A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

MEREDITH
11 YEARS BEFORE
May
I can’t keep going on like this. Josh can tell that something is wrong.
He asks me about it. He saunters up behind me when I’m at the
stove or the sink. He massages my shoulders. As he does, I tense
up. It isn’t that I don’t want Josh touching me. It has nothing to do
with Josh. It’s that Shelby is on my mind all the time. I see her when
I’m awake. I see her when I’m lucky enough to sleep. The memory of
her lying naked on that bed of leaves makes my flesh crawl. It will
only be a matter of time before the animals find her, if they haven’t
already.
Josh says things to me like, “Hey, babe, everything okay?” and
that trite old saying, “Penny for your thoughts,” because he can tell
I’m being pensive.
I shrug him off when he does, tell him I’m fine. He says that he’s
beginning to hate that word. Fine. The tension between us grows
exponentially.
Bea comes by almost every day. She skulks over when I’m home
alone. She must monitor my comings and goings, or keep an eagle
eye on my car in the driveway.
When she comes, I ask her things like, “What did you do with my
clothes?” and, “What did you do with Shelby’s clothes?” I feel
breathless all the time, in a constant state of panic. What makes it
worse is having to hide my feelings from Josh and the rest of the
world. Only when Bea is here can I speak freely.
Bea, on the contrary, is always composed. She tells me not to
worry about it. “I took care of it,” she says, about the clothes, which
doesn’t answer my question. Took care of it how?
“You didn’t go to work today,” Bea says accusatorially. “You had a
class to teach at nine. I saw it on the website. You should have been
there.”