A lightning bolt of anger strikes me, so bright, it’s blinding. “Heofferedyou the money?” Offered. Knowing it would stop us from moving forward with starting a family. A careless move, or a calculated one?
Will’s eyes are avoiding mine now, but I can see the shame in them nonetheless. “I’m sorry. I was desperate.”
“But you asked for more money. James got an email…”
He looks back to me. “I didn’t ask for the money the first time, and I certainly haven’t asked for any more. Did you see this email?”
I did, but I didn’t interrogate the address of the sender. Has James employed one of the most basic scammer moves to deceive me? My silence says it all. The fight is fleeing my body. “You had to know what that money meant to me.”
The carpet keeps an iron grip on his focus. “I did. I do. I’m sorry. It’s just…The only way I can numb the guilt of living with this secret is by making my way to the bottom of a bottle. Ironic given what’s happened to Chioma’s dad. It’s fucked up my life. I’ve lost everything. The business, my family, my home…At the very least, the money would sort out some of my debts, keep a roof over Vanessa’s and the kids’ heads.” He pauses, braves eye contact again. “Did you really not know any of this?”
I shake my head.
“He made out like you knew and you were right behind him the whole time. He showed me the letters you wrote. I was terrified.”
It’s hard to piece James’s story together with only the fragments he’s handed to each of us. I think about that fight on the lawn and take my fingers to my temples and rub, hard.
“But you never threatened to turn me in?”
“Never. Although like I say, it crossed my mind. Many times. But my conversations with James have always been about what happened in Corfu, about my guilt.”
“I’m just trying to get this straight. James has been convincing me you want to turn me in, to what end?”
We’re quiet as we shift the puzzle pieces around, trying to get a clear picture. It begins to crystallize. I’m not sure if Will is actively choosing not to see it or if he’s just blissfully ignorant.
“Oh, Will…”
“What?”
My eyes scan the crumbs and stains on the carpeted floor before looking back to the man sitting across from me. “James thought I had a violent streak. What if…What if he’s been trying to trigger me?”
“You mean…” Will stops to suck dry air down his throat. “You think he wants you to hurt me?”
“And I think he wants me to believe it’s my idea.”
“You think he’s been sending you the letters.”
It’s a statement, not a question. And despite the profound betrayal that would require, despite what I’ve wanted to believe about James all this time, I nod. The beliefs I’ve held of him in my mind are milk teeth coming loose. Almost in real time, I can feel them dislodging: bloody, painful, dropping one by one. This New James, the new truths of what he is, are wisdom teeth pushing through my gums: slow, persistentagony as they show themselves. And between this Old James and this New James, there is still a score of gaps, a mouth of gaping wounds. He has somehow left me toothless. Defanged and disarmed. I see some of him, but not all.
“Nat?”
Will. I blink too hard and fast for a normal person, but I’m back in the room.
“Sorry. I’m just thinking. Molly said you called the office today with a message for me. Said my time’s up.”
He’s shaking his head before I’ve even finished my sentence. “That wasn’t me.” He gulps, looks around the room as if for the answer. “I suppose if he adjusted his voice a bit, it could have been—”
“James.” I nod. “But if he knows I didn’t hurt my exes, then why the latest mail?”
Will shrugs. “I don’t have an answer to that. But I don’t know who else it could be. In any case, he’s got to be scrambling. Everything’s coming apart.”
And with these words, my sense of certainty shifts again. How can I be sure that Will is telling me the whole truth? That he didn’t instigate the blackmail, send the letters? It makes more sense than James giving away the cash, threatening me when he knows I’m innocent. The stakes are so high that I feel dizzy looking down from the peak of them, feet wobbly, unsure. A migraine is threatening my head, and I’ve no idea what my next steps should be.
James will be home soon, if he isn’t already. I’ve bought myself some time with my self-care lie, but that time will eventually run out.
Perhaps my silence speaks of my paralysis, because Will suddenly asks, “What are you going to do now? What do we both do?”
Wary of Will’s and my too quickly becoming a “we,” I give him a guarded shrug.
