Forget You Know Me

by Jessica Strawser

  She gaped at him. “Um. Is the plane not equipped with those things in the first place?”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, yes and no. I didn’t say anything about a flight, did I?” He grinned and added, “Yet.”

  Before she could respond, he bent to rummage through the box and came up holding a slender hand-painted vase. He held it out to her, and she took it gingerly into her hands, examining the fine brushstrokes that swirled the surface.

  “When we have our first argument, probably something small and silly, I’m going to bring you a single flower. Just one, nothing showy. I’m guessing you haven’t replaced your housewares yet, so this will give you something to put it in.”

  She wrapped her fingers around its thin neck, feeling the cool ceramic against her skin. “That’s sweet,” she said. “But I think we just had our first argument. Though you’re right that it was small and silly.” She hesitated. “I was small and silly,” she said more quietly.

  “No, you weren’t. But I figured you might say this one counted.” He bent over again, removed a hydrangea blossom from the box, and presented it to her with a flourish. “For you.”

  She laughed in weak protest. “But this one was my fault!”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, and his voice was kind—kinder than she deserved. “Pre-mortem thinking is not for everyone, and I kind of already knew that. In fact, I’m taking a chance here. But go with it, okay?”

  “I’m with it,” she assured him.

  “Good. So, I hate to bring this up now that we’re back on track, but one day, I’m really going to piss you off.” He tapped his finger on an envelope and handed it over. “Open this then.”

  She peeked at the back, but it was sealed. “May I ask what’s inside?”

  “A list of everything I like about you so far. Maybe it’ll remind you of something you like about me, even if I’m being stupid. Failing that, there’s also a movie gift card. Treat a friend to a girls’ night instead of sitting home with no date.”

  She shook her head. “Henry, you didn’t have to—”

  “Moving on to a better problem: A day I’m doing everything right but have to leave for my overnight flight schedule. A day you’re sad to see me go.” He reached back into the box and presented her with a glossy trifold bearing the air shuttle’s logo. “You can use this voucher to come along. No need to ask. Surprise me sometime.”

  Liza opened it to look inside, almost not believing this was real, and when she looked up he was holding a pink toothbrush. “I debated this one,” he said. “Don’t want to seem presumptuous. But we’re adults, right? So, should you ever want to stay over, unplanned, I’ll keep this at my place. Just in case.”

  She rolled her eyes, laughing, and he dropped it back into the box. When he straightened, he was holding the gaudiest reindeer sweater she’d ever seen. He pressed Rudolph’s nose, and the wreath framing the animal lit up red.

  “What on earth…”

  “Further ahead of myself, but if all goes well, you’ll need this for any get-together my family throws at Christmastime. I apologize in advance.”

  She shook her head, though she wasn’t succeeding in masking her grin. “I think I’m starting to realize how Luke felt when I gave him that monitor.”

  “Too much?” His eyes twinkled, but his face was serious as he stepped closer. “I figured I might only get one shot to prove my point, which is this: I know this hasn’t been an easy time for you, and maybe on paper it isn’t good timing to meet someone. But we did meet. And if you want to lend your heart on the safest possible terms—”

  One step forward was all it took to bury her head in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and she tipped her face up to his. When they finally pulled back, the least of her worries was whether this decision was right, or safe. She had already made it regardless.

  “One more thing,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He opened his hand, and in his palm was one of those little gold pins presented to children on airplanes. Stripes and wings. She let him pin it to her collar.

  “This could come loose and stab me,” she said, stifling a smile. “It has just this one fastener. Not two. Definitely not seven.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never seen it happen, in all my years of flying.”

  “So we are going up?” She eyed the precarious aircraft behind him and thought about what it would be like to buckle in right now, to perch in the balance between those teetering wings and look down on the blanket of lights that just moments before had been outside the restaurant window. Frightening. But exhilarating.

  “Only if you want to.”

  She kissed him again, feeling his lips smile beneath hers, and she could see it, then, how his “preparation” for the bad had really been a preview of the good that was always possible on the flip side. She already knew what she’d use her flight voucher for: to take him along to Max’s good-bye party. And maybe they wouldn’t date long enough for her to ever venture out in that hideous holiday sweater—but then again, maybe they would.

  He touched his forehead to hers, and she looked him in the eye and nodded.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  37

  Molly had been thinking a lot about the night in question. How she’d gone into it wondering if it was ever possible for two people who’d grown apart to reverse course. Not with the relationships you were content to outgrow, but with the ones you couldn’t even think of relegating to memory without a lump catching in your throat.

  She’d been so reluctant that night to face Liza, even through the filter of the webcam, and she’d viewed Daniel’s business trip as a reprieve from the strain of their marriage. In hindsight, the Molly of that night had all but made up her mind that it wasn’t possible. That these small efforts to reconnect only prolonged the inevitable.

  The man in the mask changed all that.

  Not right then, of course. But the fallout from his brief appearance stirred stagnant things into motion. Things that had needed to move.

  She knew now that there were ways back, though they may not be pretty, with no precedent to follow. As with any chemistry, a catalyst was required, the right conditions. The chain reaction, once begun, could still fizzle, but not if you reassessed the components, fueled the fire with stubbornness, sheer will, even force of habit—anything you had on hand.

  Liza would remain back in her life. And Daniel—well, he wanted to. A turnaround as miraculous as any other.

  What if you found out it all had been a reckless experiment, but you couldn’t deny the end result was an improvement? Aside from, that is, the mess you’d made in your own lab, the one you still needed your partner to help you clean up?

  You could reject the whole thing, on principle.

  Or you could dig out your Bunsen burner, strap on your safety goggles, and see what happened next.

  She let the kids prolong bedtime. She was in no hurry to sit alone with her apprehension, awaiting Daniel’s return, and the children had taken on that fairy-dusted quality they had in moments that already felt like memories. Grant was still riding the high of the race, carefully hanging his “Finished!” ribbon on his nightstand knob before joining her and Nori on his bed for extra stories, extra snuggles, extra songs. Molly built Nori’s little nest on her doorway floor without being asked, only to have Nori leap over the pile and bounce into her bed. She admired this kid’s own-mindedness. Molly’s job was not to tame it, but to nurture it. To protect what was strong in her daughter in a world that would try to wear it away.

  Daniel texted that he was headed home. Fair warning. She polished off the last cheese Danish for fuel. Thought of opening a bottle of wine, decided against it. Settled on the couch with the TV off, the lights on. Heard the automatic garage door go up, then down. The slug of the car door. The shuffle of loafers on concrete. A pause and some tinkering. A sudden need, perhaps, to declutter the tool bench. Stalling.

  She smiled into the empty room, eerily calm. Even at
this moment she’d long been dreading, she could take solace in the small miracle that he was dreading it more.

  Here he was. A bit unnerved by her smile. A hesitant grin in return, his eyes investigating the room. Looking for signs of Liza, perhaps. Molly would not be the one to break the silence. What happened next would be up to him, just not the way he thought.

  “Boy,” he said. A voice strained through wire mesh. “What a day.”

  She gestured to the cushions next to her. “Tell me everything.” His eyes shifted again, trying to discern her meaning, fearing the worst—that this was his one chance to fess up before she flew off the couch, clawing at him, How could you? “Start from the beginning,” she prodded. “Does this go back to those expense reports you told me about?”

  She’d never seen him so relieved at the mention of Toby. He sank onto the couch a short distance away and sat stiff as a door, walking her through the excitement of the day without the slightest hint of excitement. Hard to muster emotion while so preoccupied, but he managed the details. She tsked at what Toby had been up to. Gasped at how Daniel had found out. Nodded with approval at his masterpiece email. Knitted her brow at the hours of questioning he’d endured.

  She did know the right things to say. She’d memorized her lines.

  She even smiled as he relayed how Toby had yelled, as they escorted him from the building, some unintelligible nonsense about Daniel “and his crazy wife.” At this, Daniel shook his head. “I don’t even think he could pick you out of a lineup, could he?” he asked.

  She could end the whole charade right now. But if you thought about it, that was letting him off easy. He still didn’t know where he stood, knew only that his position was one too easily transported to the other side of the door.

  “You don’t look happy,” she observed. “I thought you’d be proud of yourself.”

  He cleared his throat, still eyeing her sideways. Halfway sure she must know, halfway convinced he still had time, even if only tonight.

  This was the place to do it. Here, on this line.

  “As long as things are getting out in the open, there’s something else you should know.”

  She couldn’t help it: She cried when she told him. Everything rushing back. The initial mounting debt, the bad call to consolidate it in the most unsavvy of ways. The desperation, the loneliness, the fear. Also, the regret. Nothing she’d learned today had made her less sorry. She’d betrayed them both. No wrong on his part could ever make that right.

  He interrupted, at salient moments. “All of your retirement savings?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What about the IRAs?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. The words seemed just as inadequate now as they’d sounded coming from Daniel these past few years.

  “And this alternative solution you were approached with—in a parking lot—it didn’t seem off? Too good to be true?” His voice was convincingly calm, but his eyes gave away his struggle to keep his disbelief in check.

  “It should have,” she said. “All I can say is I was blinded by panic. And pain. I did show the paperwork to a lawyer. Not promising, unfortunately.”

  He went pale as she neared the end. The threats she’d grown sure she wasn’t reading too much into. The urgent need to pay, immediately. And the amount still due—his bereft silence confirmation that he could produce it, but scarcely a cent to spare.

  The tears still falling—this would be the last of them—she lifted her head and locked her eyes on their target.

  Go ahead, she dared him. Lay into me.

  And he saw. That she knew. Or he didn’t see—he’d gone paranoid. Had he actually convinced Liza to keep quiet? He couldn’t take the chance. But he didn’t want to confess needlessly. She saw it all: The internal boxing match, the relentless back-and-forth.

  Every jab proof that in spite of all she’d done, he still had hope for them.

  Which meant he still had love for her.

  Suddenly Daniel was the one crying. On his knees, on the floor, at her feet. Noble-effort Daniel, whom she’d loved since the first time she saw him, until she almost stopped. Saying her name, over and over. “Forgive me,” over and over. “I know you didn’t get out on that ledge without my help.” He peered up at her through wet eyes, pleading. “And I know how desperate it can be, an urge to fix something broken. I know how it can drive a person to do crazy things.”

  The apology wasn’t just for shunning her pain, for piling on its cost. It was for everything she may or may not know, might or might not discover. Anguish radiated from him as the words fell around her. And she knew he was sincere, because she always had been partial to the vulnerable sides of the people she most loved. She’d missed this one so—she’d know it anywhere. “I love you, Molly. I don’t care about the money.”

  She still wanted to rail at him, to hell with the plan. To complete her catharsis with a string of accusations, every one of them valid and true.

  But if she did, she wouldn’t have this.

  This tip in the balance. Slanting, at last, in her favor.

  Good-bye to weak Molly. Abandoned Molly. I’ll do anything Molly.

  She would tell him that he should care about the money. That she certainly did. She would offer to go back to a rat race of a career, knowing he wouldn’t let her. They would squeak by, start again. It would nag at him, though, what these predators had gotten away with. Her pain would ebb and flow, but they’d meet it together. They’d go on the retreat, paid for anyway, and in a moment of mountaintop solace she’d gently suggest he visit the attorney she’d consulted. See if one of those regulatory agencies couldn’t use his keen financial eye. A more suitable fit than the corporate world anyone could see he loathed. Besides, he’d need to satiate his hero complex somewhere.

  Better them than her.

  All the while he’d wonder about the card in her pocket. If he was imagining it there. If she would ever play it. He wouldn’t bring himself to ask Liza, but if he did, she’d probably just say the same thing she’d told Molly.

  That the option was interesting. Full of possibilities.

  There was one rule, it turned out, on Eleanor’s list that Molly decided to take issue with.

  Let neither husband nor wife strive to be the dominating person in the household.

  After years of the pendulum pulling back one way, straining the gear, showing off its might, a swing to the other side was required to restore the equilibrium. Things would even out eventually. Just not quite yet.

  Following the rest of the rules would help. And they both would, from now on. She’d see to that. Talk things over. Keep alive the spirit … Nine out of ten ain’t bad.

  One day, she’d come home to a whole truckload full of those same yellow tulips Daniel had brought her at the point of no return. Not cut stems, but potted plants, fresh and healthy. A real grand gesture, at last, and she’d smile. She’d been wrong to scoff that she preferred roses. She’d forgotten about the thorns. And she hadn’t put enough stock in the fact that tulips were springtime pioneers, risk-takers, not afraid to go first because someone had to, doggedly reaching up through the soil even knowing nature’s unpredictable April whims could bury them in snow.

  Together she and Daniel would transfer them to the flower beds. She’d water them daily until she was sure they’d bloom next year, and the year after that, regardless of how harsh the winter, to remind her that things could always be restored.

  And, of course, of what they stood for.

  Hopeless love.

  Acknowledgments

  My Deepest Gratitude to the Following:

  My agent, Barbara Poelle: The doer to my (over)thinker. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars (and garters) that I have you in my corner.

  My two talented editors: Holly Ingraham, whose enthusiasm for this project from the start meant everything, and April Osborn, whose insightful eye helped to transform the final draft.

  The whole team at St. Martin’s Press: in particular S
ally Richardson, Jennifer Enderlin, Katie Bassel, Jordan Hanley, Danielle Christopher, Sarah Grill, and the dedicated group at Macmillan Audio.

  Janice Bocskor at the Cincinnati Nature Center’s Nature Shop, who graciously spent a morning answering my questions about her days working there (though I’ve taken some creative license with my rendering, of course). And the many unnamed employees and volunteers who always greeted me with a smile when I came in to observe, enjoy, and write, once even holding on to a forgotten-behind coffee mug for me until I could reclaim it.

  Brad Moeller at State Farm for—quite like a good neighbor—lending insight into Liza’s situation as an insured renter.

  The talented and prolific writer Bob Mayer for a fascinating cocktail hour chat that veered into his “Rule of Seven,” and for gifting me thereafter his books Stuff Doesn’t Just Happen 1 and 2, which helped to inspire Henry’s theory. Both are available as ebooks from Cool Gus Publishing, and offer interesting further reading for anyone intrigued by a glimpse into that way of thinking.

  Kelly Fields, for her good-humored explanations of the inner workings of human resources, and Scott Strawser for his expertise, always, on the financial side. Any perceived inconsistencies or liberties taken are mine alone.

  Kim Dinan, the most gracious of hostesses, whose writing retreat reinvigorated this story (and its author) at just the right time. And fellow retreat writers Cat Johnson and Meghan McNamara, whose ideas at our group brainstorm helped to give Molly and Daniel a push.

  My beta readers, Lindsay Hiatt, Amy Price, and Megan Rader, for their thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft, and for cheering me on between reads.

  Sharon Short and Katrina Kittle for their writerly sisterhood; the Tall Poppy Writers for welcoming me into their fold; fellow writers turned friends via 17 Scribes and WFWA; and my colleagues at Writer’s Digest, whose continued support means more to me than I can say.

  The Quotable Eleanor Roosevelt, edited by Michele Wehrwein Albion, proved a wonderful desk reference as Molly cites the occasional quote from her daughter’s namesake. Published by the University Press of Florida in 2013, this book was years too late to have been the dog-eared quote book Molly so treasured, but I imagine hers to be one quite like it, and recommend the title to anyone who’d like one of their own.