Just Exes

by Charity Ferrell

  I find the culprit. It’s an envelope. My hands shake as I pull it out. It’s shredded at the top, and a return address sits on the left from the Cook County Correctional Facility with Missy’s name above it.

  Her name is printed at the top with bright pink cursive handwriting—Missy Perry, complete with an I dotted with a heart. I examine the envelope like it has the answer to all my questions, looking at the front and the back, analyzing the swoops in her name.

  It'll kill Gage’s trust in me if I do what I’m thinking, but I can’t stop myself. After his ex-father-in-law’s visit, after that man expecting me to know about someone named Andy, after Gage shut down on me yesterday, I need answers, and as much as I want to wait for him to give them to me, it’s like candy sitting in front of me. There’s no beating this temptation, and I only hope he doesn’t hate me when I find out what he’s been hiding.

  I grab my phone, deciding to Google his name and Chicago, but then set it back down.

  Ugh. What do I do?

  I’ll sleep on it. Ask him about it over breakfast tomorrow.

  I go to shove the shirts back into the drawer but stop when I notice the stack of pictures and envelopes in the corner. My attention goes straight to the picture at the top of the stack. It’s of Gage with a baby in his arms.

  Gage looks happy as he stares down at the baby wrapped in a blue blanket and wearing a blue cap. All the blue leads me to assume it’s a boy. The baby boy doesn’t have Gage’s olive skin tone. His is dark, and his eyes are wide and innocent. There’s no familiarity in looks between them.

  I might be able to hold myself back from reading bitch-face Missy’s letter, but there’s no stopping me from flipping through the pictures. I fall back against the dresser, and tears fall down my face. There are photos of him and the baby and photos of Gage and I assume, Missy holding the child up over a birthday cake that says Happy Second Birthday Andy! There’s another one of them smiling while the boy, now looking a few years older, sits on Santa’s lap. I look through memory after memory of their family … of Gage’s family.

  What happened?

  The pictures only amplify my curiosity. I’ve already opened Pandora’s box. There’s no turning back now. I pick up the envelope in shame and pull the letter out before I can change my mind.

  It’s the same pink writing. The heart trend staying and added to the margins of the lined and wrinkled paper.

  I slowly read it, digesting each word.

  My dearest Gage, my husband, the man I love,

  Why won’t you take my calls? My father says he will pay any collect call bills. I NEED to talk to you, to hear your voice. Why can’t you understand that? I love you. I’d do anything for you. I will never leave you. Please visit me. Write me back. DO SOMETHING! Let me explain myself, so I can tell you why I did what I did and how I realize now that it wasn’t the answer to our problems. I loved our little boy. We can give him a sister or a brother. You know he’d want us to be happy as his mom and dad. Let us remember him as husband and wife. Let us remember the baby boy we rescued years ago. LET ME MAKE THIS RIGHT!!! I am hurting without you, and I’d rather die than not have you in my life. Is that what you want? For me to kill myself?

  I love you so, so, so, so much!!!

  Your wife,

  Missy Perry

  (I will ALWAYS be Missy Perry!!!)

  There’s one last picture in the envelope.

  It’s the three of them.

  Gage is sporting a shirt that says Andy’s Dad.

  Gage has a son.

  Andy.

  Twenty-Six

  Gage

  I called three times.

  Texted five.

  Picked up breakfast.

  It’s noon, and worry is setting in.

  Lauren never sleeps this late.

  I call once more before unlocking the loft and walking in.

  Her phone is on the counter, and I set the box of doughnuts down next to it.

  The couch is empty, which means she slept in my bed. Finally. There might be hope for us after all. She’s most likely still asleep. She had a long shift yesterday and deserves a decent night’s rest.

  I was up all night, going back and forth with myself on what to do today. Lauren wants me to let her in, but I’m not sure how much to give yet. The two women I trusted more than anything both hurt me.

  Once I tell Lauren about Andy, our relationship will change. She’ll be getting more of me than my heart. She’ll be receiving my secrets, my burdens, and my trust.

  Trust is a precious treasure to hand someone. You’re giving them a piece of you, unknowing of how they’re going to play with it.

  I stroll into the bedroom, expecting her to be passed out and snoring in my bed.

  It’s not what I get.

  She’s on the floor, curled up in a ball, wearing only my tee and panties.

  My heart is ready to burst out of my chest as I take in the scene in front of me. Surrounding her are pictures, memories, all I have left of my son. The sight of Missy’s letter next to his preschool picture makes me snarl. Her handwriting and her pleas only taint the memories of him.

  Those pictures were not meant to be seen.

  They were hidden, only making it out into daylight when I was feeling lonely or missing the only sunshine in my goddamn life.

  The pictures gave both good and bad memories.

  Brought both the light and dark out of me.

  I take them in, one by one, while Lauren lightly snores in the background.

  One of my worlds circling my other.

  While I was nervous about giving her pieces of me, she went behind my back and invaded my trust.

  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I decided never to let anyone in again.

  She read Missy’s letter. Saw my son. Most likely studied each picture.

  It was what I prepared myself for all night. The questioning I knew was impending.

  Do I walk away and tell her it’s done?

  No. She needs to know why I was hesitant to let her in.

  “You went through my shit?” I ask through clenched teeth, regretting how harsh my voice sounds as soon as the words leave my mouth.

  You can’t blame her too much. You would’ve done the same.

  She stirs, her eyes slowly opening, and she looks up at me. A brief smile passes her lips but drops when she takes me in. Recognition dawns on her when she looks around.

  She probably intended to hide what she’d done.

  She probably planned to put everything back in that drawer before I got here this morning.

  “You went through my shit?” I repeat.

  She scrambles to her feet with pity on her face. “No! I grabbed a shirt, like you told me to, and couldn’t shut the drawer. When I tried to fix the problem”—she pauses, swinging her arm to gesture to the pile on the floor—“I found all of this.”

  “You went through my shit.” Right now, those are the only words I’m capable of forming.

  She blows out a long breath. “Was it wrong for me to snoop? Yes. But, after Missy’s dad showed up at the hospital last night, I was so confused. I didn’t go looking for this, Gage, I promise.”

  “What did you say?” My mind has jumped from the pictures to what she told me.

  “You want me to repeat all of that?” She stressfully runs her hand through her hair and blows away the few strands in her way.

  “Missy’s father paid you a visit at the hospital?”

  “Yes. He asked me to talk to you about not disputing her appeal … something along those lines.” She holds up a finger and runs into the bathroom before reappearing with a paper and handing it to me, as if it’s counterfeit money. “He gave me this.”

  I take a look at it, recognizing Missy’s parents’ attorney’s signature. I’ve gone round and round with this guy, torn up checks, and told him to fuck off more times than I can recall. He’s a fucking sleazebag attorney … and Missy’s sleazebag-ass family loves to have him do thei
r dirty work. He writes their checks. They keep their hands clean.

  “The hell, Lauren? Why didn’t you tell me about this last night?”

  “I don’t know! It was late, and I didn’t want to fight with you.” She grabs my hands, the check falling to the floor, and leads us to the edge of the bed. “Gage, please tell me what’s going on. Let me help you.”

  Tears prick at my eyes when I sit, and memories flood me. I’ve never said the words out loud. Luke is the one who gave my father details. The only time I’ve said what little I know about what Missy did was when I gave my police report and then interrogated her for hours straight until her parents came in with the check-writing, sleazebag attorney.

  “I don’t want to bring you into my mess,” I tell her.

  “Your mess is my mess,” she says softly. “They involved me, not you. They hired a PI to track me, showed up at my job, knew my schedule. I’d like to know why they’re doing all of this. Let me help you. Let me know what we’re dealing with.”

  “It’s too much, baby,” I say, unable to stop the tears now. “I won’t bring you into the darkness with me.”

  “Who’s Missy?” she asks, refusing to let me off the hook.

  I shake my head.

  “You don’t have to answer that. I already know. She’s your wife.” The words sound spiteful, but her tone doesn’t. She’s upset, somewhat angry, but holding it together for me. She can sense my pain.

  “She’s my ex-wife,” I clarify for what feels like the hundredth time.

  Missy made it hell to divorce her and convinced her parents to hire the best divorce attorney by threatening to hang herself in her cell. I fought them, declined ungodly amounts of money, and eventually won in the end. I’d still be struggling had I not had a buddy who was one of the top litigators in the state.

  I lose contact with Lauren when she gets up from the bed and snatches a letter I will always recognize from the floor.

  “Wifey doesn’t seem to realize you’re divorced.” Her arm falls to her side, the letter still clutched in her hand, and hurt is on her face. “You have a child with her?”

  I scrub my hands over my face. Had. I had a child with her. “It’s complicated.”

  “You hated me because I kept a secret from you about something as simple as breaking up, and you act like I’m Satan, but you’ve been hiding the fact that you have a child. Where is he? Why isn’t he here with you? Do her parents have him? Gosh, I have so many questions. You think keeping a secret like this from me is okay?”

  Anger is replacing her understanding as she paces in front of me.

  The problem is, people don’t think of the worst-case scenarios because they’ve only seen it on the news, seen it on true crime documentaries; most people don’t know someone close to them who’s lived through the hell of real-life 20/20 episodes.

  I drop my head, take a few deep breaths, and then slowly look back up. “Missy was my partner in Chicago.”

  She stops her rambling and pacing, at my first admission. Her back is straight, and she’s still. I can see her mind working, telling herself to come up with a question to get her as much information as she can.

  “What do you mean, partner? Life partner … sex partner?”

  “We were both police officers … partners.”

  Her eyes widen in understanding. “And then you started sleeping together? Isn’t that against the code of conduct?”

  “There were no rules restricting officers from having relationships with other officers. It’s actually common. Partners understand each other.”

  “So you started sleeping with her because she understood you?” That hurt is back on her face.

  “I’m not sure how it started. It wasn’t planned. We were drinking at a friend’s birthday party. One thing led to another, and we had sex.”

  “Only once?

  I pat the space next to me, and she sits down.

  “We had sex off and on for years.”

  “I’m so confused. You had sex off and on for years while you were married? Shouldn’t that stay consistent?”

  “It was before and during our marriage.”

  “You said you got married as a favor to her?” She points to the stack of pictures on the floor. “Not to be rude, but that little boy doesn’t resemble either of you. Was Missy pregnant with another man’s baby and you married her to help raise him?”

  My story with Missy is one people wouldn’t guess. It’s complicated. The preacher who married us called it a kind gesture and said we were saints for what we did.

  “The station was a safe haven,” I say. “Someone dropped off a baby one night, and Missy and I were the ones who found him. We brought him to the hospital. He was malnourished, addicted to every drug imaginable, and filthy.”

  I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. We were ending a shift, walking into the station to finish up some paperwork, when we heard the loud cry ring through the chilly wind. We followed the sound to a set of steps, and as soon as he saw us, he stopped.

  My voice breaks. “Three months old and an addict. We visited him in the hospital daily, and Missy fell in love with him. I fell in love with him. She got in touch with his social worker to adopt him. Since we’d slept together plenty of times, and we had a trustworthy relationship, she suggested we do it together and co-parent. I agreed, and we got married.”

  “Why couldn’t you co-parent him without getting married?”

  “They were giving Missy a hard time about being a single foster parent. The social worker said they’d consider placing him with a married couple over her, but he’d be in the system until then. We didn’t want him put in the system, so we made the decision to become that married couple who could have him.”

  She nods for me to continue.

  “The first few years of our arrangement ran smoothly. We lived down the block from each other and spent time together, and yes, we still did sleep together. I’d told her I wasn’t looking for anything serious before we slept together the first time.”

  “You got married and adopted a baby with her. You can’t say that’s nothing serious.”

  “You’re right. I realize that now, and I should’ve earlier, but it seemed so simple.”

  “Then, what happened? Why is she in prison?”

  “I told her about you, about my life here, about why I’d left. It’s easy to get personal with someone you spend so much time with. Missy said she understood and agreed we’d never be a real married couple, but she started to change as Andy got older. She grew more protective of me. Called me nonstop. Showed up at my house at all hours of the night. Started drinking more. She got suspended from the force as a result of aggression with arrestees.

  “We had keys to each other’s places, and I came home with Andy one evening to find her in my bedroom. She’d found a box filled with pictures of you and asked if I still loved you. I answered honestly and said yes. Her next question was if I loved her, to which I also responded that I loved her as Andy’s mother, but I had no romantic feelings for her. She had known I didn’t love her when we got married. We’d planned to divorce after gaining full rights to Andy and to split custody fifty-fifty. That never happened.”

  “Why not?”

  I choke back a sob and look at the floor while shaking my head. “Because Missy murdered Andy,” I whisper.

  Twenty-Seven

  Lauren

  Gage’s shoulders hunch in pain.

  I begged him for the truth, demanded it, but now, I wish I hadn’t.

  His truth is too powerful to take in all at once.

  Andy was his son.

  Missy killed him.

  His then-wife murdered their child.

  Jesus.

  I didn’t prepare myself for a truth bomb of that magnitude.

  As an ER nurse, I’ve witnessed death—parents losing children, children losing parents, lovers losing lovers.

  Watching people hurt isn’t easy.

  It’s harder when it�
�s someone you love.

  His shallow breaths engulf the room, and sweat lines his forehead. I swipe my tears away before doing the same to his.

  Am I ready for this?

  Prepared to hear the details of his tragedy?

  I spent all night reading Missy’s letter and repeatedly looking through the stack of photos until my eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. I never meant for him to find out that I saw them. That’s my karma for snooping.

  “I’m positive she suffocated him,” he says, his voice cracking. An empty stare covers his face, and he chokes back more tears while I gently rub his back. “Andy died because she was angry with me.”

  I’ve only seen Gage cry only one other time—when his mother died. We were in his bedroom. He was in a similar stance—head low, eyes to the floor so that he could hide his hurt—and only seconds passed before he pulled himself together.

  He inhales a deep breath before continuing while I shake my head in disbelief. “We never found his body.”

  “Then, how …”

  “She left me a voice mail, admitting to sending Andy to heaven to be happy. Later, in the car on the way to the police station, she admitted to killing him and then dumping his body in an undisclosed location. When she was brought in and it was time for her to confess, she took it all back. Her family’s high-profile attorney came in and cut off all her communication with us. In the end, she feigned innocence and took a plea.”

  My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my God.”

  “I failed him,” he cries out. “I failed him, and now, he’s dead.”

  I violently shake my head. “No. Her selfishness took him away, not you.” Guilt sweeps through me. Missy’s resentment of me led to her rage. “If anything, I’m more to blame than you. Had you not been in love with me, maybe he’d still be alive.”

  It’s his turn to shake his head. “Don’t you dare put that on yourself.”

  I want to tell him not to place the blame on himself, either. He’s suffering from the guilt of Missy’s actions. This isn’t what I expected. Fixing him isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.