Chapter 2

"Why won't she let you open your own pillow?" Mason asked.

He pushed his lunchbox aside, sending crumbs scattering across the desk.

I said, "My mom told me not to touch it either. The tone of her voice on the phone would've given you nightmares."

"A mother and wife teaming up to keep the husband in the dark," Mason said, slamming a hand on the table. The young lady at the next cubicle jumped and looked up.

Mason continued, "I've been through this three times. It's always calm before the storm."

"Can you stop relating everything to your three failed marriages?"

"Believe what you want, but think about it."

He unscrewed his thermos lid and took a heavy gulp. The tea leaves swirled against the glass. "What did the object feel like when you touched it?"

"About the size of a thumb. Soft, like fabric."

"Old or new?"

"How am I supposed to tell through the pillow lining?" I retorted.

"Alice said she smelled your dad."

Mason set his thermos down, the gossipy smirk vanishing from his face. "What did your dad smell like?"

I replied, "Diesel. He spent his whole life fixing diesel engines."

"A piece of old fabric that smells like your dead dad's diesel, sewn into a pillow by your mom, and your wife stays up in the middle of the night just to sniff it."

He lowered his voice and leaned in close. "Leon, you don't think something's seriously wrong here?"

Of course it was.

But his next words made my stomach completely turn over.

"When your dad was on his deathbed, who was watching over him?"

"Alice," I replied.

"Not you?"

"We had a massive fight back then. I hadn't gone home for three months."

"You fell out with your old man, and Alice went to nurse him in your place. How long was she by his side again?"

"Two months."

Mason didn't say another word.

He picked up his thermos and took a slow sip, but the look in his eyes was worse than any insult he could have thrown at me.

That afternoon, I grabbed an empty sterile vial from the company medicine cabinet.

When I got home that evening, Alice was cooking in the kitchen. The roar of the range hood drowned out everything else.

I took the chance to slip into the bedroom and buried my face in the pillow, inhaling deeply.

I couldn't smell anything.

She claimed the scent was fading, but I couldn't catch even a hint of diesel.

"Dinner's ready."

Alice appeared in the doorway, her apron speckled with oil and her spatula still dripping with broth.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Just checking out the pillow."

"Don't touch that pillow."

Her tone was identical to Mom's.

I asked, "Why not?"

"Mom spent a long time sewing it. You're too clumsy. You'll ruin her handiwork."

Her smile was as warm and perfectly pleasant as ever.

I stared at that smile for a few seconds, looking for a single crack, but found nothing.

After dinner, the cup of milk appeared right on schedule.

I lifted the cup, took a couple of sips, and kept the liquid in my mouth. Faking a trip to pour some water, I silently spat it out into the kitchen sink.

The faint, bitter aftertaste clung stubbornly to the back of my tongue.

I poured the remaining half-glass of milk into the sterile vial.

At 1:00 am, thinking I was fast asleep, Alice slipped quietly out of bed.

My eyes were cracked open just enough to see her grab her phone and walk out into the living room.

The glow of the screen illuminated half her face.

She dialed a number.

"Mom."

Calling "Mom" at 1:00 am? That should be my mother.

"He asked about the pillow today. Yeah… I brushed it off. He didn't open it."

Then came a pause.

I couldn't make out what the other person was saying.

"It looks like he didn't drink the medicine. He's got dark circles under his eyes."

Medicine?

My fingernails dug into my palms, sending a sharp jolt of pain through them.

"Don't worry. I won't stop… Right, I know. We can't let him find out."

Then she hung up.

The screen went dark, and the living room plunged back into pitch black darkness.

The sound of her bare feet padding back toward the bedroom felt like footsteps trampling right over my chest.

What couldn't they let me know?

The next day at noon, I slid the sterile vial across the table to Mason. He held it up, inspecting it against the window light.

A layer of fine brown powder had settled at the bottom of the yellowish liquid.

Mason shook it, shoved it into his briefcase, and zipped it shut.

"The lab results will take three days. For these three days, don't touch her milk," he said, looking up.

For once, those eyes—weathered by three divorces—looked dead serious. "Stay sharp, and keep your eyes open. Find out exactly what she's been hiding from you."