by Adam Mitzner
The two prognoses—about Owen’s freedom and his health—occurred within a few weeks of one another. Alex Miller said their son would be allowed to return home after he left the hospital, and then Dr. Cammerman discharged him.
After that, Owen had gone back to school and resumed his daily routine. At times, Jessica wondered how much James’s death weighed on him. But more often than not, that question was answered by the look in her son’s eyes. In those moments, she knew what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d voiced it. But he never uttered a word.
She suggested he see a therapist, but he declined.
“Maybe when I get to college,” he said.
College was SUNY Buffalo, his father’s alma mater. It was a good fit because Owen wanted to leave New York City, and the family finances were such that private college tuition was not within their reach.
“I loved it there, O,” his father had said. “And I promise that, unlike my old man, I’ll let you attend Harvard Medical School if you want.”
“The last thing I want to be is a doctor,” Owen said quickly.
Jessica had always refrained from What do you want to be when you get older? types of questions. Largely because Owen’s survival had long been in such doubt. As a result, she had no idea where her son’s interests lay, aside from video games and the violin. Apparently, she could cross doctor off the list of his future career choices. Not that she blamed him. He had already spent enough time in medical facilities for one lifetime.
Owen suggested that he might study art history, which was a little odd. He’d never before expressed an interest in art. Music, yes, but not art. Jessica thought she knew why he’d had that sudden change of heart. It was a form of penance.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Why not?” Owen asked.
“Because you can’t bring James back. So trying to do things that you think might’ve made him happy is just a recipe for disaster. It’s best that you come to terms with that now. Because if you don’t, you’re going to spend your life on a wild-goose chase.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Owen said.
He wasn’t smiling, but he often chose to pretend to be serious when he was joking.
“I’m only sharing some hard-earned experience. Don’t live your life in any way that isn’t designed to bring you, or the ones you love, happiness.”
“I had no idea you were so selfish, Mom.” This he said with a smile.
She wasn’t ready to break from the serious nature of the discussion, however. “I’m not saying don’t care about other people. Or that you shouldn’t devote yourself to helping others. That’s all great. But I am saying don’t do it unless it’s what you want to do. Not because your father or I want it, and certainly not because you think it’s going to soothe your guilt over James. The surest path I know to unhappiness is to live your life to meet someone else’s expectations. Especially if that someone else is dead.”
Owen sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to live with this.”
“You will, Owen. If for no other reason than you have no choice in the matter.”
Owen’s graduation ceremony was held in the Metropolitan Opera House, the anchor of the Lincoln Center complex. The theater held close to four thousand, and still tickets were limited to four per family.
Jessica’s family needed only two. One for her and a second for Wayne.
Wayne sat beside her, midway back in the orchestra section. His face betrayed no trace of misgiving about the path that had led them to this day. If anything, he seemed like a man who had just ended a long journey and was satisfied his destination was worth the trip.
In the past few weeks, Wayne had become bolder in expressing his hope for them to share a future together. Jessica thought she’d made it clear that was not going to happen, but every so often he would say or do something that suggested the message hadn’t been fully received.
“He made it,” Wayne whispered to her in between the speeches offered by the valedictorian and the salutatorian.
She smiled but couldn’t confirm his assessment. If Owen had made it, it was only in the most literal sense. He wasn’t the same person he had been before. Even being sick had never so fundamentally changed him as his guilt did. You could get well after having cancer, but she knew all too well that there was no escaping living with the bad things you had done.
Perhaps that was only the pessimist’s view. After all, Owen was graduating from high school and heading off to college soon. Which meant that he would be free to live the life that they’d dreamed he would. Not so long ago, they’d have gladly sacrificed their own lives to give him that chance.
So maybe Wayne was right. Owen had made it.
The graduating class included more than eight hundred students, and they were called up by major: drama, dance, tech, art, instrumental, and voice, in that order. The applause for any individual graduate had fallen precipitously after the first few crossed the stage, so that by the time Owen was called to receive his diploma, Jessica thought that she and Wayne might have been the only ones clapping.
Owen’s hair had grown back, at least to the extent that he no longer looked like he had ever been bald. Jessica had asked him whether he planned on growing it out again.
“No, I don’t think so,” he had said. “Seems like tempting fate.”
Upon receiving their diplomas, some of the graduates turned to the audience, either holding up their arms in a prizefighter victory stance or engaging in some other gesture of joy. Not Owen. It was difficult to tell from so far away, but Jessica didn’t think her son even smiled in his moment of triumph. He took the diploma from the principal, shook his hand, and walked across the stage.
For the longest time, Jessica had been convinced that leukemia would shape her son’s life. Perhaps that was still the case, but she no longer believed it would be paramount in molding the type of person he’d become. His curse would be to live out his days with the knowledge of what he’d done. Ironically, escaping legal retribution for his mistake would be his lifelong punishment.
It was a sentence she knew all too well. When she’d left Wayne for James, she had felt, in some small measure, like she had gotten away with it. She had cheated on her husband, broken his heart, and left him without having to face his anguish. And what was her punishment for violating one of God’s own commandments? Bliss with another man.
Of course, there was no refuge from a self-imposed sentence. But she knew she’d gotten off lightly. A slap on the wrist, most people would have said.
Jessica had never believed in any afterlife. The existence she had now was the only one she ever would. She could make it heaven or hell. For her—like many people, she assumed—it felt like both at different times.
She wished she’d never been so naïve as to believe that she and James would live happily ever after. Not after what they’d done, the people they’d left hurt in their wake. How much they loved each other was irrelevant to others, after all.
Nothing born of sin ever ends well.
Watching her son leave the stage, Jessica hoped above all else that it was possible that he could live with the guilt and still find happiness. She’d managed that, however briefly. Perhaps Owen could as well.
And if he could, maybe she could too.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you very much for reading The Perfect Marriage. While I am writing a book, I feel very connected not only to the characters but to my readers as well. Then, when the book is finished, that connection abruptly breaks. So that we can reconnect, I encourage you to email me at [email protected] and share your thoughts. I promise I will respond, and more than one reader in the past has won a bet against a dubious friend that they’d ever hear back from that author they emailed.
Although my readers always deserve my first thanks, a great many people contributed to The Perfect Marriage before anyone turned the first page. The Perfect Marriage is my fifth book with Thomas & Merce
r (and my ninth overall), and I have immensely enjoyed working with them. Throughout that time, my team has been rather fixed, and I wouldn’t have it any other way: Liz Pearsons has been my editor and friend since the beginning. Ed Stackler, who almost fifteen years ago read the very first thing I thought could be seen outside my family, still provides insightful suggestions that make everything I’ve published that much better. Laura Barrett, Ashley Little, and Robin O’Dell copyedit and find errors that I would never in a million years spot. Sarah Shaw is always there to help if I have any thoughts or questions.
My agent, Scott Miller, has also been with me since day one, and I’m grateful for his guidance and friendship. Scott’s colleague Logan Harper has always been just an email away.
As I write this, a narrator for the spoken version of The Best Friend has not yet been selected, so I cannot thank anyone by name now, but I know many of my readers are really listeners, and that couldn’t happen without all the great people at Audible.
My friends and family who read drafts and provide valuable insight are also almost unchanged since my first book a decade ago, and I continue to owe them more than I could ever repay, not just for their help in making my writing better but for making my life better. A heartfelt thank-you to Jessica and Kevin Shacter, Jane and Gregg Goldman, Bruce and Marilyn Steinthal, Margaret Martin, Lisa Sheffield, Jodi (“Shmo”) Siskind, Ellice Schwab, Lilly Icikson, Bonnie Rubin, Clint Broden, and Matt and Deborah Brooks.
A special thank-you to my colleagues at Pavia & Harcourt, especially George Garcia and Jennifer Fried.
You cannot write a book about a blended family without spending a lot of time thinking about your own blended family. And though I assure you that the characters you just read about are not me or my family, my children—Rebecca, Emily, Michael, and Benjamin (who offered his usual spot-on constructive complaints)—are perfect in every way and have enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams.
And, of course, you cannot entitle a book The Perfect Marriage without thanking your lucky stars every day that you are in such a marriage. To my wife, Susan: a thank-you in the acknowledgments is all I can do in this format, but I’m trying every day to be worthy of your love and bring to you the happiness you’ve brought to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 Matthew Simpkins Photography
Adam Mitzner is the acclaimed Amazon Charts bestselling author of Dead Certain, Never Goodbye, and The Best Friend in the Broden Legal series as well as the stand-alone thrillers A Matter of Will, A Conflict of Interest, A Case of Redemption, Losing Faith, and The Girl from Home. Suspense Magazine named A Conflict of Interest one of the best books of 2012, and in 2014 the American Bar Association nominated A Case of Redemption for a Silver Gavel Award. A practicing attorney in a Manhattan law firm, Mitzner and his family live in New York City. Visit him at www.adammitzner.com.
