The Good Widow_A Novel

by Liz Fenton

  It’s funny the things that stick with you and the things that don’t. Since James’s death, I’m discovering that the mind works in strange ways. I can recall his smell without putting my nose to a single item of his clothing—because I can’t bring myself to. I cannot even look at the sleeve of his crumpled pale-blue button-down shirt peering out from the top of the hamper, but the scent is there, as potent as when I buried my head in his shoulder and breathed him in on our first date, the sake I’d drunk making me brave. His musky aroma is entangled in our bedsheets; it’s emanating off the last bath towel he used. It’s clinging to my nose hairs like my grandmother’s perfume, which she treated like a can of air freshener. It’s a comfort but also a terrible burden, still smelling him. I’ve had moments where I’ve longed for hyposmia—the decreased ability to smell, a definition I only learned because I Googled it at 3:00 a.m. I’d been hugging James’s pillow between my legs like an anchor and smelling him so strongly in the pillowcase that I could almost tell myself he’d just been lying there and had gotten up to go to the bathroom.

  His scent assails me, while I try to make sense of remembering only some details about James and not others. Like the way his hands felt. I have no idea. Were they smooth? Calloused? Did I ever take the time to notice? I grabbed Beth’s wrists when she came over this morning, trying to memorize each of her fingers. They felt soft, and as I touched the small scar on her palm from when she’d sliced through it while chopping tomatoes, I promised myself I wouldn’t forget them.

  I can’t manage to remember the sound of his laugh. I’ve been trying, the way you do when that actor’s name is on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t spit it out, squinting hard as if the concentration will help me recall it. A few nights ago, after polishing off half a bottle of port—the only alcohol left in the house—I tore through a box of home videos, searching for the one from our wedding. I wanted that moment when, after Tom gave his best-man speech, James let out a belly laugh that rippled through the courtyard of the hotel. It was infectious, that laugh. And now I can’t remember it. And I never did find the video.

  James and I had eight years together, but in many ways we hadn’t even made it out of the gate, like a racehorse that gets spooked by the sound of the gun. So many things had held us back. The loss of his job during our first year of marriage that led him to the one he has—had—that forced him to be out of town each week; my arrogance that we could wait years after getting married to start a family.

  Which leads me back to the whys. Why did it end before it ever really began? Why were the last words we spoke to each other hostile? Why can’t I forget how he blew past me out of the house and got into the Uber driver’s rusted Toyota Camry without looking over his shoulder? Why can I still feel the way the house trembled after the front door slammed?

  He shouldn’t have died. He paid his taxes. He coached Beth’s son’s baseball team. He was thoughtful, once turning the car around to drive twenty minutes when he realized he’d forgotten to tip our server. Why had the knock from two police officers been on my door? Why not on the door of the awful woman from across the street, who once yelled at a group of gap-toothed kids in our neighborhood for placing their lemonade stand too close to her driveway? Why not hers?

  After three glasses of sauvignon blanc at James’s memorial, which Beth had planned without my even having to ask, I’d found the courage to ask his boss, Frank, if he knew James had been in Maui. My stomach churned as I studied Frank’s bushy eyebrows and his bloodhound eyes, both wanting and not wanting to know if Frank had been covering for him—that I was the only one not in on the joke. It was incredible how many questions I wanted and didn’t want the answers to. It felt like when I had learned to drive, the instructor jamming the passenger-side brake as I pumped the gas. But Frank shook his head vehemently. He knew only that James had requested a few days off, nothing more than that. And, oh yes, he was so very sorry.

  Later that night—after Beth and I had said good-bye to James’s mom, Isabella, and dad, Carlos, my parents, and a few other stragglers—Beth searched the house for clues. (She actually called them that. Like she was starring in a bad episode of Law & Order.) We started with his personal items that had been shipped back to me and arrived the day before. I unzipped his suitcase and sifted through his clothes, pulling out a mix of clean and dirty items, my hand resting on his favorite bathing suit, a pair of red board shorts with a frayed waistband. The same ones he’d worn on our honeymoon. I dug deeper, but there wasn’t so much as a bar receipt. His cell phone and laptop proved to be just as unhelpful—every single password attempt denying me access to the man my husband had been. The thing was, I had naively—or stupidly, I don’t know which at this point—never thought I’d need that access.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JACKS—AFTER

  Our conversations about where James was going on business always went something like this:

  Him: I’m off to Des Moines (or another city name) tomorrow.

  Me: Um, hmm. When will you be back?

  Him: In a few days. I’ll text you when I land.

  Me: Okay. Can you pull the trash cans out before you go?

  We were finishing our fettuccini Alfredo when he mentioned the Kansas trip. I looked up from my plate and watched the noodles swirling inside his mouth as he told me he’d be leaving the next morning and would be gone until Saturday. There was a dinner he couldn’t get out of on Friday night. He went on about how the clients were impossible and closing this deal could potentially double his bonus check next quarter. I frowned, mentally canceling the reservations I’d just made at a new Italian spot down the street. Trying to convince myself that maybe the timing was good. I had a ton of prep work to do for the end-of-school-year open house in the fourth grade class I teach. That night was just a week away, and I still had to decide how to display the kids’ essays about their heroes and come up with a creative idea of how to showcase their family-tree projects.

  Noticing my face fall, James came around to my side of the table and kissed me softly, and my irritation began to dissolve, as it often did. We fell in and out of arguments easily, like that snap on your shirt that doesn’t quite clasp. You think you’ve finally secured it and then, bam, ten minutes later it’s popped open again.

  Could I have asked him more about his trip to Kansas? Sure. But I wouldn’t have. I had stopped doing that a long time ago. In the beginning of our marriage, I’d pepper him with questions about his job. But he would give me clipped answers, finally admitting he saw his job selling web conferencing software simply as a means to an end—a paycheck. One day, he’d leave and start his own business. He had ideas, ones that didn’t involve the lack of legroom in seat seventeen C or the gate agent who loved to scold you if your carry-on was larger than twenty-two by sixteen by ten inches. He liked his job and was very good at what he did, but he hated all the travel that went along with it. So I learned not to ask about it. And definitely not to bring up his plans to leave.

  I never thought he was lying about jaunting off to Sioux Falls or Wichita. I believed he would have much rather been home with me every night. Our marriage was far from perfect, but did I think he was cheating on me? Never. Not even in hindsight. Maybe that made me naive or stupid or a little bit of both, but I was happy I wasn’t one of those wives with trust issues. I’d heard it all from friends whose husbands traveled—that they required their spouses to check in several times a day, to supply them with a full itinerary, to regale them with details about their trips when they returned back home. I didn’t want to be like that. Requiring it. As if he were my employee.

  I liked receiving the texts he sent on his own, which came frequently—quips about the sea of Nebraska Cornhusker shirts he saw in Omaha or the endless number of BMWs he spotted in Dallas. He’d text selfies while stuck on the tarmac. I could reach him whenever I needed to. So did I get his travel plans like those controlling wives I know? I didn’t. Clearly, I should have. Those women obviously understa
nd how the world works much better than I do. Their husbands may resent the hell out of them, but they are home safe, while mine has just been delivered to a columbarium at the Good Shepherd Cemetery.

  So maybe if I’d been more checked in to my husband’s life, I wouldn’t have been so shocked by what Officer Keoloha told me when I called him the day after the memorial.

  It turns out that James hadn’t been alone when he died.

  He’d been driving down the Hana Highway in a rented Jeep Wrangler with a twenty-four-year-old woman named Dylan Matthews.

  And my first thought? I’d once asked him to rent a cherry-red one when we’d taken a road trip up to Monterey, and he’d scoffed at the price. I think my mind went there because it couldn’t handle the reality of what I was hearing. That he’d been in Hawaii with someone who wasn’t me.

  According to the officer, Dylan’s body had washed up on shore two weeks after the crash. At first they didn’t put it together that she could have been with James in the accident. But after investigating, they’d found her name on the same flight manifest as his and at the Westin Ka‘anapali, where they’d stayed; she’d shared the same room number as him and had charged a manicure and pedicure to it. Her signature was also on many of the slips from drinks and food they’d ordered at the hotel. And then there had been the surfers who’d watched James pull Dylan in and kiss her hard on the morning of the accident. Actually, the way they’d described it was “getting up on each other on the side of the Jeep.” That detail stings. A lot. But not as much as imagining this woman getting her nails done on my husband’s dime. Somehow that feels more intimate.

  But that wasn’t all. There were other sightings. The day they’d driven the road to Hana, they’d stopped at the Kuau Store, just past the town of Paia, on the Hana Highway. According to the cashier who had worked that shift, James and Dylan had just taken pictures at the famous surfboard fence and were laughing about how Dylan was posing for a selfie and fell back into the boards. And James’s credit card charges confirmed he’d been there. He purchased goat cheese, salami, a bottle of wine, coconut water, banana bread, and a Road to Hana CD guide. As I listened to the officer rattle off the information, I couldn’t decide which detail about their trip bothered me the most: the Jeep James wouldn’t rent for me, the romantic picnic lunch I imagined them enjoying as they sat by a waterfall, or the CD. James and I had always laughed at the people who got all touristy and bought things like that. Had I known my husband at all?

  But there was information I still wanted that Officer Keoloha couldn’t uncover from credit card statements or the memories of store clerks. Why had they been in Maui together? How long had they been seeing each other? Did he love her?

  Did he love her more than me?

  Officer Keoloha tried to be empathetic but still said hugely unhelpful things, like, “I’m sorry,” and, “If there’s anything I can do,” as I’d choked on my sobs, the tears finally falling hard—like the waterfalls I imagined James had hiked to with the woman who ruined my life.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JACKS—AFTER

  Here are the things I now know about the road to Hana after obsessively Googling it:

  It’s 52 miles of highway.

  It passes over 59 bridges.

  There are more than 600 curves.

  It carves into the cliffs of one of the most beautiful rain forests in the world.

  Because of its many winding roads, blind turns, distracting views, one-lane roads, and tall cliffs, it is considered dangerous. (As one of the websites described: It can bring you to God in more ways than one.)

  No shit.

  Apparently there are multiple fatalities there every year from people falling off the 300- to 1,000-foot cliffs (some in cars, some on foot) and hitting the lava rocks below.

  My husband and Dylan Matthews are now on that list.

  Here’s what my Google search didn’t provide:

  Any helpful information about Dylan Matthews.

  I learned only that she graduated from a high school in a small town outside of Phoenix. She had no Facebook profile I could locate, no Twitter account. She wasn’t on Instagram. A very poor millennial, if you ask Beth.

  I’m pulled out of my thoughts by the doorbell. I squeeze my eyes and mentally will whoever is outside to leave. I can’t face another well-meaning neighbor with a casserole. I’ve started to polish the already-gleaming stovetop when the knocking begins. The longer I ignore it, the more incessant it becomes. Finally I peer through the peephole and see the back of a man’s head, his wavy hair not giving anything away as to who he might be. He turns and cocks his arm to knock again, and I take in his dark eyes and square jaw, not recognizing him. Is he one of James’s friends? I received several emails, phone calls, and cards in the mail from old buddies of his who couldn’t make the service; maybe this guy is one of them, in which case I can’t leave him standing there. I open the door slightly, leaving the chain on.

  “Hi,” he starts. “Are you Jacqueline Morales?”

  I hesitate, then nod. “Yes. Jacks to most.”

  I notice a motorcycle parked next to the curb.

  “I’m Nick Ford.”

  I look at him as if to say, And?

  He steps closer. “You don’t know me, but I need to talk to you.” He pauses as a woman walks by with her golden retriever. “It’s about your husband.”

  I glance down at the welcome mat, his worn cowboy boots grazing the edge. “Okay?” I say as I look back up into his dark-gray eyes, which feel familiar to me somehow.

  “Can I come in?”

  I feel uncomfortable letting a stranger into my house, but there’s something about his demeanor that’s disarming. I remove the chain and step outside, closing the door behind me. “I’d rather talk out here.” I smile slightly to let him know I’m not trying to be rude.

  “I don’t know how to say this. I had it all planned out, but now, looking at you, it just seems wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

  I stare down at my boyfriend jeans rolled at the ankles, my bare feet, the chipped pale-pink polish on my toes. I smooth my still-unbrushed hair, wondering what he means. Now that he’s looking at me, it seems wrong? “How did you know James?”

  “I didn’t.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and takes a deep breath. “But my fiancée, Dylan Matthews, did. And I’m here to find out why she was in Maui with your husband.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  JACKS—AFTER

  My breathing is short and raspy; my lungs are burning. How do people do this? Run for sport? I see cars driving by, people walking their dogs, tiny faces pressed up against the windows inside a passing school bus. But I don’t hear any sounds. It’s like someone pushed the mute button on the world around me. My calves are on fire and my face is dripping with sweat and I have that damn ache in my side, but I push myself harder anyway. When did I grab my Nikes and lace them up? Leave the house? It’s all such a blur since I told that Nick person to get the hell off my property.

  I can picture the sleek black iPod that James gave me five (or was it six?) Christmases ago. He grinned like a goofy schoolboy with a crush when I opened it, launching into a spiel about how he knew I thought exercise was boring, how I’d never found a physical activity that I enjoyed, that maybe I should try running—an amazing endorphin releaser. But I would need music; that was the key. He’d even created a playlist for me—Jacks’s Workout Mix—and he suggested an afternoon run. I eyed the bottle of wine we’d planned to open after presents but decided I’d do this for him.

  But a few blocks into our jog, I was already losing pace with James. I tried to let Beyoncé’s song about girls ruling the world propel me forward, but my breathing was all wrong, and I got a cramp. I finally had to stop and walk, and I told James to keep going. He refused, walking beside me as I huffed and puffed and even spit at one point—anything to get the offensive saliva out of my mouth.

  He placed his arm around my sweaty shoulders, my sh
irt soaked through with perspiration, and we continued in silence until I finally begged him to not let me hold him back. He stopped when I said that. Right there in the middle of a busy four-way intersection. The red hand was blinking, but James wouldn’t budge, cocking his head and frowning at me. “What?” I asked as an SUV inched into the crosswalk, ready to make a right turn, but we were blocking its path.

  “You’d never hold me back, Jacks. We’re in this together. We’re a team. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  “I do know that,” I said sheepishly, watching the red hand count down the seconds behind him.

  The light turned green, and the driver of the SUV held his hand on his horn, the long blare jolting me. James grabbed my hand, tugged me onto the sidewalk, and kissed me on the forehead.

  “I’ll speed-walk race you home.” He grinned.

  I shook my head, suddenly determined to push myself out of my comfort zone. I slowly took my gait from a fast walk to a jog, James running beside me in disbelief. “You sure?” he said. “Don’t feel like you have to run for me.”

  “I don’t. We’re a team, remember?”

  And back then, we were. I didn’t realize then the change that was coming. If I had, maybe I would have cherished that moment, that version of James more. But I didn’t—I took for granted that he’d always stop and wait for me.

  I was wrong.

  I think that iPod ended up buried under half-sharpened pencils and incomplete decks of cards in the junk drawer later that month. But maybe it could have helped drown out my thoughts today as I sprint to Beth’s house, because no matter how large my stride or how hard I pump my arms, I can’t outrun them.

  Dylan Matthews’s fiancé, Nick, showed up on my doorstep like a Jehovah’s Witness trying to convert me. And I let him preach; I allowed him to speculate about my husband’s relationship with his fiancée. To ramble on about the things he needed to know to move on with his life. I listened to him as he paced in front of my house, shaking his head and saying that he just couldn’t believe it. How could they do this to him? To us? I had all the same questions, but there was a part of me that was scared to find out the answers. It was so much easier living in denial, telling myself James had just been having a midlife crisis. That this woman, Dylan, meant nothing to him. I thought of the time I’d snuck downstairs when I was eight years old and peeled the Scotch tape carefully off my birthday gift to reveal the Teddy Ruxpin I’d begged for. Afterward, my chest had felt heavy with guilt; my greed had outweighed common sense. Listening to Nick’s words reminded me of that night—my hunger for information causing me to ignore the obvious: finding out was going to hurt like hell.