Public Secrets

long before he finished.

Chapter Thirty-Two

H E DIDN’T APOLOGIZE this time. There was no need to. It took her ten days in bed to recover, and all the while he told her she had brought it on herself. There was a part of her mind that knew he was wrong, knew he was crazy. But he was persistent, and in an odd way loving, as he explained, over and over, that he was only acting in her best interest.
She’d only been thinking of herself, hadn’t she, when she’d spent all those weeks preparing for her show? She’d sent her husband to bed alone, night after night, then had flouted her marriage in public by flirting with another man.
She’d pushed him to it. She’d deserved it. She’d brought it on herself.
Though the phone rang constantly for several days following the showing, she didn’t answer any of her calls. At first her mouth was too swollen and sore to allow her to speak. Drew brought her ice packs and fed her soup. He gave her pills that took the edge off the worst of the pain and helped her sleep through it.
Then he told her that people were only calling her to get to him. They needed to be alone, to work out their marriage, to make a baby.
She wanted a family, didn’t she? She wanted to be happy and be taken care of? If she hadn’t put so much time and effort into her work, she would be pregnant by now. Isn’t that what she wanted?

And when he asked her, drilling her with the questions one after another as she lay recovering, she agreed. But agreement was never enough.
She awoke alone to dark and music. A dream, she told her-self, gripping the sheets, fighting to wake. But even when her eyes were open, she could hear it, those odd words sung by a man who was dead. Her fingers shook as she groped for the switch on the lamp at the bedside. She turned and turned and turned it, but the light didn’t shine, didn’t fill the room and chase the shadows.
As the music grew louder, she put her hands over her ears. But she could still hear it, throbbing, pulsing until her screams drowned it out.
“There, Emma. There now.” Drew was beside her, stroking her hair. “Another nightmare? You should have outgrown them by now, shouldn’t you?”
“The music.” She could only gasp and cling. He was her lifeline, the only solid line that could pull her out of the sea of fear and madness. “It wasn’t a dream, I heard it. The song—I told you—the song that was playing when Darren was killed.”
“There isn’t any music.” Quietly, he set the remote for the stereo aside. It was a good lesson, he thought, as she trembled against him. A good way to keep her dependent and manageable.
“I heard it.” She was sobbing now between chattering teeth. “And the light, the lights won’t go on.”
“You’re too old to be afraid of the dark,” he said gently. Reaching down, he plugged in the lamp and turned the switch. “Better?”
She nodded, her face buried against his shoulder. “Thank you.” Gratitude rushed through and overwhelmed her. With the light she went limp in his arms. “Don’t leave me alone, Drew. Please, don’t leave me alone.”
“I told you I’d take care of you.” He smiled and continued to stroke her hair. “I won’t leave you alone, Emma. You don’t have to worry about that.”
By Christmas, she thought she was happy again. Drew took all the details of day-to-day living out of her hands. He chose her clothes, monitored her calls, took away all the business of handling her money.

All she had to do was tend the house, and him. Decisions were no longer there to trouble her, to make her anxious. Her darkroom equipment and camera were shut away. They no longer held any interest for her. When she thought of her work, it brought on depression.
He bought her a diamond pendant in the shape of a huge teardrop for Christmas. She didn’t know why it made her want to cry.
She had a battery of fertility tests. When her most intimate troubles were leaked to the press, she suffered her humiliations in silence, then stopped reading the papers altogether. It hardly mattered to Emma what went on in the outside world. Her world consisted of the seven rooms overlooking Central Park.
When the doctors confirmed that there was no physical reason for her not to conceive, she hesitantly suggested that Drew have some tests of his own.
He knocked her unconscious and locked her in the bedroom for two days.
The nightmares continued, once, sometimes twice a week. Sometimes he would be there to soothe and