Our food arrives before I can think any more on it. For the rest of our dinner we discuss banal things, and when it’s time for dessert, I stand up to use the restroom. I can feel her eyes on me as I leave the table. I wish I could know what she’s thinking.

   SIXTEEN

When I get back from the restroom, Hannah is gone. I stare at the empty table, a sinking feeling in my stomach. Our server is ceremoniously clearing away the last of our glasses when he looks up and sees me. He grins sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders and stepping back.

“Thought you left,” he says. “She ran out in a hurry.”

As I step closer, I see that she’s paid the bill in cash and left a note on the back of my beverage napkin. I pick it up, frowning. Why would she leave so suddenly? Had our conversation spooked her that much? Maybe Seth called and summoned her home. The words are scribbled; her pen tore through the napkin at several spots. Had to run, felt sick. Rain check on movie.

That’s it? I turn it over in my hand, hoping for a more detailed explanation, but there’s only the pink lipstick residue I left earlier when I wiped my mouth.

“Did she look sick?” I ask the server. He’s waiting for me to leave so he can get his money and get the table ready for the next round of guests.

“Not really.” He shrugs.

I take out my phone to text.

What’s up? Why did you leave without saying goodbye?

Didn’t feel well. Had to run.

I consider asking her more, but then think better of it. I’ve already scared her enough with all of my questions. Things are probably better left alone. It could be the baby, I remind myself. She’s still in her first trimester. I was sick as a dog for the first five months of my pregnancy; the bathroom floor had become a hangout. I push the memories from my mind, their resurgence a cold knife against my thin control. If I thought on that too much, I’d—

I consider going to the movie by myself, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how tired I am—I realize that all I want is to drive back to the hotel instead.

As I’m waiting in the hotel valet for an attendant, tapping my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, something begins to nag at the back of my mind. Seth’s texts to me earlier had been strange—the tone of them. Was it possible that he’d seen me there with Hannah? I decide to take a quick spin past Hannah’s house. Just to see if her car is there. No harm in that. I wave off the attendant as he approaches my car and speed past, ignoring his look of disapproval. Twenty minutes. It would take me twenty minutes tops to spy on Hannah and my husband. Excitement whips through me as I rush through a yellow light, eager to reach their quaint home.

I can tell she’s not home even before I reach the house. The windows are dark and lifeless and her car is missing from its usual spot against the curb. I can’t see Seth’s anywhere, either. I consider creeping up to the house and taking a peek inside, but it’s still early enough that a neighbor could spot me.

Shit. Shit.

Could she have left the restaurant and gone straight to the hospital? There’s no finding out tonight. I head back to the hotel, feeling defeated. Something’s going on and I feel like I’m the only person in this marriage who doesn’t know what.

By the next morning, I’ve barely slept. My mind wouldn’t stop ticking and I had too many ugly thoughts. If I can’t find a way to sleep soon, I’ll have to see a doctor. It was torture lying awake half the night, being tired but not knowing how to shut off your brain. I fall into a fitful sleep around five and wake at seven to find a voice mail from Hannah on my phone. I roll onto my back, wondering why the phone didn’t ring, and remember that I’d put it on silent before we went into the restaurant. My two hours of sleep had been wrought with dreams—dark things about being chased and being caught. I don’t remember the details of the dreams, but the feelings they left behind linger in my mind. I listen to the message with half of my face hidden under the comforter, my eyes squinting against the light that sneaks in through a break in the curtains. Hannah’s voice shakes and I press the phone closer to my ear so I can make out what she’s saying.

“I’m really freaked out.” Her voice quavers, and it sounds like she’s blowing her nose. “We had a fight. I don’t feel safe. I just... I—” Her voice cuts off like she lost reception in the middle of the call.

I hold the phone away from my face and see that the voice mail is still playing. Pressing it back to my ear, I strain to hear, in case she’s said anything else.

“Leave...alone...he’s—” It cuts out for the final time. Damn my shitty reception.

I lie there frozen for a few minutes, her words ricocheting around in my head. Seth. She had a fight with Seth and now she is scared. What did he do to scare her? I throw my arm over my eyes. I was scared, too, wasn’t I? Ever since...his outburst, he’d seemed more unpredictable. If I said the wrong thing, would he do it again? If I call Hannah back I’ll be irrevocably involved in this...this thing. I wouldn’t be able to make any more excuses for him. I’d have to admit that what he’d done to me was deliberate. I’d been the one to seek Hannah out, to keep the truth about who I am from her. Perhaps it’s time to tell her that Seth is my husband, too. I roll back over onto my stomach and bury my face in the pillow. I call Anna.

“What’s up,” she says when she answers the phone. I’m not deterred by the briskness of her greeting; it’s Anna’s way.

“Hi,” I say. “I need moral guidance.”

“Are you facedown in a pillow?”

Anna knows my ways, too. I shift my head so she can hear me better.

“Not anymore,” I say.

“Oh, boy, are you sure I’m the one you should be asking for moral guidance?”

“No, but I don’t have anyone else, so moral-up and give the type of advice Melonie would give you.” Melonie is Anna’s mother, a psychologist who spent most of our teenage years observing us like we were science projects and then dissecting everything we did. As teens we thought it was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. At that age, most adults aren’t interested in the details of your thoughts, unless it’s to tell you those thought are wrong. But Melonie had been different. She’d validated us by saying we were on our own adventure, exploring the world. She made self-destruction seem normal and so we’d destructed without guilt. Nowadays, I wonder how healthy that had been: an adult egging us on. And here I am as an adult, seeking the same type of assurance, asking my best friend to validate me like her mother had.

“Okay,” Anna breathes. “Hit me with it, I’m in Melonie mode.”

“I have a new friend—I know her through someone else,” I add, because I know Anna will ask. “I’ve seen some bruises on her before but didn’t think much of it, but then today, she leaves a message on my phone, saying she got into a fight with her husband and she’s scared. Two things you should know—she’s pregnant, and I know her husband fairly well and he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d toss his wife around, you know?”