Gone Girl

could ever do is ground him to his room.’ She positions a cool washcloth on my forehead; her breath has the tangy smell of aspirin. ‘Your job is to rest, okay? I’ll keep calling till I get that boy home.’
    When Nick gets home, I’m asleep. I wake up to hear him taking a shower, and I check the time: 11:04 p.m. He must have gone by The Bar after all – he likes to shower after a shift, get the beer and salty popcorn smell off his skin. (He says.)
    He slips into bed, and when I turn to him with open eyes, he looks dismayed I’m awake.
    ‘We’ve been trying to reach you for hours,’ I say.
    ‘My phone was out of juice. You fainted?’
    ‘I thought you said your phone was out of juice.’
    He pauses, and I know he is about to lie. The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie. Nick is old-fashioned, he needs his freedom, he doesn’t like to explain himself. He’ll know he has plans with the guys for a week, and he’ll still wait until an hour before the poker game to tell me nonchalantly, ‘Hey, so I thought I’d join the guys for poker tonight, if that’s okay with you,’ and leave me to be the bad guy if I’ve made other plans. You don’t ever want to be the wife who keeps her husband from playing poker – you don’t want to be the shrew with the hair curlers and the rolling pin. So you swallow your disappointment and say okay. I don’t think he does this to be mean, it’s just how he was raised. His dad did his own thing, always, and his mom put up with it. Until she divorced him.
    He begins his lie. I don’t even listen.

NICK DUNNE
    FIVE DAYS GONE
    I leaned against the door, staring at my sister. I could still smell Andie, and I wanted that moment to myself for one second, because now that she was gone, I could enjoy the idea of her. She always tasted like butterscotch and smelled like lavender. Lavender shampoo, lavender lotion. Lavender’s for luck , she explained to me once. I’d need luck.
    ‘How old is she?’ Go was demanding, hands on hips.
    ‘That’s where you want to start?’
    ‘How old is she, Nick?’
    ‘Twenty-three.’
    ‘Twenty-three. Brilliant.’
    ‘Go, don’t—’
    ‘Nick. Do you not realize how fucked you are?’ Go said. ‘Fucked and dumb .’ She made dumb – a kid’s word – hit me as hard as if I were a ten-year-old again.
    ‘It’s not an ideal situation,’ I allowed, my voice quiet.
    ‘Ideal situation! You are … you’re a cheater , Nick. I mean, what happened to you? You were always one of the good guys. Or have I just been an idiot all along?’
    ‘No.’ I stared at the floor, at the same spot I stared at as a kid when my mom sat me down on the sofa and told me I was better than whatever I’d just done.
    ‘Now? You’re a man who cheats on his wife , you can’t ever undo that,’ Go said. ‘God, even Dad didn’t cheat. You’re so – I mean, your wife is missing, Amy’s who knows where, and you’re here making time with a little—’
    ‘Go, I enjoy this revisionist history in which you’re Amy’s champion. I mean, you never liked Amy, not even early on, and since all this happened, it’s like—’
    ‘It’s like I have sympathy for your missing wife, yeah, Nick. I have concern. Yeah, I do. Remember how before, when I said you werebeing weird? You’re—It’s insane, the way you’re acting.’
    She paced the room, chewing a thumbnail. ‘The police find out about this, and I just don’t even know,’ she said. ‘I’m fucking scared , Nick. This is the first time I’m really scared for you. I can’t believe they haven’t found out yet. They must have pulled your phone records.’
    ‘I used a disposable.’
    She paused at that. ‘That’s even worse. That’s … like premeditation.’
    ‘Premeditated cheating, Go. Yes, I am guilty of that.’
    She succumbed for a second, collapsed on the sofa, the new reality settling on her. In truth, I was relieved that Go knew.
    ‘How long?’ she asked.
    ‘A little over a year.’ I made myself pull my eyes from the floor and look at her directly.
    ‘Over a year ? And you never told me.’
    ‘I was afraid you’d tell me to stop. That you’d think badly of me and then I’d have to stop. And I didn’t want to. Things with Amy—’
    ‘Over a year,’ Go said. ‘And I never even guessed. Eight thousand drunk conversations, and you never trusted me enough to tell me. I didn’t know you could do that, keep something from me that