She nods like she understands, but she couldn’t. It’s nice that she’s trying, though.
“Give me a minute or two, and I’ll come back and we can talk about it. Today’s already been a tough one for me, so I’m grabbing an extra-large. Be right back!”
With that, she walks up to the counter and orders her food while I stare at the door to watch for every person who’s coming in. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here today. I should have done the drive-thru and gone home.
Every horrible thing that could possibly happen plays out in my mind, only interrupted by Kelsey returning to the table to join me. I force a smile because I don’t want her to know I’m utterly miserable, but she seems to be able to see right through my happy façade to find the truth.
After taking the first bite of her hot, buttered scone and then a sip of her coffee, she folds her hands in front of her and says, “So, I get the feeling something’s wrong. I know we don’t really know one another very well, so I understand that you might not want to talk about it with me. Just know that I’ve got two really strong shoulders and two ears happy to listen to what you have to say.”
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t tell anyone I’ve only known for such a short time what’s bothering me, but I almost can’t stop myself. If I don’t get to talk to someone about this, I’m going to end up hiding out under the covers for the rest of the day.
I take a big gulp of my iced latte to give me courage and start to tell her what’s happened. Kelsey listens as I explain how Connor went out while I was taking care of all the girls at the party and something terrible happened. Then I tell her how the kids at school are shunning my daughters while the mothers are acting like I’m the worst person in the world. I barely keep myself from crying the entire time, but I get the whole story out, thankfully.
It's too much for me, though, when she reaches across the table and gently pats my hand. Her kindness makes my emotions surge to the surface, and before I know it, I’m sobbing in the back corner of The Coffee Mug.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble from behind my hands. “I guess I’m just very emotional today.”
“Oh, Jamie, it’s okay. Cry away. Don’t stop on my behalf. Sometimes a good cry is the best medicine for what ails you.”
I wipe the tears from my face and try to be strong, even if I feel like I’m going to fall apart again at any moment. “I know. I just need to be strong for my daughters and Connor, but when it’s just me, I swear I want to just cry my eyes out. I’ve worked so hard to give my girls everything they could need to be successful, and in one weekend, it’s all been smashed to pieces.”
“Well, you know your husband better than anyone else, so if you say he wouldn’t do anything like that, then that’s good enough for me.”
She sounds so sure of herself when she says that. The problem is I don’t feel that sure about what she’s claiming. I’ve never seen Connor get violent with anyone, but he does keep guns in the house, so he isn’t completely against hurting another person.
After a minute or so of my not saying anything, she leans in and quietly asks, “Is it possible? You didn’t say anything when I said that, which makes me think there’s something else on your mind.”
Immediately, I shake my head no. “Connor isn’t a criminal. If I believed that for even a split second, I’d go to the house, pack up my things and the girls’ things, and leave him today.”
Again, she nods. “Okay, then. That being settled, now the police just need to catch up with what you know. Have they questioned you at all? Maybe if they heard that from you it could help.”
“No, they haven’t talked to me at all. I’m guessing they figure since I wasn’t there that I wouldn’t know anything that would help the case.”
That I might know something isn’t wrong, but that it’s a detail that could hurt my husband is a problem.
Kelsey seems to pick up on my apprehension about Connor and says, “If you tell me anything, I promise I won’t tell a soul. Trust me. I know how it feels to be involved in something you had no part in starting.”
Maybe it would be okay to tell her and only her. She has been very nice.
I lean close to the table and whisper, “I don’t know if this is important, but when I checked my husband’s storage box for his guns yesterday, one was missing. I thought the police would figure that out by now, but nobody’s mentioned that at all. They’re all talking about him being a murderer, and they don’t even know one of his guns is missing. If they knew, I can only imagine what they’d say.”
Knowing that makes my stomach clench from stress. All of these people we considered friends of ours already believe Connor is a killer. Just wait until the cops find out one of his guns is gone.
“Forget them, Jamie. People love to gossip. I swear it’s the most popular thing in suburbia. The gun being gone is concerning, though. You don’t think he had that gun on him when he went for the hike with that poor man, do you?”
I want to shake my head. I want to definitively say there’s no chance in this world that Connor would have taken a gun with him on a simple hike around our community. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do anything with any of the guns he owns.
But I can’t say without a shadow of a doubt he didn’t have that gun on him Saturday.
Quietly, I give voice to the worst thing I’ve ever thought about Connor. “Kelsey, I don’t know. Why would he take a gun on what was basically a nature walk?”
She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m not from around here, so maybe he thought there may be some wild animals he’d see that he might need protection from?”
Even as she says that, I see she doesn’t believe it any more than I do.
“Wild animals on what’s basically a trail in a park? We all call it a hiking trail, but the HOA handles the upkeep, so it’s not like it’s exactly a wild area. Oh, God! What was he thinking?”
Suddenly, my emotions get the better of me, and I begin sobbing quietly again. Am I saying I think Connor possibly used his gun to kill that poor man? I don’t know. All I do know is none of this looks like it’s going to get better anytime soon, and that means I have to figure out what I’m going to do to protect my girls.
