The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [77]
“God does have such a sense of humor,” he muttered to the ceiling. “Even a worse sense than mine.”
The cigarette burned down to his fingers. He let it drop to the floor, pressing it out with the pad of his thumb. He gave up smoking every morning and started again every night. And tonight it wasn’t even dulling his brain the way it was supposed to.
He was still thinking of Tess and thinking of Tess made him remember Rachel. J.T. had married Rachel because he understood that she was an eighteen-year-old mother who wanted the best for her son. He’d married her because if she was as corrupt, twisted, and manipulative as Marion said, then it was the colonel who’d molded her into that shape.
His father had come up to him after the ceremony, pumped J.T.’s hand, and stated, “Now Teddy will have the family name and I’ll get my second son into West Point to redeem my first son’s mistakes. I knew you’d do the right thing, Jordan.”
And J.T. had said, “You touch Rachel or Teddy ever again, and I will kill you. Understand, Daddy?”
It was the only time J.T. ever saw the colonel pale.
For the first six months he and Rachel lived together like awkward acquaintances. She had her room in the apartment. He had his. When they talked and interacted, it was about Teddy. But sometimes, late at night, they would sit at the kitchen table, drinking beers and revealing little bits and pieces of themselves.
She told him about the stepfather who made it impossible for her to remain at home. He talked about the first time his father had whipped him and how sure he’d been that he deserved it. She recalled trying to find a job, then realizing homeless fifteen-year-olds couldn’t get one. He spoke of the jungle and the endless hours of sitting in steam, waiting for the right moment to pounce and destroy.
One night she told him about the first time she’d sold her body. She’d recited Dr. Seuss rhymes in her mind to block out the act. Afterward she hadn’t cried. The man had paid her well, so she hadn’t cried. She’d just rocked herself back and forth and tried not to remember the life she’d dreamed about as a little girl.
Neither of their lives made much sense, but somehow, sitting up together late at night, they made the warped, jagged pieces fit. They offered each other the forgiveness they couldn’t offer themselves. They planned a future. They built a new life.
Until the little kid who’d been beaten by his father loved her, and the adolescent who’d been rejected by his younger sister loved her, and the man who’d gone off to fight wars because he no longer cared if he lived or died loved her. Until every single deranged, hopeful, frightened part of him loved her.
Then Rachel had gone and gotten herself dead.
J.T. reached over to the nightstand, retrieved another cigarette, and started destroying his lungs all over again.
Rosalita drifted back into the room. She paused at the foot of the bed and smiled.
And just for a minute, in the twisted corridors of his mind he saw Marion, young, vulnerable Marion. And his baby sister’s hands were clasped and her face terrified as she ran from the monster they both knew too well. “Hide me, J.T. God help me, please, please, please!”
“Shh,” he whispered to his own mind, and squeezed his eyes shut.
When he reopened them, Rosalita was by his side, no longer concerned but triumphant. She held out the icy glass.
Tequila on the rocks with a twist. He looked up at her, and she smiled at him, happy. “You will be yourself,” she said simply.
“You are the Antichrist,” he whispered.
His fingers curled around the glass.
MARION ENTERED THE living room just as a woman in a white cotton sheet disappeared into her brother’s room. For a moment Marion thought she’d seen a ghost. She shook her head and crossed to the phone.
She liked the living room late at night. Sometimes she went out there just to sit and watch the moon slide through the open blinds and sift over the wicker furniture. In one corner the iguana slept by a heat lamp. Otherwise she was alone.
She contemplated lighting a