The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

  “Will went to Hancock High. In Seattle.”

  For the longest moment, Corban is speechless, a lapse of silence that amplifies the coffee shop sounds all around us. His face goes slack, like he’s run headlong into a door. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I have the yearbook to prove it.”

  “So, okay. That’s...” He runs a palm over his shiny scalp, and I can see his mind working, trying to puzzle the pieces together. That he can’t make them fit seems to have him baffled. “Sorry, but I have to ask. Why all the lies?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. But if it makes you feel any better, he told them to me, too.”

  His head tilts. “You thought he was from Memphis, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how’d you find out about Seattle?”

  I don’t see any reason not to tell him, though I do keep my answer as vague as possible. “I received a condolence card from Hancock Class of ’99. One thing led to another.”

  He takes that in with a curt nod, then falls still for a long moment. “Okay. So on the one hand, I’m more confused than ever, but on the other, in some weird, twisted way, things sort of make sense.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Will’s behavior lately. He just seemed so...distracted and...I don’t know, off. Moody and super stressed out. A couple of weeks ago, some guy at the gym told him to wipe down the machine, and Will just lost it. He starts screaming and throwing punches, and I had to physically drag him outside and calm him down. I’ve never seen him lose his temper like that. Now I’m wondering if one thing had to do with the other, like if he was acting funny because of all the lies, or if the lies were to cover up something else. Does that make any sense?”

  A flurry of emotions rise in my chest, a familiar hurt leading the pack. “It makes total sense, unfortunately.”

  “Was he acting stressed with you, too?”

  Events from the past month flash across my mind like a slide show. The time I was making dinner while he paced the backyard, his cell pressed to his ear and his face clamped down in a scowl, talking to a person he would identify only as a “colleague.” The time I came downstairs to him sitting in his car in the driveway, staring into space for a good twenty minutes. The time I rolled over to find him wide-awake, watching me with an expression I’d never seen before, an emotion I couldn’t define. When I asked him what was wrong, his answer was to make love to me.

  But AppSec had just acquired the City of Atlanta as a client, and Will’s team was working under a tight deadline. He brushed his behavior off as work stress, and at the time, I believed him.

  Or maybe I just wanted to.

  Now, though? Now I’m certain there was something else going on. Something that made Will get on a plane to Seattle.

  “You knew him better than anyone else,” Corban says. “What do you think was going on?”

  I roll his question around my mind for a long moment, coming at it from every possible angle. I think about Will’s sketchy past, the destruction he left in his wake back in Seattle. The deadly fire that burned down a block of apartments and landed Will’s mother and two innocent children in early graves. His father, alone and bedridden in a state facility for the indigent. And these are only the people I know about. How many others are there?

  I swish around the last of my tea, watching the dredges swirl around the bottom of my cup. “I think something—or more likely, someone—from his past came back to haunt him. I think that’s why he was acting strange, and why he got on the plane to Seattle.”

  Corban doesn’t answer. I look up and he’s gone completely still.

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but based on that answer, I feel like I have to.” He pauses, holding my gaze with eyes so black, I can’t tell his pupil from his iris. “A day or two before the crash, Will called to ask me for a favor. He made me swear on my mother’s grave that I would do it.”

  He stops, and so does my heart. “That you’d do what?”

  “I promised that if anything ever happened to him, I’d look out for you.”

  * * *

  I return home to a mountain of Lowe’s bags climbing the walls of my foyer, and my father on his knees, a drill in his hand and a tool belt slung around his waist.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Floodlights at both doors, that’s what’s going on.” He roots around in one of the bags, pulls out a handful of light switches. “I’ll mount these guys on the inside wall, but the outdoor fixtures have motion sensors. Anybody who gets within five feet will find themselves in the spotlight. Literally.”

  “Is this because of the letter?”

  “The letter, the texts and the fact that you live smack in the middle of the twelfth most dangerous city in the country. I’m also changing your locks and putting in extra dead bolts and chains. And an alarm company is coming by later today to hook your system up to their central monitoring system.”

  Mom comes in from the living room, a book tucked under her arm. “I also asked him to fix the sticky front door, reattach that loose floorboard by the kitchen table and replace that rubber thingy on the leaky hall toilet.”

  “Valve,” Dad says, pushing to his feet. “She asked me to replace the rubber valve. I got enough to replace all of them. You’ll thank me when you get your next water bill.”

  “I’ll thank you now, too,” I say, and it comes out only a little wobbly, even though what I really want to do is have a good cry that Will never got through his honey-do list. What were the last two that he added, our last morning together in bed? It takes me a second or two to come up with them—the filters on the air conditioners and the oil in my car. I resolve to take care of those myself.

  My father bends his knees, putting his eyes on the level of mine. “If you’re worried about the costs, punkin’, your mother and I will foot the bill. We’d just feel better if you were safe and secure and hooked up to some kind of system, especially now that... Especially now.”

  I know what he was going to say: especially now that Will’s gone. He looks so distraught, not to mention worried, that I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him tight, fresh tears gathering in my eyes. “Now that I’ll be living here alone, I’d feel better with a working alarm, too. Thank you. But I don’t want you to pay.”

  “Settled, then.” Dad drops a kiss on the top of my head and unwinds us, fishing the drill from where he’d left it in the piles of bags. He hits the button, buzzing the blade around in the air, then takes his finger off the trigger. “Almost forgot. Will’s boss left another message while you were gone. By now, his fifth or sixth. I take it you haven’t found a chance to call him back yet.”

  I shake my head. Ever since Will’s ring, I haven’t given Nick or any of the other callers a second thought.

  “You might want to make him a priority, punkin’. I’d imagine he has some financial and logistical issues to discuss, things you won’t want to wait too long to tackle. I know it’s unpleasant, but you’ve got a mortgage to pay, and you’re going to have to figure out how to do it on one salary.”

  “Come.” Mom slips her hand into my elbow and leads me down the hall. “You call this Nick person, and I’ll fix us some tea. Oh, and I have brownies, too, if the boys didn’t eat them all.”

  I look around for Dave and James. “Where are they?”

  “They ran to the post office—Dave said something about a yearbook he needed to mail?—and then to meet up with an old friend of James’s from med school. Apparently, he sold his practice for the jackpot and now owns a gourmet burger place on Peachtree Street. Seventeen dollars for a hamburger, can you imagine? Anyway, is Earl Grey okay?”

  “Perfect, thanks.” But Mom doesn’t go for the tea bags. She just stands there, watching me. “What?”
>
  “Well, I was wondering if you’ve given any thought to a funeral. One that’s maybe a little more...personal than the memorial service Liberty Air put on. That one was perfectly fine, but it didn’t really feel like Will, you know? It could have been for anyone.”

  I nod, because she’s right. Despite the pretty setting, the memorial had zero personality. The songs were cheesy, the speakers were unimaginative, and the only time they mentioned my husband by name was during a monotonous reading of the passenger list. Will deserves better than a generic memorial service in a park filled with strangers.

  “Want me to come up with some options?” Mom offers. “Take a look at some venues? I wouldn’t book anything, of course, not until you approve it.”

  I smile, a fierce wave of love for my mother warming my insides. “Thank you. I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Good. It’s settled, then. Now, you go call this Nick fellow back. His number’s on a sticky by the coffee machine.”

  While Mom bangs away in the kitchen, I fetch the sticky note, punch the numbers into my cell phone and push Send.

  Nick picks up on the second ring. “Nick Brackman.”

  “Hi, Nick. It’s Iris Griffith. Sorry for not calling back earlier, but things have been a little crazy.”

  “I’ll bet. How are you holding up?”

  It’s the same question strangers recited to me at the memorial, the one I see every time I look into my parents’ eyes, word for word the one Corban said to me earlier today. How are you holding up? I know they mean well, but does Nick really want to hear that I still sleep in Will’s bathrobe even though it smells more like me now, or that I call Will’s voice mail twenty times a day, just so I can hear his voice? That my tears wake me most nights, which are only marginally better than the ones where fury makes me scream into my pillow? That the platitudes everybody keeps feeding me, things like everything happens for a reason and Will would want you to be happy make me want to punch something? That sometimes I feel Will so strongly the air catches in my throat and the hairs soldier up the back of my neck, but when I turn, the only thing I find is the hole where he used to be?

  I sigh, collapse onto the couch and tell Nick what he wants to hear. “I’m okay.”

  The only thing worse than Nick’s question, I suppose, will be the day people stop asking it.

  “Glad to hear it. If there’s anything I can do...”

  Another platitude, and I bite down on a scream. “Thanks.”

  “Jessica’s boxed up his personal things from the office. It wasn’t much. A couple of books, some mugs, a few framed pictures. I think she was planning to swing by with it this weekend.”

  Surely this isn’t what he called to tell me—meaningless clichés and organizational logistics. I give him a curt hum of thanks, a not-so-gentle prompt for his next words.

  Either Nick gets tired of stalling, or he takes my bait. “Listen, I have something I need to talk to you about, and I’d really rather not do it over the phone. Do you think we could meet? You name the time and place, and I’ll make it work.”

  “Well, I just got home, and—”

  “You live in Inman Park, right?” I don’t answer. Nick knows I live in Inman Park. Our address is on the salary stubs he signs every month. “How about Inman Perk in an hour? Best coffee in town, my treat.”

  After my morning with Corban, I can’t contemplate another coffee shop, and after the past few days cooped up either in a hotel room, a car or on a plane, I can’t contemplate another second indoors.

  “I’ll meet you at Inman Perk, but do you mind if we walk the BeltLine? I could use a little fresh air.”

  “Done. Thanks, Iris. See you in an hour.”

  * * *

  As I head out the door to meet Nick, I punch in the number Dad gave me for Leslie Thomas. She picks up on the second ring.

  “Before you say a word,” she says by way of greeting, “I want to apologize for lying to you the first time I called. I was under an unbelievable amount of pressure to come back with a story. I’ve only been here a few months, and this was my first chance to prove myself, and I took it too far.”

  “And now?” My voice is hard, because I don’t forgive her. The edges of my anger are still sharp. This woman dangled the name of a cocktail waitress in front of my nose like a carrot. I’m not exactly calling her by choice.

  “And now what?”

  I sink onto my front stoop, squinting into the sunshine. “Are you still under an unbelievable amount of pressure to come back with a story now?”

  She laughs, but it comes across more ironic than funny. “Well, my boss just suggested I pose as another passenger’s sister, so you tell me.”

  I make a neutral sound. This woman lied to me once. Who’s to say she won’t do it again?

  “Listen, all I’m saying is that I feel really shitty for lying, and I want to make it up to you. Throw you the proverbial bone.”

  “Let me guess. The cocktail waitress’s name.”

  “Ex-waitress, actually. It’s Tiffany Rivero, and she served a certain pilot and his rowdy buddies until they cashed out at quarter to three the morning of the crash, and for over six thousand dollars.”

  My eyes blow wide, both at her message and the amount. “People spend six thousand dollars at a nightclub?”

  “They do when they’re chugging champagne like it’s lemonade, which these guys apparently were. There were also pills being passed around like Tic Tacs.”

  I suck in a breath, doing the math in my head. Assuming he got the first flight to Atlanta, probably around six or so, he would have gone straight to the airport, meaning he was functioning on virtually no sleep, and that’s not even taking into account whatever he consumed.

  “We can’t know for sure that the pilot was partaking.”

  “According to Tiffany, he was. Every single one of them was wasted. And here’s the kicker—everything she told me, she also told Liberty Air officials. Their response? That she must be mistaken, that there are procedures and protocols in place to make sure no pilot enters the cockpit unless 100 percent sober and alert. They tried to make her think she’d imagined it.”

  An icy cold blooms in my gut, spreading through it like a cancer. Liberty Air knows about the pilot’s alcohol and drug-fueled bachelor party, and they did nothing. They said nothing. I think about the families I saw at the airport and the memorial, of their tears and palpable grief, and a wave of helpless fury threatens to pull me under. Will is dead because of a pilot’s irresponsibility and an airline’s carelessness.

  “Why are you telling me this? I assume this story is about to be blown across every front page of every newspaper and website on the planet.”

  “True, but my guilty conscience and I wanted you to hear it here first, and to make sure you understood the implications.” She pauses, the silence short but weighted, and her jokey tone settles into a serious one. “There’s going to be an investigation, Iris, and if this Tiffany chick is legit, if what she says checks out, you and the other families will have Liberty Air by the balls.”

  19

  When I turn the corner to Inman Perk, Nick is standing on the sidewalk, two water bottles dangling from a fist. White-blond hair, super-sized limbs, doughy belly filling out the bottom of his tucked-in polo shirt like a half-inflated inner tube. I must have been worse off than I thought when I couldn’t place him at the memorial. Big and bulky, he’s not exactly the type of guy you can miss. A pair of pristine Nike sneakers poke out from under his office khakis, from the looks of them, fresh from a shoe box, and I’m suddenly sorry for suggesting we walk the BeltLine in the middle of a workday.

  “Hi, Nick.”

  “Hey, Iris. Thanks for meeting me. You ready?”

  I try to take his emotional pulse, but his eyes are hidden behind dark wraparound sung
lasses, his tone and expression guarded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  The thing is, by now I know that whatever Nick wanted to talk to me about, it can’t be good. Why else would he have called six times in half as many days and insisted we meet in person? If I had any doubts, his greeting and body language just now only confirmed it, morphing my suspicion into a dread as dark and sticky as tar.

  He passes me one of the bottles, ice-cold and sweating, and we set off for the alley that leads to the trail in painful, stomach-churning silence.

  Like on any other sunny spring day, the Atlanta BeltLine, a stretch of parks and trails carved out of the city’s abandoned railroad tracks, is bustling. Lululemon-clad moms pushing strollers compete for space with runners and dog walkers and college kids on skateboards. Nick and I fall in line behind them, following the trail north toward the high-rises of Midtown in the far distance.

  “This is incredibly difficult for me,” he says as we emerge from the shade of the Freedom Parkway overpass, and even though he’s starting to sweat through his work shirt, I know he’s not referring to our hike. His head is down, his gaze glued to the pavement. “I hired your husband. I groomed him. In the eight-plus years he worked for me, I promoted him six times. Not because I liked the guy, which I did, but because he deserved it.”

  “Okay...” I drag out the word, my heart jumping around too hard, too fast. I feel a “but” coming. It’s bearing down on me like an electric thundercloud, sucking every hair on my body skyward.

  “I don’t know how much you know about our business, but most engineers don’t give a crap about where the money comes from. Will was one of those rare breeds that not only cared, he thought about how to bring in more. It’s part of why he was so brilliant at his job, because he could design things the customer didn’t even know they wanted until he showed it to them.” He latches onto my elbow, steers us to the trail’s edge to let a trio of bicyclists pass. “The guy was a genius, but I’m sure you already know that.”