The simple acknowledgment of her pain loosened something in her chest. At least one person on this planet understood.
"I just keep wondering what else I missed," Kelly continued. "What other signs were there that I was too self-absorbed to see?"
"You were seventeen," Ben pointed out. "We're all self-absorbed at seventeen. It's practically a requirement."
"Maybe. But I thought we told each other everything, but clearly I was way wrong. Now I learn she was seeing someone else behind Cal's back? Someone who might have gotten her pregnant?"
"It actually makes sense when you think about it," Ben said. "Hannah mentioned that Lori had been acting strange, canceling plans, and being secretive. You said yourself she was acting different. And Cal told us they'd fought about marriage, that she'd wanted to settle down and he didn't, and then she suddenly made a complete turnaround and dropped the subject completely."
“She met someone who wanted what she wanted,” Kelly said.
"It's possible. And if so, it opens a fresh line of inquiry. It might explain why Cal seemed genuinely surprised by her behavior changes. He wasn't the father."
"But why wouldn't Lori tell me about this other person?" Kelly pressed. "Why keep it a secret from me of all people?"
"Maybe she wasn't ready to admit what she was doing. Hannah said that she didn’t truly admit it to her. She danced around the question, wanting to drop the subject."
Kelly sat with that possibility for a moment, trying to view her friend with adult eyes rather than through the lens of teenage certainty. Had Lori simply found herself in a grown-upsituation and having to make those adult decisions while they were still pretty much kids?
“Lori wanted to be done being a teenager,” Kelly admitted. “She wanted to be all grown-up and out from under her parents’ rules. Cal, on the other hand, wasn’t in any hurry whatsoever to grow up. He was looking forward to four more years of being a student at college and having fun.”
“Lori may have found a kindred soul,” Ben replied. “Or maybe she put herself into that position sort of accidentally on purpose. A part of her might have thought that if she were a mother, that would automatically make her a grown-up, someone that should be respected and not questioned.”
It was twisted logic, but Kelly remembered the conversations she and her friend group had been a part of back then.
When I’m in college, I won’t have a curfew anymore.
When I graduate, I’ll get a job and my own place. I’ll tell my parents that it’s my house and my rules.
When I live on my own, I’ll be able to eat ice cream for dinner if I want to.
Silly stuff, and mostly harmless.
“The question is who Lori would have cheated with?” Ben asked. “You said she was pretty and popular.”
“There were lots of guys who would have happily dated her,” Kelly agreed. “She could have pretty much had her pick, except for the guys already dating someone else.”
“Unless they were willing to cheat, too,” Ben said.
"I think Keith Caldwell is still a person of interest," Kelly said. "He always paid special attention to Lori in class, and she would have seen him as a mature man."
"We'll talk to him," Ben agreed. "But lets continue to follow this new thread. If Lori was seeing someone else that summer, who else might it have been? We have Caldwell, but is there anyone else?"
Kelly frowned, her mind working to reconstruct that last summer of Lori's life.
"She spent most of that summer helping her aunt at a coffee shop."
"In Bergen?"
"No," Kelly said, the memory suddenly crystal clear, memories flooding back. "In Westfield, the next town over. Her uncle had broken his leg in a bad car accident, and her aunt needed help running the coffee shop they owned. She told Lori she’d pay her if she came to help. Lori stayed with her aunt almost the whole summer.”
Ben straightened, his expression brightening with interest. "So Lori spent the summer in another town, away from everyone who knew her in Bergen. That's a perfect setup for meeting someone new, and away from the prying eyes of the town. And Cal, of course."
"The perfect setup,” Kelly agreed. “And then when she came back for school, Cal said that they were having problems.”
“Because she’d met someone else. What was her aunt's name?" Ben asked, pulling out his phone.
"Patricia Winters. Jim was her mother's brother."
