Letters to Lincoln

by Tracie Podger

  Miller held out a bottle of water that he’d retrieved from the pocket in his door. I looked at him, my brow in a frown.

  “You’re getting a little high-pitched, I don’t want you to screw up your voice. It’s nice to hear you talk so much.”

  I took the bottle from him and swigged at it. “Do you think I’m talking too much?” I asked.

  “I think you have every right to talk too much right now. You’ve not been able to for months. I imagine you’ve got a lot of words to get out.”

  I hadn’t taken any notice of where we were headed until we bumped over a few sand dunes and weaved our way along a small beach.

  “Are you allowed to drive on the beach?” I asked.

  “I don’t see anyone about to stop me.” He gave me a wink.

  I could see a small shack ahead, it looked pretty rundown but a metal chimney protruded from the top, and smoke bellowed out. Miller pulled the truck to a halt alongside it. The shed was larger than I had originally thought and I saw a handmade sign on the front.

  “The Smoke Shack?” I questioned.

  “Best smoked fish you’ll ever find. Best smoked meats, as well.”

  Miller opened his door and began to walk around to my side. He hadn’t finished crossing the front before I was out and zipping up my jacket. He held out his hand and I took it without thinking.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He bashed on the side of the shed before walking to the door at the other end. It was opened by a guy who looked like he was still backpacking around the world in the 1970’s. He had long, straggly hair that matched a beard I was concerned about. I was sure I could see food among the bristles.

  They did that man thing—a sort of handshake, chest bump, and called each other ‘bro.’ It amused me.

  “Dani, this is China.”

  “China?”

  “Don’t ask, China, this is my friend, Dani. I don’t believe she has ever tasted what delights you have going on today.”

  “Well, you better come on in then,” China said.

  I was taken aback. China, and it was the strangest name I’d heard, had the poshest voice I’d ever encountered. He had pure, crystal cut glass pronunciation. We followed China into the shack and I had to dodge fish and meat hanging from a rack suspended from the ceiling. I would imagine the Environmental Health Department would have a field day, should they ever visit. The smoke I’d seen earlier seemed to come from a floor-to-ceiling wooden cabinet. He opened the top door and slid out a wooden rail. Fish hung from the rail. He unhooked a pair of what I assumed to be mackerel and laid them on fresh napkins before handing them to us.

  “How about some ham? I’ve been experimenting with this one. It’s smoked, obviously, with a homemade marmalade coating. I need to know how the marmalade works for you.”

  China started to carve some meat from the leg of ham.

  “China did an amazing tea-smoked ham,” Miller said, tearing off a piece of ham and popping it into his mouth.

  I pulled a little of the fish from the napkins and it was just wonderful. A burst of oak, of a subtle charcoal, and of course, the mackerel not only coated my taste buds but the scent drifted to my nose.

  “This is good!” I said.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have many things to get done today,” China said, ushering us to the door.

  “He might be the best smoker in the area, but manners, despite his very privileged upbringing, are not his forte,” Miller said, laughing.

  I followed Miller out onto the beach and the door was slammed shut behind us.

  “What a strange man,” I said.

  “Yep! Smoking fish and meats isn’t all he smokes,” Miller said, laughing.

  “Hold this.” Miller handed me the ham while he opened the rear door of the truck.

  He pulled out a blanket and spread it on the ground by the wheel.

  “Sit,” he said.

  We sat with our back resting on the truck wheel and ate. The breeze caught my hair and many times I had to stop eating to pull strands from my mouth. Miller stretched out his legs and fished around in his pocket. He pulled out an elastic band, which he handed to me.

  “You carry a hairband around with you?” I said, astonished.

  “I happen to have an elastic band in my pocket. It bound the mail today and I just slipped it in my jeans, not thinking.”

  “Well, I appreciate it, thank you.”

  I placed the fish on the blanket and tied my hair back at the nape of my neck.

  “So…” Miller said, swapping the fish for the ham.

  “So…” I replied.

  “I spoke with the planning officer. I wanted to get a feel of where they are with regards to applications. Doesn’t appear they have a huge list to work through, but I don’t see us getting an answer this side of the new year.”

  “Okay, I guessed as much.”

  We fell into a comfortable silence for a while.

  “How do you do a DNA test?” I asked.

  “You’d need a sample of hair or saliva, I think. Why?”

  “I’m going to insist on a DNA test, see if Alistair is Trey’s son.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, I guess I can. Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

  “I’m not sure, I can’t imagine anyone can request one. Would she agree?”

  Without warning, a sob welled up inside me. “How the fuck didn’t I know?” I said between tears.

  “Oh, Dani. Maybe you just didn’t see any signs because there wasn’t any. Why should you know? If it’s all true, they were very clever about it.”

  Miller took the food from my hand and placed his arm around my shoulder, I gently fell against him and cried.

  We hadn’t spoken since we’d climbed back in the truck and started the short journey back to my house. I stared out of the window, not seeing any of the trees or the fields as we passed. I just saw his face on the day I told him I was pregnant. It was utter joy. Or was it? He’d covered his mouth with his hands and tears had formed in his eyes. I remember laughing at his inability to speak. I closed my eyes at the memory, wondering if I’d gotten it very, very, wrong.

  “We’re here,” I heard. I’d been so focussed on my thoughts, I hadn’t realised we’d already returned.

  “Thank you for this morning, I needed that. Just a couple of hours of normality, or escape from my normality, I should say.”

  “Any time. I wish I could do more to help.”

  I nodded as I climbed from the truck and walked the few steps to the front door. I turned to watch him drive away.

  Dad and Christian were sitting at the kitchen table when I walked through. Dad gave me a small smile but Chris hadn’t looked up.

  “There’s tea in the pot if you want one,” Dad said.

  I grabbed a mug from the draining board and added a splash of milk before sitting and pouring the tea.

  “Helen has agreed to a DNA test. Although she’s adamant who the father is, I’ve told her I’ll take her to court if she refuses,” Chris said.

  “Can you do that? Take her to court?”

  “I don’t actually know, but I am a lawyer so the threat was enough. There are so many things to think about. I mean, I changed my will to leave money in trust for him. I need to rectify that.”

  I didn’t answer immediately, I wasn’t sure how. Christian’s bitter tone of voice displayed the anger we both should feel, but Alistair was an innocent party. Chris had been his father for the first few months of his life.

  “Can Helen survive, financially, without you?” Dad asked. It was a question on the tip of my tongue as well.

  “I don’t care, Dad. She chose the path she’s walked down, maybe she should have thought about that before.”

  His words were callous and so unlike Christian. Of the two of us, he was the more compassionate, the empathic one who’d never walked past a homeless person without leaving a pound, or picking up a damaged bird to bring home and nu
rture when we were children. I could only assume it was the hurt and anger talking.

  Dad went to speak and I gently shook my head at him. Christian turned towards me.

  “You can understand, can’t you? You must feel as angry as I do.”

  I had to think on my words carefully. “I’m angry, Chris, but it’s a different type of anger, I think. I don’t have Trey here to curse and shout at, to demand answers from. I’m all spent in the hatred department. I was angry at Trey for unbuckling that seatbelt, I was angry with him for dying. I’m numb and I’m extremely confused. I can’t channel my anger towards anyone, so I’m swallowing it down as much as I can, right now. Mostly, I feel such an overwhelming sense of sadness and disappointment. And betrayal like I’ve never felt before.”

  Helen had been my friend before she started dating Christian. We’d known each other in university and often socialised. She was the straight one, although fun-loving, she was always so cautious to the point of carrying a rape alarm, having a safety contact on speed dial, and prearranging all her taxis. She wasn’t a risk-taker at all.

  As much as I felt the stab in my heart at Trey’s betrayal, I also felt the knife she had twisted in me as well.

  “Until I have evidence, Chris, I’m trying to contain my feelings. You said the nickname in her contacts was Kitt. I’ve never heard of Trey being called that.”

  “I have. When we were away skiing one year, he was chatting to a woman at a bar, nothing untoward, but he gave his name as Kitt. I didn’t really think anything of it, at the time.”

  “You didn’t think my husband chatting a woman up in a bar and giving a false name was odd?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. We were getting drinks, she just started talking to him and he replied, being polite, I imagine. I took the drinks back to the table and he followed shortly after.”

  “Christian, he gave a woman his name, false or not, that isn’t polite chit-chat with a stranger at a bar.”

  Was I overreacting? I couldn’t recall a time I’d had a brief conversation while buying drinks that needed an exchange of names.

  “Did you ask him about it?” I asked.

  “No. I didn’t think any more of it, until I saw the name on Helen’s phone.”

  “Which skiing trip was this?”

  “A couple of years ago, I think.”

  “About the same time he’s supposed to have started this affair.”

  Had Trey taken on a fake name for Helen’s contact list and decided to use it elsewhere?

  “You don’t want to believe me, and I can totally understand that, Dani. Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it either. I have wished and prayed that it would have been anyone other than Trey. He was my best friend as well as your husband. He was family to us both. If her affair had been with a stranger, not that my decision to leave would have changed, but I think I could have stomached it a little easier than I can right now,” Christian said.

  “When Alistair was born, why was I not allowed to see him?” I decided to ask a question that had been playing on my mind for months.

  Christian reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slid a photograph of Alistair from inside and handed it to me.

  “I imagine Helen thought you might see a resemblance,” he said.

  Alistair was dark-haired and brown-eyed. Christian was blond and blue-eyed. Helen was dark-haired, also with blue eyes. The only one of us that had brown eyes was Trey.

  “I don’t see a resemblance, to be honest, but Hannah had blue eyes, so I don’t think there is one colour more dominant than another. I think that’s an urban myth,” I replied.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I thought Helen was suffering from depression, but was she? She was the one who seemed to block all contact, and Dad only saw Alistair because I didn’t tell her I was collecting him for a visit. Now I know it wasn’t depression.”

  He gave me the consideration in not telling me she was grieving, and I silently thanked him for that.

  “I’m going to tell Patricia, Christian. I want to ask her about the nickname and no matter what we think or feel, Alistair is possibly her grandchild,” I said.

  “She could also supply DNA for testing, I imagine,” he replied.

  I thought Christian had a good point. I had no idea where I’d get whatever was needed for a sample of Trey’s DNA.

  “I’m going to take a nap, I have a terrible headache coming on,” I said.

  I didn’t have a terrible headache coming on, and it was a daft thing to say. How does one know just how terrible the headache was going to be? I wanted some space, time to breathe and collect my thoughts.

  Sitting beside my bed was the letter I was yet to post to Lincoln. I opened the envelope and pulled out the note. A need to rewrite that letter had me grab the pad and pen and settle in my chair beside the window.

  Lincoln,

  I don’t really know where to start with this letter. I’ve just discovered that my husband was, possibly, having an affair with my sister-in-law. Not only were they having an affair, but also he fathered her child. I can’t articulate how that makes me feel right now.

  There is a part of me that doesn’t believe it. I mean, it’s all too convenient, but deep down I know it’s true. Christian, my brother, discovered evidence, and his wife admitted it. I don’t know what to do, to be honest. I went to his grave and I tried to scratch his name from the headstone, I even dug up the earth. I don’t want him in there with my baby, and I know that doesn’t make any sense at all.

  What I can’t get out of my head is, was one of those children a mistake? And how would I feel if it was Hannah? I hate Helen, and I’m jealous that Alistair, her child, is alive and my baby isn’t. I haven’t told anyone this because I can’t rationalise it. I shouldn’t be jealous of a baby, an innocent, who didn’t ask for all this shit. It pains me so much to think Trey’s flesh and blood survives but is not mine. And then there’s another thought that runs through my mind…I wouldn’t want any part of him.

  I screamed, Lincoln, and I haven’t stopped talking since. My voice is different, so Dad tells me, and it hurts to talk too much. I so wanted to be able to talk when I had something good, something positive, to talk about. Now it’s all about Trey, Helen. Christian is living here and his pain tears me up inside. I catch him looking at me sometimes and there’s a strange look in his eyes. It’s as if he’s wondering why I didn’t know. Two years Trey and Helen were supposed to be having an affair. Two Years! How did I not know?

  I’ve racked my mind to think of anything that would have given a clue, even in hindsight, and I can’t think of one thing.

  I’m going to call his mother later; she lives in the U.S. I think she deserves to know she has a grandchild, or so I’m letting everyone believe. In truth, I want to know if she knew. I want to hear her call out her son, although I know that’s also unreasonable.

  I’m lost, Lincoln. More lost than I was before and I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way back.

  Dani.

  I folded the page, slipped it in the envelope, and before I could change my mind and decide it wasn’t fair to unload on him, I left the house to post the letter. I snuck back in the house and crept up the stairs. I could hear Christian and Dad talking, but I didn’t want to be part of their conversation for a while. Christian was going round in circles, and I could sympathise, but I needed distance from his distress to concentrate on my own.

  I’d been putting up a front, covering up my real thoughts. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. I’d cried, I’d screamed, but I didn’t know what to do next. I wasn’t sure how to move, let alone forwards. I was stuck, yet momentum had me spiralling. For the past however many months, I’d only been able to deal with one thing at a time and that had worked just fine. Now I felt as if I had been hit with an information overload from all sides: some of it was bouncing off and some was being absorbed. I pretended to be rational; inside I was anything but.

  A tap on the bedroom door
woke me. I hadn’t realised exactly when I’d fallen asleep but my neck ached from being curled up in the chair. It was dark outside and for a moment I was disorientated. The door gently opened and Dad popped his head through the gap.

  “Are you okay? I wondered if you wanted some dinner?” he asked.

  I straightened in the chair, wincing at the pain in my knees after having my legs bent underneath me.

  “I don’t think I can eat right now. I might make a sandwich or something a little later.”

  “Are you hiding away?”

  “Not hiding, just trying to think, or not think. I can’t decide which one I prefer.”

  Dad came into the room and sat on the bed.

  “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, right now. It was enough to lose them, and I thought you were coming to terms with that. Now this…”

  “I can’t get my head around it all, Dad. I’ve been trying so hard to think of any times I had suspicions, or even a hint that he was having an affair, and I just can’t. Either I was so blinded by him, or an absolute fool. To know part of my marriage, or maybe all of it, who knows, was a lie, fake, is just too hard to comprehend.”

  “Do you think Trey loved Helen?” Dad asked.

  “I’ve no way of ever finding that out. She’ll say yes, of course, but did he? And that’s the hardest part. I won’t ever know the truth, just her version of it.”

  Dad patted my arm and stood. “I’ll leave some chicken aside, in case you want to make a sandwich with it later,” he said before leaving me alone.

  I picked up my mobile phone, still connected to the charger on the bedside cabinet. My hand shook as I held it, and I stared at the number two beside the messages. I knew who they were from, and although my finger hovered over the screen, over the button, I forced myself not to press. Those were the last two messages that Trey sent me. I hadn’t needed to open the messages when they’d arrived, as they’d flashed up on my screen anyway.