Never Goodbye

by Adam Mitzner

  At the top of the landing was a long hallway. We turned left.

  “There are five bedrooms upstairs,” Lauren said, sounding a bit like a real-estate broker. “Obviously, that’s four more than we actually need, but you’d be surprised at how you just expand to fill whatever space is available. Our bedroom is on the other end of the floor, but I figured you’d all like to be close to one another and far away from us for privacy, so I decided that the two on this end would be best. I hope, Jacob, that you like a room with bunk beds. I know a lot of boys like to climb the ladder.”

  My son’s face lit up. Bunk beds were about as exciting a proposition as he could imagine.

  All of the doors were closed. Lauren pushed one open. Inside was a tranquil blue room with white bunk beds occupying one wall and a twin bed opposite it. The rug was a beige sisal.

  “This is the room that children normally stay in,” Lauren explained. “And Jacob, I’m going to tell you a secret. Are you ready?”

  He nodded to indicate that he was.

  “Okay. When we decided how to decorate this room, we wanted it to feel like you were at the bottom of the ocean. So the carpet is supposed to be like sand. When you take off your shoes and socks, you’ll find out that it feels a little rough on your feet. We painted the walls blue, like the ocean. And you see here?” She pointed at a chest that was consistent with the nautical theme, looking a bit like what a pirate might bury treasure in. “That’s where you can put your clothes, if you want. And here . . . this clamshell has some toys and stuff you might want to play with.”

  Jacob made a beeline for the toys and immediately pulled out a truck. He looked to me for permission.

  “Why don’t you change into your swimsuit, Jacob? Then you can take the truck outside,” Stuart said.

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Lauren said. Then she added, “The grown-ups should follow me.”

  Stuart and I entered the room next door. It reminded me of a bed-and-breakfast in Maine we once stayed in. Four-poster bed, colorful needlepoint quilt, a claw-foot tub in the bathroom.

  “Here you guys are,” Lauren said. “I’m sorry, no toys in your room—although you do have an en suite bath.”

  Lauren left us alone to change, at which time Stuart said, “Not too shabby.”

  The house was beachfront, but we spent the day lounging by the pool, with occasional trips to the beach for Jacob to collect sand. It was a tough call as to who was ogling me more—Richard or Lauren—even though I kept my cover-up over my one-piece when I wasn’t in the pool cooling off. At four o’clock, Richard announced it was happy hour. He called on Lauren to mix up a batch of gin and tonics. Lauren asked if I could help, and I followed her to the kitchen.

  She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, then poured almost half of it into a large pitcher. To that she added two handfuls of ice. From the shelf above she pulled out two bottles of tonic and poured them in. For a moment, she rummaged through the refrigerator before announcing, “Last, but certainly not least,” while waving a lime.

  After slicing the lime into wedges, her concoction was complete. I assumed we would return to the outdoors, but instead Lauren peered out the window. From my vantage point, I could see Richard reading on his lounge chair. Stuart had joined Jacob in the pool.

  “Come here. I want to show you something,” Lauren said, reaching for my hand.

  I walked with her into the next room, a bright red dining room. A table that easily could seat twenty was in the center, a series of gold-framed mirrors on the wall. It was in the reflection of a mirror that I saw Lauren lean toward me.

  Her kiss took me by surprise. “Not now,” I said, pulling away quickly. “Not here.”

  “I just miss you. I thought having you here would make the weekend pass without the heartache I usually feel, but it’s worse having you so close but not being able to . . . well, you know.”

  I nodded. I did know.

  Richard drank nearly the entire pitcher of G&T on his own. I had just enough to make it look like I was participating, but I wanted to make sure above all else that I kept my wits about me. Stuart isn’t much of a drinker, so he had even less than I, and Lauren was too busy preparing dinner to have more than one glass.

  Dinner was a feast. Grilled steak and tuna, roasted potatoes, a kale salad, and a burger made especially for Jacob, even though I told Lauren that he’d eat whatever the grown-ups were having. She opened a bottle of white wine and poured it equally among the four of us.

  After cleanup, Lauren announced that she and I were going to take a late-night stroll. It was clear from her tone that the men were not invited. Not that Richard cared, as he had already excused himself to his study. Stuart kissed me on the top of the head and said he was going to put Jacob to sleep, then turn in himself.

  Before I headed out, Stuart said, “Be safe. It’s dark out there.”

  It was indeed pitch-black outside, nothing like nighttime in the city. I literally could not see my feet as we walked.

  As soon as we reached the beach, Lauren kicked off her shoes and instructed me to do likewise. The sand was cool underfoot, and I could feel my body relax as my toes acclimated to the soft terrain. The only sound was the crashing of the waves.

  We walked for a few minutes. The houses dotting the landscape provided enough illumination for us to be reasonably certain that we were alone, but it was too faint for anyone to see us from a distance. At a point where the footing became firmer, Lauren declared that we had arrived at our destination. She lowered herself onto the sand, pulling me down beside her.

  The temperature must have dropped ten degrees just during our walk across the beach. After an entire day of feeling like I was near heatstroke, I found myself pulling my hoodie tighter around me. Lauren sought warmth by nuzzling her head under my shoulder and wrapping an arm around my waist.

  “Jacob is wonderful,” she said. “He looks so much like you.”

  “You think? Most people say he favors Stuart. Around the eyes.”

  “No. He’s you.”

  “I think he had a nice day. He still can’t get over that you have your own pool and beach. Tomorrow I’d like to take him into the ocean before we have to head back.”

  “Don’t talk about heading back, okay?”

  She craned her neck up at me and placed her mouth on mine, pushing me back onto the sand. Then she repositioned herself directly on top of me. Her eyes were shut tight, and she looked like she was praying, as if she had found some holy communion with my body.

  We kissed for a few minutes. Her hands all over me, and mine on her in the same way.

  At one point, she inched away from me, just far enough that our lips were not touching, but still close enough that we could resume with only the slightest movement by either of us. Her eyes were wide open, however, glistening. For a moment, I thought she might cry.

  Instead, she said, “I love you.”

  It was almost as if she was telling herself, rather than sharing the sentiment with me. I had been playing out this exchange in my own head for the last few weeks, afraid to say the words first. But I knew exactly what she meant. I loved Lauren Wright in the way people dream of being in love—with that all-encompassing, how-can-I-live-without-you, swept-off-my-feet commitment to another human being. A sense so overwhelming that oxygen, water, and food became meaningless to existence. I believed that I could easily survive on this feeling alone. It was a drug more powerful than any controlled substance, and just as hallucinatory. It warped your mind, made you do things a sane person would never consider.

  I had never reached that height with Stuart. I loved things about him—his calmness, his love for Jacob and for me—but I did not love him like this. Not like I loved Lauren.

  It made me both feel sorry for Stuart and understand him better. I finally realized why he looked at me the way he did. He knew this type of love.

  Once you love someone like this, other love is revealed to be nothing of
the sort. Which makes it not simply a lesser emotion, but a lie. Worse than that, even. It’s an inhibitor of true love, tricking you into forgoing the real thing for a pale imitation.

  When I arrived back at the guest room, Stuart was still awake. He said Lauren and I had been gone long enough that he’d become worried. I apologized and told him that Lauren and I had got to talking at the beach, said we had lost track of the time.

  “What were you talking about?” he asked.

  “What people talk about. Work, a little. Life, a little.”

  “She certainly likes you.”

  I searched Stuart’s face for some clue that he was suggesting something closer to the truth. As usual, he was impossible for me to read.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a feeling. But no need to get defensive. It’s a good thing, right? Your boss should like you.”

  He reached for me. I could not have felt any lower, kissing him. I braced myself for the fact that it was going to get worse.

  Then he pulled away abruptly. “Your hair is full of sand.”

  I instinctively reached up to feel my scalp. It was gritty, as I should have expected from the last hour writhing around on the beach with Lauren on top of me.

  “We were looking up at the stars,” I lied. “I should take a shower so I don’t get sand in the bed.”

  32.

  There were times during my affair with Lauren when I imagined how it would end. I never envisioned any tears, or even raised voices. Neither of us threatened to ruin the other’s life, and our husbands never became the wiser. In fact, in this fantasy, it was as if my relationship with Lauren had never occurred. The only evidence of it was my memory. I even wiped Lauren’s clean.

  The reality could not have been more different. Not only from that best-case scenario, but the worst-case one as well.

  In mid-November, Lauren asked me to share a taxi home with her. We had done this before. A half hour in the car together, an hour if we were lucky enough to hit traffic, making out in the back like teenagers. I knew, however, that there’d be none of that tonight.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it here. I’ll explain on the ride,” she said.

  As soon as we got in the cab, Lauren took my hand. Hers was cold on account of the weather, which had hovered around freezing for the last few days. I wanted to ask her again what she had to tell me, but I was afraid to say a word.

  As the car rolled uptown, I kept Lauren’s hand in mine. She was looking out the window, undoubtedly trying to summon the courage to tell me that we were over.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. “Just tell me,” I blurted out.

  She turned to face me. I could see the beginning of tears in her eyes.

  “I . . . need to stop because . . . because I’m just dying inside, Dana. I’ve been telling myself that for weeks, but I’m . . . I’m just too weak when I’m around you, and I can’t help myself. So I’ve decided that tonight, when I get home, I’m going to tell Richard and beg him to forgive me. I don’t know any other way that I’m going to be able to stay away from you unless I burn the bridge so I can’t go back. Telling Richard will do that.”

  She broke eye contact, peering again outside the window, as if the answer to why she was breaking my heart could be found on the city streets. The cab was moving swiftly, a rarity of no traffic, and we were making every light. We’d be at Lauren’s building in only a few minutes.

  A sense of panic began to take hold. “Stop here,” I called out to the driver. “We’re going to get out right here.”

  “No,” Lauren said, countermanding my directive.

  For a moment, I thought that was it. She was going to do what she said—go home and tell her husband about our affair. This would be the last time I ever held her hand.

  But then she said, “Go to Fifth and Seventy-Second. We’ll get out there.”

  As we walked through Central Park, the air was frigid, and I could see my breath with each exhale. After the initial shock of the air’s chill, though, I no longer felt any physical discomfort. It was as if my entire body was bracing for the deathblow I knew Lauren would deliver.

  “Let’s sit at the duck pond,” Lauren said.

  The body of water before us didn’t look much like a pond. It was clearly made out of cement, and the water was less than a few inches deep at the edges. Bits of ice floated on top, and there was not a single duck in sight.

  Benches lined the western side of the pond. As soon as we reached the first one, she sat down, leaving me ample room to sit beside her without touching.

  There was no one else in sight. That was hardly a surprise, given the weather and the late hour. I knew Lauren had chosen the venue for just that reason. Speaking at a Starbucks in her neighborhood ran the risk of being seen by someone who might report back to her husband.

  “Did you ever read Catcher in the Rye?”

  The question was so random that I almost thought I imagined it.

  “What?”

  “The book Catcher in the Rye. By J. D. Salinger?”

  “Yeah, I read it in high school.”

  “Remember when Holden Caulfield asks, ‘Where do the ducks go in the winter?’ It’s supposedly some great existential question. In the scene, he’s actually here. I think it’s summertime, though. And as you see, the ducks aren’t here in the winter.”

  “I don’t care where the ducks go, Lauren.”

  “Right,” she said.

  I reached for her hand. She grasped it, and then a moment later pulled away.

  My heart burst. It truly felt that way. As if I could feel it shatter in my chest.

  “I love you,” I said. “I love you so much, Lauren.” I was crying now, begging for her not to leave me.

  But somehow, my declaration of love seemed to have the opposite of my intended effect. She stiffened and look at me coldly.

  “You say that like it matters,” she said. Her tone was angry, as if I were ending it with her, rather than the other way around.

  “It’s all that matters, Lauren.”

  “Really? Are you going to divorce Stuart to be with me? Are we going to get married and raise Jacob, like a real family? Do you see that as a possible future? And what about work? You think McKenney is going to let us work together and be together? That’s never going to happen.”

  During our affair, from time to time, we’d talk about a future together, but it was a fairy tale. I thought we both understood that. I couldn’t imagine leaving Stuart, although I also couldn’t put into words why I felt so bound to him. For some reason, it seemed like I’d be leaving Jacob too, even though Lauren reminded me repeatedly that’s not how divorce worked.

  What we had never discussed was what would happen if we broke up. How could we work together? And if we couldn’t, which one of us would leave? Those things were never far from my mind. Nor I assume from Lauren’s either. I assume that, like me, she found them too depressing to consider, which is why we never spoke of them aloud.

  I followed that approach now too, remaining silent in the face of her challenge. That was all the answer Lauren needed.

  She shook her head. I’d never felt lower. She wasn’t conveying disappointment as much as contempt.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I couldn’t believe how quickly my life was unraveling, even though I should have been prepared for it to unfold in exactly this way. If she told Richard, he’d never tolerate my continuing to work with his wife. I could involve HR, or even sue, but that would only make everything worse. If I did that, Lauren would be fired for sleeping with a subordinate, but my career would be over too. McKenney would never make me bureau chief—not after I’d slept with my boss and then turned on her. He’d appoint someone outside the group, and that person would replace me in short order with someone he or she could trust. In the end, all I’d accomplish by going public would be hurting a lot of people, especially Laure
n, and delay the damage to my career by a few short months.

  Which meant that I’d have to be the one to leave Special Vics. But for where? Stickleman wouldn’t take me back, not after he seemed so insulted when I left. I could try the private sector, but it would take months. If Lauren told Richard about us, he wouldn’t wait patiently while I looked for new employment.

  Then I thought about Stuart, and everything got even worse. If Lauren was fired, it would be a public matter. Our affair would be known to everyone. But if I was the one to leave, even if I told others it was to enter the private sector, or to go back to General Crimes, Stuart would know it wasn’t true. I’d told him too many times how much I loved it at Special Vics. If I left, he’d know it was because of Lauren.

  I racked my brain for a way out of the mess that I’d made. It didn’t take me long to seize on it—the only way that I could keep my job and my marriage.

  Lauren would have to die.

  PART FOUR

  33.

  ELLA BRODEN

  Gabriel looks as if he’s seen a ghost. I’ve never seen him shaken before, and it’s more than a little disconcerting.

  I had come to One PP this morning with him to review some old case files. The police brass still thought it was possible that Lauren was murdered by someone she had prosecuted, and wanted to expand the search beyond Donald Chesterman. Gabriel thought it was a waste of time, given that the murder weapon had come from Detective Papamichael, which meant whoever murdered Lauren had to have some connection to him, and an ex-con wouldn’t fit that bill. Still, an order is an order. Gabriel thought I’d be better than Dana at recognizing which of the rather lengthy list of people Lauren sent to prison during my tenure as her deputy, and who had since been released, might have sought revenge. As soon as we arrived, however, Gabriel was summoned by Calhoun Johnson. He hadn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes, but it was obvious that something monumental occurred during that time.