needed vacuuming, and she could see into the kitchen counters cluttered with open bottles and dirty dishes. Several long-stemmed champagne glasses, liquid still pooled in their bottom, caught her eye.
The back of Christina’s throat tingled with a desire so strong she grabbed the couch to hold herself back. She sank onto the rumpled cushions, clutching her purse to her chest like a shield.
She should fire Señora Rosa’s fat ass, and her simpering niece Marisol, for leaving the place in such a state.
Later, she would find the upstairs bathrooms clean and the beds freshly made, tasks that would have been completed by the housekeepers, perhaps, before they discovered Jason’s body.
The screen door leading to the yard was open, the way she had left it earlier, and she decided to leave it open to air the place out despite the scumbag paparazzo at the front gate. The Cardiffs’, like the studio exec’s house across the way, sported signs that promised ARMED RESPONSE.
They had installed a new alarm system when they redid the house last spring. They only set it when they were away. She could see the green READY button shining steady in its panel mounted on the wall near the side door, and made a mental note to set it before she went up to bed tonight.
Upstairs.
She wasn’t ready to face those empty rooms. Not yet. Not the guest room she had taken over at the end oflast summer, a move that had never been discussed. Not Tyler’s room, which always felt empty and wrong when he was away. And most certainly not the master bedroom.
Jason’s room.
Tonight the whole place felt haunted.
The steel clock chimed eight, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She cleared her throat just to make some noise. The sound was hollow and lonely in the empty house.
Those half-empty champagne flutes beckoned from the kitchen counter. Christina wondered whether her stock of Grey Goose was intact inside the freezer.
Her rehab counselor’s face floated to mind. “Think before you drink,” Peter had implored them with his priestly blue eyes.
It had been a day straight from hell, the worst of Christina’s life.
Her throat itched at the back. Nobody would blame her if she took a drink. Nobody would even know.
Except her son, Tyler, would know. She pictured his face pinched down the middle when he was angry, the way his thin shoulders would stiffen, and he would pull back when she hugged him hello.
Tyler had learned at a young age to catch the scent of booze.
Christina vowed to ride this one out, fresh on that memory.
This decision behind her for the moment at least, she fell back on the cushions, exhausted. She had learned in rehab that all newly recovering alcoholics grew tired easily, unused to moving through life without alcohol to round out the sharp edges.
Peter had lectured them to monitor their moods in the first ninety days of sobriety. “Progress, not perfection.”
Lessons for life that would fit on a bumper sticker, Christina thought sourly. Was there a catchy slogan for how to cope when your husband was found facedown in your swimming pool?
Christina thought of the interviews she’d watched on TV with 9/11 widows. Their eyes, their faces, their voices ravaged by a depth of pain she simply did not feel right now.
The truth was, if she looked back and reviewed the fabric of her marriage, she would not have seen a smooth bolt of strong cloth. Nor would she have seen a smooth fabric in the center, drawing the eye away from fraying and wrinkles at the edges.
What she would have seen was something shredded right down the center, hanging on by a few strands of thread. Fabric that, however tattered, would hold together way beyond its useful life.
For the threads that bound the Cardiff marriage were bonds forged of mutual need.
Jason Cardiff brought money and prestige to the marriage.
Christina Banaczjek brought beauty, a yearning to escape the crushing poverty of her childhood, and a desperate desire for financial
The back of Christina’s throat tingled with a desire so strong she grabbed the couch to hold herself back. She sank onto the rumpled cushions, clutching her purse to her chest like a shield.
She should fire Señora Rosa’s fat ass, and her simpering niece Marisol, for leaving the place in such a state.
Later, she would find the upstairs bathrooms clean and the beds freshly made, tasks that would have been completed by the housekeepers, perhaps, before they discovered Jason’s body.
The screen door leading to the yard was open, the way she had left it earlier, and she decided to leave it open to air the place out despite the scumbag paparazzo at the front gate. The Cardiffs’, like the studio exec’s house across the way, sported signs that promised ARMED RESPONSE.
They had installed a new alarm system when they redid the house last spring. They only set it when they were away. She could see the green READY button shining steady in its panel mounted on the wall near the side door, and made a mental note to set it before she went up to bed tonight.
Upstairs.
She wasn’t ready to face those empty rooms. Not yet. Not the guest room she had taken over at the end oflast summer, a move that had never been discussed. Not Tyler’s room, which always felt empty and wrong when he was away. And most certainly not the master bedroom.
Jason’s room.
Tonight the whole place felt haunted.
The steel clock chimed eight, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She cleared her throat just to make some noise. The sound was hollow and lonely in the empty house.
Those half-empty champagne flutes beckoned from the kitchen counter. Christina wondered whether her stock of Grey Goose was intact inside the freezer.
Her rehab counselor’s face floated to mind. “Think before you drink,” Peter had implored them with his priestly blue eyes.
It had been a day straight from hell, the worst of Christina’s life.
Her throat itched at the back. Nobody would blame her if she took a drink. Nobody would even know.
Except her son, Tyler, would know. She pictured his face pinched down the middle when he was angry, the way his thin shoulders would stiffen, and he would pull back when she hugged him hello.
Tyler had learned at a young age to catch the scent of booze.
Christina vowed to ride this one out, fresh on that memory.
This decision behind her for the moment at least, she fell back on the cushions, exhausted. She had learned in rehab that all newly recovering alcoholics grew tired easily, unused to moving through life without alcohol to round out the sharp edges.
Peter had lectured them to monitor their moods in the first ninety days of sobriety. “Progress, not perfection.”
Lessons for life that would fit on a bumper sticker, Christina thought sourly. Was there a catchy slogan for how to cope when your husband was found facedown in your swimming pool?
Christina thought of the interviews she’d watched on TV with 9/11 widows. Their eyes, their faces, their voices ravaged by a depth of pain she simply did not feel right now.
The truth was, if she looked back and reviewed the fabric of her marriage, she would not have seen a smooth bolt of strong cloth. Nor would she have seen a smooth fabric in the center, drawing the eye away from fraying and wrinkles at the edges.
What she would have seen was something shredded right down the center, hanging on by a few strands of thread. Fabric that, however tattered, would hold together way beyond its useful life.
For the threads that bound the Cardiff marriage were bonds forged of mutual need.
Jason Cardiff brought money and prestige to the marriage.
Christina Banaczjek brought beauty, a yearning to escape the crushing poverty of her childhood, and a desperate desire for financial
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