Gone Girl

knew that was a fact. If you said she was brilliant, it wasn’t flattery, it was her due. So yeah, I think a good chunk of her truly believes that if I can only see the error of my ways, of course I’ll be in love with her again. Because why in God’s name wouldn’t I be?’
    ‘And if it turns out she’s developed a bullshit detector?’
    ‘You know Amy; she needs to win. She’s less pissed off that I cheated than that I picked someone else over her. She’ll want me back just to prove that she’s the winner. Don’t you agree? Just seeing me begging her to come back so I can worship her properly, it will be hard for her to resist. Don’t you think?’
    ‘I think it’s a decent idea,’ she said in the way you might wish someone good luck on the lottery.
    ‘Hey, if you’ve got something better, by all fucking means.’
    We snapped like that at each other now. We’d never done that before. After the police found the woodshed, they grilled Go, hard, just as Tanner had predicted: Did she know? Did she help?
    I’d expected her to come home that night, brimming with curse words and fury, but all I got was an embarrassed smile as she slipped past me to her room in the house she had double-mortgaged to cover Tanner’s retainer.
    I had put my sister in financial and legal jeopardy because of my shitty decisions. The whole situation made Go feel resentful and me ashamed, a lethal combination for two people trapped in small confines.
    I tried a different subject: ‘I’ve been thinking about phoning Andie now that—’
    ‘Yeah, that would be genius-smart, Nick. Then she can go back on Ellen Abbott —’
    ‘She didn’t go on Ellen Abbott . She had a press conference that Ellen Abbott carried. She’s not evil, Go.’
    ‘She gave the press conference because she was pissed at you. I sorta wish you’d just kept fucking her.’
    ‘Nice.’
    ‘What would you even say to her?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You are definitely fucking sorry,’ she muttered.
    ‘I just – I hate how it ended.’
    ‘The last time you saw Andie, she bit you,’ Go said in an overly patient voice. ‘I don’t think the two of you have anything else to say. You are the prime suspect in a murder investigation. You have forfeited the right to a smooth breakup. For fuck’s sake, Nick.’
    We were growing sick of each other, something I never thought could happen. It was more than basic stress, more than the danger I’d deposited on Go’s doorstep. Those ten seconds just a week ago, when I’d opened the door of the woodshed, expecting Go to read my mind as always, and what Go had read was that I’d killed my wife: I couldn’t get over that, and neither could she. I caught her looking at me now and then with the same steeled chill with which she looked at our father: just another shitty male taking up space. I’m sure I looked at her through our father’s miserable eyes sometimes: just another petty woman resenting me.
    I let out a gust of air, stood up, and squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
    ‘I think I should head home,’ I said. I felt a wave of nausea. ‘I can’t stand this anymore. Waiting to be arrested, I can’t stand it.’
    Before she could stop me, I grabbed my keys, swung open the door, and the cameras began blasting, the shouts exploded from a crowd that was even larger than I’d feared: Hey, Nick, did you kill your wife? Hey, Margo, did you help your brother hide evidence?
    ‘Fucking shitbags,’ Go spat. She stood next to me in solidarity, in her Butthole Surfers T-shirt and boxers. A few protesters carried signs. A woman with stringy blond hair and sunglasses shook a poster board: Nick, where is AMY?
    The shouts got louder, frantic, baiting my sister: Margo, is your brother a wife killer? Did Nick kill his wife and baby? Margo, are you a suspect? Did Nick kill his wife? Did Nick kill his baby?
    I stood, trying to hold my ground, refusing to let myself step back into the house. Suddenly, Go was crouching behind me, crankingthe spigot near the steps. She turned on the hose full-bore – a hard, steady jet – and blasted all those cameramen and protesters and pretty journalists in their TV-ready suits, sprayed them like animals.
    She was giving me covering fire. I shot into my car and tore off, leaving them dripping on the front lawn, Go laughing shrilly.
    It took ten minutes for me to nudge my car from my driveway into my garage, inching my way slowly, slowly forward, parting the angry ocean of