Chapter 2 - A Camera in the Cotton Balls
Over the next two weeks, it kept coming.
Black panties rolled into the bath towels. A cream camisole tucked inside a folded pillowcase on Greg's side of the bed. Pale blue lace — I am not making this up — balled inside one of my husband's work socks.
Somebody was running a sick little game on me, and I could not figure out the rules.
I checked the window latches. I checked the deadbolt. I checked my own face in the mirror one morning and said, out loud, "You are being haunted by a ghost with really good taste, and normal people do not say that sentence."
I started flinching every time the ice maker dumped.
And right in the middle of me quietly coming apart, Colleen's visits picked up.
Now it was drive-thru and home cooking twice a week. Lasagna. Chicken and noodles. One time, for reasons I still don't understand, a lime Jell-O mold with shredded carrot in it.
"I just worry about you," she said, setting a Pyrex dish on my counter like she was laying flowers on a grave.
"I'm fine, Colleen."
"You don't look fine. You look thin. Are you eating?"
"I'm eating your lasagna."
She sat down at my table and folded her hands. That's never a good sign with my sister.
"Diane. I have to say this as your sister."
"Please don't."
"Every man has a hidden side. Every single one. Greg included."
"Colleen."
"All I'm saying is, maybe go talk to a lawyer. Just to know your options. Information is power."
"I don't need a lawyer. I need to know where these things are coming from."
She reached over and squeezed my wrist.
"You know, if you ever needed somewhere to land, I've got that spare room just sitting there. Two sisters, wine on the porch, nobody leaving whiskers in the sink."
"Greg doesn't have a beard."
"You know what I mean."
I didn't, though. I really didn't.
She kissed the top of my head like I was six years old and let herself out. I stood at the window and watched her back down the driveway.
Something sat wrong in my chest. I couldn't have told you what.
That night, after Greg was snoring and Tyler's music finally cut out, I got on my phone and ordered a little camera. Overnight shipping. I didn't tell a soul. Especially not Colleen — though I couldn't have explained why yet.
When the box showed up, I set the camera in the bathroom, pointed at the hamper, and buried it in a basket of cotton balls no man in my house would touch on a dare.
Then I waited.
Colleen's voice kept looping in my head like a song stuck on repeat. "Talk to a lawyer, Diane. Every man has a hidden side."
I wasn't sure anymore which voice under my own roof I could trust.
Six days. Nothing.
I checked that app until my thumb ached. Every night, hours of footage of an empty bathroom. A moth. My own face coming in to brush my teeth. I started thinking I'd finally lost it for real and should move the camera somewhere else.
"Mom?"
Tyler was staring at me across the dinner table on Wednesday. I looked down and realized I'd carried one of Greg's flannel shirts to the table and was holding it up to my face, breathing it in.
"You're making dinner weird," Tyler said.
Greg, who only tunes in when Tyler raises the alarm, looked up from his fork. "Everything okay, hon?"
"Fine." I dropped the shirt into my lap. "Just checking the, um, fabric softener."
"By sticking it up your nose at the table?"
"Eat your chicken, Greg."
Thursday night, I was dropping towels into the hamper without really looking. My hand slid over something smooth. I pulled it out.
May you like
Purple satin.
My hands shook so hard I nearly dropped it in the toilet.
