Jennifer and I went to the escrow office separately that morning to sign closing papers on the sale of our home in Seattle. After accepting an offer, we had thirty days to either buy a house in San Francisco or rent here in Seattle while she commuted for a few months before I joined her full time. She refused to buy a house in the Bay Area until she knew she’d like her new role at the tech company she worked for. Her decision would have nothing to do with how I felt about San Francisco. I’d been surprised at her suggestion for me to stay behind by myself and rent in Seattle because Jennifer hated renting. She said it was wasting valuable money and that you never got ahead doing that.
I’d worked from home ever since COVID restrictions began and there’d be no issue with my job if I moved with her to California. Like Jennifer I was also in tech, however, I spent my time writing code behind the scenes whereas my wife was front and center at her company. I didn’t exactly want to move to San Francisco, but if I had to pick a location in California the Bay area sounded nice.
* * *
I was surprised to see her Tesla in the driveway of our nearly packed up Queen Anne neighborhood home when I turned the corner. I glanced at the digital clock on my dashboard and saw that it was only two. Jennifernever left work early. Never. Ever.
I tossed my keys on the hall table that was wrapped in protective bubble wrap, waiting for the movers to arrive, and made my way to the kitchen. The house was quiet. As I walked to the fridge I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision and nearly jumped out of my skin even though I’d assumed she was home. “Jesus, Jen,” I muttered, stopping in my tracks. “Why are you home so early?”
Her expression said that she was pissed off about something but I wasn’t alarmed. Pissed was her usual look these days as she plotted every move we made. Perhaps having no need to expend extra effort in selling a home in a hot Seattle housing market had made her angry. Jennifer preferred drama and upheaval. That way she could be the hero and fix something after complaining nonstop.Why exactly had I married her?
“What is this?” she asked, holding up a sheet of notebook paper, showing little emotion so I couldn’t tell if I was in trouble or if she was just curious about a bill or something. I knew I couldn’t be in hot water over a money issue because I wasn’t the half of the partnership that liked spending copious amounts of cash. She made a lot. She spent a lot.
I grabbed a beer and sat at the island and waited for her to bitch about my beverage choice or something I’d done. I placed a hand under my shirt and rubbed over my abs, checking to see if my beer intake was starting to affect my body and wondering if maybe she’d finally gotten fed up with me. Thankfully we had a home gym and I was as fit as the day I graduated from high school. My wife was smoking hot so I considered staying in shape as part of my job requirement as her husband.
She waved the paper at me again and I spotted something familiar on the page from across the room. “What is that?” I asked, standing and moving toward the sofa where she sat.
“I just asked you the same thing.” Jennifer unfolded the paper then turned the writing toward me. “Recognize this?” she asked.
Yeah, I recognized it alright. How the hell had she found that was a better question. The sudden urge to snatch it from her and run raced through my mind. The piece of paper had creases that crisscrossed every inch ofits surface from me reading and rereading the note more than a thousand times over the past decade. “Where? How?” I stuttered, getting closer and confirming Cooper’s handwriting. The note was the last message I’d received from him despite Mom telling me he visited her all the time during her microdosing voyages of discovery. She’d wanted to share his messages with me but I’d found it all a bit macabre.
“I found this in the bottom drawer of your desk in that locked box you keep,” she stated, turning the words back to herself and scanning them carefully. “I’ll assume the initial C on this paper stands for Cooper?” she interrogated. “And that you two were lovers in high school?”
“You went through my desk?” I accused, ignoring her accusation. “That metal box was locked.”
“Yes, it was locked, but you keep the key in the top drawer, so how secure can that be?”
“What were you looking for?” I asked, grabbing the letter from her hand and sitting across from her on the matching love seat. I looked up in distress from the decade old note. “This is a violation of my personal space, Jen. You had no right,” I protested.
“I am your wife, Michael. That gives me every right.” She adjusted her pencil skirt, a skirt that hugged her curves to perfection and proved she was all woman and knew it. “I was looking for your passport to check the expiration date. You know how you forget things like that.” A lame excuse if I’d ever heard one.
“You still had no right to go through my things,” I argued, embarrassed at what she’d discovered. “This was a decade ago and was just a joke,” I defended. “Why does it matter now?”
“You kissed him,” she stated. “And apparently held him closely,” she added with just a hint of repulsion in her voice.
“The note was one of his jokes. You know how Coop was.”
She scooted forward on the sofa and reached for a glass of red wine I hadn’t noticed sitting there.How long has she been home?She must have gone home immediately after escrow while I was running errands. She took a long drink, finishing the wine, then pointed toward the island atthe open bottle. I obediently stood and retrieved her bottle of wine while neither of us spoke a word. After refilling her glass, I sat back down across from her.
“He was in love with you, Michael.”
I laughed and moved uncomfortably in my seat. “We were buddies, Jen. Best friends to be exact,” I responded. “Sure, he loved me. I loved him. We grew up together for God’s sake,” I added, trying hard to keep the fire from my face.
Jennifer narrowed her eyes and stared at me. “What would Cooper be in your life if he was alive today, Michael?”
“What the fuck, Jen? Whattaya mean what would he be?” I asked, my voice rising as she challenged my story about my relationship with my now-dead friend. “He’d probably be in Idaho and he’d still be my best friend.”
Jennifer took another drink of her wine and then ran her thumb and middle finger down the corners of her mouth, checking them to see if her lipstick rubbed off. “I don’t believe you, Michael,” she stated. “There’s definitely something else implied in that letter.”
I opened my palms toward her and looked at her in confusion. “You don’t believe me?” I asked. “Like what part don’t you believe?” I asked.
She ignored the question and continued glaring at me.
“Cooper is dead, Jennifer. He’s been dead for nearly ten years and he isn’t coming back so I don’t care whether you believe me or not because none of this shit matters.”
She leaned back and sank into the oversized pillows she’d insisted on buying for the couch. Like everything else, she’d wanted them and I didn’t have a say, so I didn’t argue about the ugly pillows. “Why did you marry me?” she asked, keeping her eyes on mine.
I knew what she was doing. She swore I had a dead giveaway when I lied to her. I refused to look away this time. Looking away was the tell as far as I knew and she was going to lose this time. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be admitting my feelings for Cooper today. I’d held that secret for ten years. I could go another ten.
