She moves to the stove, heats up the taco meat, and places their plates on the table. When they’re seated across from each other, pointing her fork at her plate, she says, “What problem do you have with this meal? I consider it healthy—ground chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, corn, and tri-colored tortilla strips.”
“It’s not that I mind chicken tacos, Mags. I just don’t want to eat them every night.”
The awkward silence that settles between them is broken only by the loud crunching of his tortilla chips. They’re almost finished eating when he says, “By the way, I have to go to Charlotte again for the weekend. I’ll be home late Sunday.”
Maggie looks up from her plate. “Again? That’s the third time this month.”
Eric sets his fork down and wipes his mouth. “We’re in the crucial planning stages of this project, babe. We’re working nights and weekends to get this thing up and running.”
Maggie gets up from the table and dumps her half-eaten salad in the trash. “I understand, Eric. It’s just that I’m bored out of my mind without a job. I want to work. I need to work.”
He balls up his napkin and tosses it in his plate. “You’ll have plenty to do once the baby comes. But if you’re determined to get a job, can’t you do better than Starbucks?”
She spins around to face him. “How did you know about Starbucks? I only submitted my application this afternoon.” It dawns on her that she never told him about the spa attendant job or the museum gift shop cashier position either, yet somehow he knew about both. And you call yourself an investigative journalist? You’re losing your touch, Maggie. “Are you spying on me, Eric?”
“Do you know how paranoid you sound right now?” he says with a nervous chuckle.
Am I paranoid? Or has the bastard put monitoring software on my electronic devices?
He continues, “Regardless of how I knew, being a barista is beneath you.”
“No, it’s not, Eric. It’s a way for me to earn money and meet new people while I search for a position that will further my career.” She slams the dishwasher closed. “I’m going to bed.”
She’s quivering with anger as she climbs the stairs to her room. But it’s fear she experiences when she opens the drawer of her bedside table and discovers her birth control pills are missing—the three-month supply she brought with her from Oregon to hold her over until she could establish herself with a new doctor. She’s positive they were in that drawer yesterday. With the advent of her period, she’d double-checked to make certain of it.
She storms out of the room, but she makes it only halfway down the stairs before coming to an abrupt halt. Her husband has taken charge of every aspect of her life. The stakes in this cat and mouse game they’re playing just got a lot higher. With shoulders slumped, she retraces her steps to her room. Since dragging her family into her problems isn’t an option, for the time being and until she can figure a way out, she’ll keep her wits about her and play her cards close to her chest.
Eric has already left for Charlotte by the time Maggie wakes on Friday morning.
Please, let me have imagined it. She kicks off the covers and swings her feet over the side of the bed. Please let my pills be here. She opens the nightstand drawer, but instead of her birth control pills, she finds a note from Eric. I’m sorry, Maggie. Taking the pills will make the decision to have a baby easier for you. You’ll thank me once you’re holding our newborn in your arms.
Her eyes dart around the room. How did he know she discovered the missing pills? Or is she jumping to conclusions? Maybe it’s a coincidence that he left the note on the same night she found the pills missing. No. He’s definitely watching her. She can feel his eyes on her. Is there a nanny cam hidden somewhere? In the lampshade? On the frame of the mirror hanging above the oak bureau? If he’s spying on her with hidden cameras, there’s a good chance he’s having her followed as well.
Be cool. Act normal.
Changing out of her pajamas into running attire, she slips a twenty-dollar bill and her driver’s license inside her sports bra, pulls a red cable-knit beanie over her head, and exits the house, purposefully leaving her phone on the bathroom counter.
She walks at a brisk pace down to the end of the street and over four blocks to the Village Cafe. The green leather upholstered barstools are all occupied with patrons enjoying breakfast while watching the morning news on the TVs mounted from the ceiling. Behind the bar, instead of pouring bourbon, Greg is moving from customer to customer, refilling their coffee mugs.
Maggie goes to the corner at the end of the black marble bar. “What’re you doing here so early?”
“Angie called in sick. Coffee?” he asks, his pot hovering over a white ceramic mug on the counter.
“No, but thanks. Can I borrow your phone for a sec? I left mine at home by accident and I need to look up an address.”
“Sure,” he says, and slides his phone across the bar.
She conducts her internet search, deletes the browser tab, and hands him back the phone. “Thanks, Greg. I may see you later today.”
Maggie heads toward the restrooms, but when she’s sure no one is watching, she ducks into the kitchen and out the back door. She tugs the stocking cap off her head, zipping it in the pocket of her hoodie. Casting frequent glances behind her, she takes off toward Grove Avenue.
She jogs two miles to Planned Parenthood where, promising to come back in two weeks for a physical, she convinces a physician’s assistant to give her a sample packet of pills. As she walks home, her fingers and her toes throbbing from the cold, she thinks about Liza, a friend at the news station in Oregon where Maggie had formerly worked. No one in the newsroom could comprehend why Liza refused to leave her abusive husband.
“You don’t just walk out on a violent man,” Liza had said to them.
Eric, although controlling and manipulative, has never given Maggie reason to think he’s violent. She vows to be a model wife, to trick Eric into thinking she’s on board with starting a family while she formulates an escape plan.
On Saturday, after lugging three bags of healthy food home from Kroger, under the guise of dusting and vacuuming, she identifies the hidden cameras in each of the rooms. The stuffed bear’s eye in the nursery. The smoke detector in their bedroom. The black dot above the twelve on the wall clock in the kitchen. With cameras monitoring her every move, Eric will know if she tries to leave. Besides, the balance of $215.36 in their joint account as of yesterday wouldn’t get her very far.
For the rest of the afternoon, she researches healthy recipes and makes an easy crock pot chicken and rice soup. She changes into her pajamas early and stands at her bedroom window as the first snowflakes fall to the ground and accumulate on grassy surfaces. Her neighbors are nestled inside their cozy homes with wood smoke billowing from their chimneys. She imagines them wrapped in blankets, eating popcorn and watching movies in front of roaring fires. Although she’s waved at a few of them on the street, she hasn’t met any of them yet. She hopes that will change when the days grow longer and the weather warmer.
Two houses down on the same side of the street lives a young family. Maggie feels for the harried-looking mother who’s constantly shepherding her bundled-up four little children in and out of her Suburban.