The story sounds completely lame, but that’s beside the point now. Maybe ... maybe he’s marrying Lisa, his girlfriend of the past year or so, and he’s decent enough to want to tell me to my face. To my surprise, the thought roils me. Lisa isn’t the coworker he was screwing during the last months of our marriage, but she was once a colleague of his, and in my mind, I’ve let her become a vague icon of his infidelity. My ex’s betrayal doesn’t hold a candle to what had happened to us the year before, but it hurt indescribably, creating a pile-on of pain that often took my breath away.
No, he’s smart enough not to show up at my door to talk about Lisa.
And then, like a flower blooming in a fast-motion video, I finally realize what his mission tonight is all about, something I should have known from the moment I saw him. He thinks that if we speak in person, he can finally convince me to go back next week to Cartersville, the small city in upstate New York where all that pain got its start. He’s been lobbying for months on this front.
Before I can press him, there’s a rapping on the back door, and we jerk simultaneously in surprise.
“Señora, soy Jorge,” a male voice calls out. “¿Esta todo bien?”
I jump up from the table, unbolt the door, and swing it open. Jorge’s black hair stands on end like he’s been in bed until now, and I realize that’s why the cottage was dark and my phone calls went unanswered, though he’s clearly seen the car by now.
He glances briefly at me and then redirects his gaze toward Logan, his eyes widening in surprise.
“Sí, todo bien,” I say. “Mi amigo Logan—de Estados Unidos—está aquí.Logan, Jorge. Jorge, Logan.”
Logan starts to rise from the table, but Jorge raises a hand and tells him, “No se moleste.” I thank him for checking on me and wish him good night. I’m sure he’s wondering what the hell is going on, but at least he knows I’m not in any danger.
“That’s your caretaker?” Logan asks as I take my seat at the table again.
“Yes, but he has his own small farm on the property. He worked for Sebastian’s uncle for years ... So, you were saying?”
“Right. The bottom line is that once I had the idea of coming here in my head, I couldn’t stop myself. I was so close, and I wanted to see you.”
“You mean you wanted totalkto me, don’t you? About the reception.”
He lets out a sigh. “It would really be good to have you there.”
The reception is being held next Thursday night on the Carter College campus, in honor of gifts Logan mulled over for years and finally made to the school: two full-tuition creative writing scholarships and the funds necessary for the renovation of the office of the campus literary magazine,The Muse. These relate to our daughter, Melanie, who died during the first semester of her junior year there.
Though he’s given these gifts in my name, too, I have no intention of attending the event. In fact, I’m revolted by the very thought of being in Cartersville again. And he knows it.
“You’ll be fine without me, Logan,” I say. “And won’t Steve and Kirsten be there?” I’m talking about his brother and sister-in-law.
“Kirsten now has surgery planned for that week. Nothing scary and not related to the cancer—that’s still in remission—but it can’t be put off. And besides, theirs isn’t the support I need most.”
I throw up my hands. “Youhavemy support. But it’s going to have to be in spirit, not in person. I never gave you any reason to think otherwise.”
Logan shakes his head, his earlier cheerfulness seeping away.“Please.”
“I can’t, Logan.”
He probably thinks this is my way of punishing him. But it isn’t—at least I don’t think so. When I discovered he’d been cheating on me with a thirtysomething employee less than a year after Mel died, divorce seemed like my only option. He asked for forgiveness, saying grief had rendered him both desperate for consolation and utterly stupid, but I couldn’t imagine trying to claw myself out from under my own crushing despair while being on constant hanky-panky patrol, endlessly digging through his pockets for signs of additional bad behavior.
In the years since, however, I’ve let a lot of the anger go and tried my bestnotto be punishing. Logan’s actions were heart-wrenching but, in hindsight, not fully impossible for me to comprehend. Maybe grief makes you do the darndest things, even blow up your marriage. Still, there was no way I wanted to be friends with him.
“If you aren’t there, though, the whole event will seem off,” he says. “You’re hermother.”
“Logan, stop,” I say, anger spiking in me. “You’ve no right to judge me on this. And I’m sorry if you’ve come all this way for nothing besides chicken stroganoff. If you’re worried how things will look, I can write a short statement for the program. And as I told you, I have some poems of Mel’s that I’d love for you to include, along with the photos you’re using.”
They’re actually haikus. Mel seemed to love the five-syllable, seven-syllable, five-syllable structure.
He drums his fingers on the table, looking uncharacteristically flustered. “I’m sorry to have pressured you this way, Bree. It’s just I remember you being so willing to go back there in the past.”
“Don’t yougetit?” I say. Against my will, my eyes prick with tears. “I went to Cartersville when I was trying to make sure the police were doing all they could, and once that was done, I never wanted to see the town again. If I go back now, I know I’ll lose ground. I’ve finally started to feel the tiniest bit whole again.”
For a few seconds, he says nothing—simply studies me.
“Understood,” he says at last. “But there’s something else I need to discuss. And it’s really the main reason I came.”
