You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal

Author:Nina Siegal [Siegal, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Here and Gone

Grace fumbled to find the button to press to end the call, and realized as soon as she’d done it that she could not call Karin because Karin had deposited her telephone into a black velvet sack that was now in the possession of the Scout leader in charge of the trip. What was her name? Grace was sure she could not remember. They’d only met for the first time that morning, because there had been a swapping of Scout leaders, for some reason, at the last minute. Someone had gotten sick…it didn’t matter why. What was her name?

Well, the obvious person to call was Martijn. If she called him again, he’d probably think she was somehow just going mad while he was out there quietly trying to enjoy nature. Talk about violating his need for “space.” But of course these kinds of moments had to override all that domain building, didn’t it? He was her partner, her husband; he had to be concerned about Karin’s welfare first.

It was ridiculous that she was even debating this with herself. When had she become such a second-guesser of her own will and needs? She pressed his number and waited for him to answer. She’d of course explain it and he’d of course feel as concerned as she did.

But he did not pick up the phone this time. It rang and rang, and finally she heard his message: “Ik ben er helaas niet. Laat een bericht achter de…” She hung up.

Martijn often went incommunicado. It didn’t have to be because of a fight. Sometimes something she said would irk him, and then, without warning, he’d just disappear. There was a piano bar called De Nachtwacht, where they sang Dutch ballads far too loudly, and sometimes he’d end up there. It was a harmless activity, basically, and it was a good way to shake off some tension, she reasoned. The bartender would call her if he’d had one too many, to bring him home. He was almost reliably there, unless he wasn’t.

Grace would try not to ask where he’d been when he came back, because asking that just meant she was as controlling as he always accused her of being. It was true that she had a possessive side, but was hers so much more drastic, as he would have it, than that of anyone else who loved someone? But, she’d wondered so many times, was this love? Did he love her if he was always feeling this angry at her, always in either fight or flight? Was she actually that hard to take? Was it love if he didn’t pick up his phone?

Panicking a bit now, Grace remembered that she had been given a list of emergency phone contact numbers this morning from the new Scout leader of the trip. What was her name? It was on a piece of paper she’d folded up and put somewhere. In a pocket or a purse. But what purse had she taken this morning?

Paper! It was maddening.

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