The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

  Mom shoos us to the table. “Sit, sit. I’ll be over with the plates in a minute. Boys, give me a hand, will you?”

  They do, and Dad swings an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his side, dropping a kiss on my temple. “How you holding up, Squirt?”

  “Hanging in there,” I lie.

  The truth is, I’ve called Will’s voice mail more times than I care to count just to hear his voice, even though the sound of it kills more than it comforts me. And I can’t stop thinking about what I learned from Corban at the memorial—not so much about Will’s job offer in Seattle, but more so about the two men’s friendship. Why would Will hide that from me? Dave is right; Will was more of a loner than a guy’s guy, but he knew enough people to fill a table at KR Steakbar for his thirtieth birthday party. Sure, some of them were married to my girlfriends, but still. The point is, he talked about those men, included them in celebrations like they were buddies.

  So why all the secrecy about Corban? Was Will worried I wouldn’t like him for some reason? Or did Corban’s friendship mean so little to Will that he didn’t think to tell me? No, that can’t be right. They must have been friends for Will to tell Corban such personal things, things it took Will ages to share with his own wife. I try to piece it all together, to think through the links of what I know—the job, the friendship, Seattle—but I’m too emotionally exhausted. None of it makes any sense.

  My gaze lands on Will’s spot at the far end of the table. Somebody—Mom, I’m guessing—placed a wicker basket, stuffed to overflowing with sympathy cards, where his plate would be. They’ve been coming for days now, flowery cards with even more flowery messages, and I can’t bring myself to read any of them. I choose a chair at the opposite end and sit down.

  “Does that sound all right to you?” my father says, and it’s only when no one else answers that I realize he’s talking to me.

  I look over to find him watching me. “Does what sound all right?”

  “That we stay until next weekend.” He tilts his head to Dave and James settling steaming plates onto the table, and to Mom beyond them in the kitchen. “We’ve all cleared it with our work so we can get you through the first week. After that, we’ll trade off for as long as you need one of us here.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom says, her tone a resolute mix of supreme authority and mother-hen concern. “We’re staying, and that’s that.”

  She slides a plate in front of me with a serving so massive it hangs over the edges, enough food for three people. She gives me an encouraging grin, and I try not to wince when the smell hits my nose, meat and potatoes and butter. But she’s still standing there, so I swallow down my nausea and pick up a bite with my fork.

  “Who was that man you were talking to at the memorial? That black guy built like a bouncer,” Dave says as I’m lifting the bite to my mouth.

  I want to kiss him. Yes, he’s asking partly out of curiosity, but he’s mostly trying to distract our hovering mother. His strategy works. As soon as she shoots him a questioning look, I slide the food from my fork.

  “His name is Corban. He’s a friend of Will’s from the gym. A good friend, apparently.”

  Dave is the only one who catches my meaning behind that last word. “You didn’t know this before today?”

  “No. He also informed me Will was offered a new job at one of AppSec’s biggest competitors.” I pause, a familiar weight pressing down on my chest. “In their Seattle office.”

  Every head at the table swings to me.

  “The two of you were moving?” Mom says, sinking into the chair across from me. “Since when?”

  “Since never. Will and I never discussed it. I only learned of the job offer this afternoon, from Corban.”

  “Will didn’t tell you he got a new job?” Dave’s voice has a snap in it, a defensive edge I’ve heard many times, but never once directed at Will.

  It sharpens the edge in mine, as well. “I don’t know that the offer was ever actually finalized. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that’s why he didn’t tell me. Will knew a cross-country move would have been a hard sell, and he didn’t want to start the discussion with me until he knew for sure. The point is, this job gives him a compelling reason to be on that plane, as well as a reason not to tell me where he was going. This job was his something else.”

  Dave and James exchange a look.

  “Somebody want to tell me what y’all are talking about?” Dad says from the other end of the table, his gaze bouncing around, from me to Dave to James, then back to me.

  I give our parents a quick recap of my search through Will’s closet, and how it turned up nothing but lint. “But if I’m right, if Will really was holding off on telling me about the new job, it would explain why we didn’t find anything in his pockets. He didn’t want me to come across a business card or receipt and wonder what was up.”

  Mom shakes her head. “Still, it’s not like Will to be so sneaky. Why would he apply for a job without telling you?”

  “He wouldn’t. I’ll bet you money he was approached for it through LinkedIn or by a headhunter. Either way, ESP’s head of HR will be able to tell me. I’m calling her first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Why?” Mom says. I give her a confused look, and she quickly amends. “What I mean is, her answer won’t change anything. There are more pressing matters you should be concerned about right now.”

  “Your mother’s right,” Dad says. “There’s a funeral to plan and a ton of paperwork to be done. The banks will probably work faster if we swing by in person.”

  “No, Stephen, I meant grieving. Iris needs to concentrate on the grieving process.” She turns back to me, reaching over the table for my hand. “Job or no new job, sweetheart, Will got on that plane. He’ll still be gone. And as unpleasant as it is, you need to work through your pain now, not push it aside to deal with later. You know this better than anyone.”

  Her words burn in the corners of my eyes. Logically, I know they’re true. But I also know Will’s lies are chasing me. I feel their sour breath in my neck and their oily hands on my shoulder blades, shoving me forward, pushing me in a search of the whys. Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe my need to map out Will’s last moments is a defense mechanism to delay having to deal with the pain. But still. I can’t move forward until I fill in the most pressing blanks.

  What else do I not know about my husband?

  What else did he not tell me?

  How many more lies?

  Mom gives my hand a squeeze. “I’m just worried about you, sweetie. That’s all.”

  “Thanks.” Her concern sends up another surge of tears, one that this time I can’t blink away. “I’m a little worried about me, too.”

  * * *

  Later that night, after the kitchen is clean and Mom and Dad have headed upstairs for bed, I carry my laptop over to the couch and pull up Will’s Facebook page.

  My husband was not a big fan of social media. “Why bother?” he’d always say. “It’s just a place for people to brag and lie about their lives. Like I’m supposed to believe the biggest asshole from high school is now dating a supermodel? Sorry, but I call bullshit.” But like pretty much everybody else on the planet, Will had a Facebook page; he just largely ignored it.

  Dave plops down beside me on the couch, throwing his bare feet up on the coffee table and shoving aside a flower arrangement with his toe. Now I know why so many obituaries include the line in lieu of flowers... They’re literally everywhere, solemn springtime arrangements lined up across every horizontal surface, spilling over kitchen counters and mantelpieces, clogging the air with their heady scent.

  “Maybe we should donate some of these. What do you think?”

  I glance over. “Fine by me. There’s a church around the corner an
d a dozen shelters within five miles.”

  “Cool. I’ll get James to give me a hand.”

  “A hand with what?” James says, coming into the room with a bottle and three glasses. He holds the glasses by the stems in one hand and pours with the other with a surgeon’s steadiness, not spilling a drop. Dave tells him about the flowers, and they agree to distribute the first load in the morning.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking one of the glasses from James. With my other hand, I gesture to my laptop screen, to the sea of shocked condolence posts jamming up Will’s wall. “When did people start treating Facebook as a tool to communicate with the dead? Like this one. Will, man, so sorry to hear of your passing. RIP, buddy. Do they really think he’s going to see it? He never checked his page when he was alive, much less...” Unable to finish, I bury my nose in my wine.

  Dave drapes a palm over my wrist. “Stop torturing yourself, sweetie, and turn off the laptop.”

  “I can’t. I’m looking for clues.” I open a screen for Will’s list of friends. There are seventy-eight of them, and more than sixty of them are mutual. I scroll to the bottom, to the friends we don’t have in common, find a handful of colleagues, one of my girlfriend’s exes, a neighbor from down the road, the barista from our neighborhood coffee shop.

  Dave leans in, reading over my shoulder. “What kind of clues are you looking for, Inspector Gadget?”

  “Clues of the Corban Hayes kind.” Dave frowns, and I add, “You know. The banker-slash-bodybuilder I met at the memorial today. The one who told me all those things about Will.”

  “Because of curiosity, or suspicion?” James says.

  I pause to consider my answer, but it doesn’t take me long. Yes, curiosity is driving me, but after meeting Corban, I can’t shake the feeling there’s more I don’t know. If there are more people like Corban Hayes out there, I want to speak to them.

  “Both.”

  But I’m not going to find anything here. Will hated Facebook, and there’s nobody here I don’t recognize or can’t place. I slam the laptop closed in frustration.

  James leans back into the couch, resting his wineglass on his flat stomach. “Have you checked the cards?”

  “What cards?”

  He sweeps a palm toward the arrangement on the table and beyond, to vases standing like soldiers at attention on the kitchen bar. “You must’ve gotten flowers from everyone you know. Maybe there are a couple here from people you don’t know.”

  Of course, the cards. The ones Mom arranged in the basket on Will’s place mat, the ones I couldn’t bear to read. I pop off the couch and fetch the basket from the table.

  James refills the wineglasses, and we sip and sift through the condolences, pausing only to point out a painfully bad illustration or an extra corny text, and there are a lot of both. There must be close to a hundred cards here, saccharine messages and religious missives from my and Will’s colleagues, old friends and neighbors, aunts and cousins and college classmates, people I haven’t seen or heard from in years.

  Dave holds up a note card covered in green glitter. “Who are Terry and Melinda Phillips?”

  “Aka Melinda Leigh,” I say. “Our cousin.”

  His eyes go wide, and his face spreads into a grin. “The one who came to your wedding in a prom dress?”

  I smile at the memory of my brother’s face when Melinda walked up the church steps in her frilly blue concoction. “Terry is her third husband. Or is it fourth? I’ve lost count. And it wasn’t a prom dress.”

  “It was definitely a prom dress, and it was hideous, not to mention two sizes too small.” He starts describing the dress for James, the lace and the ruffles and the seams stretched to screaming, while I return to the pile.

  A few cards later, I come across something—a name I’ve never heard of before, printed underneath the generic florist’s card message. I twist to face James. “Did you go to Hancock?”

  He gives me a funny look.

  “This card says Deepest sympathies for your loss, Hancock High School, Class of ’99. Is that where you went?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of the place. Maybe it’s Will’s alma mater?”

  “No, Will went to Central. I know, because I pulled it out of him for that surprise trip I planned to Memphis, on our first anniversary. Remember?”

  “The trip that never was.” Dave knows Will and I never actually made it to Memphis, and he knows why. And now, I can tell by my brother’s expression that he and I are thinking the same thing. Who went to Hancock?

  And then his eyes go wide, and he pops off the couch. “Be right back.” He takes off down the hallway and up the stairs, his footsteps thumping overhead. Next to me on the couch, James settles his glass on the side table, slides his phone from his pocket and begins typing with his thumbs.

  When Dave returns a few moments later, a T-shirt clutched in a fist, I recognize it from Will’s closet. It’s his ratty work shirt, the one he wears around the house for gardening and painting, an ancient thing that’s ripped and stained and threadbare around the edges. Its letters are faded, but I know what they say before he holds it up for me to see. Hancock Wildcats. I always thought it was just a vintage shirt, a generic one like the kind they sell at Old Navy, but now I make the connection.

  Why would Will tell me he went to Central if he graduated from Hancock?

  “Haven’t you ever Googled your husband’s name?” Dave says.

  “Of course not. Have you?”

  “Yes,” Dave and James say in unison.

  “Maybe this has something to do with his mother dying,” I say, still trying to give Will the benefit of the doubt. “I know he had to move. Maybe he had to change school districts, too.”

  “Uh, guys?” James grew up in Connecticut, and though he’s lived in Savannah for almost a decade, he hasn’t quite mastered the use of the word y’all. “You said Will was from Memphis?”

  I nod, but Dave is more concerned about the card pinched between my fingers. “Does that thing come with a person’s name? Or the name of the florist?”

  I check it again, shake my head. “FTD.com. I think this is some kind of reference number, though. We can try looking up the order online.”

  James tries again, this time more insistently. “Guys. I—”

  “Or we could just call them,” Dave says. “What if we tell them we need a contact for our thank-you cards? I don’t know if they’ll give it to us, but it’s worth a shot.”

  “We can also try the school. They can put us in touch with someone from the Class of ’99.”

  “Iris.” My name comes out like a shot, and if his insistent tone didn’t get my attention, his phone’s screen in front of my face does. “Look.”

  I stare at the Google page, search results for Hancock High School. At the very top, on the very first line of the first listing, is a street address. A chill starts in my chest and creeps down my arms and legs like the start of the flu. 600 Twenty-Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington.

  I pass the phone to my brother and reach for my laptop. “If your offer still stands, I’m booking us on a flight for first thing tomorrow morning.”

  12

  Miraculously, I sleep the entire five-hour flight. From the moment we catch air in Atlanta until the captain dips the nose and aims us at Seattle. My body finally overriding my brain, I suppose, and giving in to my exhaustion. We hit a violent pocket of air on the descent, and my eyes snap wide-open—not frightened but aware. Is that what Will first felt, too? All around us, passengers white-knuckle their armrests, Dave included. I know they’re thinking of Flight 23, calculating the odds of two Seattle-bound flights going down in the same week, and I wonder at my own sense of calm. Why am I not frightened like the others? Are my senses that dulled by grief? The plane jostles and squeaks, then evens out, and the passeng
ers melt back into their seats.

  Dave reaches across me to shove up the window shade, and the bright light burns my eyes. “Welcome back. I was worried I might have to carry you off.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I say, thinking of the time sophomore year in which Joey Mackintosh showed me how to funnel beer until I passed out in the front yard. Dave threw me over his shoulder and carted me upstairs to bed before our parents returned home from the movies. I press a kiss to his shoulder. “Thank you for being here. I can’t imagine doing this all by myself.”

  “Please. As if I would let you.” He gives my arm a quick squeeze, then roots around in his seat pocket, tossing me the bag of Chex Mix he bought in the Atlanta terminal. “Here. Mom told me if I bring you back any skinnier, I’m grounded.”

  I smile, even though I’m pretty sure he’s serious. Mom would tell him that, and I have lost some weight. After six days of almost no food, my denims hang loose on my hips, my stomach is taut and flat, and my ass—which has never been fat but has certainly never been skinny, either—looks like a shrinky-dink version of its former curvy self. Becoming a widow is good for seven pounds and counting.

  I rip open the bag and nibble on one, and when my stomach doesn’t revolt at the salty crunch, another, as I get my first glimpse of Seattle out the window. They don’t call it the Emerald City for nothing. Miles and miles of rolling grass, leafy forests and avocado-tinted lakes reaching like long fingers into mossy valleys, made even greener by the infamous rain. Above us, clouds hang low and leaden into the distance.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re filing into the Seattle airport with our carry-ons and making our way via shuttle bus to the Hertz counter. Since we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for or how long we’ll need to find it, Dave and I have decided to wing this trip. No car or hotel reservations, no plan, not even a return ticket. Will’s head would have exploded at the idea, but the travel websites assured us April’s propensity for constant drizzle and arctic winds meant tourists would stay away, and hotel rooms would be plentiful.