I sit on the edge of the couch, phone bills in hand, waiting for you to head into the office, where you’ll type and backspace without accomplishing a thing. This has become our routine since the day after Matthew’s funeral. Avoiding talking to me forever would probably be fine with you, but you have to admit the position you’re in if I’m going to help you out of it.
You come downstairs, stop in the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and are about to walk past me when I stop you.
“Bert, wait.”
You take a sip from your favorite mug, white ceramic with black lettering that says, “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel.” From anyone else it might be funny. Considering the lives your writing has ruined, though, I fail to see the humor. “I really have to get writing.”
“This won’t take long.”
“Really, Harper. Tim’s on me. I have to finish this draft.”
I hold up the phone bill, my finger on one of dozens of yellow lines. “I realize that, but this can’t wait.”
And has, in fact, waited too long already.
You’re caught, and you know it, even if you don’t know in what.
“I should’ve told you,” you say.
“About?” So much is implied by this multicolored stack of statements that I can’t guess what you’re willing to admit or why. You lean in for a closer look, and I know you well enough to know you won’t acknowledge H., which leaves work, Ella, and your son on the table.
“Me talking to Matthew.”
You’ll always cop to the least damning evidence first, which surprisingly makes the conversations with a murder victim the lesser offense. I play along because while other things are implied here, I’m interested in why you’d lie about Matthew.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Every time I thought about it, it was easier not to tell you.”
“Then why lie to the police?”
You sigh but don’t answer. You weigh your words as if on trial, and in a way, I guess you are—only this one-person jury doesn’t have the power the eventual twelve-person one will.
“Bert? Why didn’t you admit that you talked to Matthew to the detective?”
“Because things look bad enough for me already.”
The first acknowledgement of your predicament comes as a shock, but it’s not reason enough for me to back off with what’s at stake.
“It’ll look worse when Vern finds out you’re lying—and if I did, he will too. You interfered with the investigation. How will you explain that?”
“I’ll blame you.” It chills me how easily the words roll off your tongue. “I’ll tell Vern he shouldn’t have questioned us together. I’ll admit you didn’t know Matthew and I were speaking then say I didn’t want a fight.”
I’m not surprised you’re looking for an out, and this is smarter than I would have given you credit for. The most effective lies are laced with truth. Yes, had you told me you and Mathew were speaking after all he’d put us through, I’d have yelled, but I’d have forgiven you, accepting that he is, after all, your son.
That you’d use this to your advantage with Vern makes me wonder what else you’ll admit to if cornered.
“That explanation might buy you out of a few months’ worth of sporadic calls, but it’s not going to explain this.” I flip to the marked page and hold my finger on the date. “Six calls on the day he died, none lasting longer than five minutes.” The brevity of the calls alone indicates purpose. Intent. Far worse than ignoring Ella, who also called multiple times that day, or H. who did, too, these calls from Matthew signal something between you, linking you in a way I’d rather you not be linked. “The last call is in the middle of the night!” Within an hour of Matthew’s time of death. “What did you talk about?”
The color drains from your face. “I don’t remember.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
For me, and for the police.
“I don’t. He wouldn’t stop calling.”
“Why?”
It takes you an entire minute to answer, and when you do, it feels like a half-truth. “He was upset.” You reluctantly admit to turmoil. Context being everything in situations like these, I’m not surprised you’ve kept quiet. Not only had you been talking to the son you claim to have been fully estranged from, you were fighting with him on the day of his death.
“About what?” It’s not coming easily, but I slowly drag things out of you in the hopes that, later on, Vern won’t have to.
“About nothing. About everything. You know Matthew as well as I do.” Better, I’d argue, but this evasiveness feels personal. I’d worry you might have been fighting over me—Matthew and I parting on bad terms—but if that were the case, you’d say it. You’re not generally concerned with my feelings, which means there’s something here you won’t yet confess to doing. There are several things, I’m sure, but something in particular that isn’t discoverable from a call log is what holds you back.
“It seems unlikely there wasn’t something specific. Be honest.” Like any good parent does, I’m giving you the opportunity to confess of your own volition. I will find out the truth eventually, but I’ll be angrier with you for the work I put in to do so.
You snatch the bill from my hand, focusing on the items in question. “I am being honest. Look, we didn’t talk for more than a couple of minutes. I got him off the phone the minute he started yelling.”
“About nothing and everything,” I say sarcastically.
I can’t help thinking who else might have heard Matthew’s raised voice, and what secret is lingering out there, waiting to bite our collective asses. You’re obviously convinced that whatever it is won’t come out, or you have vowed not to admit anything until it does. I know that feeling well, but I’m not a fan of being on this side of it.
“It was late. I was already overwhelmed. I couldn’t deal with Tim, the signing, and Matthew in the mood he was in. There’s nothing to say. He was spoiling for a fight, and I refused to give him one.”
It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the most damning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I COULD BERATE YOUR poor judgment, attack you for lying to me and the police, but I’m not done with you yet, and rather than fight about what we can’t change, I formulate a strategy for proceeding with the caution we should have exercised from the beginning.
“We need to consider hiring a lawyer.” I have no idea how to pay for one, nor who to call, but a smart criminal knows the value of legal protection, of shielding oneself from exactly the kind of mistakes you’ve made already. I never called you a criminal, but Vern will. “We need to salvage what’s left of your credibility.”
“Absolutely not. Lawyers make people look guilty.”
“Lying to the police makes people look guilty, too.”
“I’m innocent. You know it, and I know it, and I’m not about to spend every last penny I have proving it.”
Pennies you don’t have, really, but why make this worse?
“You might not have a choice,” I say.
“Why? Because you dug up a few cell phone bills?”
“Because Vern’s the reason I went looking in the first place.” Even if I cared about de-escalating this pressure-cooker of an argument, which I don’t, there’s no easy segue into this. “He was here, after the funeral. The night some bar poured you into a cab you puked in. The night you—”
“I know what I did! Why are you only now telling me this?”
“You lost the ability to turn this around on me at least two lies ago, Bert. Why the fuck was Vern asking me about Claire?” I don’t mean to, but I’m so angry I make the accusation point blank.
“Claire who?”
I’m not sure if you’re playing stupid or you really are this clueless. “Ansley’s mother, Claire Davis.”
“Why would I know anything about her?”
“Vern’s question exactly. That and how a single mother working at a
battered women’s shelter might have afforded private school unless someone helped her.”
“And you thought what?” Your eyes go wide with disbelief. “You think that was me? Let’s ignore for a minute the fact that you control the money. Why the hell would I do that?” You’re making your squinty-eyed thinking face, your mouth bent into a frown. How you don’t instinctively understand the implication is beyond me, but I see the moment it hits you. “Jesus, Harper. Tell me you didn’t tell Vern I cheat.”
I grin, not because I’m happy about any of this but for once it’s finally out in the fucking open.
Hallelujah, Bert’s a cheater!
“I didn’t, but so help me if you’re lying about Claire, too, I’ll hang you with this.” I wield the empty threat with heft, though turning you in would only hurt me in the long run.
“I’m not lying.”
“But you are a cheater.” An apology would be nice, but I’ll settle for a confession. “Tell me just this once about the women I’ve chased after for years. The ones I’ve warned, threatened, and paid off. Tell me, Bert, about H.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
If I’d cut off your penis, you’d be less surprised than you are right now.
“What’s her name? Heather? Hope?” I rattle off the first names beginning with “H” that come to mind. “I bet it’s something chic, like Harlow or Halle. Am I getting warmer, Bert? Hmm? Does she go by H. with everyone, or only with you? Maybe only with men whose wives might find out about her?”
I’ve cast H. as a literary Lolita, a girl who collects authors like trophies.
“Did you inscribe a book for her? Maybe tell her you’d dedicate the next one to her outright?” I’m being mean, and I know it, but it feels so good after all these years to finally lay into you. “How long has this one been going on for? Before you found out Matthew was dead, I bet. I know, because there’s proof! Is she comfort for you now? Were you with her the other night? What about while Vern was here, grilling me over what he thinks you’ve done? Why did I even defend you?”
I’ve thrown more questions at you than you can answer, none of them fair—most of them rhetorical—and I doubt if you did answer, which the stunned look on your face says you won’t, whether I could handle knowing the truth, hearing from your lips the lines you use on other women.
“What did Vern say exactly?”
“Don’t try and change the subject. Who is she? Hadley? Or what about Haven? I heard that name’s trending. She’s young, right? Smoking hot. And I bet she’s a reader. Do you read to her, honey? Tuck her into bed? Turn on her fucking nightlight?”
“So help me God. I don’t have the patience for this right now. Tell me what Vern said.”
I feel like we’re having two different conversations. I’m talking about the woman from the hotel, and you’re hung up on Vern, who, as far as I know, doesn’t know a thing about her.
You’re visibly shaking. Mumbling like you always do when you’re pissed. Cursing Vern, and maybe Tim, and probably me, but this whole thing doesn’t compute.
Until it does.
I think back on exactly what I said at the start of this conversation-turned-argument, when I told you Vern asked about Claire, whom I’m relatively convinced you have nothing to do with. The only other person I mentioned is Ansley, and what I’m thinking right now sends chills through me, because the past several days—weeks, months, two years—make sudden and complete sense. Ansley stumbling into the church, disheveled and wracked with guilt. Barely able to look at Matthew’s coffin. Unable to look at you. You refusing to help her out of, what, embarrassment? Or was it fear? The dread of being found out.
“What is it you call her? Honey or just Hon?”
How in the hell is Ansley H.?
I don’t know how, but I would bet my eyeteeth that she is.
The girl from the hotel was the right height, and more or less the right build, though she was so overdressed for this heat that it’s hard to know for sure other than she was thin. Thin enough, like Ansley, who knows I exist and might expect me. Who would recognize me the second I arrived on her floor. Who would run to avoid being found out. Who, after all that’s happened, has every reason to send you frantic middle-of-the-night texts that don’t state specifically but could have everything to do with Matthew.
Jesus, Bert.
I know your predilection for younger women, for girls like Ansley who are smart, seductive, and, most importantly, vulnerable—as she surely had been in the years before and the weeks following Claire’s death.
I don’t want to believe for one second you’ve gone there, but I can’t conjure a single other explanation for your current behavior, for you avoiding the topic of what precisely had Matthew so mad that night. Why he called for months, the conversations never lasting more than a few minutes. Why he left in the first place.
“Oh, Bert.”
“What?” You’re waiting for me to answer a question I can’t bring myself to.
“I can’t.” I hold up my hand, sick at the sight of you. “You didn’t—”
“Harper, what are you talking about?”
I don’t answer.
“Harper!”
All I can do is walk away before I’m physically ill. Me, the woman who looks at crime scene photos over dinner without a hint of nausea. That you have managed to turn my stomach in a way those have not indicates how disturbing I find the possibility of a relationship between you and this girl we’ve known since she was thirteen.
For how long has this gone on?
I don’t want to, but I have to know. Someone, probably Vern, will ask, probably not long from now.
“Harper, stop!”
I won’t. Not until I have proof, until I’m sure this thing I can’t say is real. Until I know how it started, and until after I have ended it.
I grab my purse and keys, the walls and ceiling closing in on me. The air is too thick to breathe. Blood rushes in my ears, drowning out your demands in the background—you’re warning me not to make things worse, if such a thing is possible. Nothing is worse than you sleeping with your son’s longtime girlfriend.
It’s too twisted, too taboo even for you, with your warped, self-serving morals; whose poor judgment will undoubtedly be construed as motive. Who looks guiltier by the hour. All Vern needs is a foundation upon which to build his case, and no wonder you’re worried if you’ve connected him, no matter how wrongly, to H. In a case without leads, without forensics, without motive, this is one hell of a circumstantial alternative.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I DRIVE, NOT FOR MINUTES but for hours to nowhere in particular, because I must think. I need time to process all of this before I confront Ansley, who is already so fragile that it breaks my heart to have to do so. I keep my phone turned off in the console beside me, refusing you an opportunity to defend yourself—not that you think you owe me an explanation. You never do, but this time is different. It’s not our marriage at stake, but our lives.
Your freedom, and mine by proxy.
No wonder you hadn’t told me about Matthew, when doing so would mean confessing to this nauseating transgression.
I decided, the minute I realized what might have been happening, that I won’t hold Ansley accountable for the hotel incident, or for falling prey to someone as manipulative as you are. You’re a famous man twice her age that, on the surface, looks to have everything she needs.
Deceiving, but attractive nonetheless.
I consider my approach for hours, working to suppress my rage long enough to muster the courage that will lead me to the place I need to be. It feels like I drove Matthew here only yesterday to visit his girlfriend, when it has, in fact, been years.
The one-story ranch is exactly as I remember it, quaint and framed by a smattering of blooming perennials—gardening was one of Claire’s few hobbies. We talked once about annuals versus perennials, about weed barriers and organic pest control, but I knew n
othing about those things. I was being polite.
I have exactly two plants that need tending, a thorny rose currently being devoured by aphids and a hydrangea that insists on shriveling up and dying no matter how much I water it. It hasn’t produced a lasting bloom in two years, and I’m letting nature take its course. Claire was always the more nurturing of the two of us, and while her plants aren’t as well cared for as when she was alive, they haven’t become overtaken by weeds, either. I imagine Ansley working out here, convening with her mother’s memory, crying into a bed of petunias. And then I cringe, wondering if you ever brought her flowers, if the two of you have been out in public; if she’s been in our bed.
Sick, sick Bert.
I knock, making the same vow I failed to keep that night at the hotel. I won’t make a scene. The fewer people who know about this, the better. There’s a bell to my left, but I hate to ring it. It’s loud and impersonal. It demands a response. It insists that Ansley talk to me. I knock louder, and when she still doesn’t answer, I suppose maybe I’m being ignored.
I expect avoidance or, at the very least, the lack of taking responsibility for one’s actions that is the earmark of the millennial generation. I don’t know when I began thinking in these terms except that it was sometime after Matthew hit puberty when I noticed myself turning into my mother.
When Ansley refuses to answer, I ring the bell twice, and she finally appears, freezing in full view of the sidelight. The girl I know would be glad to see me, and might invite me in for a drink or to commiserate over our mutual loss. This is not that girl, and I wonder what you’ve done to her.
After a long moment, the lock releases, and the door opens only far enough for me to see a pair of bloodshot eyes in a once-pretty face that is now gaunt and angular.
“I can’t talk to you.” She doesn’t say under whose direction or why, just that she can’t. She appears to be on the verge of tears, red-faced, as if she has already been crying.
I wish I hadn’t come.
Where We Went Wrong Page 6
