The One I Trust (4 page)

“This is really nice,” Emily said, eying the wall of glass that looked over the ocean.

“Thanks,” Anneka told her. “Your room is this way.”

I unpacked my bag in my bedroom and when I went back into the living room, I found Emily standing by the window, staring out at the ocean. I looked at that tan skin and silky blue tank top showing beneath her lacy sweater and I remembered that she was going to be twenty in less than a week.

How can such a small fact make such a huge difference?

Hale, Anneka, and Molly emerged from the master bedroom, interrupting my thoughts. Anneka’s handbag was slung over her shoulder.

“We’re off to get some oysters,” Hale announced. Roasting oysters on Thanksgiving Day was a tradition for Hale—any turkey that may or may not have made its way to the dinner table was merely an afterthought—and getting the oysters with Hale the day before had always been my job.

“Don’t you want me to go?” I asked.

“No, no,” Hale said, suppressing a smile and waving a hand at me dismissively. “We’ll go.”

“Do you want us to watch Molly?” Emily offered.

“No, no,” Hale said again, dismissing her this time. “We’ve got it.” And he and Anneka shuttled Molly out the door before we could question them further. I wondered briefly how they had convinced Molly not to beg to stay behind with me and Emily, deciding that they’d probably bribed her with bacon.

I looked at Emily just like I had in the van, only this time I didn’t have any chips to offer her.

“Wow,” she said, looking after them as the door closed. “Are they going to keep on doing this?”

“You probably haven’t seen anything yet.”

She stared at me in surprise. “Seriously?”

“Have you not realized how desperate they are to hook me up with someone?”

“They do this to you a lot?”

“No. You’re the first person I’ve gone out with in years . . . that’s why they’re so desperate.”

She laughed and sat down in a white leather chair that was close to the window.

“So why don’t you tell me that long story?” I suggested, settling onto the matching couch near her.

She looked at me quizzically.

“About why you aren’t going home for Thanksgiving?” I reminded her. “I mean, I suspect we have plenty of time before they get back.”

Her face immediately darkened.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said hastily, realizing for the first time that she might not
want
to talk about it.

“It’s okay,” she said, giving me a halfhearted smile. “My parents live in Pennsylvania.”

She turned and stared out the window at the gray ocean. “It’s about an eight-hour drive.”

I waited for more, but she didn’t go on.

“That’s not a very long story,” I pointed out carefully.

“No,” she agreed, turning to face me again with sadness in her eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said again.

She stared out the window again, and then she started talking.

“My parents have these friends,” she began. “Rick and Cathy Vance. My dad works with Rick. I’ve known them all my life. My brother and I grew up with their kids—vacations, camping, going out to eat, all that stuff, you know? We were together all the time.”

She was still looking out the window, but I nodded anyway.

“Their oldest son, Ethan, is a year older than me. We started dating when I was in the tenth grade. High school sweethearts, that kind of thing. You know?”

She glanced at me and I nodded again.

“So, anyway,” she went on. “Ethan’s going to be a veterinarian and he decided to go to State. So after I graduated from high school the next year I followed him down here . . .”

She hesitated and shook her head in apparent disgust before continuing.

“We got engaged last year,” she said quietly. “We were supposed to get married next month.”

“Next month?” I asked.

“Yeah. The week before Christmas.”

“What happened?”

She looked me right in the eye.

“He slept with my best friend,” she answered calmly. “My maid of honor.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I walked in on them together.”

“Wow,” I said softly. “That’s pretty, uh . . .”

“Low?”

“Well, I was thinking of another word.”

“Anyway,” she shrugged, shaking her head again as if trying to shake off the memory. “My parents are still best friends with Rick and Cathy and they’re all having Thanksgiving dinner together tomorrow afternoon just like they always do and . . . I don’t know. I just didn’t really feel like dealing with it.”

“They’re going to be at your parents’ house for Thanksgiving?”

She nodded.

“Is
he
going to be there?”

“I think so,” she said, tears coming to her eyes for the first time. “See, that’s the thing. Somehow
I’ve
wound up being the bad guy here. Everybody acts like it’s my fault we broke up or something. My parents spent all this money on my dress and the invitations and everything and my mom said nobody’s perfect . . .”

“She still wanted you to get married to him after he slept with your best friend?” I stared at her, incredulous.

“She said he was just sowing his wild oats,” Emily explained. “She said that all guys do it.”

“That’s not true.”

“What?”

“All guys
don’t
do that,” I said, hearing the defensiveness and anger growing in my voice. “I get so
sick
of hearing how all guys cheat. They don’t. I didn’t. I
never
cheated on my wife. Not once. Not before we were married and not after.”

Emily looked at me in surprise. I glanced away for a moment and then let out a long breath before looking back at her.

“Sorry,” I said. “This actually wasn’t about me, was it?”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she said quietly.

“I just think you made the right decision,” I finished. “Not all guys cheat. You shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

She looked at me appreciatively. “Thank you,” she said softly.

I nodded understandingly and neither of us said anything for another minute.

“Why did you and your wife break up?” Emily asked after a moment.

Talk about long stories . . .

I shrugged.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s okay,” I assured her.

She looked at me expectantly.

“Like I said,” I began, “I never cheated on her—not ever—and I never gave her any reason to think that I did, but . . .” I paused. “But she accused me of it all the time,” I continued. “I mean, I was a cop—we don’t always get to work nine to five, you know? And the last year we were together I was a detective . . . sometimes I’d be tied up with a case all night.

“Every time I came home she yelled at me that I was cheating on her. She said she was having me followed and that she had proof. But she didn’t have proof because I wasn’t
doing
anything. She wanted to go to marriage counseling so we went to marriage counseling. That didn’t fix anything. She wanted us to move into a different house, so we moved. That didn’t fix anything. One day she threatened to leave me and I told her to go ahead. I didn’t think she’d really go and she probably thought I wouldn’t let her.” I looked at Emily and shrugged. “I guess both of us were wrong.”

That was the short version of the story, but I decided it was probably good enough for right now. Emily nodded and we looked at each other quietly for a moment.

“Let’s change the subject,” Emily suggested.

“Okay.”

“Why are
you
here?” she asked. “Don’t your parents want you home for Thanksgiving?”

“Uh, actually both of my parents have passed away.”

Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand.

“I’m
so
sorry,” she said. “I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” I said. “My dad died when I was a baby and my mom died in a car accident when I was in college.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. Then she asked, “You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

“Nope,” I said. “I was an only child.”

“What about your grandparents and aunts and uncles and stuff?”

I hesitated. “You know how a minute ago you said we should change the subject?”

She nodded.

“Let’s do that again,” I suggested.

She looked at me for a moment and then gave me a small smile.

“Okay,” she agreed. “How about we talk about the fact that I’ve never been to the beach before and I’m really dying to go down there and see it.

“You’ve never been to the
beach
before?” I stood up. “Well, come on. Let’s go.”

“This is amazing!” Emily cried, jumping back in the wet sand just in time to avoid a large wave. “Come on . . . take off your shoes!”

“No,” I assured her. “I’m good.”

We strolled down the beach—her just in the surf, me just out. I avoided asking her if her feet weren’t cold because that was the kind of thing I would have asked Noah, not a grown woman of almost twenty.

We walked a bit further and after a few minutes came upon some people who were throwing pieces of bread into the air. They’d already attracted a tremendous number of seagulls, and we got closer to watch.

“I love them,” Emily said. “They’re so beautiful. Look how they just float in the air.”

Instead, I looked at her and thought about how beautiful she was, staring up at the gulls with childlike wonder.

Wait. Not
child
like . . .

I tried to think of a different word to describe the look on her face but finally gave up and just joined her in admiring the seagulls. I had to admit that she was right: they were beautiful, and as we watched them, I couldn’t help but think how much Noah would have liked them, too.

That evening, after Molly was in bed, the four of us played cards. Having four adults present instead of only three opened the door to a wide slate of possibilities that had not existed since my divorce—spades, hearts, bridge. Hale seemed to have an especially good time (probably because it was the first time in over a year that I’d been willing to do anything that was even remotely fun).

The next day, Anneka and Emily worked in the kitchen while Hale and I busied ourselves on the spacious back deck, preparing to steam oysters. The sun was out, a breeze was blowing, and Hale launched two kites into the air for Molly. He tied one to the deck rail near the hot tub and the other to the rail at the bottom of the stairs near the fire pit. Molly spent most of her time gazing up at them, as fascinated with them as Emily had been with the gulls the evening before.

There was so much to do that Hale and Anneka had no opportunity to conveniently leave me and Emily alone with each other, although sometimes Emily would come out onto the deck to admire Molly’s kites or sit for a few minutes on the swing in front of the fire pit. Sometimes I would wander into the kitchen to dig around for a pair of tongs or to find a colander, but there were no moments where our hands accidentally touched and we gazed into each other’s eyes or anything like that.

When it was time to eat, we gathered in a circle in the living room and held hands. Hale said a blessing at every meal, but it usually wasn’t anything too impressive. For big events, however, like Christmas or birthdays, he kind of went all out.

I tried to remember what Hale’s prayer had been at last year’s Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t. I only remembered that I had lost my marriage, my job, and custody of Noah. I remembered that I’d foolishly believed that I’d lost everything . . . that things couldn’t get any worse.

Two days later I’d found out exactly how much worse they could get.

“Heavenly Father,” Hale began, “we come together today as a nation to thank You for the many blessings You give us, but we are blessed
every
day, Lord. Please help us to remember that. Please help us to remember that You work everything to the good of those who love You and please help us to see what You are doing around us and for us every day, and to never stop thanking You for all of it. We especially thank You for second chances, Lord. For the bright future You have promised each of us. And for friendships, old and new. We thank You for this food we’re about to eat. Please bless it and bless the hands that prepared it. Let it nourish our bodies and allow us to live the lives that You have called us to live. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Hale as everyone uttered a chorus of “Amens.”

He looked back at me and smiled.

Second chances and bright futures . . .

I really wanted to believe him.

That evening we played euchre and Emily and I kicked butt. She was smart and we made a really good team, but I couldn’t get too happy about anything because Saturday was still looming in front of me.

On Friday, Anneka and Molly made waffles before we all drove to Beaufort and spent the day perusing gift shops. We had pizza for dinner in Morehead City and took Molly to a movie about a worm that lived in a vacant lot in Manhattan. He overcame floods and droughts and predators only to fall victim to progress. In the end, however—with a little help from his friends—he managed to prevail. When the movie closed, he was living in a garden on top of one of the tallest buildings in the city. The story ended with a view of the little worm perched on the edge of the building, surveying the glorious sun setting over the Hudson . . .

Noah would have liked it.

I WENT TO bed early that evening, not feeling up to playing cards. For most of the night I tossed and turned. The few times I did fall asleep, I would jolt awake, hoping my thoughts were a bad dream and then remembering that they were not.

In the morning, I got out of bed, took a shower, and pulled on jeans and an old sweatshirt. I went into the kitchen and found everyone else gathered around the table eating cereal.

Everyone was quiet. Everyone knew. Anneka tried to hand me a box of Cheerios, but I ignored her. I asked Hale, “Can I borrow the van?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”