The Lies That Bind

by Emily Giffin

I stare him down and tell him to never say those words to me again. “You should be talking to your wife right now. Not me.”

  “I did that already,” he says. “We met a few days ago. We’re filing for divorce.”

  “Whatever,” I say with a shrug. “You weren’t divorced when you were sleeping with me.”

  “I know that. And I’m not making excuses for what I did….But I want you to understand something….My marriage with Amy was never really a marriage. She cheated on me right out of the gate. She was actually seeing someone when I met you. She never really loved me. She admitted that when we spoke last week,” he says. He stops abruptly, shaking his head. “Shit, she even had some weird deal with my brother.”

  Shocked, I hit the pause button on my indignation. “What?” I say. “She had an affair with your brother?”

  “No. But she toyed with him,” he says, suddenly looking so broken. “Whether she meant to or not…I read his journal after he died. I wish I hadn’t, but I did. He was definitely in love with her. He was always in love with her…since we were kids.”

  “Wow,” I say under my breath. “Did she love him back?”

  “Who knows? I’m long done trying to figure her out. It doesn’t matter anymore….And I didn’t want to involve you in all of that.”

  “You did, though. You involved me as soon as you stayed over at my apartment on that first night.”

  “I know,” he says. “But I tried so hard to keep it as friends. Don’t you remember?”

  I shrug, but can’t help thinking back to how long it took for him to kiss me, then have sex with me; how he told me, at first, not to come to London; the way he kept his distance for most of the summer.

  “And don’t you remember when I called you from London? On Labor Day? And I told you I had something to talk to you about when I got back—”

  “Yes. But you didn’t. We didn’t talk about anything,” I say. “You had a chance on the tenth—before you supposedly died—and you didn’t.”

  “I know. Because it was so late—and you weren’t feeling well. I wanted to. I was going to.”

  “But you had sex with me instead.”

  “Yes,” he says quietly. “I did.”

  We stare at each other for several long seconds before I say, “Fine. So your marriage was shit, and you didn’t want to involve me in that, and you were going to tell me the truth, but you didn’t….How does that explain the insider trading and the running away? Was that Amy’s fault, too? Was it her fault you stole that money?”

  “No, it wasn’t. And I’m actually not blaming her for anything. I share the blame for our bad marriage—and at the same time, there really was no blame. We never should have married in the first place.”

  I cross my arms and say, “You’ve conveniently avoided mention of your crimes.”

  He nods as a funny look crosses his face. “Did you ever wonder why I took that money?”

  “Greed, I guess,” I say with a shrug. It is my true, best guess, but I’m also trying to hurt him.

  “No, Cecily. I don’t give a shit about money….I needed it for Byron. I needed it to pay for his care and the clinical trial and our travel….I had a friend from high school—a Goldman banker—who asked if I wanted to make some cash doing trades based on his intel. I said no…but then a few months later, this clinical trial came up—and I was desperate. By then things were really bad with Amy, so I didn’t feel right asking her dad to lend it to me. I called my buddy instead, and told him I was in….I never imagined it would get so big…but I only spent the money I needed for my brother. That’s it.”

  “Okay,” I say, thinking that I might have accepted this excuse if he had told me the truth about everything else. But there were just too many lies. “So you came all the way here to tell me this?” I say.

  “Yes,” he says. “I would have gone anywhere to tell you this.”

  “But I still don’t understand the timing. You say it’s because of the baby—but you knew about the baby months ago….So why now? Why wait all this time?”

  “Because I thought you were engaged….But last week, I broke down and googled you, expecting to find a wedding announcement. Instead, I saw that you were in Milwaukee, at a new job….I did a little more digging, and sure enough, I saw that Matthew was still at his firm in New York. I assumed you’d split up….I got hopeful. That’s when I made the decision to stop hiding. So I called Amy and set things straight with her. Then I called a lawyer. He’s negotiating my surrender and plea as we speak.”

  “You’re turning yourself in?” I say, feeling the tiniest shift in my heart.

  “Yes. To the FBI, here in Milwaukee…My attorney knows I had to drive here and see you first.”

  “You drove here?”

  “Yeah,” he says, pointing out the window toward the driveway, where I see that old green Pontiac from the cabin. “I couldn’t exactly fly when I’m supposed to be dead.” I can tell he’s trying to make a joke, but neither of us smiles.

  Several long seconds tick by before he says, “So…why did you and Matthew break up?”

  I start to tell him that isn’t his business, but decide it really doesn’t matter. So I tell the truth. That at first we were just putting the wedding on hold because Matthew wanted to know who the father was. But then we came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to work. For other reasons.

  “Wait, what? He didn’t want to get married before you determined paternity?” Grant says, with wide eyes.

  “Yeah. Pretty much,” I say, feeling the need to defend Matthew. “And I understand that. He has a right to know.”

  “Well, I don’t understand it. If you were mine, I’d do anything and everything to keep you.”

  I feel myself softening a little more, completely against my will, but I still say, “Says the person who lied to me and then ran away from me.”

  “Yes,” he says. “I did run. And I was ready to keep running….I had a fake passport and all that cash….But I didn’t….I’m here, and I’m turning myself in.”

  “Why?” I say.

  “Because. It’s the only way—” There’s a catch in his voice, and he stops.

  “Only way for what?” I whisper, looking into his eyes.

  He looks back at me, just how he used to, then says, “The only way to be a father to this baby.”

  I raise my chin and softly say, “It’s probably not yours anyway.”

  He nods, then says, “Maybe not. But it would be mine if I were with you.”

  September 2006

  It’s a beautiful blue-sky day in Manhattan, the first time I’ve been back since leaving the city nearly five years ago. At first I didn’t return because I was too busy (and broke) being a single mother to consider a trip of any kind. But even after Alice passed the exhausting baby and toddler stages, and I started to make more money at the newspaper, I avoided this place, fearing post-traumatic stress from 9/11 and its aftermath.

  I’m here now, in part to visit Scottie, who, in a most unlikely twist, moved here with Noah this summer after taking a teaching job at NYU and finally coming out to his parents. We plan to meet up as soon as he gets off work. But for now, I am relishing my alone time, wandering through my old neighborhood, both surprised and relieved to discover that my memories are more good than bad. Maybe it’s simply a matter of time healing all wounds, but more likely it has to do with Alice, and the growing realization that I wouldn’t have my daughter had things been smooth sailing while I lived in New York.

  As I pass St. George’s, the church where I once hoped to marry Matthew, I feel detached pity for the twentysomething girl I used to be. The girl who hadn’t yet learned to trust her gut. Who cared so much about what others thought and couldn’t make a move without consulting her friends. Who wanted the fairy tale more than actual fulfillment.

  I no long
er think much about Matthew, but I do so now, remembering the day we got back the paternity test results when Alice was just a few weeks old. We both received copies of the report and opened our envelopes together, over the phone. It was filled with complicated scientific data, but the conclusion was clear, underlined and in boldface, that Matthew was “excluded as the biological father.”

  We both cried on the phone—perhaps for different reasons. But I think underlying the sense of loss, at least for me, was a profound feeling of relief. It was so much cleaner and easier this way. We said we would stay in touch and always remain friends, and I think we both meant it in the moment. But the days turned into weeks, then months, and neither of us ever reached out to the other. Jasmine, who is now working at The New York Times, ran into him at a restaurant in Tribeca about a year ago. She said he was with a date and they looked happy, but she hadn’t noticed whether either was wearing a ring. It crossed my mind to google him—check for an engagement or wedding announcement. But I wasn’t curious enough and never got around to it.

  As I now reach Fourteenth Street, I turn left, heading east toward the river, the same path I took on that fateful night I met Grant. It’s something else I don’t think about much anymore, preferring to focus on what happened after his sentence at a low-security federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Fortunately for him, the judge had been pretty lenient. He gave Grant only fifteen months, taking into consideration all the circumstances, specifically his reason for committing the crime, what he’d spent the money on, and the fact that he had turned himself in.

  He wrote me letters from prison every week, and he called me on the day Alice arrived by a planned C-section. He wanted to know everything—not only what she looked like, but all about the entire birthing experience. I told him she was beautiful, and it was all so incredible. I told him that I’d let Matthew come for the birth—just in case she turned out to be his—but that he was planning to leave the next day. “He’s so lucky,” Grant said, then promised he would come see us as soon as he got out. He told me he was living for that moment. I could tell he meant it, and it made me cry. Of course, everything made me cry in the hours and days after Alice was born—her arrival was just so miraculous. I had never felt love like that before.

  Still, our first few months together were rough, even with so much help from my family. It didn’t scare me being alone, but it was lonely being alone. The bright side was that I felt stronger than I ever did in New York, and really liked the new version of myself. I was more assertive at work, which resulted in better assignments, and I began to learn that the world treats you the way you demand to be treated.

  Grant ended up getting out of prison four months early, paroled for good behavior, serving only eleven months of his sentence. He kept his word, taking a bus to Wisconsin, then a taxi to the condo I was sharing with Scottie. I will never forget the moment he first held her in his arms, the way he looked at her. It was love at first sight—even before I told him the news I had waited so long to deliver in person: Alice was his daughter. He was her father. We cried and embraced her together.

  At first my family seemed worried by Grant’s arrival. My mother was especially concerned, likely having trouble with the whole notion of an ex-con—an ex-con whom Scottie and I had agreed to allow to crash on our sofa. But after several weeks of watching him do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, to say nothing of his obvious bonding with Alice, they couldn’t help but warm to him.

  “So what’s your plan?” I heard my dad ask him about two weeks into his stay, as we were all gathered at my parents’ house for our weekly Sunday dinner. “You can’t work in the financial industry anymore, can you?”

  I kept loading the dishwasher, craning to hear Grant’s reply, as we still hadn’t really talked about the future.

  “No, sir. I can’t,” he said, bouncing Alice on his knee. “But I wouldn’t want to do that again anyway. I’ve applied for some jobs in upstate New York—where I have contacts—and also for a few here. I’d like to be with your daughter one day. But regardless of what happens with us, I want to be a father to Alice.”

  I welled up, then walked out of the kitchen, still too emotional to think about all of that.

  But just a few weeks later, when Grant told me he had accepted a position with the Wisconsin chapter of the ALS Association and would be looking for apartments in the area, I was finally ready to talk. Really talk.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, looking right into my eyes. “I want to be wherever you and Alice are. That’s all I want.”

  “Even if you and I aren’t together?” I said. “As a couple?”

  “Even if…But I believe in my heart we will be. I’ll put in the time—as much time as it takes. I’ll show you, Cecily….”

  I had already forgiven him—that happened while he was still in prison—but in that moment, I started to trust him again. Suddenly, instead of seeing the world in black and white terms, I saw before me a good person who had simply done some bad things. And I was no different. We had both made mistakes and told lies—some bigger than others—but those mistakes and lies didn’t have to define us. We could embrace the shades of gray and begin again, together.

  I am thinking about that watershed moment now, as I approach the red Tudor door of the bar where it all began. I hesitate, then walk in, taking a seat on the exact stool where I first talked to Grant. It’s only four in the afternoon, but I order a pint of beer while I listen to Bruce Springsteen singing “Thunder Road” on the jukebox. At some point, I pull my cell out of my purse and call Grant.

  Thirty minutes later, he walks in, kisses me, and takes the seat beside me. “Wow,” he says, looking around, then whistling. “This is weird, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “A lot of memories, for sure.”

  He knows that I don’t like to talk about the past, only the now, so he asks about my interview instead.

  “It went great,” I say. “I think I’ll get the job.”

  “I have no doubt that you will,” he says. “But do you think you want it?”

  I shrug and say, “I don’t know. It would be amazing to work with Jasmine again. And nothing is bigger than The New York Times, but…I really do love our life in Milwaukee.”

  “Me too, baby.” He hesitates, then says, “I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “What do you want?” I say.

  “Right now? I just want to go back to the hotel,” he says with a wink.

  I smile, then shake my head and ask about his lunch, knowing he met up with some of the people from the Greater New York chapter of the ALS Association.

  “It was good. I learned a lot,” he says, then tells me about the latest research out of Mount Sinai. Apparently, there still isn’t a test to determine if someone has the disease, but they’ve identified three proteins that are in lower concentrations in the cerebral spinal fluids of ALS patients.

  “That’s a great start,” I say, so proud of the work he’s doing in memory of his mother and brother.

  He nods, then points to the red paper bag at his feet. “After my meeting, I hit the American Girl store,” he says, with a wink.

  “Oh, jeez. That stuff is so expensive,” I say, rolling my eyes and pretending to be annoyed. “You spoil her so much.”

  “Maybe,” he says. “But she deserves it…and so do you.”

  He then reaches into his pocket and unceremoniously pulls out a gold ring with a pale blue stone.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say, sliding it onto my right ring finger. “Is it a moonstone?”

  “Yep,” he says, looking proud. “Alice’s birthstone. I saw it in the window of a little shop and had to get it for you.”

  “I love it,” I say, gazing down at it. “Thank you.”

  “It looks great on you,�
�� he says. “But you put it on the wrong finger.”

  “No—it fits,” I say, spinning it around, showing him.

  He shakes his head, raises his eyebrows, and says, “No. It’s for your left hand.”

  “Ha-ha,” I say, though my heart is starting to race.

  “I’m serious,” he says, looking so earnest.

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “I know…but you said you didn’t want a diamond…and this, right here, is a moonstone.”

  I laugh and say, “But I also said we don’t need to get married when things are perfect as they are.” I look at him, thinking about our little ranch house overlooking a pond and an expanse of farmland. The perfect writing view. One of these days, I might actually finish my novel.

  More than all of that, though, I’m thinking about us. Our relationship. Our little family, which we sometimes talk about expanding. It would be nice to have a little boy. Or a sister for Alice.

  “But things would be even more perfect if you’d be my wife,” Grant says.

  I take his hand in both of mine and kiss him on the knuckles. “But you did that once—and I almost did it. And what we have is so much better than that.”

  “I know….Because it’s us.” He gives me a look and my stomach fills with butterflies. “But we can be a married us, too, you know.”

  “Maybe,” I say, weakening. “But I really don’t want a wedding.”

  “Neither do I,” he says.

  “Would we elope?” I ask. “Theoretically speaking?”

  “We sure could…or…we could just go down to City Hall,” he says. “Right here. In New York City. We could do it tonight. Scottie could be our witness….”

  I roll my eyes, but my heart keeps beating faster, and before I can reply, he is ordering two shots of Goldschläger.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t,” I say, laughing and shaking my head.

  “Oh, yes, I did,” he says, as we watch the bartender pour two gold-flecked shots and put them down on the bar in front of us.

  Grant hands me one, and picks up the other as he stares into my eyes. “To us,” he says.