Chapter 1 - The Message on His Phone
Kristina reached the bottom of the stairs with one hand gripping the banister and the other pressed to her chest. Her gaze snapped from me to Edgar’s phone, still glowing in his hand.
“Why is your mother supposed to take care of it?” I asked.
Edgar’s fingers closed around the phone. His cheeks were flushed from the night out, but his eyes were suddenly sharp.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
Kristina stopped short. A second ago, she’d been moving fast enough to stumble. Now she stood perfectly still, her mouth drawn into a careful little smile.
“What isn’t?” she asked.
“The message,” I said. “The one asking if you took care of it.”
Edgar glanced at his mother. It was quick, barely a flicker—but I saw it. They had looked at each other before, I realized. Not like a son and mother caught in a misunderstanding. Like two people checking whether the other had kept to the same story.
“Some stupid text,” Edgar said. “You’re tired, Nora. You have a migraine.”
“I had a migraine. I still know what I heard.”
The house smelled of damp earth and the lemon polish Kristina used on the banister. From upstairs came no sound at all. The silence made the bedroom feel closer, as if the door had been left open inside my head.
Kristina reached for my arm.
“Sweetheart, you’re frightening yourself.”
I stepped back before she could touch me.
Her hand hung in the air. The sweetness in her face thinned, and beneath it I saw something impatient, something that looked almost like anger.
“I’m not going upstairs,” I said. “Neither of you is going upstairs.”
Edgar let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“Then you can go look.”
He didn’t move.
That was the answer, even before he spoke.
His phone went dark in his fist. I looked at it, then at him. The alcohol on his breath was sharp and sour, but it didn’t explain the way he’d asked how I knew. It didn’t explain why his first concern had been the message.
“Give me the phone,” I said.
“No.”
The refusal came too quickly. Kristina’s eyes darted between us.
“Edgar, don’t make this worse,” she murmured.
He turned on her. “You said you had it handled.”
The words slipped out low and rough. Kristina’s face went blank.
I felt my pulse beat against my throat. “Handled what?”
“Nothing,” Edgar said.
His mother stepped between us, not quite blocking him, not quite shielding me. “He’s been drinking. You’re upset. This is getting out of hand.”
“Then it should be easy to explain.”
Neither of them did.
I backed toward the kitchen, keeping them in sight. My hand found my own phone on the counter. Edgar took one step after me.
“Don’t call anyone,” he said.
I stared at him. “There’s a rattlesnake in our bedroom.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I heard it.”
“Your migraine—”
“Stop telling me what I heard.”
My voice cracked on the last word. I hated that it did. I hated that he watched the crack instead of my face, as if the tremor in my voice were a door he could push open.
I called emergency services. When the dispatcher answered, I gave our address and said there was a rattlesnake inside the house. I kept my voice as steady as I could and told her we were downstairs, away from the room.
Edgar paced to the end of the kitchen. Kristina stayed near the stairs, her hands clasped at her waist. The gardening gloves she’d worn upstairs were gone. I pictured them anyway: the thick green fingers, the cloth sack, her hands arranging the blanket afterward.
“Don’t say anything you can’t take back,” Edgar said.
I lowered the phone. “You’re worried about what I’ll say?”
“I’m trying to keep you calm.”
“No. You’re trying to keep me quiet.”
He looked toward his mother again. Kristina’s lips pressed together. The two of them seemed to have forgotten I was standing there, or believed that if they didn’t look at me, I couldn’t see them.
The dispatcher asked whether anyone had been bitten. I said no. She told us to stay out of the bedroom and keep the doors between us and the snake closed, if we could do that safely. I followed her instructions, moving only when she told me to. Edgar watched each step as if he were waiting for me to make a mistake.
When the responders arrived, their voices and heavy footsteps filled the hallway. A woman in protective gear asked us to remain downstairs while her partner went up. The house no longer seemed like ours. Every room had become a place someone else might search.
Kristina began crying.
“I never wanted this,” she said.
The words landed between us like another lie.
I didn’t ask what she meant. I was afraid of what she might answer, and more afraid of how quickly Edgar would answer for her.
The responders came back down after several minutes with the snake secured. I couldn’t make myself look closely at it. I watched the floor instead, where a streak of soil marked the tile near the stairs.
“Your bedroom’s clear,” the woman told me. “Stay out until we’ve finished checking.”
“Thank you,” I managed.
Kristina picked up her purse from the hall table. Her hands shook as she slid the strap over her shoulder, though her voice turned soft again.
“I should go,” she said. “Everyone needs a chance to settle down.”
Edgar didn’t tell her to stay. He didn’t ask why she had run downstairs. He just stood beside the kitchen doorway, holding his phone.
Kristina passed me without touching me. At the front door, she paused, looking back as if she expected me to call her by the name she had always wanted me to use.
I said nothing.
The door shut behind her.
For a moment, the only sound was the responder zipping the equipment bag. Edgar’s phone lit up again. He shifted it toward his body, but not before I caught the sender’s name above the notification.
Heather.
He swiped the message away.
“Who is Heather?” I asked.
Edgar’s jaw tightened. “Nobody you need to worry about.”
I looked at the empty doorway where his mother had stood. I had spent years trying to understand what I’d done wrong, what I could change, what I could give him that would make our marriage feel safe again.
That question had finally gone quiet.
“I’m done asking you to make me feel safe,” I said.
His eyes flicked to my phone, still in my hand. I could almost hear him measuring what I might do with it.
The responder carried the bag toward the door. Behind me, Edgar’s screen glowed once more.
May you like
Heather’s name appeared again.
He turned the phone facedown before I could read the new message.
