Gone Girl: A Novel (60 page)

We had spent years battling for control of our marriage, of our love story, our life story. I had been thoroughly, finally outplayed. I created a manuscript, and she created a life.

I could fight for custody, but I already knew I’d lose. Amy would relish the battle—God knew what she already had lined up. By the time she was done, I wouldn’t even be an every-other-weekend dad; I would interact with my child in strange rooms with a guardian nearby sipping coffee, watching me. Or maybe not even that. I could suddenly see the accusations—of molestation or abuse—and I would never see my baby, and I would know that my child was tucked away far from me, Mother whispering, whispering lies into that tiny pink ear.

“It’s a boy, by the way,” she said.

I was a prisoner after all. Amy had me forever, or as long as she wanted, because I needed to save my son, to try to unhook, unlatch, debarb, undo everything that Amy did. I would literally lay down my
life for my child, and do it happily. I would raise my son to be a good man.

I deleted my story.

Boney picked up on the first ring.

“Pancake House? Twenty minutes?” she said.

“No.”

I informed Rhonda Boney that I was going to be a father and so could no longer assist in any investigation—that I was, in fact, planning to retract any statement I’d made concerning my misplaced belief that my wife had framed me, and I was also ready to admit my role in the credit cards.

A long pause on the line. “Hunh,” she said. “Hunh.”

I could picture Boney running her hand through her slack hair, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“You take care of yourself, okay, Nick?” she said finally. “Take good care of the little one too.” Then she laughed. “Amy I don’t really give a fuck about.”

I went to Go’s house to tell her in person. I tried to frame it as happy news. A baby, you can’t be that upset about a baby. You can hate a situation, but you can’t hate a child.

I thought Go was going to hit me. She stood so close I could feel her breath. She jabbed me with an index finger.

“You just want an excuse to stay,” she whispered. “You two, you’re fucking addicted to each other. You are literally going to be a nuclear family, you do know that? You will explode. You will fucking detonate. You really think you can possibly do this for, what, the next eighteen years? You don’t think she’ll kill you?”

“Not as long as I am the man she married. I wasn’t for a while, but I can be.”

“You don’t think you’ll kill
her
? You want to turn into Dad?”

“Don’t you see, Go? This is my guarantee
not
to turn into Dad. I’ll have to be the best husband and father in the world.”

Go burst into tears then—the first time I’d seen her cry since she was a child. She sat down on the floor, straight down, as if her legs gave out. I sat down beside her and leaned my head against hers. She finally swallowed her last sob and looked at me. “Remember when I said, Nick, I said I’d still love you
if
? I’d love you no matter what came after the
if
?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I still love you. But this breaks my heart.” She let out an awful sob, a child’s sob. “Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way.”

“It’s a strange twist,” I said, trying to turn it light.

“She won’t try to keep us apart, will she?”

“No,” I said. “Remember, she’s pretending to be someone better too.”

Yes, I am finally a match for Amy. The other morning I woke up next to her, and I studied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn’t feel like I was staring into the sun. I’m rising to my wife’s level of madness. Because I can feel her changing me again: I was a callow boy, and then a man, good and bad. Now at last I’m the hero. I am the one to root for in the never-ending war story of our marriage. It’s a story I can live with. Hell, at this point, I can’t imagine my story without Amy. She is my forever antagonist.

We are one long frightening climax.

I
was told love should be unconditional. That’s the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed to love Nick despite all his shortcomings. And Nick is supposed to love me despite my quirks. But clearly, neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.

You can read more about my thoughts on love in
Amazing
. Out soon!

But first: motherhood. The due date is tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be our anniversary. Year six. Iron. I thought about giving Nick a nice pair of handcuffs, but he may not find that funny yet. It’s so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.

Nick has spent all his free time these past months slathering my belly with cocoa butter and running out for pickles and rubbing my feet, and all the things good fathers-to-be are supposed to do. Doting on me. He is learning to love me unconditionally, under all my conditions. I think we are finally on our way to happiness. I have finally figured it out.

We are on the eve of becoming the world’s best, brightest nuclear family.

We just need to sustain it. Nick doesn’t have it down perfect. This morning he was stroking my hair and asking what else he could do for me, and I said: “My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?”

He was supposed to say:
You deserve it. I love you
.

But he said, “Because I feel sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.”

I really, truly wish he hadn’t said that. I keep thinking about it. I can’t stop.

I don’t have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that.

I
’ve got to start with Stephanie Kip Rostan, whose smart advice, sound opinions, and good humor have seen me through three books now. She’s also just really fun to hang out with. Thanks for all the excellent guidance over the years. Many thanks also to Jim Levine and Daniel Greenberg and everyone at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

My editor, Lindsay Sagnette, is a dream: Thank you for lending me your expert ear, for letting me be just the right amount of stubborn, for challenging me to do better, and for cheering me on during that last stretch—if it weren’t for you, I’d have remained “82.6 percent done” forever.

Much thanks to Crown publisher Molly Stern for the feedback, the support, the sage comments, and the endless energy.

Gratitude also to Annsley Rosner, Christine Kopprasch, Linda Kaplan, Rachel Meier, Jay Sones, Karin Schulze, Cindy Berman, Jill Flaxman, and E. Beth Thomas. Thanks as always to Kirsty Dunseath and the gang at Orion.

For my many questions about police and legal procedures, I turned to some very gracious experts. Thanks to my uncle, the Hon. Robert M. Schieber, and to Lt. Emmet B. Helrich for always letting me run ideas by them. Huge thanks this round to defense attorney Molly Hastings in Kansas City, who explained her job with great grace and conviction. And endless gratitude to Det. Craig Enloe of the Overland Park Police Department for answering my 42,000 e-mails (a
modest estimate) over the past two years with patience, good humor, and exactly the right amount of information. Any mistakes are mine.

Thanks, for many and varied reasons, to: Trish and Chris Bauer, Katy Caldwell, Jessica and Ryan Cox, Sarah and Alex Eckert, Wade Elliott, Ryan Enright, Mike and Paula Hawthorne, Mike Hillgamyer, Sean Kelly, Sally Kim, Sarah Knight, Yocunda Lopez, Kameren and Sean Miller, Adam Nevens, Josh Noel, Jess and Jack O’Donnell, Lauren “Fake Party We’re Awesome” Oliver, Brian “Map App” Raftery, Javier Ramirez, Kevin Robinett, Julie Sabo, gg Sakey, Joe Samson, Katie Sigelman, Matt Stearns, Susan and Errol Stone, Deborah Stone, Tessa and Gary Todd, Jenny Williams, Josh Wolk, Bill and Kelly Ye, Chicago’s Inner Town Pub (home of the Christmas Morning), and the unsinkable Courtney Maguire.

For my wonderful Missouri family—all the Schiebers, the Welshes, the Flynns, and branches thereof. Thanks for all the love, support, laughs, pickle rolls, and bourbon slush … basically for making Missouri, as Nick would say, “a magical place.”

I received some incredibly helpful feedback from a few readers who are also good friends. Marcus Sakey gave me sharp advice about Nick early on over beer and Thai food. David MacLean and Emily Stone (deareth!) were kind enough to read
Gone Girl
in the months leading up to their wedding. It doesn’t seem to have harmed you guys in the least, and it made the book a lot better, so thanks. Nothing will stop you from getting to the Caymans!

Scott Brown: Thanks for all the writing retreats during the Gone Girl Years, especially the Ozarks. I’m glad we didn’t sink the paddleboat after all. Thanks for your incredibly insightful reads, and for always swooping in and helping me articulate what the hell it is I’m trying to say. You are a good Monster and a wonderful friend.

Thanks to my brother, Travis Flynn, for always being around to answer questions about how things actually work. Much love to Ruth Flynn, Brandon Flynn, and Holly Bailey.

To my in-laws, Cathy and Jim Nolan, Jennifer Nolan, Megan, Pablo, and Xavy Marroquin—and all the Nolans and Samsons: I am very aware of how lucky I am to have married into your family. Thanks for everything. Cathy, we always knew you had one hell of a heart, but this past year proved it in so many ways.

To my parents, Matt and Judith Flynn. Encouraging, thoughtful, funny, kind, creative, supportive, and still madly in love after more
than forty years. I am, as always, in awe of you both. Thanks for being so good to me and for always taking the time to harass strangers into buying my books. And thank you for being so lovely with Flynn—I become a better parent just watching you.

Finally, my guys.

Roy: Good kitty.

Flynn: Beloved boy, I adore you! Also, if you are reading this before the year 2024, you are too little. Put it down and pick up Frumble!

Brett: Husband! Father of my child! Dance partner, emergency grilled-cheese maker. The kind of fellow who knows how to pick the wine. The kind of fellow who looks great in a tux. Also a zombie-tux. The guy with the generous laugh and the glorious whistle. The guy who has the answer. The man who makes my child laugh till he falls down. The man who makes me laugh till I fall down. The guy who lets me ask all sorts of invasive, inappropriate, and intrusive questions about being a guy. The man who read and reread and reread and then reread, and not only gave advice, but gave me a bourbon app. You’re it, baby. Thanks for marrying me.

Two words, always.

GILLIAN FLYNN is the author of the
New York Times
bestseller
Dark Places
, which was a
New Yorker
Reviewers’ Favorite,
Weekend TODAY
Top Summer Read,
Publishers Weekly
Best Book of 2009, and a
Chicago Tribune
Favorite Fiction choice; and Dagger Award winner
Sharp Objects
, which was an Edgar nominee for Best First Novel, a BookSense pick, and a Barnes & Noble Discover selection. A former writer and critic for
Entertainment Weekly
, her novels have been published in twenty-eight countries. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.

M
y sweater was new, stinging red and ugly. It was May 12 but the temperature had dipped to the forties, and after four days shivering in my shirtsleeves, I grabbed cover at a tag sale rather than dig through my boxed-up winter clothes. Spring in Chicago.

In my gunny-covered cubicle I sat staring at the computer screen. My story for the day was a limp sort of evil. Four kids, ages two through six, were found locked in a room on the South Side with a couple of tuna sandwiches and a quart of milk. They’d been left three days, flurrying like chickens over the food and feces on the carpet. Their mother had wandered off for a suck on the pipe and just forgotten. Sometimes that’s what happens. No cigarette burns, no bone snaps. Just an irretrievable slipping. I’d seen the mother after the arrest: twenty-two-year-old Tammy Davis, blonde and fat, with pink rouge on her cheeks in two perfect circles the size of shot glasses. I could imagine her sitting on a shambled-down sofa, her lips on that metal, a sharp burst of smoke. Then all was fast floating, her kids way behind, as she shot back to junior high, when the boys still cared and she was the prettiest, a glossy-lipped thirteen-year-old who mouthed cinnamon sticks before she kissed.

A belly. A smell. Cigarettes and old coffee. My editor, esteemed, weary Frank Curry, rocking back in his cracked Hush Puppies. His teeth soaked in brown tobacco saliva.