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I sort the electric bills into a pile, then do the same with the mortgage payments and Caleb’s truck title from when we paid it off. Another thing I have to deal with.
I’m on a roll and can actually see the desktop when I come across a receipt for a hotel in Texas with no writing from Caleb saying he turned it in to the academy to be reimbursed. I’m setting the receipt in my miscellaneous pile to go through later when my eyes snag on the address of the hotel.
Galveston, Texas
I stare at it, trying to make sense of why Caleb would have been in Galveston. It borders the Gulf and is nowhere near College Station.
Flopping back in the chair, I stare at the receipt so hard it feels as if I could burn a hole through it.
Why was Caleb in Galveston, and why wouldn’t he tell me?
Did he and I just forgot?
In the last couple of years of our marriage, Caleb was coming and going all the time. I suppose it’s possible that he told me and I forgot. Maybe he went to a station in Galveston to conduct local training or something…
But even as I think it, the words don’t sit right in my belly. A queasy feeling washes over me. Call it female instinct, a gut feeling or whatever, but it’s telling me that this is something I should look into.
But that intuition is quickly overshadowed by an immense amount of guilt I feel over questioning my dead husband’s behavior when he’s not here to answer for himself.
Part of me wants to pretend I never saw this receipt, while part of me wants to do more digging to shake loose a memory that would explain his stay there.
I decide to do neither. Setting the receipt down, I get up from the chair and leave the office, closing the door behind me.
I’m not sure I should have started on this quest to go through all of Caleb’s things. Maybe I should have left things how they were.
ELEVEN
Ansel
It’s been a week since I accompanied Collins to wine-and-paint night at the art gallery, and I haven’t heard from her. Not that I expected us to make plans within days, but I should check up on her in case being out that night brought up stuff for her.
And so, I book another massage appointment under the guise of a sore lower back.
When she greets me in the waiting room, she has a wry expression as if maybe she knows my lower back isn’t that sore. But once we get in the room and I’m face down on the table, she seems to take my fake concern seriously.
“Does it bother you every day, all day, or just when you’re doing certain activities?” She spreads some massage oil on my back, and my muscles relax into her touch.
I worked hard at the gym today, and though my back didn’t hurt, the massage feels good. “Comes and goes. I haven’t really been able to pinpoint it to one thing specifically.”
She continues working. My eyes drift closed in the companionable silence and the sensation of her working my muscles.
Eventually, I remind myself that what I’m here for isn’t the massage. “You never called. When is our next adventure?”
Her hands still on my back before she continues, her touch slower. “Right, sorry about that.”
That’s all she says, and I’m not sure what to make of her response.
“If it’s because I embarrassed you with my painting, I apologize, but I swear if we do something closer to my wheelhouse, I’ll be a rock star at it.”
A low chuckle flows out of her, followed by a sigh.
“Collins, overt your eyes for a second because I’m going to flip over.”
“What? Oh—” she says when the sheet moves and I’m turning.
By the time I face the ceiling and sit up, her back is to me. I adjust the sheet so that all the goods are covered. “It’s safe to turn around.”
She has a wary expression on her face. “I’m not finished working on your back, Ansel.” She scolds me like a mother, at least what I remember from mine.
