Two women sitting cross-legged in the grass with iced coffees and open laptops. Normal lives moving around me while I walk toward a bench to ask a stranger whether the man I am terrifiedto admit I have fallen for had anything to do with his wife’s death.
Completely normal.
I smooth one hand over the front of my coat, then immediately stop because I am doing it over my stomach.
I am not thinking about that right now.
That is a separate crisis.
Except it is not separate.
That is why I am here.
I need to know what Cindy Sullivan knows, and then I can stop.
That is what I have told myself all week.
One conversation. One more source. One person who may have seen more than what is online. Then I will know whether this is anything or whether I have spent days torturing myself over phrasing and rumor and badly translated Italian articles.
I cannot really think these things about Mario.
I cannot.
Not the man who texted me every day, even when I gave him almost nothing back.
Not the man who did not push, even though I could feel the restraint in every message.
Not the man whose sons would clear the house to give him privacy with a woman, whose family works with him every day.
But there are facts and gaps.
There are words no journalist would use by accident.
I recognize the woman sitting on the bench immediately.
Cindy Sullivan looks like her LinkedIn photo, mostly. Pretty, middle-aged, brown bob, camel coat, dark trousers, ankle boots that are too nice for a park. She has sunglasses pushed up on her head and a paper coffee cup in one hand. A leather tote sits beside her, angled close to her hip
She looks up before I reach her.
“V?” she asks.
I hate this. I hate it so much.
“Yes.”
She studies me quickly, and I feel every part of the assessment. My coat. My face. My hands. The fact that I probably look like I have not slept properly in days.
Because I haven't.
Then she smiles.
“Cindy Sullivan.”
She stands and offers her hand.
I take it.
“Thank you for meeting me,” I say.
