“I can’t believe that bastard did this to us,” Alaina said.
“Language!” I chided. Becca’s eyes were open then, and she stared around.
“Mommy?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“Is everything all right?” the pastor asked.
Alaina rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist. “I just want to see him and say goodbye. None of this matters anymore anyway, does it?”
“He was my husband,” I said through bared teeth, my eyes flicking toward the pastor as I ignored the question, still consumed with what I was discovering. “This is my life. Of course, it matters.”
She held up her hand, giving us a better look at a ring that was twice the size of mine. My heart stopped, my veins going ice cold. “He was my fiancé. We were getting married next year. It’s my life too, okay?” The tears were back as she pressed her lips to her knuckles.
“Next year? He was still married to me,” I said, shaking my head. It felt like a cruel prank. My jaw tensed, my whole body rife with venom as I willed myself to calm down, though it was hardly any use.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Becca said, her tiny hands on my cheeks as my tears began to fall. “It’s okay.” She had always loved to comfort me.
“How did you even meet him?” Clara asked Alaina. “You don’t work at the hospital.”
“He goes to other places besides the hospital,” I snipped, my hands shaking, though I had no idea why I was arguing that point.
“My grandmother was one of his patients,” Alaina said, ignoring me. “Not that I owe either of you any explanations.” She paused. “We met two years ago during one of her last surgeries. After she died…Lucas was the only one who was there for me.”
“Two years ago?” Clara asked, anger in her feeble voice for what seemed like the first time. “We’ve been dating twelve years, and you’re the one he proposed to? What the hell have you got that I don’t?”
“None of the engagements matter because he couldn’t be married to either of you,” I cut in, anger seething in my belly. “Lucas was my husband. He was Becca’s father. Now, I don’t know what promises he made to either of you, what lies he fed you, but today is his funeral. I’d appreciate it if you would both just leave so I can grieve with my child. We need to say goodbye.”
Clara’s eyes shot toward Alaina, and she frowned. “I’d like to say goodbye, too,” she said.
“Me too,” Alaina agreed. She looked at me. “I’ll make it quick.”
Without waiting for permission, Alaina approached the head of the casket. She leaned across it, and I couldn’t help picturing her draped across my husband in the same way. A tear cascaded down her cheek and onto the wood. “I love you,” she whispered, kissing the top with her eyes closed. I forced myself to look away, my vision blurring with fury.
When she lifted up, Clara quickly replaced her. Her sobs were loud and obnoxious as she fell over the casket. Alaina walked past me without a word, and I watched Clara fall apart, her cries carrying through the quiet cemetery.
“Would you wrap it up please?” I asked, staring at Becca’s worried expression as she watched the show. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
Clara stood, walking away from the casket as she wiped her hand under her dripping nose. “I’m so sorry, Naomi.” I pressed my lips together. What was I supposed to say? It was okay? Nothing about this was okay.
Without another word, she was gone, headed back to her car, and I was left alone with Becca, Lucas’ casket, the confused-looking pastor, and an enormous amount of secrets.
I walked with trepidation toward the box that housed my husband’s body. I was still grieving, of course, but there were new feelings filling me now. Confusion. Anger. Heartbreak of a new kind.
“How could you have done this to us?” I asked, my voice a low whisper.
“What did I do, Mommy?” my daughter asked, touching my cheek again and pulling my face to look at her.
I smiled, twirling a finger through one of her spiral curls. “Nothing at all, sweetheart.”
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked, and I watched her eyes as they locked onto the blown-up photograph of Lucas on our left.
“Daddy’s gone, baby,” I told her with a kiss on her cheek. “But he’ll always be with us.” The knots in my stomach tightened as I realized just how true that was. The repercussions of my husband’s choices, his mistakes, I had a feeling, would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Chapter Two
Clara
I walked into the apartment with a lit cigarette in my mouth. It had been so long since I’d allowed myself such an indulgence. Luke always hated the smell, and my years of medical practice told me of the damage it was causing, but something deep inside of me still craved it on hard days.
Today was an especially hard day.
Meeting Naomi for the first time, discovering the truth about all that Luke had lied about—keeping in the truth of what I had to lie about—it was all that I could do to hold it together. And I had to hold it together.
I was due at the hospital soon for two back-to-back surgeries, but I’d overestimated my abilities. When I received the news of Luke’s funeral, I lost it. God, I lost it. Somehow, learning that he was going to be buried made it all real.
When we met, back when I started my internship and he was already a bright, young surgeon a few years younger than I was, I thought he was a pretentious asshole. As I got to know him more, I realized it was completely true. But he was also charming and incredibly kind.
He didn’t judge me for starting medical school twenty years later than the rest of my class. He told me he was proud of me. Said it was brave to start out later in life. He walked me through my first surgery when I froze up—refused to help, and insisted I could do it on my own. And, of course, he was right. I did it.
It was one of my fondest memories of him—him teaching me to go for it on my own. Little did I know, he was preparing me for a future without him.
How dare you? How dare you do this to me?
I fell to the floor of our living room in agony, the rough carpet scraping my knees and elbows. Everything in our apartment was a reminder of him. The couch he helped me pick out, the curtains he’d helped hang, the kitchen counter from where we’d shoved a cookie sheet to the floor while we were making love just a few short weeks ago.
It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. My emotions were so conflicted as I ran my hands through the carpet of my home, my body shaking with silent sobs. I thought the worst thing I’d ever experience would be losing him, but I was wrong. Finding out he betrayed me, that he’d lied about so much while having no place to displace that anger, that was what hurt the most. I’d heard before that grief is just love with no place to go. I wondered if they had a word for fury with the same problem. I wanted to be mad at him, I wanted to hate him…but what good would it do? It wouldn’t affect anyone but me at that point.
I was not sure I knew who I was without Luke. He was such a huge part of my life for twelve years. Hell, if I were being honest, aside from surgery, he was my whole life for twelve years.
Now, he was gone, and I was left to figure out how to feel about him and myself, and this whole other life he was living. Two other lives.
How could I have been so blind to his lies? When I’d caught him in a lie the first time, I should’ve walked away. But I believed him. I believed him when he said he loved me. I believed him when he said he’d never lie again. I believed him when he said everything was going to be okay.
But nothing was okay.
Nothing would ever be okay again.
Luke wasn’t to blame for the worst of it, though. I knew that. Still, it didn’t ease the pain I felt.
How much of what I believed about the man I loved was a lie?
Chapter Three
Alaina
I didn’t want to believe it. Any of it. When I first met Lucas, he was the surgeon responsible for my grandmother’s tumor removal. That was it. He was hands
ome, sure. And I saw the way he looked me over, but I was used to that.
From the time I was a teenager, men had always given me a second glance. It was nothing new and nothing that seemed to be going away any time soon.
When my grandmother passed away, I was surprised to receive flowers at work from Lucas, but I assumed they were technically from the hospital. Then, a few weeks later, he called me to check in and see how I was getting on. Not well, if I were being honest, and though I tried to pretend everything was fine, he seemed to see right through it.
He was like that, you know? He could read right into whatever you said, cutting through to your true feelings. He was impulsive and ill-tempered, but he was also the kind of man who went all out on our anniversary without having to be reminded.
He was the kind of person who, when we left to go anywhere, asked how long I thought it would take. He was always in a hurry, though we had no real place to be. When we went shopping, he went straight to the places we needed to be. He wasn’t a browser. I’d never seen him do anything leisurely. He moved with intent, acted with passion. So, he loved with both.
I couldn’t think of him without recalling the good times—the ones in the beginning. For our first date, he’d taken me axe throwing. He took one look at my combat boots and black clothing and thought, “I’ll bet she loves to throw weapons.” I remember laughing at how well he knew me when we pulled up to the date. I pretended the whole night that it was my first time, and I let Lucas show me up. He loved to seem stronger than he was. He always wanted to be in control.
After that first date, our dates mostly consisted of eating takeout on my floor, watching old horror films, and laughing our asses off at the bad special effects. We’d never finished a single film, always ending the night with food on the floor and our clothes strewn about while we made love wherever we were. We rarely made it to the bed—didn’t need to.
He understood a side of me that no one else did, and he tapped into it. He broke down my walls, walls that had been built by a terrible relationship with my own father and even worse relationships with men in general. Lucas was different, I thought. When he’d looked at me, it was as if nothing else mattered.
I thought nothing else had.
Now, though, knowing that he had loved other women in the same way—I wasn’t sure where that left me. I wasn’t his wife yet. Wasn’t ever going to be now. In fact, given that he had a wife, it seemed impossible that I would’ve ever been.
Did it make me regret my decisions? No.
Did it make me worry that the truth might come out? More than ever.
There were two others involved now, two others who’d be determined to know the truth, maybe even more than the police.
I placed a careful hand over my belly, over the small bump we had formed there.
“No one can take you away from me, little one,” I promised the bump, the only piece of Lucas I had left. No matter what I found out about him in the future, no matter what had happened in our past, he loved me enough to plan a future with me, to propose, and to celebrate the news of my pregnancy. Our love was different. I had to believe that. Even if it was built on lies, when he told me he loved me, I had to believe he meant it. If not, everything I’d done had been for nothing. Two years of my life wasted. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe that. Lucas loved me, and he loved our child. At least, that was the story I was going to spin.
Chapter Four
Naomi
The first time I met Lucas, I was ready to die. It sounds dramatic, I know, and I guess it is. But he saved me.
Okay, as it turns out—as he would inform me later—it wasn’t the first time we met. I didn’t remember him before then, I still don’t understand how, but we actually went to the same university and even had a few of the same classes. He was three years ahead of me.
But, as it stands, according to my own memory, the first time I met the man with whom I meant to spend my life, I was planning to end it.
I mean, I wasn’t standing on a bridge or anything. I wasn’t that close. But I’d made the decision. I think most people believe suicide is an impulse. That you have a bad day and make a bad decision. But that’s not the case. At least, it wasn’t for me.
I’d become obsessed with death. I’d done the research, hoarded the pills. It would be painless from all that I’d read. I’d written letters to my parents and my older sister. I’d picked the day and the time that it would be done.
But Lucas approached me one day as he was jogging through the park. I’d gone there to clear my head. I was just two days away from my death, and the fear had begun to creep in.
I swear somehow he knew my plan, though he’d deny it to this day if he was still around to do that. He walked up to me, him with his coal-black hair and dark eyes, me with my ratty hair tied back into a bun because I couldn’t bring myself to brush it anymore. He was beautiful where I was plain; he was articulate where words failed me; he was charming while I remained awkward. I was not the type of girl he should’ve been coming up to. I was convinced he must’ve been waiting for someone else. When he sat, I stood. Like a teeter-totter, as his butt hit the bench, mine was up.
“I’m sorry.” I heard his apology, and then he was standing too. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
I looked back at him then, and he smiled. Oh, I remember his smile. Warmth all the way up to his eyes.
“Y-you didn’t…disturb me.” I hadn’t heard my own voice in so long it felt foreign. No one expected to hear me talk, so I didn’t have any use for it. My parents were in Rome, and my professors didn’t push any harder to hear from those of us who didn’t raise our hands. I was allowed to maintain my silence, but finally, someone was asking me to speak.
“I’m Lucas,” he said, reaching out his hand.
“Naomi,” I told him my name. “Nice run?” I asked because I could think of nothing else to say.
He nodded, pulling the remaining earbud from his ear. “It’s a beautiful day for one.” He looked back toward the bench. “Were you…waiting for someone?”
I shook my head. “No. I was just…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. What the heck was I trying to think of anyway?
“Would you like to join me?” He seemed to understand that I wasn’t planning to finish that thought.
“Oh,” I glanced down at my jeans. “I’m not really dressed for it.” I waved my hand casually to let him know I was fine.
“We can walk,” he said. “I’m in no hurry.”
I smiled then, and the expression felt strange to my facial muscles. I still don’t know what it was about me that made him come to where I was that day, but I was so thankful he did. As a surgeon, my husband saved countless lives every day at work, but he’d tell me he was always the proudest of the only life he ever saved without a scalpel. Mine.
Thinking of him made my heart ache. During the bustle of the day, between taking care of Becca and trying to restart my old interior design business, I could somewhat easily put my thoughts and feelings aside, but during the evening, once Becca was down for the night, that was when the pain began to seep through the cracks.
Three nights had passed since Lucas’ funeral, and I still felt like I was living my life in a fog. Becca still hadn’t grasped it, and every time she asked about her father, my heart broke a little more. Any piece that may have felt repaired shattered once again.
I picked up my phone without planning to, scrolling through my contacts. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I saw his name, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to help myself. I was lonely. I needed to talk to someone. Anyone.
I should’ve called anyone else, but no one else could fill the hole that Lucas’ death had left.
He picked up on the second ring. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” I said, stifling a sob. “No.” I put a hand on my chest. “I just…need you.”
He was quiet, so quiet I almost wondered if he hung up on me, but then I heard him sigh.
“Naomi, I can’t.”
“I know,” I said, wiping my tears.
“You shouldn’t have called me.”
“I know.”
“I mean, your husband just died. It’s going to look suspicious if you start having anyone coming around at night, but especially me. We have to be smart about this.”
I sniffled, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I’m sorry, it was stupid.”
The anger in his voice faded quickly. “It’s not stupid… You know I would be there in a second if I could. I hate being away from you.”
“It hurts more than I ever thought possible,” I told him. He was the only person I could truly be honest with. “Losing him… Missing you. Trying to keep it together after what happened. I’m so scared…and sad. I’ve never hurt like this.”
He huffed, and I could picture him running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Naomi. I wish there was something I could do, I really do.”
“I know.”
He took another breath. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I will be. Eventually.”
“It’s going to get better,” he said. “Once things calm down some, we can see each other again.”
“I wish you were here now,” I told him, fat tears filling my vision again.
“So do I. More than you know.” It wasn’t technically true. I did know. I knew how much he missed me. How much he wanted to protect me. I knew he felt powerless over all of this.
What I didn’t know was how he could still love me knowing the truth about what I’d done.
Chapter Five
Clara
“Clara? Clara, what are you doing?” The voice was low and unrecognizable, and I wondered who was in my bedroom, but not enough to wake. I rubbed a finger across my face, my body unmoving as I felt myself falling back to sleep.
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