by T. L. Haddix
So with one goal in mind, and that being to get through the rest of the letters without having a complete breakdown, she grimly got started on the task.
It turned out to be so much worse than she’d thought it would be.
Now, as she waited for Eli, she felt torn into pieces. Part of her rejected outright the idea that he’d do many, if not all, the things Erica had accused him of. Part of her whispered that the man had seemed too good to be true all along. And yet another part of her acknowledged that she didn’t care if he had or hadn’t done all those things. She loved him regardless.
That she loved Eli, that had been another revelation Haley hadn’t quite been expecting. And it had hit her as she read the letters penned by his dead wife, a woman who’d had a part of him Haley would never have.
One letter in particular had stood out to her, a letter Erica had written quite literally the day before she’d died. And yes, Haley’d looked up her obituary online. She’d spent a long time staring at the image of the beautiful woman that had accompanied the news of her departure from this earth.
“I have started to think that reconciling with Eli was the worst idea I’ve ever had in my life,” she’d written. “He’s changed so much I hardly know him. He doesn’t laugh anymore. Nothing I ever do is good enough for him. I’ve tried and tried to make amends, and it’s getting me nowhere. I’m tired of being good to try to please him. Even our sex life isn’t what it used to be, and goddamn, it used to be hot. Maybe it’s because he’s lost interest in me now that he’s fucking Sophie. I worry that when he finds out what I did with Eddie, he’ll kill me. Not because of me, but because of her.”
Eddie was Sophie’s fiancée whom Erica had apparently slept with.
“I’m not going to worry about it, though. I have an evening planned at the bar, and I’ll have to let the chips fall where they may. Eli will be home in a couple of days from this short deployment, and I think he’ll head straight to the lawyer’s when he gets here. No more locking ourselves in the bedroom for two days for this old married couple. But I’ll get what I need somewhere else. I always do. At least lately.
“Maybe now that he has Sophie, I can have Noah… Just kidding. I wouldn’t take that freak if you handed him to me dick up on a platter.”
The letter stood out for several reasons. First, it was all over the place. Erica was accusing Eli of cheating in one breath, bragging about her own affairs in the next, and vacillating between lamenting the death of her marriage and not giving a righteous damn. And then there was the taunt about Noah. Haley remembered what Eli had told her about Erica, that she’d broken Noah and Sophie up.
So much of what she’d learned didn’t make sense. There was no way around it. She was going to have to ask Eli what the truth was.
But the thing was, she didn’t know if she’d believe what he told her. And she wasn’t willing to look too closely why she was so willing to believe the worst about him. Not right now. She’d been on such an emotional rollercoaster lately, she couldn’t take anymore trauma and turmoil.
She’d confront him with the letters. And then maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing, no matter what his response, if they took some time apart. The more she thought about that, the better the idea sounded. By the time she heard his car pull up outside, she just wanted to get it over with and curl up in bed, covers over her head, and shut out the world.
Chapter Fifty
Eli’s excitement turned to concern as soon as he spied Haley through the storm door. She was on the couch, staring at some papers in front of her, and her expression was… guarded, he supposed was the best word. She looked up when he tapped on the door, and he saw her mouth tighten.
“Come on in,” she called.
He opened the door and stepped inside. “What’s wrong?”
She gave a slow shake of her head as she lifted her hands in a move that spoke of confusion and frustration. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she said as she slapped her palms down lightly on her knees. She picked up a folded paper and handed it to him. “Let’s start with this.”
“This” was a letter, he saw as he accepted it. He glanced at the handwriting and every bit of his breath left his body. It was Erica’s. “What the fuck?”
“You tell me.”
Eli stared at her, seeing the wariness in her eyes as she looked at him, and felt his heart sink. Quickly, he read through the letter.
By the time he finished, the paper was crumpled in his fist and his jaw had tightened with impotent anger. “Where’d you get this?”
“Do you remember a young woman named Jenna Watkins who lived next to you in Fayetteville?”
“I remember Jay and Lacy Watkins. What is this, Haley?” He let the letter fall to the coffee table, feeling contaminated from having touched it. That’s when the significance of the stack of envelopes hit him. “Are those all letters from Erica?”
“They are. Remember my friend Jenna, the one you’ve never met? They’re her letters. Small world we live in, you see. Her brother was stationed at Fort Bragg—Jay. And she moved in with him when she was sixteen. Apparently, she and Erica were big friends.”
Eli swallowed, feeling for all the world like he’d been sucker punched. In a way, he supposed he had been. “Tell me you don’t believe what that says,” he whispered.
She looked away. “I don’t know what to believe. She paints a very dark picture of you.” For an instant, she laid her hand on the stack of correspondence.
“More of what’s in that one?” he managed to ask, pointing to the crumpled letter. “And you want to know if it’s true? If I had an affair with Sophie? Haley… don’t you know me better than that?”
For a long minute, she stared at the old fireplace, clearly struggling for words. “I thought I did. I don’t want to think any of what she said is true.”
“But you do.” He felt himself go cold from head to toe. “My God, you do believe it.” The urge to run came over him so strongly, he almost bolted on the spot. Only the knowledge that he wouldn’t get very far if he tried to run held him in place. He refused to embarrass himself in front of her.
“After everything you’ve seen, all these weeks and months of getting to know me, you’re going to take the word of a dead woman and let that destroy everything. I can’t even… Oh, my God,” he said with a harsh laugh, his hand coming up to rub at his mouth as he started backing toward the door. “I’m never going to escape her. The ‘till death do us part’ had a hidden clause, didn’t it? Probably after I’m dead, she’ll still be there to haunt me.”
Haley looked at him then, her eyes wet with tears. “It’s just that these letters, they span years. And you yourself told me that you did some truly awful things with her.”
“So if I tell you now that she was a compulsive liar who had a black pit of nothing for a soul, whose only purpose in life was making everyone around her pay for the slightest of transgressions, real or imagined, will you believe me? If I tell you that I’ve never laid a finger on Sophie with any sort of sexual or romantic intentions, are you going to trust me? Or are you going to listen to her?” He lifted his chin, gesturing to the letters. “What else does she accuse me of? Beating her? Fucking anything that would let me touch it?”
He could tell from her grimace that he’d hit the nail squarely on the head. When he felt his eyes start to sting, the tears born of both anger and pain, he knew it was time to go.
“I—I don’t even know what to say to you,” he told her. And without another word, he turned around and left.
Part of him wondered if she’d care enough to try to stop him. When she didn’t follow him, when he made it to his car without a sign of her, he knew it was over. They were done.
And God almighty, he felt like he was being ripped in half. Nothing had ever hurt so much—nothing. Not his split from his parents, Noah, th
e rest of his family. Not losing Erica, and not even losing his foot.
He didn’t remember the trip around the mountain back to Noah’s. If he’d been able to think, he wouldn’t have gone there, because of all the roads he’d imagined having to go down with his brother, this wasn’t one of them. And he didn’t want Noah to see him so vulnerable. He didn’t want anyone to see him in the state he was in.
But he wasn’t thinking. He just knew that he had to get somewhere safe. And so he went to Noah. Went home.
“You’re back early,” his brother said when he walked in. “Forget something?”
Eli didn’t—couldn’t—answer. Instead, he stood there, hand braced on the counter as he stared at Noah as though he’d never seen him before.
Noah was on his feet and by Eli’s side in a flash. “What’s wrong?”
“It didn’t work out,” he whispered. And he started laughing.
He ignored the fact that tears were streaming down his face as he laughed, as Noah held him tight, keeping him upright, because grown men didn’t sob like babies when they had their heart broken by the girl they’d thought was the one.
Chapter Fifty-One
A little over two hours later, a very serious discussion was taking place.
“Who should we call? Syd?” Noah asked.
Eli, slumped against the back of the booth, rubbed his eyes. “No. She’s married. Pregnant. All that stuff. What time is it again?”
The face of his watch was a little blurry, but Noah managed to read the hands. “Ten thirty. What about Molly?” She was in town for a meeting next week with a potential employer.
“She’ll do.” Eli picked up his nearly empty mug of beer and saluted him. “Call ’er up.”
So he did. He got his phone out with a little difficulty and dialed, snickering when Molly answered.
“Is this Yellow Cab service? I need a pick-up for two lushes.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line, then Molly’s incredulous, “Noah? Are you drunk?”
He’d put her on speaker, and Eli, who’d leaned in so he could hear over the music in the bar, cracked up laughing. “Yes, he is. On two beers.”
“Don’t forget the whiskey,” Noah added carefully. “That’s very important, the whiskey is.”
“Oh, my God. You two are too old for this shit. Where are you? You’d better not be driving.”
Noah scowled down at the phone. “Of course we’re not. That’s what you’re for.”
Eli high-fived him, though the slap was more of a miss than a hit. “Come on, Mol. Are you gonna head out here or not?”
Her sigh was audible even in the noisy bar. “Where is here exactly, you dolt?”
“Bent Wheel on Main Street,” Noah said. “We’re in the booth by the door. I think.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes, tops. You are so gonna owe me for this. Both of you.” The beep-beeping indicated she’d disconnected, and Noah slid the phone back in its holster.
“She’s going to lecture us,” he enunciated carefully. “We’re going to get grounded.”
The thought of Molly, who was ten years his junior and a slip of a girl to boot, lecturing them sent him into a snorting fit of laughter. But when she came in the door a scant seven minutes later and spotted them, her hands went to her hips, and her eyes narrowed. All of a sudden the prospect of listening to her lecture didn’t seem like such a funny proposition. It especially seemed grim when their father appeared behind her.
“Hi, Dad.” Noah sat up straight. “Molly. Thank you for coming, though you didn’t have to tell Dad about this. Eli, ready to go?”
Eli was already easing his way around the booth. “Yep.” Despite his having over-imbibed, Noah thought his brother got to his feet well enough, maintaining his balance with a good degree of control, all things considered. He held his hands out in front of him as though waiting to be handcuffed. “Lead on, fair maiden. Dad.”
“Eli.” John was eyeing them both with concern. “Who drove you two?”
“I did.” Noah handed him the keys to his truck. “Do you mind?”
“Not in the least,” John said.
Molly rolled her eyes with disgust and walked to the door. “I can’t believe this. I cannot believe this. Come on, already.”
A blast of cold air hit them when she opened the door, and it was almost as sobering as a slap to the face. Noah’s eyes watered from the sting, and he sniffed back tears.
“Damn, it’s frigid as a witch’s tit out here,” he said, shrugging into his coat a little deeper. “Hard to believe it’s just Halloween. Poor little kiddies. They’ll freeze their asses off.”
Molly turned and whacked his arm, hard. “Shut up.”
“Geez, sorry.” His face flushed. Normally, he’d never have said such a thing in front of her, even though there’d been more than a handful of times he’d heard Molly herself swear like a sailor. But the booze had loosened his tongue.
“Did you have to park at the end of the block?” Eli asked.
“You’re lucky you don’t have to walk home,” she said as she unlocked her car. “I’m not driving all the way up to Firefly Hollow tonight. You’re bunking at Mom and Dad’s.”
“What about Fig?” Noah said, appalled, staring at her across the car. “She’ll be scared.”
Molly shook her head, looking down the street as though counting to twenty in her mind. “Did you feed her before you left home?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. And I gave her extra kibble for her snack.”
“Does she have water?”
Noah narrowed his eyes at her tone. “Yes, she does.”
“Then she’ll survive the night without you. Now get in, or you can go sleep it off in your truck.” And with that, she got behind the wheel.
“I should have called Sydney,” he grumbled as he folded himself into the backseat. “She wouldn’t be so judgy.”
Molly shook her head. “Sydney would have sent Sawyer. No way would he let her be out in this cold.”
The hell of it was, she was right. Noah knew it, and he couldn’t say a word of protest.
The porch light was on when they pulled into John and Zanny’s driveway a few minutes later, and before they could get their seatbelts unbuckled, Zanny was on the porch, arms crossed over her middle as she waited for them.
Noah thought Molly slammed the driver’s door with a little more force than was strictly necessary when she got out. He winced. “Think we’d freeze to death if we slept here?”
Eli sighed. “Probably. Come on. Maybe this won’t be so bad.”
Noah wasn’t drunk enough to think it would be good, but he didn’t want to argue.
“Mom, hi,” he said as they slowly made their way from the car to the porch as John parked the truck, then joined them.
“Boys. Do I even want to know?”
They both shook their heads. John had to move fast to keep Eli from losing his balance.
“Easy.”
“You two need to sit down before you fall down,” Molly said with a frown from where she stood on the porch beside Zanny. It almost made Noah think he was seeing double, their postures were so alike.
Once they were inside, she guided Eli to the couch. “Come on. You, too, goofball.”
Noah went. As she stood over them, shaking her head much like their mother tended to do when they’d irritated her, the humor in the situation struck him again. He snorted.
“Shhh, you’ll piss her off,” Eli said, nearly stabbing himself in the eye with the finger he held up to his mouth in a shushing motion. “We’ll get grounded for real.”
“No, we won’t. We’re adults.” Noah grinned at him, the expression turning to laughter when Eli scowled.
“What do we do with them?”
Zanny asked John. “Coffee?”
Noah waved at her. “Hi, Mom.”
Zanny blinked as Molly snickered. “Hi, Noah. How are you?”
“I’m good. How are you?” he responded.
“I’m fine. I can’t believe this. They’re both…”
John nodded. “Sloshed. Yep. Both of ‘em.”
Zanny’s hands slowly went to her hips. “Um. Okay.”
“We’re okay,” Noah repeated. “That’s us.”
“Hey, Mom? Wanna hear a joke?” Eli asked. “It’s a good joke. I just thought of it.”
“This should be entertaining,” John said dryly.
Noah waved at him with a grin. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, Noah.” He couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought his father’s cough hid a laugh.
Eli sat up a little, then immediately slid back down into a slouch against the cushions of the couch. “A blond, a brunette, and a redhead walk into a bar. What’s the bartender say, Dad?”
John looked from the boys to Zanny, who shrugged, then back at Eli. “I don’t know. What’s he say?”
“Who let those rotten Campbell kids in here again?”
At that, he and Noah dissolved into laughter, leaning against each other as they snorted and yes, giggled.
“That’s very funny, boys,” John said, and Noah thought he heard him sigh. “Just how much did you have to drink that you’re so…”
Noah nodded. “Snoogered. Kerred. Somethin’ like that. Two beers.”
“And a whiskey,” Eli put in. “The whiskey’s important.”
“Yep.”
“I had more, though,” Eli confessed. “He’s a lightweight.”
Molly rolled her eyes, then turned and started up the stairs. “I went and got them. I’m going to bed now. You both owe me, you know.”