flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 77
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“I don’t know, Mr.Dunne, I’m sure they’re getting the details right now. The point is, your wife is safe.”Hurray. Kid stole my line.I spotted Rand and Marybeth through the doorway of the room where we’d given ourrst press conference six weeks ago. They were leaning in to each other, as always,Rand kissing the top of Marybeth’s head, Marybeth nuzzling him back, and I felt such akeen sense of outrage that I almost threw a stapler at them. You two worshipful, adoringassholes created that thing down the hall and set her loose on the world.
Lo, how jolly, whata perfect monster! And do they get punished? No, not a single person had come forth toquestion their characters; they’d experienced nothing but an outpouring of love andsupport, and Amy would be restored to them and everyone would love her more.My wife was an insatiable sociopath before. What would she become now?Step carefully, Nick, step very carefully.Rand caught my eye and motioned me to join them.
He shook my hand for a fewexclusive reporters who’d been granted an audience. Marybeth held her ground: I wasstill the man who’d cheated on her daughter. She gave a curt nod and turned away.Rand leaned in close to me so I could smell his spearmint gum. “I tell you, Nick, weare so relieved to have Amy back. We owe you an apology too. Big one. We’ll let Amydecide how she feels about your marriage, but I want to at least apologize for wherethings went.
You’ve got to understand—”“I do,” I said. “I understand everything.”Before Rand could apologize or engage further, Tanner and Betsy arrived together,looking like a Vogue spread—crisp slacks and jewel-toned shirts and gleaming goldwatches and rings—and Tanner leaned toward my ear and whispered, Let me see wherewe are, and then Go was rushing in, all alarmed eyes and questions: What does thismean? What happened to Desi? She just showed up on your doorstep? What does this mean?Are you okay? What happens next?It was a bizarre gathering—the feel of it: not quite reunion, not quite hospitalwaiting room, celebratory yet anxious, like some parlor game where no one had all therules.
Meanwhile, the two reporters the Elliotts allowed into the inner sanctum keptsnapping questions at me: How great does it feel to have Amy back? How wonderful do youfeel right now? How relieved are you, Nick, that Amy has returned?I’m extremely relieved and very happy, I was saying, crafting my own bland PRstatement, when the doors parted and Jacqueline Collings entered, her lips a tight redscar, her face powder lined with tears.“Where is she?” she said to me. “The lying little bitch, where is she? She killed myson.
My son.” She began crying as the reporter snapped a few photos.How do you feel that your son was accused of kidnap and rape? one reporter asked in astiff voice.“How do I feel?” she snapped. “Are you actually serious? Do people really answerquestions like that? That nasty, soulless girl manipulated my son his entire life—write thisdown—she manipulated and lied and nally murdered him, and now, even after he’sdead, she’s still using him—”“Ms. Collings, we’re Amy’s parents,” Marybeth was beginning. She tried to touchJacqueline on the shoulder, and Jacqueline shook her off. “I am sorry for your pain.”“But not my loss.” Jacqueline stood a good head taller than Marybeth; she glareddown on her.
“But not my loss,” she reasserted.“I’m sorry about … everything,” Marybeth said, and then Rand was next to her, ahead taller than Jacqueline.“What are you going to do about your daughter?” Jacqueline asked. She turnedtoward our young liaison o cer, who tried to hold his ground. “What is being doneabout Amy? Because she is lying when she says my son kidnapped her. She is lying. Shekilled him, she murdered him in his sleep, and no one seems to be taking this seriously.”“It’s all being taken very, very seriously, ma’am,” the young kid said.“Can I get a quote, Ms.
Collings?” asked the reporter.“I just gave you my quote. Amy Elliott Dunne murdered my son. It was not selfdefense. She murdered him.”“Do you have proof of that?”Of course she didn’t.The reporter’s story would chronicle my husbandly exhaustion (his drawn face tellingof too many nights forfeited to fear) and the Elliotts’ relief (the two parents cling to eachother as they wait for their only child to be o cially returned to them).
It would discuss theincompetence of the cops (it was a biased case, full of dead ends and wrong turns, with thepolice department focused doggedly on the wrong man). The article would dismissJacqueline Collings in a single line: After an awkward run-in with the Elliott parents, anembittered Jacqueline Collings was ushered out of the room, claiming her son was innocent.Jacqueline was indeed ushered out of the room into another, where her statementwould be recorded and she would be kept out of the way of the much better story: theTriumphant Return of Amazing Amy.When Amy was released to us, it all began again.
The photos and the tears, thehugging and the laughter, all for strangers who wanted to see and to know: What was itlike? Amy, what does it feel like to escape your captor and return to your husband? Nick,what does it feel like to get your wife back, to get your freedom back, all at once?I remained mostly silent. I was thinking my own questions, the same questions I’dthought for years, the ominous refrain of our marriage: What are you thinking, Amy? Howare you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?It was a gracious, queenly act for Amy to want to come home to our marriage bedwith her cheating husband.
Everyone agreed. The media followed us as if we were aroyal wedding procession, the two of us whizzing through the neon, fast-food-clutteredstreets of Carthage to our McMansion on the river. What grace Amy has, what moxie. Astorybook princess. And I, of course, was the lickspittle hunchback of a husband whowould bow and scrape the rest of my days. Until she was arrested. If she ever gotarrested.That she was released at all was a concern. More than a concern, an utter shock. Isaw them all ling out of the conference room where they questioned her for four hoursand then let her go: two FBI guys with alarmingly short hair and blank faces; Gilpin,looking like he’d swallowed the greatest steak dinner of his life; and Boney, the only onewith thin, tight lips and a little V of a frown. She glanced at me as she walked past,arched an eyebrow, and was gone.Then, too quickly, Amy and I were back in our home, alone in the living room,Bleecker watching us with shiny eyes.
Outside our curtains, the lights of the TV camerasremained, bathing our living room in a bizarrely lush orange glow. We looked candlelit,romantic. Amy was absolutely beautiful. I hated her. I was afraid of her.“We can’t really sleep in the same house—” I began.“I want to stay here with you.” She took my hand. “I want to be with my husband. Iwant to give you the chance to be the kind of husband you want to be. I forgive you.”“Y ou forgive me? Amy, why did you come back? Because of what I said in theinterviews? The videos?”“Wasn’t that what you wanted?” she said.
“Wasn’t that the point of the videos? Theywere perfect—they reminded me of what we used to have, how special it was.”“What I said, that was just me saying what you wanted to hear.”“I know—that’s how well you know me!” Amy said. She beamed. Bleecker begangure-eighting between her legs. She picked him up and stroked him. His purr wasdeafening. “Think about it, Nick, we know each other. Better than anyone in the worldnow.”It was true that I’d had this feeling too, in the past month, when I wasn’t wishingAmy harm. It would come to me at strange moments—in the middle of the night, up totake a piss, or in the morning pouring a bowl of cereal—I’d detect a nib of admiration,and more than that, fondness for my wife, right in the middle of me, right in the gut.
Toknow exactly what I wanted to hear in those notes, to woo me back to her, even topredict all my wrong moves … the woman knew me cold. Better than anyone in theworld, she knew me. All this time I’d thought we were strangers, and it turned out weknew each other intuitively, in our bones, in our blood.It was kind of romantic.
Catastrophically romantic.“We can’t just pick up where we were, Amy.”“No, not where we were,” she said. “Where we are now. Where you love me andyou’ll never do wrong again.”“You’re crazy, you’re literally crazy if you think I’m going to stay. You killed a man,”I said. I turned my back to her, and then I pictured her with a knife in her hand and hermouth growing tight as I disobeyed her. I turned back around. Yes, my wife must alwaysbe faced.“To escape him.”“You killed Desi so you had a new story, so you could come back and be beloved Amyand not ever have to take the blame for what you did.
Don’t you get it, Amy, the irony?It’s what you always hated about me—that I never dealt with the consequences of myactions, right? Well, my ass has been well and duly consequenced. So what about you?You murdered a man, a man I assume loved you and was helping you, and now youwant me to step in his place and love you and help you, and … I can’t. I cannot do it. Iwon’t do it.”“Nick, I think you’ve gotten some bad information,” she said.
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