The marriage was predicated on a lie.
The first marriage, Clayton explained. Well, the second one, too. He’d get to that one soon enough. It was a long drive back to Connecticut. Plenty of time to cover everything.
But he talked about his marriage to Enid first. A girl he’d known in high school, in Tonawanda, a Buffalo suburb. Then he went to Canisius College, the one founded by the Jesuits, took business courses with a sprinkling of philosophy and religious studies. Wasn’t that far away; of course, he could have lived at home and commuted, but he got a cheap room just off campus, figured even if you didn’t go far away for college, you at least had to get out from under your parents’ roof.
When he finished, who was waiting for him in the old neighborhood but Enid. They started dating, and he could see that she was a strong-willed girl, used to getting what she wanted from those around her. She used what she had to her advantage. She was attractive, possessed a terrific body, had a strong sexual appetite, at least during their early courtship.
One night, teary-eyed, she tells him she’s late. “Oh no,” Clayton Sloan says. He thinks first of his own parents, how ashamed they will be of him. So concerned about appearance, and then something like this, their boy getting a girl pregnant, his mother would want to move out so she wouldn’t have to hear the neighbors talking.
So there wasn’t much else to do but get married. And right away.
A couple of months after that, she says she’s not feeling well, says she’s making an appointment to see her physician, Dr. Gibbs was his name. She goes to the doctor alone, comes home, says she lost it. The baby’s gone. Lots of tears. One day, Clayton’s in the diner, sees Dr. Gibbs, goes over to him and says, “I know I shouldn’t be asking you this here, that I should make an appointment, but Enid, losing the baby and all, she’ll still be able to have another one, right?”
And Dr. Gibbs says, “Huh?”
So now he has an idea what he’s dealing with. A woman who’ll say anything, tell any kind of lie, to get what she wants.
He should have left then. But Enid tells him she’s so sorry, that she thought she was pregnant, but was afraid to go to the doctor to have it confirmed, and then she turned out to be wrong. Clayton doesn’t know whether to believe her, and again worries about the shame he will bring on himself and his family by leaving Enid, starting divorce proceedings. And for a while there, Enid takes sick, is bedridden. Real or feigned, he’s not sure, but knows he can’t leave her when she is like this.
The longer he stays, the harder it seems to be to leave. He learns quickly that what Enid wants, Enid gets. When she doesn’t, there’s hell to pay. Screaming fits, smashing things. One time, he’s sitting in the bathtub, Enid’s in there with her electric hair dryer, starts joking around about dropping it into the water. But there’s something in her eyes, something that suggests that she could do it, just like that, wouldn’t have to think twice.
He puts his business education to use, gets a job in sales, supplying machine shops and factories. It’s going to have him driving all over the country, a corridor running between Chicago and New York that skirts past Buffalo. He’s going to be away a lot, his prospective employer warns him. That’s the clincher for Clayton. Time away from the harping, the screaming, the odd looks she sometimes gives him that suggest the gears inside her head aren’t always meshing the way they’re supposed to. He always dreads the drive home after a sales trip, wondering what list of grievances Enid will have prepared for him the moment he walks through the door. How she doesn’t have enough nice clothes, or he’s not working hard enough, or the back door squeaks when you open it, it’s driving her mad. The only thing that makes returning home worthwhile is seeing his Irish setter, Flynn. He always comes running out to greet Clayton’s car, like he’s been sitting on the porch from the moment he left, waiting for the second he returns.
Then she becomes pregnant. The real deal this time. A baby boy. Jeremy. How she loves that boy. Clayton loves him, too, but soon realizes it’s a competition. Enid wants the boy’s love exclusively, and begins, when Jeremy is barely walking, her campaign to poison the father’s relationship with his son. If you want to grow up strong and successful, Enid tells him, he’ll need to follow her example, that it’s too bad there’s no strong male role model under this roof. She tells him his father doesn’t do enough for her, and how it’s a sad thing that Jeremy has his looks, but that’s a handicap, over time, he can learn to surmount, with effort.
Clayton wants out.
But there’s something about Enid, this darkness about her, that to even hint at the subject of divorce, even some kind of separation, there’s no predicting how she’ll handle it.
Once, before leaving on one of his extended sales trips, he says he needs to talk to her. About something serious.
“I’m not happy,” he says. “I don’t think this is working out.”
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. She doesn’t ask what she could do to help the marriage, to make him happy.
What she does is, she gets up close to him, looks deep into his eyes. He wants to look away, but can’t, as though mesmerized by her evil. Looking into her eyes, it’s like looking into the soul of the devil. All she says is, “You will never leave me.” And walks out of the room.
He thinks about that on his trip. We’ll see about that, he tells himself. We’ll just see.
When he returns, his dog does not run out to greet him. When he opens the garage door to put away the Plymouth, there is Flynn, a rope drawn tightly around his neck, hanging from the rafters.
All Enid says to him is, “Good thing it was just the dog.”
For all she loves Jeremy, she’s willing to let Clayton believe the boy’s at risk should he ever decide to leave her.
Clayton Sloan resigns himself to this life of misery and humiliation and emasculation. This is what he’s signed on for, and he’s going to have to make the best of it. He’ll sleepwalk through life if that is what he has to do.
He works hard at not despising the boy. Jeremy’s mother has brainwashed him into thinking his father is unworthy of his affections. He sees his father as useless, just a man who lives in the house with him and his mother. But Clayton knows Jeremy is as much a victim of Enid as he is.
How can his life have turned out like this? he wonders.
There are numerous occasions when Clayton considers taking his own life.
He’s driving across the country in the dead of night. Coming back from Chicago, rounding the bottom of Lake Michigan, doing that short stretch through Indiana. He sees a bridge abutment up ahead and bears down on the accelerator. Seventy miles an hour, then eighty, ninety. The Plymouth begins to float. Hardly anyone wears seat belts, and even if they did, he’s unbuckled his, thereby assuring that he’ll go through the windshield and perish. The car eases over onto the shoulder, spewing gravel and dust behind it, but then, at the last minute, he veers back onto the highway, chickens out.
One time, couple of miles west of Battle Creek, he loses his nerve, steers back onto the road, but at that high speed, when the front right tire catches the ridge where shoulder meets pavement, he loses control. The car veers across two lanes, right into the path of a semi, plows into the median, coming to a stop in high grass.
What usually makes him change his mind is Jeremy. His son. He’s afraid to leave him alone with her.
He has to make a stop in Milford one time. On the prowl for some new clients, new businesses to supply.
He goes into a drugstore to buy a candy bar, and there is a woman behind the counter. Wearing a little name tag that says “Patricia.”
She is beautiful. Reddish hair.
She seems so nice. So genuine.
There’s something about her eyes. A gentleness. A kindness. After spending the last few years trying so hard not to look into Enid’s dark eyes, to now see a pair so beautiful, he feels light-headed.
He takes a long time to buy that chocolate bar. Makes small talk about the weather, how only a couple of days earlier he’d been in Chicago, how he’s on the road so much of the time. And then he says something before he’s even aware he’s said it. “Would you like to have some lunch?”
Patricia smiles, says if he wants to come back in thirty minutes, she gets an hour off.
For that half hour, as he wanders the shops of Milford’s downtown, he asks himself what the hell he’s doing. He’s married. He has a wife and a son and a house and a job.
But none of it adds up to a life. That’s what he wants. A life.
Patricia tells him over a tuna sandwich in a nearby coffee shop that she doesn’t go to lunch with men she’s just met, but there’s something about him that intrigues her.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I think I know your secret,” she says. “I get a feeling about people, and I got a feeling about you.”
Good God. Is it that obvious? Can she divine that he’s married? Is she a mind reader? Even though when he first met her, he’d been wearing gloves, and now has his wedding ring tucked into his pocket?
“What sort of feeling?” he asks.
“You seem troubled to me. Is that why you’re driving back and forth across the country? Are you looking for something?”
“It’s just my job,” he says.
And Patricia smiles. “I wonder. If it’s led you here, to Milford, maybe it’s for a reason. Maybe you’re driving all over the country because you’re supposed to find something. I’m not saying it’s me. But something.”
But it is her. He’s sure of it.
He tells her his name is Clayton Bigge. It’s like he has the idea before he actually knows he has the idea. Maybe, at first, he was just thinking about having an affair, and having a fake name, that wasn’t a bad plan, even for an affair.
For the next few months, if his sales trips only take him as far south as Torrington, he drives the extra distance south to Milford to see Patricia.
She adores him. She makes him feel important. She makes him feel as though he has some worth.
Driving back on the New York Thruway, he considers the logistics.
The company was rejigging some of the sales routes. He could get the one that ran between Hartford and Buffalo. Drop going to Chicago. That way, at each end of the run…
And there’s the money question.
But Clayton’s doing well. He’s already been taking extraordinary measures to conceal from Enid how much money he has tucked away. It would never matter how much he made, it would never be enough for her. She’d always belittle him. And she’d always spend it. So he might as well tuck some aside.
It might be enough, he thinks. Just enough, for a second household.
How wonderful it will be, for at least half the time, to be happy.
Patricia says yes when he asks her to marry him. Her father had already died, but her mother seems happy enough. Her sister Tess, though, she never warms to him. It’s as though she knows there’s something off about him, but she can’t put her finger on just what it is. He knows she doesn’t trust him, that she never will, and he is especially careful around her. And he knows that Tess has told Patricia how she feels, but Patricia loves him, genuinely loves him, and always defends him.
When he and Patricia go to buy rings, he maneuvers her into picking a wedding band for him identical to the one he has in his pocket. Later, he returns it to the store, gets his money back, and is able to wear the one ring he already has, all the time. He fraudulently fills out applications for a variety of municipal and state licenses, everything from a driver’s license to a library card-it’s a lot less tricky then than in a post-9/11 world-so he can bamboozle the marriage license office when the time comes.
He must deceive Patricia, but he tries to be good to her. At least when he is home.
She gives him two children. A boy first. They name him Todd. And then, a couple of years later, a baby girl they christen Cynthia.
It is an astonishing juggling act.
A family in Connecticut. A family in upstate New York. Back and forth between the two.
When he’s Clayton Bigge, he can’t stop thinking about when he will have to return to being Clayton Sloan. And when he’s Clayton Sloan, he can’t stop thinking about hitting the road again so he can become Clayton Bigge.
Being Sloan is easier. At least that’s his honest-to-God name. He doesn’t have to worry so much about identification. His license, his papers, they’re legitimate.
But when he’s in Milford, when he’s Clayton Bigge, husband to Patricia, father of Todd and Cynthia, he’s always on his guard. Doing the speed limit. Making sure there’s money in the meter. He doesn’t want anyone running a check on his license plate. Every time he drives to Connecticut, he pulls off the road someplace secluded, takes off the orangey-yellow New York plates, puts a stolen blue Connecticut plate on the back of the car in its place. Puts the New York plates back on when he goes to Youngstown. Has to always be thinking, watch out where he makes long-distance calls from, make sure he doesn’t buy something as Clayton Sloan and give his Milford address without thinking.
Always uses cash. No paper trail.
Everything about his life is false. His first marriage is built on a lie told by Enid. His second marriage is founded on lies he’s told to Patricia. But despite all the falsehoods, all the duplicity, has he managed to find any true happiness, were there any moments when he-
“I have to pee,” Clayton said, stopping his story.
“Huh?” I said.
“I gotta take a leak. Unless you want me to go right here in the car.”
We’d recently passed a sign promising a service center any time now. “There’s something coming up,” I said. “How you feeling?”
“Not so good,” he said. He coughed a few times. “I need some water. And I could use some more Tylenols.”
I hadn’t thought to bring any bottles of water, given how quickly we had left his house. We’d been making pretty good time on the thruway. It was nearly four in the morning and we were closing in on Albany. The Honda, as it turned out, needed gas, so a pit stop was a good idea all around.
I helped Clayton shuffle into the men’s room, waited for him to do his business at the urinal, assisted him back to the car. The short trip drained him. “You stay here and I’ll get some water,” I said.
I bought a six-pack of water, ran it back out to the car, cracked open the plastic cap on one of them and handed it to Clayton. He took a long drink, then took the four Tylenols I’d put into his hand and downed them one at a time. Then I drove over to the gas pumps and filled up, using almost all of the cash in my wallet. I was worried about using a credit card, fearful that police had figured out who’d taken Clayton out of the hospital, and that they’d be watching for any transactions by my credit card.
As I got back into the car, I thought that maybe it was time to let Rona Wedmore know what was going on. I felt, the more Clayton talked, the closer I was getting to the truth that would, once and for all, end Wedmore’s suspicions about Cynthia. I dug around in the front pocket of my jeans and found the card she’d given me during her surprise visit to the house the previous morning, before I’d gone looking for Vince Fleming.
There was an office and cell number, but not a home phone. Chances were she’d be asleep this time of the night, but I was betting she kept her cell next to the bed, and that it was on 24/7.
I started the car, pulled away from the pumps, but pulled over to the side for a minute.
“What are you doing?” Clayton asked.
“I’m just going to make a couple of calls.”
Before I tried Wedmore, however, I wanted to give Cynthia another try. I called her cell, tried home. No luck.
I took some comfort from that, strangely enough. If I didn’t know where she was, then there was no way Jeremy Sloan or his mother could, either. Disappearing with Grace turned out to be, at this moment, the smartest thing Cynthia could have done.
But I still needed to know where she was. That she was okay. That Grace was okay.
I thought about calling Rolly, but figured that if he knew anything, he would have called, and I didn’t want to use the phone any more than I had to. The battery didn’t run down that quickly with the phone on, but once you started talking on it, the power drained in a hurry.
I entered Detective Rona Wedmore’s cell phone number. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Wedmore,” she said. Trying very hard to sound awake and alert, although it came out more like “Wed. More.”
“It’s Terry Archer,” I said.
“Mr. Archer,” she said, already sounding more focused. “What is it?” “I’m going to tell you a few things very quickly. I’m on a dying cell. You need to be on the lookout for my wife. A man named Jeremy Sloan, and his mother, Enid Sloan, are heading to Connecticut, from the Buffalo area. I think they intend to find Cynthia and kill her. Cynthia’s father is alive. I’m bringing him back with me. If you find Cynthia and Grace, hold on to them, don’t let them out of your sight until I get back.”
I had expected a “What?” or, at the very least, “Huh?” But instead, I got, “Where are you?”
“Along the New York Thruway, coming back from Youngstown. You know Vince Fleming, right? You said you did.”
“Yes.”
“I left him in a house in Youngstown, north of Buffalo. He was trying to help me. He was shot by Enid Sloan.”
“This isn’t making any sense,” Wedmore said.
“No shit. Just look for her, okay?”
“What about this Jeremy Sloan, and his mother? What are they driving?”
“A brown…”
“Impala,” Clayton whispered. “Chevy Impala.”
“A brown Chevy Impala,” I said. To Clayton, I said, “Plate?” He shook his head. “I don’t have a plate number.”
“Are you coming back here?” Wedmore asked.
“Yes. In a few hours. Just look for her. I’ve already got my principal, Rolly Carruthers, looking for her, too.”
“Tell me what-”
“Gotta go,” I said, then folded the phone shut and slipped it into my jacket. I pulled the automatic transmission back to Drive and got back onto the thruway.
“So,” I said, taking us back to where Clayton had left off before we got off the highway. “Were there moments? When you were happy?”
Clayton takes himself back again.
If there are moments of happiness, they only ever happen when he is Clayton Bigge. He loves being a father to Todd and Cynthia. As best he can tell, they love him in return, maybe even look up to him. They seem to respect him. They aren’t being taught, each and every day, that he’s worthless. Doesn’t mean they always do as they’re told, but what kids do?
Sometimes, at night in bed, Patricia will say to him, “You seem someplace else. You get this look, like you’re not here. And you look sad.”
And he takes her in his arms and he says to her, “This is the only place I want to be.” It isn’t a lie. He’s never said anything more truthful. There were times when he wants to tell her, because he doesn’t want his life with her to be a lie. He doesn’t like having that other life.
Because that’s what life with Enid and Jeremy has become. That’s the other life. Even though it’s the one he started with, even though it’s the one where he can use his real name, show his real license to a police officer if he’s pulled over, it’s the life he can’t bear to return to, week after week, month after month, year after year.
But in some strange way, he gets used to it. Used to the stories, used to the juggling, used to coming up with fanciful tales to explain why he has to be away on holidays. If he’s in Youngstown on December 25, he sneaks off to a pay phone, weighted down with change, so he can call Patricia and wish her and the kids a merry Christmas.
One time, in Youngstown, he found a private spot in the house, sat down, and let the tears come. Just a short cry, enough to ease the sadness, take the pressure off. But Enid heard him, slipped into the room, sat down next to him on the bed.
He wiped the tears from his cheeks, pulled himself together.
Enid rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a baby,” she said.
Looking back, of course, life in Milford was not always idyllic. Todd came down with pneumonia when he was ten. Came through that okay. And Cynthia, once she was in her teens, she started to be a handful. Rebellious. Hanging out with the wrong crowd at times. Experimenting with things she was too young for, like booze and God knows what else.
It fell to him to be the disciplinarian. Patricia, she was always more patient, more understanding. “She’ll get through this,” she’d tell him. “She’s a good kid. We just have to be there for her.”
It was just that, when Clayton was in Milford, he wanted life to be perfect. Often it came close to being that way.
But then he would have to get back in the car, pretend to head off on business, and make the drive to Youngstown.
From the beginning, he wondered how long he could keep it up.
There were times when the bridge abutments looked like a solution again.
Sometimes he’d wake up in the morning and wonder where he was today. Who he was today.
He’d make mistakes.
Enid had written him out a grocery list once, he’d driven down to Lewiston to pick up a few things. A week later, Patricia was doing the laundry, comes into the kitchen with the list in her hand, says, “What’s this? I found it in your pants pocket. Not my handwriting.”
Enid’s shopping list.
Clayton’s heart was in his mouth. His mind raced. He said, “I found that in the cart the other day, must have been the last person’s list. I thought it was kind of funny, comparing what we get to what other people buy, so I saved it.”
Patricia glanced at the list. “Whoever they are, they like shredded wheat same as you.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Well, I didn’t figure they were making all those millions of boxes of it just for me.”
There evidently was at least one time when he put a clipping from a Youngstown area newspaper, a picture of his son with the basketball team, into the wrong drawer. He clipped it because, no matter how hard Enid worked to turn Jeremy against him, he still loved the boy. He saw himself in Jeremy, just as he did in Todd. It was amazing how much Todd, as he grew up, looked like Jeremy at similar stages. To look at Jeremy and hate him was to hate Todd, and he couldn’t possibly do that.
So at the end of one very long day, after a very long drive, Clayton Bigge of Milford emptied his pockets and tossed a clipping of his Youngstown son’s basketball team into the drawer of his bedside table. He kept the clipping because he was proud of the boy, even though he’d been poisoned against him.
Never noticed it was the wrong drawer. In the wrong house, in the wrong town, in the wrong state.
He made a mistake like that in Youngstown. For the longest time, he didn’t even know what it was. Another clipping, maybe. A shopping list written out by Patricia.
Turned out to have been a phone bill for the address in Milford. In Patricia’s name.
It caught Enid’s attention.
It raised her suspicions.
But it wasn’t like Enid to come straight out and ask what it was about. Enid would conduct her own little investigation first. Watch for other signs. Start collecting evidence. Build a case.
And when she thought she had enough, she decided to take a trip of her own the next time her husband Clayton went out of town. One day she drove to Milford, Connecticut. This was back, of course, before she ended up in the wheelchair. When she was mobile.
She arranged for someone to look after Jeremy for a couple of days. “Going to join my husband on the road this time,” she said. In separate cars.
“Which brings us,” Clayton said, sitting next to me, parched and taking another sip from his water bottle, “to the night in question.”