Our Family Trouble: A Domestic Thriller Page 2

  “Not sure why you did that,” said Dillie, finding powder clumps in the bottle, shaking harder. “Since we’re not moving home.”

  “Delphine, you cannot raise a child in that city. You cannot school him there. On top of everything else, where is he supposed to play? And I know for a fact Rupert can peddle his wares wherever he pleases. He admitted as much to me last Christmas, even though he didn’t realize it.”

  Dillie’s arm was getting tired. She switched hands, kept shaking. “Mom, can you rant later? I have guests coming soon.”

  “Yes, you made that clear as soon as you answered the phone. Oh, did you see that horrible story in the Post?” Vivian had subscribed online to the New York Post ever since Dillie moved and liked to hector her with its daily freak-show stories. “That girl walking her dog near you? Somewhere on the mean streets down your way, I’m sure, because I looked it up on the map that linked from the page. Just a few blocks away, over by that park on the edge of that dangerous section. That gang hangout. I trust you don’t let Campbell play there, although maybe all the parks there are gang-infested.”

  Dillie checked the formula: milky and smooth enough. Campbell could handle a few powder clumps.

  “So this girl was walk-walk-walking her dog”—Vivian always spoke more frantically when she feared the conversation was nearing its end—“I think it was a terrier mutt of some kind. They had a photo, sort of mangy-looking, but I’m sure he meant the world to that poor girl. I got the impression she had no one else in her life. It must be hard to be lonely in such a big city. Where was I? Oh, the dog. With its whiskers and big brown eyes, did you see the photo? So the dog, this terrier mutt, oh, Dillie, it suddenly has a seizure, like an epileptic. A neighbor when I was a girl had an epileptic dog, and it’s so unsettling, so eerie, nothing funny about it at all. And, of course, there’s nothing you can do but let it run its course, and then the dog was always so exhausted and confused. Because it would be confusing, wouldn’t it? It would be embarrassing, too, naturally. But this girl, the mutt’s lonely owner, reaches down to soothe and comfort it.…Are you listening?”

  Dillie stood in the sitting room, next to Campbell, both transfixed and amused by the musical and repetitive DVD that was honing their spatial intelligence. She stroked his hair. “I’m here,” she said. “But not for long.”

  “And, Dillie, she seizes too! The girl suffers her own epileptic seizure, while she’s petting her seizing dog. There were witnesses! Hordes of them. It’s all in the paper, probably gangbangers and dope pushers, although that’s me editorializing. But what’s a fact is they saw it and it wasn’t epilepsy at all!”

  Dillie stared at the little toy circus seals balancing beach balls on their noses as they ascended yellow stairs and then spiraled down the red slide, only to start their journey anew at the bottom. Sisyphus seals. In sync with a Mozart sonata she knew but couldn’t pinpoint.

  “A live current of electricity had traveled up from the bowels of the subway, through the wet sidewalk. It had rained earlier, they said, and this bolt shot up through the cement and electrocuted them both. Just stopped their hearts cold. Dead! Freak! Too big, too crazy, that town, with so much going on aboveground and underground. For a child. I mean, think, Dillie. Think!”

  A metronome with a red crab attached to its arm tick-tocked back and forth. She didn’t have time for this.

  “I think you should cancel your subscription,” said Dillie, bending down to feed the bottle to Campbell, still engrossed in the dancing toys.

  A dark hand yanked the bottle away before it reached his mouth. Lola clutched it with two fingers and hurried past Dillie back into the kitchen.

  “What?” asked Dillie, taken aback.

  Without answering, Lola unscrewed and emptied the bottle into the sink drain, flushing it down with a full blast of water, which she let run.

  She pulled a fresh garbage bag from under the sink, dropped the bottle and lid into it, tied it tightly closed.

  “What…are you doing?” said Dillie. “I checked the expiration date.”

  Lola grabbed another garbage bag, turned back to the box of d-CON rat poison sitting next to the stove.

  Dillie froze.

  Lola sealed the poison in the new bag. Wiped down the counter with a sponge, threw the sponge away and washed her hands. Reached up to the cupboard above the range, took down the canister of Enfagrow soy, placed it on the counter. She stared at Dillie.

  “…all I know is stuff like that doesn’t happen here,” Vivian prattled on in the distance.

  “I…have to go now,” whispered Dillie to her mother, pulling down the earbuds. They dangled at her side.

  “Ms. Parker?” one of the caterers called from the powder room. “Just so you know, there’s no hot water.”

  “…thank you…,” said Dillie, to Lola, not the caterer.

  Lola took both garbage bags from the kitchen, toward the trash chute in the back hallway.

  two

  Mindy was the first to arrive, with her new baby Eloise.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Dillie, forcing cheer. “Welcome, Eloise!”

  “She’s been a bit colicky,” said Mindy, still out on maternity leave. “That’s why I came early. I hope you don’t mind.” She’d clearly been dieting, if not fasting, having lost nearly all her baby weight.

  Greer and Tabitha came together soon after, with their children. Aline, Eleanor, and Tristen arrived on the same elevator, busy and noisy with theirs. “Settle!” Eleanor ordered her rampaging three-year-old. “What did I tell you downstairs? Do not touch the paintings!”

  Lola manned the video security panel by the front door to buzz the guests in downstairs. She took coats and hats and hung them in the cleared-out closet.

  “He doesn’t have a fever, does he?” asked Aline when told that Campbell was sleeping off a bit of congestion. Dillie said, “No. He just needs a little extra rest.”

  “That’s good. Then we can stick to Monday’s playdate with Jerusalem.”

  Dillie turned. “Who?”

  “Jeremy,” said Aline, and then laughed. “My son.”

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course.”

  The apartment was filled with Mylar balloons of giant 1’s and Winnie-the-Pooh characters—the classic A. A. Milne ones, not Disney. She’d decided against a clown or even Santa Claus, lest they frighten the young toddlers. Another year.

  “Your home is so lovely,” said the charming wife whose name she often mangled. “Thank you, Sagitha,” said Dillie, confident she’d nailed it. “I’m so happy you could come.” And then she thought, Sangita, and wondered if that was it, which needled her, as she genuinely liked this woman and meant no disrespect.

  Her dear friend Victoria, a publicist for the Shubert Organization, blew in an hour late, apologizing needlessly for a Stockard Channing/Sutton Fraser photo shoot that ran long. She’d left behind her toddler, Beckett, who’d contracted pinkeye at preschool. “I’ll wash my hands again,” she promised over air kisses.

  “Use Purell,” said Dillie. “There’s no hot water.”

  “Is Rupert not paying the bills? Should we take up a collection?”

  “The super’s on it right now.”

  Victoria eyed her. “What’s wrong? You seem spooked. And you’re missing an earring, my lamb.”

  Dillie shook her head, reaching up to her naked ear. “I’m fine. Just a party, you know. All the kids.” She removed her lone earring, palmed it.

  The children in paper hats sat slack-jawed in the room off the kitchen, too besotted with Baby Mozart and “A Little Night Music” to pay attention to the party, the cookies, their juice boxes.

  “I would have given you all of mine,” whispered Victoria, pointing at the screen. “Those fucking things still give me nightmares.” She scoured the room. “Where’s the birthday boy?”

  “Napping,” said Dillie. “He’s a bit cranky today. Just like me on my birthday! I’ll bring him out later.”

  Dillie circulated. The m
others, mostly in chic office attire, roamed the living and dining rooms and the gallery hallways, admiring Rupert’s collection of contemporary art. They chatted and nibbled and sipped dry chardonnay on their supposed lunch break. ‘Tis the season.

  “Where are you applying?” asked the wife of one of Rupert’s coworkers. “For school.”

  “Well, he’s one,” said Dillie. “We haven’t thought about it just yet.”

  “Oh,” said the wife, and another said, “You know Lily’s daughter got wait-listed at Spence, and her grandmother’s on the board.” To which the wife said, “Sacred Heart is fine and all, but still embarrassing. You’ve got to start so early.” Another piped in: “We’re testing at Dalton in January,” and a slightly older mother said, “Oy. Good luck with that one.”

  The music blared too loudly. Dillie rushed to the audio system concealed in a hall closet to correct it.

  “Is that a real Ruscha?” asked Rupert’s lawyer’s wife. She’d clearly had a boob job since her last child and was dressed inappropriately as always, especially for a first birthday. Dillie stared at the gas station painting while she searched for a non-snippy response and said, “I assume it is. Much of Rupert’s collection predates me.”

  “And this one is simply stunning,” the vixen added, pointing to the vast city night scape that spanned the dining room wall. “Who is it?”

  “Rupert gave that to me after I had Campbell. I think he found it in London.” She smiled and shrugged. “I should know the artist, shouldn’t I?”

  The tart gazed at it and nodded. “It does remind me of Rupe. Where is he, by the way?”

  “Rupert is in Chicago,” said Dillie, not liking the too-familiar pet name, or this guest. “He’ll be glad to hear you like it.”

  Her phone vibrated in her slacks pocket. A welcome release.

  “I’m sure that’s him calling now,” she said, reaching in and pulling away. “His son’s birthday, you know. If you’ll excuse me…” She whisked the phone up to her ear.

  “Hello?” she said.

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Hello?” she repeated, moving to the hallway, away from the noise. “Hello?”

  A crackle of static and a smacking of lips. Someone eating something. Chewing with an open mouth. Or pretending to, so exaggerated were the effects. Almost taunting.

  Dillie plugged her other ear, strained. “Yes, who is this?” She migrated farther from the party. “Lance, is that you? Really, I’m in the middle of your nephew’s birthday. Hop to it.”

  The lip smacking morphed into choking. A gasp, a gag, a grating of the throat. It grew louder, desperate.

  Dillie checked the caller ID. Unknown, which was typically Khaki on the family’s landline, but couldn’t have been with this. She tired of the prank, even as it chilled her.

  Movement at the far end of the hallway by her bedroom caught her eye. Two number “1” Mylar balloons had traveled down, bumping against each other at the ceiling. They moved with erratic rhythm, animated by conflicting air currents from somewhere.

  Her bedroom door stood open.

  Dillie pocketed her phone, moved quickly down the hall, into her room, targeted the crib.

  It was empty. The side panel unlatched and open.

  She looked around her room, under the bed, in the closet, the bathroom. “Campbell?” she called out. “Campbell?”

  She ran into Lola as she hurried from her room. “Have you seen Campbell?” she asked. “Did you take him?”

  “No,” Lola said.

  “Someone let him out. Where is he?” she said, rushing down the hallway, into the dining room, past a floating Piglet and Eeyore, swatting them out of her way.

  At the living room door, she cratered.

  The wives and mothers stood in a messy circle. In the center, in his diaper, stood Campbell.

  His back was bruised and purple, his arms and legs scratched and scabbed. He rotated, delighted to be the center of attention. He turned toward his mother.

  His face was marred with cuts and lacerations on one side. He beamed at her.

  The guests looked from Campbell to his mother and then mostly away.

  Dillie rushed at him, grabbing a gray cashmere throw draped over a chair. She threw it around him, swaddling, and lifted him into her arms. She held him close to her breast.

  “An…accident,” she told the mothers with their chardonnays. “He…fell. On the playground. Yesterday.”

  She backed away from them, out of the room, and fled down the hall.

  “Ms. Parker?” called a man in a beige worker’s uniform from the foyer. “The hot water should be working again, I think.”

  She stopped and turned, scouring for the super’s name. “Yes…thank you…Ernie.”

  “Little Campbell okay?” Ernie asked.

  “Yes, he just needs to rest.” She moved to go.

  The super stepped nearer, his head slightly down. “Close call last night, huh?” he said with a lowered voice.

  Dillie halted, turned again. “…last night…?”

  Ernie got closer, with delicacy. “I never forget to put the trash out, you know. Thank God the trucks woke me up and reminded me. It was…well, the damn driver just didn’t see him, I’m sure.…”

  “What…are you talking about?”

  “If I may say so, ma’am, a Dumpster’s not the safest place to play. Especially at three A.M., as tired as you were. Especially on the night when the dump trucks come.”

  “I don’t…,” she said, and then stopped.

  “You were so tired, just sitting on the stoop. Really out of it, and I remember what that was like with my little ones. If you want, next time just wake me up. I can help you with him if he can’t sleep. Really, I can, when your husband’s away.”

  “Yes…we should,” she thought she said. “Thank you.”

  Ernie smiled. “No harm done. Tykes spring back fast. I’m just glad I was there to, you know, stop them. Before they, you know…”

  But Dillie had stopped listening.

  She wandered away from the super, toward her bedroom, cradling her son. Lola followed from the foyer, shielding them both from the party.

  Dillie looked up at her.

  “Please get rid of them,” she said. “Tell them Campbell is…under the weather.” Lola nodded and turned to go. Dillie touched her arm. “No. Ill. Tell them Campbell is ill.”

  • • •

  That night she decided to let Campbell sleep in Lola’s room for the first time, since he was now one, lest he grow too attached to his mother.

  three

  Everything about Campbell had been a surprise, starting with his conception.

  She and Rupert hadn’t planned on starting a family right out of the gate. Dillie was still proving herself as a staff member at the New Yorker—with staff writer ambitions—and didn’t want to take time off so soon. Rupert was in the prime throes of his hedge-fund career and too often on the road to consider fatherhood. They expected to enjoy at least a few years of young, carefree marriage in the city before hunkering down. Dillie targeted thirty, which seemed the gateway of other professional women she admired. Neither too early, nor too late.

  So she was startled when her careful planning went awry and she became pregnant in their first year of marriage. As her mother would say: “If you want to make God laugh…”

  She miscarried in the first trimester. Her OB was concerned that what she called an “incompetent cervix” would only worsen over time. Dillie and Rupert had to recalculate their life’s schedule. Rupert, five years older, pushed for sooner than later, not only to increase the chances of success, but also because his father, in spotty health back home in London, yearned to meet his first grandchild.

  “It’s not like we need the second income,” he told her, stating the obvious, when she worried anew about leaving the workforce right as she was seeding her writing career. “And frankly, you know, it’s not much of an income anyway.”

  And
likely never would be, she knew, and had since setting her sights on a magazine job during a Vanity Fair internship before her senior year at Duke. She’d successfully networked each floor of the Condé Nast building that summer and was thrilled by the New Yorker offer, however paltry, that came her way after graduation. It was that very job, and the social engagements it entailed, that led her to Rupert, by chance, at a charity dinner in the Met’s Egyptian pavilion her first fall. Different tables, but that was scarcely a barrier once they’d spied each other during cocktails. Dillie was taken off the market, more or less, much faster than she’d anticipated, or could resist. Such was his British charm.

  His Gramercy Park bachelor pad was more than spacious enough to build a life together, but Dillie was leery of ghosts of girlfriends past, of which she knew he’d had plenty. They’d considered buying but waited to see if the market settled or, she suspected, if Rupert could lure her farther uptown. As their wedding date neared, they found, through one of Rupert’s colleagues, a much larger apartment on the border of SoHo and Chinatown, above a tony hair salon and across from a French cooking school. It was an obscenely priced rental (especially absent a doorman), a newly renovated and vast warehouse space carved into bedroom suites, home offices, and gallery spaces for Rupert’s art, with an ample expansion pad of sorts for future family growth. Throwing money out the window, her mother always said of rentals, and this one in particular. Month after month after…

  “I know you can afford it. That’s not the point,” she pestered on one of her phone calls. “I just question the wisdom of giving so much power to one city. I declare that town will drain it all out of you if you’re not careful.” And Dillie thanked her and cosigned the lease that day.

  Her job at the New Yorker was prestigious, she felt, and promising, albeit not nearly as glamorous as her friends and family back in Nashville thought. Nor was it challenging, not at first, and not four years later. What started with dues-paying secretarial grunt work eventually led to proofreading restaurant reviews and “Talk of the Town” pieces and culminated, for now, in a staff position writing blurbs about Broadway and art shows for the calendar section, although even these were synopses of previous articles written by others higher up the food chain.