The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

  I find it on page seven: two new life insurance policies Will purchased earlier this year. Together with the one he already had, the payout adds up to a grand total of—I have to look twice to be sure—two and a half million dollars? I drop the papers onto my thighs, my head spinning with all the zeros. The amount is staggering and completely out of proportion to his mid-level salary. I know I should be glad for his preparedness, but I can’t help the new questions that poke and prod at me. Why two new policies? Why so much?

  “Dare I ask?” I look up to find Dave standing in the doorway. He’s wearing his husband’s Harvard T-shirt and pajama pants, the fabric rumpled from bed, and yawning hard enough to crack his jaw. By now it’s barely seven, and Dave has never been a morning person.

  “I’m searching for clues.”

  “I figured as much.” He stretches his long arms up to the ceiling and twists, a noisy wringing out of his spine that makes me think of bubble wrap. “But what I meant is, dare I ask if you’ve found evidence of another life in Seattle?”

  “The opposite, actually. No unusual payments, no names I don’t recognize. Only more evidence that when it comes to organization, my husband is completely anal.” I pick up the will, flip through to page seven. “Do you have a life insurance policy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For how much?”

  He rubs a hand over his dark hair, making it stand up in tousled tufts. “I don’t remember. Just under a million or so.”

  “What about James?”

  “Somewhere around the same, I think. Why?”

  “Two and a half million dollars.” I shake the paper in the air between us. “Million, Dave. Doesn’t that seem extraordinarily high?”

  He shrugs. “I assume you’re the beneficiary?”

  “Of course,” I say, even as another question elbows its way into my consciousness. Who’s to say he didn’t purchase others, to benefit whoever’s in Seattle?

  “Then, yes and no. As I recall, the calculation is something like ten times your annual salary, so, yes, the amount Will insured himself for is steep. But he loved you. He probably just wanted to make sure you’re well provided for.”

  Dave’s words start a slow leak of grief, but I swallow it whole. Yes, my husband loved me, but he also lied. “Two of the policies were bought three months ago.”

  His head jerks up, and his brows slide into a sharp V. “That’s either an incredible coincidence or incredibly creepy. I can’t decide.”

  “I’m going for creepy.”

  He sinks onto a chair and scrubs his face. “Okay, let’s think this through. Life insurance doesn’t come for free, and an amount that big would have cost him a hundred bucks or more a month.”

  I point to the pile of binders, one of them containing this year’s bank statements. “Well, he didn’t pay for it from our mutual account. I combed through every single statement and didn’t find anything but a shocking amount of Starbucks charges.”

  “Could he have another bank account?”

  “It’s possible, I guess. But if it’s not here, how do I find it?”

  “His computer. Emails, bookmarks, history files. Things like that.”

  “Will never goes anywhere without his laptop. Ditto for phone and iPad.”

  “Can you log in to his email?”

  I shake my head. “No way. Will isn’t like us, people who still use the name of their childhood dog as a password. He uses those computer-generated log-ins that are impossible to crack, and a different one for everything.”

  “Even for Facebook?”

  “Especially for Facebook. Do you know how often social media accounts get hacked? All the freaking time. Next thing you know, all fifteen hundred of your Twitter followers are getting DMs from you hocking fake Ray-Bans.”

  Will would be so proud. They’re his words, the ones he preached to me when I told him rocky321 is my password for everything. Now they roll right off my tongue.

  I sigh, looking around at the messy piles of papers and binders. There are no more answers in these, that much is certain. I scoot forward on my knees, begin shoving everything back into the cabinet.

  “You know the next place I’d look if I wanted to find my husband’s secrets? And I tell you this at the risk of confirming every stereotype you’ve ever heard about gay men.”

  I reach for another binder, glancing over my shoulder at my brother, and we say the words in unison.

  “His closet.”

  * * *

  Will’s closet is a neat, orderly world where each item is organized by color and grouped by category. Work shirts, pressed and starched and buttoned. A row of pants with pleats sharp enough to slice bread. Jeans and T-shirts and polos, every hanger matching and perfectly spaced. I pull on the top drawer handle, and it opens to reveal his boxers, rolled into tight Tootsie Rolls and stacked in even rows.

  This is Will’s domain, and he’s everywhere I look. I stand here for a moment, drinking him in like wine, feeling a quivering ache take hold in my stomach. I sense him in the orderliness, in his preference for soft fabrics and rich jewel tones, in the scent of spicy soap and mint. Like I could turn around and there he’d be, smiling that smile that makes him look younger and older at the same time. The first time he aimed it at me in a rainy Kroger parking lot, I liked it so much I agreed to a cup of coffee, even though he’d just rammed his car into my bumper.

  “You could have just asked for my number, you know,” I teased him a few days later, as he was walking me to the door after our first official date. “Our fenders didn’t have to take such a beating.”

  “How else was I supposed to get your attention? You were driving away.”

  I laughed. “Poor, innocent fenders.”

  “A worthy sacrifice.” He kissed me then, and I knew he was right.

  “You okay?” Dave says now, his tone gentle.

  I nod, not trusting my voice.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” He searches my face with a concerned gaze. “You don’t have to help, you know.”

  “I know, but I want to.” He doesn’t look convinced, so I add, “I need to.”

  “Okay, then.” He points back toward the beginning, to where Will’s sweaters are stacked in perfect piles in the cubbies. “I’ll start on that end and you on the other. We’ll meet in the middle.”

  We work mostly in silence. We check every pocket on every pair of pants, shorts and jeans. Dave shakes out every sweater, and I dump out every drawer. We peer inside every single shoe, reach into every single sock. It’s a good hour’s work, and in the end, we find nothing but lint.

  “I know your husband is meticulous, but this is insane. At the very least, we should have found some trash. Old business cards, receipts, some spare change. Is there a spot somewhere where he emptied his pockets?”

  “We keep a spare change jar in the laundry room, but as for the other things...” I lift both shoulders high enough to brush my earlobes.

  My brother and I are seated cross-legged on the closet floor, surrounded by messy piles of Will’s clothes and shoes. The closet looks like a tornado came through it, whipping clothes off the hangers and out of the bins and dumping everything onto the floor. I pick up one of Will’s sweaters, a baby-bottom-soft cashmere I bought him last year for his birthday, and hold it up to my nose, inhaling the familiar scent.

  In that moment, I feel Will so strongly that it stops the breath in my throat and prickles the hairs on the back of my neck. Hey, sweetness, he says in my head, as clearly as if he’s standing right beside me. Whatcha doing?

  I shake the image off, drop the fabric onto my lap. “Now what?”

  Dave pauses to think. “His car?”

  “It’s at the airport.”

  He nods. “Dad and I will figure out how to get it back. In the me
antime, what about social media? When’s the last time you checked his Facebook page?”

  Dave’s question stuns me. Will and I share a home, a life, a past. Our relationship has always been built on trust and honesty. He gives me leeway, and I give him a long leash.

  “Never, and stop looking at me like that. Snooping is not something we do, ever. There’s never been any reason for either of us to be jealous or suspicious.”

  Dave inhales, but he doesn’t say the words both of us are thinking.

  Until now.

  James’s voice comes around the corner. “Hey, Dave?”

  “In the closet,” Dave calls out.

  James’s laugh beats him to the closet doorway, where he appears clad in head-to-toe lululemon and clutching a white gift bag. His blondish hair is plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat, and his breath comes in quick, hard puffs. “There are so many jokes I could make right now.”

  Dave rolls his eyes. “Did your run take you by the mall?”

  James looks down at the bag like he just remembered he was holding it. “Oh, right. It’s for Iris, I guess. I found it hanging on the front doorknob. There’s no note.”

  I take the bag and pull out a brand-new iPhone 6, one of the big ones with more gigabytes than I could ever use, still in the sealed box.

  “Why would somebody give you an iPhone?” James says.

  “Because she feels sorry for me, and she knows I broke mine.” I drop the box back into the bag and hand everything back.

  “Do you want me to set it up for you?” Dave says.

  “No, I want you to take it back to the store, get a refund and then buy me a different one with my own money.”

  “Wouldn’t it just be more efficient to write this person a check?”

  As usual, my brother is right. I do need a new phone, though I’ll be damned if anybody but me pays for it. “Okay, but you’ll need my laptop to install it. I think it’s in a kitchen drawer somewhere. And while you’re at it, look up what that thing costs, will you?” I’ll have to log on to the school system to find Claire’s address, then I can drop her a check in the mail.

  “Sure thing.”

  That settled, James leans a shoulder against the doorjamb, taking in the shambles we’ve made of the closet. The rows of askew hangers, the mountain of sweaters and shirts on the floor, the clothes hanging out of the drawers like a half-off bin at Target. “Do I even want to know?”

  “We’re snooping,” Dave says.

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Not even a gas receipt.”

  Dave’s tone is heavy with meaning, as is his expression. A hard knot blooms in my belly at the silent conversation that passes between the two men. What kind of person leaves nothing, not even a gum wrapper or a forgotten penny, behind? The kind who doesn’t want his wife to know what he’s up to. Their words come across so clearly, they might as well have said them out loud.

  “He wasn’t cheating,” I say, my voice as unyielding as I feel. There are some things you know to the very core of yourself, things you would bet your life and very last penny on. This is one of them. “He wasn’t.”

  Dave gestures all around him, to the piles of clothes and shoes. “Sweetheart, no man is this vigilant. There’s got to be something going on here.”

  “Of course there’s something going on here. Will got on the wrong plane, flew off in the wrong direction. But not because of another woman. Because of something else.”

  James opens his mouth to offer up an opinion, and Dave gives him a hard look, one that says zip it. I know as soon as they’re behind the closed door of the guest room across the hall, they’ll be arguing points and discussing theories, and I suppose I should get used to it. My family will not be the first ones to think the worst of Will, that he has another woman—a girlfriend, a wife, the mother of his children—tucked away in a suburb of Seattle.

  A stab of fury steals my breath. How could Will do this to me? How could he leave me here all alone, unarmed and clueless, to fight this battle? I want to defend him, I want to defend us, but I don’t know how. He’s left me with nothing but questions. How am I supposed to prove everyone wrong?

  Dave presses a palm to my knee. “We’ll keep looking, okay? We’ll get on a plane and go to Seattle if we have to. We’ll find his something else.”

  I nod, my heart seizing with love for my twin brother. His offer doesn’t come out of a staunch belief in my husband, but mainly out of belief in me. He’s willing to search for another explanation only because I’m so adamant there is one.

  “You are my second favorite person on the planet,” I say, right before dissolving into tears, because it’s no longer true. Without Will here, Dave just got moved up to first place.

  10

  Sunday blooms bright and beautiful, one of those perfect spring days for which Atlanta is famous. Blue skies. Warm sunshine. A crisp breeze carrying whiffs of grass and honeysuckle. The kind of day Will and I loved to spend lazing in Piedmont Park or exploring the Atlanta BeltLine. The kind of day that’s too bright and sunny for a funeral.

  Liberty Airlines has secured the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for the memorial service, and as I lumber through it in dark clothes and darker glasses, I grudgingly admit the choice is pretty brilliant. With its swooping bridges and reflecting pools and Technicolor Chihuly sculptures everywhere, the park is pretty spectacular. Even better, no journalists are allowed through the gate, and there isn’t a zoom lens on the planet that can reach us through the leafy cover. I picture Ann Margaret at the employee meeting, nodding enthusiastically when it was suggested. Who can be bereft when the tulips are in full bloom?

  Mom winds her arm through mine, presses her temple to my shoulder. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Thankfully, it’s not a lie. As soon as we pulled into the garden’s parking deck, everything inside me went completely numb, like someone shot me full of Novocain. My body going into survival mode, I guess, and I’m grateful for the reprieve. It sure as hell beats sobbing or throwing up, both of which I spent all day yesterday doing, after Dad handed a solemn-faced Liberty Air representative the items he’d collected from Will’s side of the bathroom—his toothbrush, a forgotten fingernail clipping, a few stray hairs. Closure—that’s what genetics is supposed to provide for Liberty Air families. But I don’t want closure. To hell with closure. I want someone to tell me they couldn’t find one piece, not one teeny tiny speck, of my husband on that Missouri cornfield.

  Uniformed park employees herd us down bricked pathways into the Rose Garden, a large grassy field set against a backdrop of the Midtown Atlanta skyline. We file into a middle row and take a seat on padded folding chairs, my gaze picking out a few familiar faces from the Family Assistance Center. The Indian woman in another sari, this time white. The black teenager minus the studs, his face streaked with unchecked tears. The sun reflects off their wet faces like a beacon, making me glad for my sunglasses. Especially when I spot Ann Margaret, watching from the sidelines. Her look of obvious longing transports me back to the halls of Lake Forrest, to the pimply-faced girls desperate to be part of the popular crowd. We are “her” family, and we’re excluding her. I give her my best mean-girl cold shoulder and turn away.

  The service is an hour and a half of infuriating, excruciating torture filled with cheesy songs and a long procession of speakers, people I’ve never met before and will probably never see again. They package their condolences into ridiculous platitudes, things like Let your love be stronger than your desperation and sorrow and Let us concentrate on filling the holes with love and hope. Hope for what? I hold my breath and grit my teeth so I don’t scream the words. Hope for fucking what? Thanks to Liberty Air, I don’t have the slightest clue.

  Liberty Airlines. Two words I can’t utter without shaking with fury. I hate them f
or their sloppy mechanics, their faux concern, their incompetent disaster planners and clumsy crew. If that pilot didn’t die in the crash, I’d want to kill him myself.

  And where is the pilot’s family? Are they here? I study the profiles of the folks weeping all around me, trying to find his wife or husband, their 2.5 loving children. Would they dare to come? Would they be able to face the 178 other families, knowing their loved one made the mistake that brought down the plane?

  After the service, we gather for refreshments by a rose arbor better suited to a wedding than a funeral. The flowers won’t bloom for weeks, their tight buds only barely there nubs, but the climbing vines with their pale green shoots mock me with their optimism. Alive, alive, alive, they scream, while my Will is not.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Dad asks, gesturing to the edge of the crowd, where a uniformed server stands with a tray of icy drinks.

  “A Coke,” I tell him, even though I’m not thirsty. I figure at least if I’m holding a glass, I can’t slug somebody in the gut. But as soon as Dad has slipped into the crowd, I reconsider. “Actually, can we just leave? I really want to go home.”

  Mom and Dave exchange a look. “Maybe you want to talk to some of the other families?” Mom says.

  “No. I really, really don’t.” As a psychologist, I am a big believer in group therapy, in finding solace with others who have been through a similar tragedy. But doing so with these people here means resigning myself to Will being on that plane, and until DNA tells me otherwise, I’m hanging on to my denial with both hands.

  My boss, Ted Rawlings, steps up in front of me. Though I didn’t expect to see him here, I’m not surprised. He treats everyone at Lake Forrest, staff and students alike, like one big extended family. Of course he’d be at one of our funerals.