“Uncertainty does a thing to a person, I’ve learned,” she adds. “I’ve wondered for so long about that night you left. You can imagine how you disappearing like that played on my mind, and I asked Andy if something happened between the two of you, since surely it had. That was the only thing I could make senseof.”
If only sheknew.
She’s never addressed the night I left, but maybe she’s learned over the years that if she doesn’t say something, it’ll never beaddressed.
“He told me he’d tried to talk you into going back home, and you had a fight about it. It seemedlogical.”
That bastard, covering his own ass. I should’ve figured, and it relieves me in some ways to hear she hadn’t searched for me only because he had discouraged it, not because she wasn’t interested or didn’tcare.
“I can’t say it totally satisfied me, because I didn’t see why you would have pushed me away like that. I kept thinking about trying to find you, and Andy would say, ‘He’ll be ready when he’s ready.’ Sometimes I wonder if I believed him or what, but he would always push the idea aside, and years passed and then he died, and I kept wondering why you hadn’t come around. And then I reached out, and you still kept this distance between us. I’ve been going over and over again in my head about what I could have done…orsaid…”
“Connie…”
“It drives a person crazy not knowing, and makes you ask all sorts of questions. Rethink everything. A few months ago, I was watching one of those daytime TV shows. I’m sure you remember I was always watchingOprahorDr. PhilorSally Jessy Raphael. I can’t get enough ofthem.”
I laugh with her as I reflect on her obsession and how she’d always bug Uncle Andy about whatever the subject of the show had been, wanting hisopinions.
“This one was about spouses who didn’t know their kids had been abused by their significant other. And as I watched this show, it was hard for me to sympathize with them because I heard about the things that happened to their kids. I thought,How could you not have known? How could you not have questioned anything?I was sure they had to have been lying to themselves. Telling themselves one lie after another to cover for theirpartner.”
I don’t like the direction this conversation has taken. Even my right leg, which had been moving frantically before she arrived, has locked in place. It’s almost like she knows something more, but how couldshe?
“There was this other guest, a mother talking to the host about her son being repeatedly touched by his new stepfather. How her bright, loving boy clammed up and pushed her away over it. I was so judgmental of her, thinking how she had to have known. She had to have just seen that kid and known something was so wrong. After he was arrested and she found out the truth, she said she guessed but didn’t want to know. Hearing that really played on my mind. It was like this light bulb went off. I wondered if I’d never considered it because I didn’t want to think that about Andy…if I was lying to myself, or if I genuinely didn’t know any better…or I didn’t ask the rightquestions.”
She takes a breath. “Andy never did anything wrong to me, Eric”—she struggles to get the next part out—“but if you’re trying to protect me, or trying to spare me some grief by keeping the truth from me, I would rather know the truth and be hurt like that than to lose someone I still have a chance to bewith.”
My face trembles beyond my control as tears slide from myeyes.
It’s mytell.
It seems to say more than I need to, because tears race from her eyes as the muscle spasms in her face surely mirror my own. “Oh, God. How could I be so blind? I’m so sorry,Eric.”
“It wasn’t yourfault.”
She’s lost it, her face turning red as the tears flow freely. She reaches for her purse, fishing through. “I just need aKleenex.”
She stops and clutches her chest, weeping. “I’m sure I know why you never said anything, but Iwish—”
“You couldn’t have known, Connie. And I couldn’t tell you when I wasn’t able to face it myself. Even after he passed, the thought of telling you and ruining your image of him was more than I couldbear.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to be in love with a lie, Eric. And truthfully, even though we were still friendly, those sparks were long gone before then. I saw him as a good friend, but now…now I’m only mad he’s dead because I can’t be the one to put him in theground.”
I can’t imagine what this must be like for her. It seems she’s had time to consider it, but the validation—the knowledge that she was right—clearly makes it so muchworse.
I want to console her, but here in the restaurant is an awkward-ass place for that, something made apparent when the waiter arrives with our check. He notices Connie, and I take the check from him, offering a polite thank-you before he headsoff.
She’s found the Kleenexes in her bag and wipes at her facefuriously.
Anger. Frustration.Sadness.
Grieving her deceased husband, but now for a newreason.
17
Jesse
I’m stressedthroughout myworkday.
Eric texted after he and Connie met up and told me it went well, but didn’t go into much detail. He said he wanted to wait and tell me more about it later when we saw each other. I understand he wants to tell me face-to-face, but I want to be there for him, not sitting here struggling with code that doesn’t even make sense anymore—only because of how distracted I am by what Eric surely must be goingthrough.
