But we couldn’t both clean house and avoid our friend. I stood.
When I entered the kitchen, Shanty instinctively turned away from me.
“I already saw the Snickers wrappers on the coffee table,” I said. “Too late to hide it.”
She took a bite and talked around the chocolate. “I’ve moved on to Twix now.”
“Whatever works.”
“My Weight Watchers mentor wouldn’t think so.”
“Your Weight Watchers mentor didn’t just find out her husband’s cheating on her.”
“He’s not cheating. It was just a kiss.” She frowned defensively, but then her face lost all expression.
A kiss. An affair. It was all the same to me, but I didn’t say so. Probably I had said too much already. Just because Brett had had multiple affairs didn’t mean Al was doing the same thing. “Sorry, Shanty. My bitterness is showing.”
“How did you ever survive this, Cecily? The pain I’m feeling is worse than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.”
I reached for a candy bar. “I know.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, then Shanty pulled two glasses out of the cabinet. “Milk?”
“Do you have chocolate syrup?”
“Smart thinking. Go for the hard stuff.” She opened the refrigerator and then cursed, which was uncharacteristic. “I’ve only got strawberry.”
Nina called from the living room, “Umm . . . Shanty? What do you do with these soiled diapers?”
Shanty ran her palm across her face. “Diaper Genie’s in the first bedroom on the right. Want some strawberry milk, Nina?”
“In a minute.”
“Bless her,” Shanty mumbled as she pulled another glass from the cabinet.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“At work.” She squinted. “I wonder if that girl uses his pharmacy. Do you think he’s kissed her there too?”
I couldn’t fathom Al kissing any woman except Shanty, let alone a teenage girl. My mind whirled back to the first day I’d met him, when I was buying bandages. He had told me how beautiful and wonderful Shanty was. “I don’t think he’s like that.”
“I don’t know what he’s like any more. Or if I ever knew him at all.”
“How did you find out?”
Shanty was pouring milk, and she sloshed it on the counter when I asked the question. “Gage told me. Said it happened last night when I was at a writers’ event. The babysitter had put the kids to sleep an hour before, but Gage stayed awake, reading Hank the Cowdog under his sheets with a flashlight. When he heard his daddy come home, he wanted to tell him goodnight.” She laughed and it sounded acidic. “He didn’t want the girl to get mad at him for getting up, so he waited long enough for her to be gone.” She froze, the strawberry syrup in one hand.
“Does Al know Gage saw?”
“No.”
I was trying to piece together the bits and pieces she was giving me, but it wasn’t adding up. “Then how does he think you found out?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
My insides tightened. “He’s at work, and he doesn’t know you know?”
“And he doesn’t know Gage knows. He doesn’t know his son is devastated. He doesn’t know his wife is shattered. He doesn’t know any of it, and for all I know, he doesn’t care.” She shuddered. “This morning he kissed me goodbye, just like he always does. Like nothing had happened.”
A dull ache settled in my stomach. “When did Gage tell you?”
“After Al left for work.” She looked out the back window at Gage, who was now slumped in a swing, one foot on the ground, slowly swiveling back and forth. “Gage is a timid one, always worried about being good. But it’s funny because he always is—good, I mean—but he’s sensitive.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “This isn’t good for him.”
“It’s not good for any of you.”
The ache in my stomach swelled, and I crossed my arms over my waist. If Al Espinosa could cheat on a wife he adored, then my shaky perception of men in general was seriously in danger of toppling. But maybe Shanty was right. Maybe he had only kissed the babysitter. Maybe it had only been a slip. I wanted desperately for Al to be innocent, but the ache didn’t ease.
Nina came into the kitchen just as Shanty finished swirling a spoon in each glass, and the three of us somberly held our glasses at waist height.
Nina raised hers. “To the possibility that there are good men left in the world.”
I lifted my glass and so did Shanty.
“Cheers,” I whispered.
After that we sat on the kitchen floor, leaning against the cabinets, drinking our milk while Shanty told us about their marriage problems—though she had never thought of them as problems until now. She supposed they were too busy with the children, and she was too busy with her blog, and Al was always at the pharmacy. Both of them tended to be workaholics.
“I hate that about myself,” she said. “My dad worked too much, and I never felt like he had time for me.” She bumped her head against the cabinet door. “Surely Al doesn’t feel that way. Surely he knows I love him even though I’m busy. Surely I haven’t done to him what my dad did to me.”
The sliding glass door opened on the other side of the bar, and the house filled with the sounds of preschoolers crying. Gage came around the corner, carrying one sister and dragging the other while his brother toddled behind them, a dismal parade. When Gage saw us on the kitchen floor, his eyes widened, but he delivered his news without pausing. “They’re fighting again, Mama.”
Shanty’s children were incredibly beautiful, even screaming, even with their eyes wide in fear and uncertainty. Their creamy caramel skin and black hair were the perfect blend of Shanty’s African and Asian roots and Al’s Hispanic heritage. As I admired them, I imagined them spending every other weekend with Al and two weeks in the summer.
Shanty waved them toward her. “Bring ’em over here, Gage.” She took the younger one out of his arms and handed Gage her milk. “You and Aaron finish this for me, hon, and help yourself to a candy bar.”
“For real? Even before lunch?”
“Today’s not a normal day, baby.”
The girls settled as Shanty bounced one on each knee, comforting them with kisses and low humming sounds. “You two better stop your fighting. That won’t solve anything, now, will it?” She frowned at her own words as the preschoolers scrambled off her lap and scurried after their brothers, no doubt wanting their share of candy.
The three of us stood as well.
“What do I do?” Shanty asked.
“Talk to him,” I said. “Find out what’s going on. Don’t kill him.”
“It’s probably just an innocent kiss.” Shanty bit her lip.
“There’s no such thing,” Nina said, and her boldness surprised me.
Shanty handed each of us a Twix bar, and we took them obligingly, then followed her to the large doorway leading into the living room, now straightened. “Nina, thanks for doing that.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
Shanty seemed paralyzed in the doorway, staring at the living room as though it were an intricate problem that needed solving.
A metallic screech alerted us that the exterior glass door had been opened, and when we heard a key slide into the lock, Shanty gripped her candy bar in a fist. “That’ll be Al coming home for lunch.”
Nina gasped.
My stomach tied itself into a pretzel.
And the door opened.
At first Al’s face was all grins when he saw us, but when he registered that we weren’t smiling back, his expression blanked. Without the smile on his face, without the love in his eyes, he didn’t look like the same person. “Hey, Nina.” He ducked his head. “Cecily. What are you guys doing here?” He peered at Shanty. “Everything all right?”
I prayed everything would be all right. I silently begged God in heaven to make things right. To make Al a good man after all. If only just to prove that every ma
rriage didn’t end in adultery.
Shanty’s right foot stepped forward, but then she seemed frozen again, unable to move another inch closer to her husband. “Gage saw you kissing Lauren last night.”
Al’s face paled instantly.
“That’s all it was, right?” Shanty’s voice fell so that she could barely be heard over the children clamoring down the hall. “It was just a kiss, right, Al?”
His gaze bounced immediately to the sectional sofa where the dolls had been, then he looked at the floor, seemingly unable to meet Shanty’s eyes.
But he didn’t have to. All three of us knew the truth.
Whatever happened with the babysitter . . . it had been a lot more than a kiss.
Suddenly all the emotional growth I had accomplished since I’d been back in Canyon seemed to hinge on the good men in my life—men like Daddy . . . Graham . . . Al—who had shown me that not every male of the species was like Brett. The ache in my stomach finally made sense when I realized I wasn’t merely hurting for Shanty. I was hurting for myself. For the possibility that men weren’t what I had decided they were after all.
But Daddy was good.
Graham was good.
Al had to be good too. This kissing the babysitter thing probably just caught him by surprise. Surely he never meant for it to happen.
Chapter Thirty-Five
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The man told himself the same thing over and over: I didn’t mean for this to happen. He repeated that truth in his mind, trying to believe it, reminding himself that he wasn’t evil. Sure, he had fallen mindlessly into a trap, but he was conquering the demon.
He walked through the Westgate Mall, searching for just the right gift for her, to make up for everything. The way their relationship had been going lately, he would need something perfect. Because he was ready, finally, to tell her the truth. She deserved an explanation, now more than ever.
About what he did, what he looked at, the way he spent his time when he was alone. As he passed Victoria’s Secret, a ten-foot poster caught his eye—a curvy woman in lace shorts. He forced his eyes away, focusing his gaze on the Dillard’s sign far down the corridor. He didn’t need to look at the poster to feel good about himself. He knew that now.
“Something special for the woman in your life?”
An auburn-haired woman held up a bottle of perfume as she took two steps away from her kiosk, following him as though hungry for a potential sale.
He paused, wondering if perfume might be just the thing he needed to smooth things over.
“Smell?” She held the bottle toward him and tilted her head to the side. “Don’t I know you?”
The woman—a girl really—was small and fragile looking, and her hair fell in waves, almost to her waist. She smiled at him and swept the locks over one shoulder, lifting her chin and baring her neck as though to display all she had to offer. She looked to be a college student. Young.
He didn’t smile back, just gazed above her head and stepped away. “Not what I’m looking for, thanks.”
She protested, but he didn’t look back.
Women were all the same, he thought, flaunting their bodies in some sort of primitive, animalistic instinct to mate, to catch the attention of the male of the species, to procreate. He was attracted to them and repulsed at the same time. He slowed, then stopped, staring at a six-foot potted plant.
No.
No, that was wrong thinking. Women were not all the same, any more than men were all the same. They were no more animalistic than men, though men had a much worse reputation for that sort of behavior. Like him with his pursuit of picture after picture, video after video. But he had installed blockers on his phone and protection on his laptop, he had joined an accountability group, he was looking the other way when he saw things. And he saw them everywhere. Sometimes he felt like he was going insane, knowing he needed to squelch his thoughts but unable to escape from the problem. There was no rest.
The preacher said it was Satan, and if that was the truth, then Satan was very, very good at what he was doing. Maybe it was Satan and maybe not. He hadn’t yet decided about God, but church seemed a safer place than most.
He turned in a slow circle, looking at the stores within sight. Gap, Verizon, Disney, Dillard’s, and in the next open space, the food court. Everywhere he looked there were images that triggered him. Why was he even here? If he was serious about changing his habits, he should protect himself from this sort of place. But for crying out loud, it was a mall. Just a mall.
Maybe he would give her roses. Or daisies. Love or happiness? He should give her both.
But how would she react? He had thought the truth would send her into a nervous breakdown, but the other guys said he needed to tell her anyway. Relationships are built on truth, transparency, trust. The three Ts. He shook his head. The three Ts seemed unattainable, but he was determined to tell her the truth, and when he did, an enormous burden would be lifted from his shoulders . . . and Satan—or whatever it was that gripped him so tightly—would lose a little power over him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Graham’s list of things to do on Saturday (as entered into the Notes app on his phone):
1. Borrow bike for Cecily.
2. Look through high school yearbook.
3. Check on Shanty? No, better wait on that.
4. Make Cecily smile.
As usual, Graham felt minuscule standing next to the grandeur of the canyon, and with Cecily by his side, he felt even smaller. He wondered if she felt the same way.
“Who’d you borrow this bike from?” She straddled the seat with her feet on the ground, tightening the strap on a bright red helmet.
“It’s my mom’s,” Graham said.
“Your mom is a biker dude?”
He chuckled. “Not anymore, but she used to ride with me some. She hurt her knee in a fender bender, though, so she can’t do as much now.”
“And your dad?” She asked.
“He’s more of a video game guy. The two of us have had some late-night Halo wars.”
“Halo?”
“Guns, aliens, dual controllers on the Xbox.”
“Ah.” She gripped the handlebars. “I haven’t ridden much in . . . well, ever. Can you take it easy on me?”
“I’ll try to hold back.”
“No edge-of-the-cliff curves? No sudden drop-offs?” she asked.
“And absolutely no airborne jumps. None of the fun stuff. We’ll keep all wheels on the ground.”
They had decided to take an afternoon bike ride after Cecily admitted how nervous she was about seeing Brett again. Graham had offered to keep her distracted for a few hours, but she made him promise to have her home with plenty of time to shower for the reunion that night.
“I’ll lead on the trail,” he said, “but if you need me to stop, just holler.”
“Okay, I’ll be sure and holler.” She put one foot on a pedal. “I like the way you talk.”
Her giggle made him smile as he shoved off with one foot. “Follow close.”
He led her down a curving trail at medium speed. He didn’t want to go off and leave her, but he also didn’t want to go so slowly that she ran up on him. He could hear her tires grinding against the sand behind him, but when he glanced over his shoulder, she seemed to be doing all right.
She had talked to him after work yesterday, telling him just enough about Shanty’s drama for him to know there was a lot she wasn’t telling him. But that seemed right. It was Shanty’s to tell, when she was ready. But Cecily had clearly been shaken. Whatever was happening with the Espinosas had rattled Cecily’s confidence, and unless it was his imagination, she seemed to have withdrawn a little from him as well.
He called back to her. “You doing all right?”
“Never better.” There was a tremor in her voice from the rough terrain, and she sounded winded already, so Graham eased to a stop.
�
�Ready for a drink of water?”
“Are you kidding? We just started.”
He uncapped his water bottle. “I don’t want to push you too hard.”
She grinned and kept riding past him. “I’m good! But you rest as long as you need to.”
Graham chuckled as she bumped down the trail, then his gaze settled on her backside. He snapped his water bottle back onto the frame of his bike and followed her, trying to keep his eyes on the path.
He hummed as a distraction. How could she possibly see herself as anything but gorgeous? Even if she hadn’t been physically attractive—which she was—the woman was beautiful from the inside out. She was still a shadow of the girl he knew in high school, but he was beginning to get glimpses of the real Cecily, and those glimpses made him crazy.
They rode for thirty more minutes, taking turns leading, following the Paseo del Rio trail through the floor of the canyon and continuing on the Rojo Grande trail. They avoided the roughest spots, and when they finally stopped for water, they were both sweating.
“Now I see why you bike all the time,” she said as she drank, and Graham watched a trickle of water leak from the corner of her mouth and slide down her throat.
“It’s addictive,” he said. “The view, the sun, the ups and downs of the terrain. The speed, and not knowing exactly what’s over the next rise.”
She laughed, and the sound was swallowed up by the canyon. “I’m not sure I’ve experienced the speed you’re talking about.”
“You’ll get faster each time you come out here.”
“What makes you think I’ll come again?” Her smiled teased him.
“Like I said, riding the canyon is addictive.”
“But I live on the canyon. I could ride at my place.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He frowned, a sudden urgency stealing across his chest. “Riding on unmarked trails isn’t the same. I mean, sure, it’s fun—a rush even—but your place is on the surface, and it might be easy to forget you’re on the edge of a hundred-foot drop-off.”
Looking Glass Lies Page 17