The Things We Wish Were True (21 page)

“The next day I left for a work trip, if you remember. It was a trade show, and while I was there I met this recruiter. He was there to scope out the industry’s talent, and he and I talked. We . . .” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. How could she describe what had happened between them? He had looked so much like Everett that it had drawn her to him. He’d been charming, disarming her as they talked and laughed and drank and drank some more. The hours ticked away, and suddenly she was drunk and he was offering,

When she’d woken up the next morning with him beside her, it had been too late to take it back. And when she puked for the first time a month later, she’d known. She’d known that they were having a baby, and she let Everett believe it had happened that same night the doctor told them to just try harder. She’d let him believe it because she wanted to believe it, too. She wanted to pretend.

“You were . . .
with
him,” Everett finished for her.

“It was . . .” Again, she fumbled for the right words. How could she say it was a mistake when it had given her a beautiful child she loved with all her heart? She tried again. “It was wrong of me to do, and wrong of me to lie to you about it after. And I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.” She willed him to look at her with understanding and forgiveness, to look at her at all. But he did not. “I’ve been sorry every day.” Her voice, hoarse with emotion, was barely audible.

He kept looking at his hands. “I’d like for you to leave,” he said. She leaned back heavily in her chair, thrown by his unexpected request. He looked up suddenly, his gaze angry and hurt. “I’m serious. I need for you to get out of here.” She blinked at him a few times but then complied, rising slowly to her feet. She started to walk into the den to collect Christopher, her mind already spinning as to where she could go.

He stopped her. “You can leave Christopher. I’ll put him to bed. I just need for you to not be in this house for a few hours. You owe me at least that.” She started to go tell her son goodbye, but he stopped her. “Don’t stir things up with him. He hasn’t even realized you’re back, so better just to go.” He looked at her, his eyes pleading. “Please.”

With the briefest of nods, she scooped up her purse and keys where she’d dropped them earlier. She paused at the door to look at him still sitting at their kitchen table. She started to speak, to apologize one more time, but he rose and walked into the den, turning his back on her as he joined the son he once thought was his own.

EVERETT

Everett listened for Bryte’s car to start up and back out of the driveway, but he never heard the sound of the engine. He got up and went to the window to see her walking toward Myrtle Honeycutt’s house, her shoulders hunched forward, her head down, her steps deliberate. She was still going to walk that damn dog even with everything else going on. He watched until she disappeared from sight, then went to put the boy to bed. Could he call him his son still? He didn’t know if he could stop. The thought of admitting that child wasn’t his nearly brought him to his knees. But he forced himself to keep moving.

After Christopher was tucked in with his stuffed elephant and his five kisses (forehead, chin, cheek, other cheek, nose), Everett sat in the darkening house, not bothering to turn on the lights. He thought of his wife, gone for several hours now. In the distance, he heard sirens and wondered idly what might be happening. He wondered if he should worry, but he couldn’t consider another tragedy just then.

He wanted to be angry at her. The baser parts of him wanted to divorce her, deny the child, and start over. Declare the Bryte years a false start. He’d get it right the next time. He cataloged in his mind what it would take to separate their lives. He was a math guy, but he could not estimate the cost. He’d always made sense of things, but nothing made sense anymore. He could not be angry at her because she was not the only one who’d kept a damaging secret.

An image came to mind of him and Jencey as inexperienced teenagers, hunkered at a corner table of the town library in late winter of their junior year. He’d said they needed to research sex before they did it so they’d know how, and she’d gone along with his plan. They’d taken books off the shelf and sat side by side, elbows touching at the most remote table, her eyes taking in the words and pictures along with him, two bright spots of color on her cheeks in the too-warm library. Under the table, he’d reached for her hand. She’d taken his, and he’d known that it was as close to real love as he’d ever find.

That one winter afternoon in the overheated recesses of the town library was what had driven him to find Jencey before he could propose to Bryte. He’d tracked her down, living in Connecticut with a husband and two—two!—children. He’d called her, told her he would be in New York and wasn’t that close to Connecticut, playing dumb. She’d said she could get away, that it would be nice to see him. He’d met her in a restaurant in the city, and they’d had a long dinner, catching up and drinking stiff drinks until they were both just shy of shit-faced.

At the end of the night, she’d looked at him and asked why he was really there. He’d never lied to her before, and he didn’t intend to start. So he said nothing. He signaled the waiter for the check, paid the bill, and reached for her hand. Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She just took his hand and let him lead her to his car, a rental. He turned on the heat in the car, tuning the radio to a decent station.

“Are you ever going to answer my question?” she asked.

He looked at her, and that was all the answer she needed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For never coming back.”

“I had to know it was really over.” He laughed at himself. “I mean, of course I know it’s over. But . . . seeing you makes it real.”

She started to cry, tucking her head into her chest. “Yes,” she said. “I have a family now.”

“I wanted a family,” he said. “With you.”

“I know,” she said.

“I thought that was what you wanted, too.” He hated the way he sounded, whiny and clingy. But it was how he felt. And he would probably never see her again. He needed to say it before he moved on.

“I did.” She gripped his arm, trying to catch his eye. “You have to believe I did. But then everything happened, and I just had to get away.”

“You said you’d come back.” He felt anger building up inside of him—anger at her, anger at the stalker, anger at himself for not stopping her. He thought of the hazy days after the attack, the shame and pain all mixed together. He was weak. He had failed to protect her. And Jencey had left because of it.

“I never meant for this to happen,” she said. “It all got away from me. I swear.”

It had all gotten away from him, too. He kissed her then, because he believed her and because he thought that the kiss might make a difference. He forgot all about Bryte back at home. Bryte, who thought he was asleep in his hotel room. Bryte, whom he planned to propose to when he got home. Bryte, who didn’t deserve to come in second but knew she was.

Jencey pulled away, her hand on the car door. “I should go,” she said. On the radio, Death Cab for Cutie sang about peeling freckles from summer skin. He wanted to stop her from leaving, but he sat motionless, listening to the song on the radio and the gentle hiss of the heat from the vents of the rented car. Neither of them said a word. He could feel her wanting him to stop her, to pull her toward him, away from the door. If he asked, she would go with him to his hotel, and he could have her just once more.

“It was good to see you,” he made himself say instead.

“You, too,” she said, her voice gone stiff.

“I’m going to ask Bryte to marry me,” he told her. Because that was what he had come there to say.

She nodded and blinked away tears. “Congratulations,” she said.

“So I should?” he asked her. He wanted her permission. He wanted her to stop him.

She turned to him and gave him a resigned, sad smile. “Yes,” she said.

He could not recall how the night ended beyond that, beyond her yes that freed him to marry Bryte, to make this life he was living now. If Jencey had said anything different, he would not have come back to Bryte, he would never have proposed. It would’ve been the worst mistake he’d ever made, but he would’ve made it willingly if it meant he got another chance with the girl he loved first. In the end, it was Bryte who loved him best. It was Bryte he was meant for. It had taken him far too long to come to terms with that, and he’d made so many mistakes along the way. He saw how his mistakes had led to hers. She’d tried so hard to make their life perfect, to make him happy. And he’d taken it all for granted.

He walked into Christopher’s room, thinking of what she’d done, and what he’d done, and finding it hard to distinguish what was worse. He looked down at the boy he could not give her and thought of all the other things he had not given her. He had not loved her the way she deserved, but he could start to. He would not tell her what he’d done in New York; it would be too much for her. But he could forgive her, and maybe in doing so, it would be like she was also forgiving him. He wanted to take her in his arms and absolve all their secrets. He would do anything to make it right with his wife who was, it turned out, the only one for him.

BRYTE

Myrtle Honeycutt was confused when Bryte showed up so late asking for the dog, but thankfully the old woman turned over the leash without too many questions. Rigby gave her an excuse to walk, to move instead of sit, to feel the blood rush through her veins for a reason other than shame and fear. Rigby pranced along beside her, seeming to enjoy the fact that she didn’t have the leash so tight today. She didn’t care how far he wandered tonight.

Her jaw continued to quiver no matter how much she tried to steel it. She refused to give in to tears and gave herself a good scolding instead, her feet beating out a rhythm in time with the steady stream of harsh words she had for herself. She’d made this mess. She deserved everything that was happening. She’d been a liar and a manipulator. She’d hurt the people she loved most. She had to face the music. She would lose everything, and that was what she deserved. She was a horrible person who’d done a terrible thing.

She reached Zell’s house and stopped, looking in at the warm lights glowing in the gathering darkness, the house like a beacon. She moved up the driveway toward it, tugging Rigby along with her, thinking that perhaps Zell would open her door and welcome her in. She might even make her hot chocolate; that seemed like something Zell would do. Bryte could go to the door with the pretense that she was just passing by and wanted to tell her she was sorry she hadn’t seen her at the pool recently. When Cutter had nearly drowned, Zell had soothed Cailey when everyone else was too afraid to speak. She’d been the one who knew what to do.

That day felt like a lifetime ago. She’d been a different person then, still believing she could hide the truth forever, and run from it if she had to. She thought of Zell and Cailey, of Jencey and Lance. Not one of them who’d gathered around that crying girl as the ambulance wailed its way out of the pool parking lot were the same people they were then.

She walked slowly toward the door and took a deep breath before raising her hand to knock, tempted in that second to turn around. She thought about what Lance had told her about Ty, how Zell was too ashamed to show her face. She felt a kinship with the older woman. She exhaled and knocked anyway. Rigby watched with a curious look.

It was Cailey who opened the door, her eyes widening when she saw who was there. She peered past Bryte. “Is Christopher with you?” She knelt down and petted Rigby.

Bryte smiled and shook her head. “No, he’s at home in bed. But I’ll bring him by another time.”

Cailey gave a despondent shrug and said, “I’ll be gone by then.” She dropped her hand from Rigby’s head.

“Well, you’ll still be in the neighborhood.” Bryte gave her a smile that she hoped looked encouraging. She looked past Cailey to see if she could spot Zell.

Cailey noticed her looking and waved her in. Rigby trotted on in with no hesitation, partly because the house smelled so delicious, Bryte guessed. “I’ll go get Zell.” Bryte watched the girl disappear up the steps, her shoulders stooped and her head down. Bryte took a seat at the kitchen table to wait, wondering idly as she did why Cailey didn’t seem happy about going home. Most children, she would guess, would want to go back home. She’d often wondered as Cailey’s brief stay stretched into a long one why it had been that way. But looking around at Zell’s home, she understood better why she wouldn’t want to leave. Rigby flopped at her feet and closed his eyes.

She heard the uneven gait of Zell limping into the room. Zell paused as their eyes met, then proceeded to the table. She pulled out the chair across from Bryte and sat down.

Cailey tromped loudly into the kitchen and retrieved a mason jar from underneath the sink. She held it aloft. “I’m going outside to catch lightning bugs with Lilah and Alec,” she informed Zell. She hustled out the door without waiting for the OK from Zell. The two of them watched her go, grateful, Bryte thought, for the distraction.

“So she’s really going home?” Bryte asked.

Zell nodded, looking bereft. “Tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting your last night together,” Bryte said.

Zell waved her words away. “I cooked her favorite meal. Later we’re going to watch a movie, stay up late.” Zell shrugged. “To be honest, I’m glad for the distraction. It was feeling a little maudlin around here.” Her grin was just a flash before she narrowed her eyes at Bryte. “So what can I do for you?”

“I was just walking Rigby and saw your lights on and . . . I wanted to say that I’ve missed seeing you up at the pool. And . . . I hope everything’s OK.”

“It will be,” Zell said. She folded her hands and studied Bryte. “It always is.”

“You really believe that?” Bryte asked, hearing the waver in her voice.

“I do. You don’t?”

“Not tonight,” Bryte said. The two women looked at each other, an understanding passing between them.

“I’m all ears,” Zell said, then stood up. “But first I’m going to pour us some wine. And you better start talking.” Bryte cleared her throat and began her story, watching her neighbor stump over to the refrigerator to get the wine. She began to speak, letting her words flow like the golden liquid that poured into the glasses, words that had been bottled up for far too long.