Page 22 of The Devil You Know

I was like them once, though it’s getting harder to remember. Sometimes it feels like all my joy is treasure buried so deep and far that I have no clue where to start looking for it. At other times, it feels like a myth I’ve just convinced myself was once true.

The office is entirely cleared out when I call my mom. She’s eating a “surprisingly good” Lean Cuisine and watching a Hallmark movie about an advertising exec whose car breaks down in a rural village in upstate New York.

“Who’s rescuing her?” I ask. “Widowed farmer or wise bar owner?”

“He’s a veterinarian,” she says, “but he is widowed.”

We laugh, and then grow quiet. “I wish I was there.”

“I wish you were, too, honey, but don’t worry about me. I’m having a cozy night in and have no complaints.” My mother has never complained once because she doesn’t want me to worry or feel bad for her. She’s created a fiction in which sitting alone in a shitty apartment watching a Hallmark movie is as good as it gets. “What about you? Are you going out tonight?”

“Not tonight,” I reply. “I’m still at work.”

“Oh, Gemma. This late? You should be out somewhere.”

My mom wants a different sort of life for me and I want it for myself, but maybe it’s time we both accept the situation for what it is. “I like what I do, Mom. This is more fun for me than going to some bar.”

She’s quiet for a moment. I sense a gentle lecture coming, which is the hardest kind for me to hear because I can’t just ignore it. “I know you’re driven,” she finally says. “But is what you’re doing going to make you happy in the long run?”

“It’ll make me partner, which is better than being happy.” I phrase it like a joke, but the truth is, if I were offered a choice between happiness and making partner…I’d probably choose the latter. “And I’m not sure happiness is really in my makeup.”

“Of course, it is. You’ve forgotten the little girl who used to spin in the yard for the fun of it and jump in every puddle, but I haven’t,” she says.

I quietly crumple a Post-it note in my hand and leave it clenched in my fist. I haven’t forgotten the kid she described either, but I think I may be too broken to get any of it back.

When the call ends, I rise and head to the break room. It’s late, and I should probably go home and eat a real meal, but I suspect the emptiness of my apartment would get to me tonight.

I take two steps inside and come to a sudden, graceless halt. Ben is there, reading on his phone while he waits for coffee to brew.

The coward in me would probably turn and walk out except I’ve already been seen. His gaze—startled, then predatory—starts at my face and finishes at my shoes, where it remains for a long, long moment.

I continue forward, doing my best to act like he’s not here. If it weren’t for ten straight years of dance training, I’d definitely be stumbling right now, however.

“I heard an interesting rumor about you, so I investigated,” he says.

My stomach drops.

“Your mom’s Etsy shop is endlessly fascinating.”

It’s not what I thought he was going to say, but it’s a bad night to have anything involving my mother thrown in my face.

I give him my best dead-eyed look. The one that says If you continue discussing this, I’ll make sure they never find your body. “Maybe you should be doing a little work on the Lawson case instead of online shopping.”

He gives a genial shrug and opens up his phone. “We’ve got a few spare moments. Outfits for cats, right? I might need to contact her.”

“Looking for a special bondage outfit for yours?” I ask, jerking a drawer open more roughly than is necessary. “My mom won’t support your weird habits if that’s what you’re hoping.”

He grins. “Wow, such interesting pictures.” He holds up his phone.

Sadly, my mother still hasn’t mastered her in-home photography skills. She’s showing the cats curled up on the linoleum kitchen floor when I’ve told her a thousand times that she should at least use a white sheet.

“I love the way that shelf is hanging haphazardly off the wall,” he continues. “It’s kind of dark, like she wants you to fear for the cats’ lives while admiring their outfits at the same time.”

I feel a hard pinch, right in the center of my chest. I wonder if my father is laughing right now—just like Ben—while showing my mother’s poor attempt at independence to his country club friends, his new wife giggling as she says, “Oh, Adam, stop”—as if she isn’t enjoying it the most of them all.

“Don’t make fun of my mother,” I snap, but there’s a lump in my throat that warns me I’m not going to be able to hold it together, whether he stops or not. I hate that he’s won this round. I hate that he found this out, and I hate that there are things in my past I’m even more scared he’ll discover. I turn on my heel, stiff as I walk from the room.

“Gemma?” he asks, but I just keep going, because if I try to utter a single word in response, I will absolutely lose it. My lungs feel like they’re lined with shattered glass, so jagged I’m scared to take a full breath.