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Instead of processing the possible death of my fiancée, my mind begins swerving out of control, spinning wildly down an endless rabbit hole.
Did Grace love Paul?
Did she want to leave me for him?
What was the exercise of this pointless affair with him if she were to marry me? If she wanted to quit her job? Paul wasn’t particularly handsome, nor did he enjoy a wealth of gray matter.
How long had it been going on? Were they already at it, harboring this secret, while all of us were in Italy?
Was Grace really at work in Zurich all those days, those weeks, those months? Or was she with him?
And where did they meet when they were alone? A hotel? An Airbnb? The apartment Grace had refused to stop renting, “just in case”?
I want to know each and every sordid detail. To gorge on my own sorrow until I choke on it.
“Mrs.Ashcroft?” A woman in a white robe walks out of a silver door. She takes off her thick glasses and cleans the lenses with the hem of her sleeve.
Bumpkin flattens her ridiculous dress, squaring her shoulders. The woman steps sideways, motioning for her to come with. Winnifred throws me one last die-in-hell glance. I want to tell her she can dropthe whole wounded-widow charade. She got her wishes. She is a young, beautiful widow with millions in the bank, and no one can accuse her of foul play. Every gold digger’s dream.
We hold each other’s gaze for a moment. I hope my eyes convey what every bone in my body is screaming.
It should’ve been you on the plane.
You were supposed to die. You.
Unremarkable. Insignificant. Forgettable. Country Bumpkin.
Not my beautiful, sophisticated, math-wiz fiancée.
Not the cunning, alluring Gracelynn Langston. The spectacular woman only I understood.
“Please follow me.” The woman in the white robe ushers her. Winnifred complies swiftly and comes back ten minutes later, looking ashen and pale. Her shoulder bumps into my arm as she leaves the room, but she doesn’t even notice. I swivel my head to follow her movements. In the hallway, Winnifred collapses midstep, on the floor, back hunched, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.
I don’t need to ask. I know. It was Paul she saw in there.
The woman in the robe saunters out the door again. “Mr.Corbin?”
I close my eyes and press the back of my head against the wall.
Grace has somehow managed to slip through my fingers. Again.
I didn’t hold her tight enough, close enough, good enough.
And this time? The water didn’t save her.
PART TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WINNIE
Eight months later
Momma always tells me that the cutest thing I ever did as a child was bawl my eyes out every time “Space Oddity,” by David Bowie, came on the radio.
I’m talkin’ full-blown meltdown, peppered with hiccups and uncontrollable emotions.
“You were so moved by it, no matter how many times you listened to it. It touched your soul. This was how I knew you were an artist. You let art touch you. So it was obvious to me, one day you’d be able to touch others with it.”
