The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

  Again? Dave frowns, and so do I.

  “Aren’t you going to help him?” I call out after her.

  The nurse stops, hauls a full-body sigh and trudges back. She tosses us a dirty look, then disappears into the room. As soon as she’s gone, Dave and I exchange glances and make a beeline for the stairs.

  “Yeesh, I’m not going to lie,” Dave says as soon as we’re in the stairwell. “I’m glad to be on my way out of here. This place gives me the creeps. How depressing was that?”

  “So is my father-in-law.” I hear my words and amend. “Or rather, his illness is depressing.”

  Dave’s expression softens. “His life is depressing, too, sweetie.”

  I sigh, rounding the landing to the next level. “I know.” When it comes to my father-in-law, there are so many depressing things, too many to count.

  “We can try him again tomorrow. Maybe bring along some pictures or newspaper clippings that would spark a memory, but for now...”

  “The police department, I guess. After that—”

  “No, I meant with your father-in-law. Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, do something?”

  “Like what? I just found out he existed yesterday, and it’s not like he and Will ever had much of a relationship. I feel sorry for the man, but it seems like he’s provided for here.”

  “Oh, is that what you call it? Do me a favor. Make sure I never end up in a place that smells of canned peas and dirty diapers, will you?”

  A niggle of guilt rises in me at my brother’s words, along with a flash of irritation he would imply I’m neglecting the father-in-law I didn’t know I had. “What do you want me to do?” I say, pushing from the stairwell into the lobby. “Move him into my guest room?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. But there’s got to be a better place for him than this.”

  “Mrs. Griffith?” The nurse at the front desk says, thwarting our argument before it can escalate further. She slaps a clipboard to the counter and holds up a pen. “If you don’t mind, I have some paperwork for you to fill out.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I frown. “What kind of paperwork?”

  “We just want to make sure we have all the information for Mr. Griffith’s next of kin, and that you are aware of all of Mr. Griffith’s options.”

  I pick up the pen and flip through the pages—a contact form, Medicaid forms, privacy and disclosure forms. Pretty standard fare, though I’m not sure why she wants me to fill out any of it. “What’s all this for?”

  “Providence House is a nursing home, which means we provide generalized care for seniors with all sorts of issues. Our nurses can handle dementia, but we’re not specialized in it.”

  “Then why is Mr. Griffith here?”

  “Because the facilities that cater to memory care either don’t have Medicaid-funded spots available or long waiting lists for those spots.”

  “I see.” I don’t see. Also? I don’t like this woman, or what she’s implying. “Are you kicking Mr. Griffith out?”

  “As long as Mr. Griffith qualifies for Medicaid, he’s welcome to stay as long as necessary. I’m only suggesting that should you have a budget for his care, he may be happier in a larger room or even at another facility, one that’s better suited to the particular needs of an Alzheimer’s patient. I assume, as his daughter-in-law, you would want to make his last months as comfortable as possible.”

  It all falls together then, and I put the pen on the top of the paper pile. “Are you asking me for money?”

  “Of course not. Though we do accept donations.”

  “Let me guess. Cash only?”

  Her lips curl up in a saccharine smile. “A little goes a long way in this place.”

  * * *

  By the time we get to the car, I’m shaking with fury. Literally shaking. Full-body tremors that chatter my bones and rattle me from head to toe. “I cannot believe that nurse just squeezed me for money.”

  Dave hits the remote for the doors and gives me a look over the roof of the car, one that says I can.

  I fall onto the passenger’s seat, pitch my bag onto the floor and slam the door behind me. “And you saw the way that nurse acted upstairs, like calming down a confused, agitated old man was a chore. I don’t want to even think about how they are when no one’s watching. They’re probably too busy watching the Housewives in the break room to pay attention to any of the patients. They certainly can’t be bothered to mop the floors or spray around some air freshener.”

  “You’re probably not far from the truth.” Dave pops the gear into Reverse and swings a long arm over my seat, his gaze bouncing over mine on the way to the back window. “Which is why I’m really glad you paid that bitch.”

  16

  “Five business days?” I say to the female officer behind the Public Request Unit desk, my voice tipping into a light yell that’s only partly from frustration. The Seattle Police Department lobby is a cavernous space of concrete and tile, and the racket of people coming and going makes me wish I’d brought earplugs. “Why does it take five days to make copies of a file from an incident that happened over fifteen years ago?”

  “No, five days for us to contact you about your request, and whether or not there will be any charges associated with getting it to you. We’ll also let you know at that time if any records or portion of the records are exempt from disclosure. In that case, they’ll be withheld or redacted accordingly.”

  Dave leans an arm on the countertop. “So let me get this straight. Five days until we hear whether or not we’ll be able to get a copy of the police report?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Isn’t there any way to expedite the process? Like with an extra fee or something?”

  The woman lifts a bushy brow that tells him he better not be pulling out his wallet.

  Frustration stabs me between the ribs. Five days from now we’ll be back on the East Coast, and unless we find another lead before then, no closer to finding out why Will boarded that plane. Five days feel like an eternity.

  The officer leans to the left, looking around Dave’s shoulder to the man behind us. “Next.”

  Dave steps into her line of sight. “What do you need from us to get things rolling?”

  She passes us a pile of forms and a pen clipped to a clipboard. “Fill these in.” She lists again to the left. “Next.”

  This time we step aside, carrying everything over to a couple of empty chairs by the window. I fall into mine, helplessness pressing down hard enough to make me breathless. “Now what? I’m out of ideas, Dave. Where are we going to look next?”

  “Well, we could go back and case the neighborhood again, or maybe try to track down some more classmates. Other folks might have a different story to tell.”

  “You think so?”

  Dave wrinkles his nose. “Honestly? Both options feel like a wild-goose chase to me.”

  “Yeah. To me, too. And now that we have a copy of the yearbook, I can track down those folks anytime. I don’t need to be here to do it. There’s got to be something else, something we’re missing.”

  We fall silent, thinking.

  I lean back in my chair and replay the conversations with Coach Miller and the old man at the community center, and something about them nags at me. Something one of them said, some detail one of them dropped doesn’t sit right, but my thoughts are like a kitten batting at a ball of yarn. Whenever I’m close to catching it, it rolls away.

  I imagine the teenage Will waiting outside that burning building, watching firemen carry his parents out, one of them in a body bag. Was he really surprised to see his father alive, like that old man said? Even after everything I’ve learned about his life here, I can’t imagine Will knowingly set the fire in the hope that his parents would become victims. No matter how awful his parents were, they
were still his parents, and they weren’t the only lives he would be putting at risk by lighting that match. The Will I knew would never do such a thing.

  And yet, the old man claimed he wasn’t the only one who suspected Will was guilty. Though they couldn’t prove it, the police did, too, enough so they assigned someone to keep him out of trouble.

  I sit up straight, pointing my pen to the lobby lights. “That’s it.”

  Dave frowns. “What’s it?”

  “The old man said that Will was assigned a case officer after the fire. That’s who we need to talk to next.”

  “Okay, but how? He never said a name.”

  “No, but maybe it’ll be in the police report.”

  “It wasn’t in the redacted version I read online, but surely something that essential would be included in the full version. You keep working on those.” He points to the papers on my lap, rising out of his chair. “I’ll go see what I can find out from our friendly lady officer.”

  I watch him set off across the lobby, heading back to the ten-deep line at the requests desk with all the nonchalance of a Sunday stroll, and something squeezes in my chest—warmth and sunshine and fraternal love. Dave dropped everything to fly with me to Seattle. He left his job, his husband, his life to cart me around this strange city, to pick me up every time new news about my husband knocks me down. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him.

  As if he feels me watching, he swings back around and makes a writing gesture with his hand. I smile, blow him a kiss, then return to the forms.

  I’m starting in on the second page when my cell phone chirps inside my bag, and I scramble to dig it out. After my unfinished conversation with the blocked number, Dave and I agreed I should keep my phone at easy access and the ringer volume high. Whoever the sender is, he likely lived in Rainier Vista at the time of the fire, and he seems to have a very different perspective than what we heard from the old man and Coach Miller. Creepy stalker or not, I want to talk to him. I want to find out what he knows. And so I’m more than a little disappointed when it’s my father’s name that lights up the display.

  “Hi, there, punkin’,” Dad says in that easy, steady way of his, and I plug my other ear with a finger so I can hear him. “What’s with all the racket? Where are you?”

  “In the lobby at the police station. Don’t worry, we haven’t been accosted or arrested or anything like that. We’re just here to request an old police report. It’s too much of a story to go into over the phone, but suffice it to say, my husband was a very different person when he lived here. Oh, and it seems I have a father-in-law.”

  “Huh. Well, I’ll be darned. Did you meet him?”

  My father has always been the master of understatement, and I can’t help but smile. “I did, in fact. And he’s not doing so great. He has Alzheimer’s, and his nursing home is awful. More drama that I’ll fill you in on later.” My gaze wanders out the wall of windows, and the pedestrians slogging through the constant drizzle as if it were a sunny day. “Anyway, were you calling to chat or did you need something?”

  “I’m calling because your mother’s been nagging me to find out when you’re coming home, but also to give you a couple of messages.”

  “Why didn’t Mom just call and ask me herself?”

  “Oh, you know your mother. She didn’t want to be a nag.”

  “So she just nagged you instead.”

  “As I said, you know your mother.” I laugh, and a smile pokes through his words when he continues, “Now, you got a pen and paper handy?”

  I dig an old receipt from the bottom of my bag and flip it over. “Hit me.”

  “All righty, let’s see...” There’s a rustling and sounds of paper shuffling, and I picture my father sliding his readers onto his nose and flipping through his list. “Claire Masters from Lake Forrest called to check in, as did Elizabeth, Lisa and Christy, who seemed worried they hadn’t heard from you since the memorial. I assume you have everyone’s numbers?”

  “Yes. I’ll shoot them all a text later.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you. Leslie Thomas said to tell you she’s very sorry, and that if you’ll talk to her, she has a name you need to hear. Something about a cocktail waitress at a bachelor party, if that makes any sense?”

  “It makes total sense, unfortunately. Did she leave a number?”

  Dad recites it for me, then moves on to the next message. “Evan Sheffield called, said he was sorry he missed you at the friends-and-family meeting but wanted to make sure you got the updates. He sounded legit. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave him your email address.”

  “That’s fine. I promised I’d get it to him at the memorial anyway, and then with all the travel, totally forgot.”

  “And a man named Corban Hayes stopped by earlier this afternoon. He seemed like he knew a good deal about you and Will.”

  “He does. I talked to him at the memorial, too. Remember? He’s a friend of Will’s from the gym.”

  “That’s what he said. He also brought by a box of things. A couple of books he borrowed from Will a while back, a stack of photographs, a T-shirt from some run they did together, stuff like that. He said he wanted you to have it.”

  “That was nice of him,” I say, right as something else occurs to me. “You didn’t tell anybody I was in Seattle, did you?” Not that I imagine any of the callers, Leslie Thomas excluded, would be the messenger hiding behind a blocked number, but still, I have to ask. If my father’s been going around telling everyone who called or stopped by where I am, it certainly broadens the suspect pool.

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Think, Dad. It’s important.”

  He pauses but only for a second or two. “No, I’m positive I didn’t say anything other than that you were away for a few days, and that your mother and I were watching the house. Now, could you please tell me why you’re asking?”

  Dave sinks into the chair across from me, flashes me an upturned thumb as a sign of victory. I give him a distracted nod, then fill my father in on the texts from the blocked number. That whoever it is knows I’m here, knows Dave and I are here to excavate details from Will’s past, even claims to know what I’m searching for and that I’m doing it in the wrong place.

  My father’s voice goes deep and deadly, a carryover from his military days. “I don’t like it, Iris. Whoever is sending those messages could be tracking you from your cell. Which means not only would he know you’re in Seattle, he knows you’re sitting in the police station lobby.”

  “Well, at least we’re safe here,” I say, but my joke falls flat. Dad grumbles while, across from me, Dave’s brows slide into a frown. “Seriously, Dad, we’re fine. The texts haven’t been threatening, just...insistent that I go home, which it looks like we’re probably doing tomorrow anyway. Seems we’ve hit a wall here.”

  “Good. Your mother will be glad to hear it.”

  Mom’s voice carries down the line, as clearly as if she’s sitting on his lap. “Hear what, dear?”

  “That the kids are coming back tomorrow.” She says something else, something I can’t quite decipher, and my father sighs. “She wants to know if you’ve been eating.”

  “Yes,” I say, and it’s not quite a lie. I have been eating. I just haven’t managed to keep much of it down. I steer us back on subject. “Anything else?”

  “Yup. Nick Brackman’s called four times.”

  That one gives me pause. Nick is Will’s boss, a man I’ve met only a handful of times at AppSec functions, and so long ago that when he stepped up to me at the memorial, it took me a good few minutes to place him. By the time I figured out who he was, he was already gone. “What did Nick want?”

  “He didn’t say, but it sounded pretty urgent. He left his cell number and said for you to call him on it the second you get a
chance, day or night. He’ll pick up no matter the time.” My father recites the number, and I jot it onto the receipt. “One more thing, punkin’.”

  Something about the way his voice dips shoots up a flare of alarm, and I go hot and cold at the same time. “Okay...”

  He pauses to clear his throat, a delaying maneuver that scoots me to the edge of my chair. “Dad! Just tell me.”

  “Ann Margaret Myers called this morning.” At the name, I grip the chair’s arm hard enough to break it in two. “Sweetheart, they recovered Will’s wedding ring from the crash site.”

  * * *

  Somehow, Dave snags us two first-class seats on the red-eye back to Atlanta, where, according to my father, Will’s ring sits in a padded Liberty Airlines envelope on my bathroom counter. According to Ann Margaret, there’s not a scratch on it, not even the tiniest of dings. I think of the force that must have ripped the band from his finger, imagine the piece of platinum soaring through the sky and bouncing down the cornstalks like a pinball machine, and yet the ring looks as good as new. A fluke, she called it, kind of like the malfunction that took down that plane.

  I sigh and stare out the window, into the night and onto the Seattle tarmac. Whirling yellow lights reflect off the wet surfaces below me, dull smudges of brightness through my swollen eyes and the dark lenses of my sunglasses. I know how ridiculous I must look, wearing sunglasses at ten at night like some wannabe rapper, but it’s the only way I could think of to hide my tears. I’ve been crying ever since Dad told me they found Will’s ring, the one with my name engraved on the inside.

  These past seven days, I’ve held out hope. I told myself Will wasn’t dead, not really, not until I had proof. Not until they found some tiny part of him at the crash site. I latched onto my hope with both hands, clenching down tight with my fists even as the days passed and the hope slipped through my fingers. And then one phone call from Liberty Air hijacked my hope and took my husband—the love of my life, the future father of my babies—for the second time. But this time the loss feels real, and it burns like a brand pressed to my heart.