been thinking. Let’s make a family, you, me, and Rosie. Let’s grow it. Let’s have a baby together.That’s what I could say to him tonight and watch delight spread over his face, along with one of his beautiful smiles.
I smile at my reflection in the mirror. A family that he and I can love and protect. A noisy, happy home with toys and books and paints. Joyful Christmases and exciting birthdays, and Cullan’s strong arms around both of us. I want that so much, but it feels too good to be true. Wonderful things don’t often happen to me. My recent run of happy days with Cullan probably isn’t permanent. My real life of exhausting myself for tips and handing themover to my aunts is lurking just around the corner, and it doesn’t feel right to be longing for a new family when I haven’t learned who my mother is yet.
My aunts would howl with derisive laughter and then furiously scold me if they could hear my thoughts right now. They’d point out that I’m still the nanny, and I’ve already given away all my power.
“Do you truly believe spreading your legs for him makes you special to a wealthy, important man like Cullan Grant? Worthy of being the mother to his children?”
“You take his money and let him use you for his pleasure, night and day. You’re convenient to him, Elena. You’re his whore. A man doesn’t want a whore for a wife.”
Their cruel, snide voices cut me like knives. Reluctantly, I return the box to where I found it, feeling ashamed of myself for getting excited over nothing.
Before I let go of the tests, a startling thought occurs to me. I can’t remember the last time I had my period.
