Excerpt of The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner

In the last six hours of the world as I know it, I feed Ree
dinner. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, topped with pieces of
turkey dog. I slice up an apple. She eats the crisp white
flesh, leaving behind curving half-smiles of red peel. I
tell her the skin holds all the nutrients. She rolls her
eyes—four going on fourteen. We already fight over
clothing—she likes short skirts, her father and I prefer
long dresses, she wants a bikini, we insist she wear a one
piece. I figure it’s only a matter of weeks before she
demands the keys to the car.

Afterward Ree wants to go “treasure hunting” in the attic.
I tell her it’s bath time. Shower, actually. We share the
old claw-foot tub in the upstairs bath, as we’ve been doing
since she was a baby. Ree lathers up two Barbies and one
princess rubber duckie. I lather up her. By the time we’re
done, we both smell like lavender and the entire black and
white checkered bathroom is smothered with steam.

I like the post-shower ritual. We wrap up in giant towels,
then make a beeline down the chilly hallway to the Big Bed
in Jason’s and my room, where we lay down, side by side,
arms cocooned, but toes sticking out, lightly touching. Our
orange tabby cat, Mr. Smith, jumps on the bed, and peers
down at us with his big golden eyes, long tail twitching.

“What was your favorite part of today?” I ask my daughter.

Ree crinkles her nose. “I don’t remember.”

Mr. Smith moves away from us, finding a nice comfy spot by
the headboard and begins to groom. He knows what’s coming
next.

“My favorite part was coming home from school and getting a
big hug.” I’m a teacher. It’s Wednesday. Wednesday I get
home around four, Jason departs at five. Ree is used to
the
drill by now. Daddy is daytime, mommy is nighttime. We
didn’t want strangers raising our child and we’ve gotten
our
wish.

“Can I watch a movie?” Ree asks. Is always asking. She’d
live with the DVD player if we let her.

“No movie,” I answer lightly. “Tell me about school.”

“A short movie,” she counters. Then offers, triumphantly,
“Veggie Tales!”

“No movie,” I repeat, untucking an arm long enough to
tickle
her under the chin. It’s nearly eight o’clock and I know
she’s tired and willful. I’d like to avoid a full tantrum
this close to bedtime. “Now tell me about school. What’d
you have for snack?”

She frees her own arms and tickles me under my chin.
“Carrots!”

“Oh yeah?” More tickling, behind her ear. “Who brought it?”

“Heidi!”

She’s trying for my armpits. I deftly block the move. “Art
or music?”

“Music!”

“Singing or instrument?”

“Guitar!”

She’s got the towel off and pounces on me, tickling
anyplace
she can find with fast, poky fingers, a last burst of
energy
before the end-of-the-day collapse. I manage to fend her
off, rolling laughing off the edge of the bed. I land with
a thump on the hardwood floor, which makes her giggle
harder
and Mr. Smith yowl in protest. He scampers out of the
room,
impatient now for the completion of our evening ritual.

I find a long Tt-shirt for me, and an Ariel nightgown for
her. We brush our teeth together, side by side in front of
the oval mirror. Ree likes the synchronized spit. Two
stories, one song, and half a Broadway show later, I
finally
have her tucked into bed with Lil’ Bunny clutched in her
hands and, Mr. Smith curled up next to her feet.

Eight thirty. Our little house is officially my own. I
take up roost at the kitchen counter. Sip tea, grade
papers, keep my back to the computer so I won’t be tempted.
The cat clock Jason got Ree one Christmas meows on the
hour.
The sound echoes through the two-story 1950s bungalow,
making the space feel emptier than it really is.

My feet are cold. It’s March in New England, the days still
chilly. I should put on socks but I don’t feel like getting
up.

Nine fifteen, I make my rounds. Bolt lock on the back
door,
check the wooden posts jammed into each window frame.
Finally, the double bolt on the front steel door. We live
in South Boston, in a modest, middle class neighborhood
with
tree-lined streets and family-friendly parks. Lots of kids,
lots of white picket fences.

I check the locks and reinforce the windows anyway. Both
Jason and I have our reasons.

Then I’m standing at the computer again, hands itching by
my
side. Telling myself it’s time to go to bed. Warning
myself
not to take a seat. Thinking I’m probably going to do it
anyway. Just for a minute. Check a few e-mails. What can
it hurt?

At the last moment, I find willpower I didn’t know I
possessed. I turn off the computer instead. Another family
policy: The computer must be turned off before going to
bed.

A computer is a portal, you know, an entry point into your
home. Or maybe you don’t know.

Soon enough, you’ll understand.

Ten o’clock, I leave on the kitchen light on for Jason. He
hasn’t called, so apparently it’s a busy night. That’s
okay,
I tell myself. Busy is busy. It seems we go longer in
silence all the time. These things happen. Especially when
you have a small child.

I think of February vacation again. The family getaway
that
was either the best or the worst thing that happened to us,
given your point of view. I want to understand it. Make
some sense of my husband, of myself. There are things that
once have been done can’t be undone, things that once said,
can’t be unsaid.

I can’t fix any of it tonight. In fact, I haven’t been
able
to fix any of it for weeks, which has been starting to fill
me with more and more dread. Once, I honestly believed
love
alone could heal all wounds. Now, I know better.

At the top of the stairs, I pause outside Ree’s door for my
final goodnight check. I carefully crack open the door and
peer in. Mr. Smith’s golden eyes gaze back on me. He
doesn’t get up, and I can’t blame him: it’s a cozy scene,
Ree curled in a ball under the pin- and-green flowered
covers, sucking her thumb, a tousle of dark curls peaking
up
from above the sheets. She looks small again, like the
baby
I swear I had only yesterday, yet somehow it’s four years
later and she dresses herself and feeds herself and keeps
us
informed of all the opinions she has on life.

I think I love her.

I think love is not an adequate word to express the emotion
I feel in my chest.

I close the door very quietly, and I ease into my own
bedroom, slipping beneath the blueand-green wedding quilt.

The door is cracked for Ree. The hallway light on for
Jason.

The evening ritual is complete. All is as it should be.

I lay on my side, pillow between my knees, hand splayed on
my hip. I am staring at everything and nothing at all. I
am thinking that I am tired, and that I’ve screwed up and
that I wish Jason was home and yet I am grateful that he is
gone, and that I’ve got to figure out something except I
have no idea what.

I love my child. I love my husband.

I am an idiot.

And I remember something, something I have not thought
about
for months now. The fragment is not so much a memory as it
is a scent: Rose petals, crushed, decaying, simmering
outside my bedroom window in the Georgia heat. While
Mama’s
voice floats down the darkened hall, “I know something you
don’t know….”

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” I whisper now. My hand curves around my
stomach and I think too much of things I have spent most of
my life trying to forget.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” I try again.

And then, a sound from the base of the stairs…

In the last moments of the world as I know it, I wish I
could tell you I heard an owl hoot out in the darkness. Or
saw a black cat leap over the fence. Or felt the hairs
tingle on the nape of my neck.

I wish I could tell you I saw the danger, that I put up one
helluva fight. After all, I, of all people, should
understand just how easily love can turn to hate, desire to
obsession. I, of all people, should have seen it coming.

But I didn’t. I honestly didn’t.

And God help me, when his face materialized in the shadow
of
my doorway, my first thought was that he was just as
handsome now as when we first met, and that I still wished
I
could trace the line of his jaw, run my fingers through the
waves of his hair....