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“Come on, Jordan. We need to go.” Her eyes met mine one more time. “You have to believe me. You didn’t do anything wrong. Hold on to that. Do you promise?”

I nodded.

That was the first time I met Linda. And that was the day I started wishing I had a mother like her.

EPILOGUE

SAMANTHA

Now

It took until nine that evening before the forensics team was finished gathering evidence. Jordan’s body had been taken away hours earlier. Linda hadn’t come out of her house in all that time. She said she didn’t want to remember Jordan that way. She wanted to remember the dreams she’d had for their life together, keeping her attention on all the beautiful moments they’d shared.

While we waited for the final word that we could return to our home, Patrick and I went out to eat. We were lucky, the detective said. Sometimes processing a scene could take days, even weeks. Because Emily had confessed, they collected the evidence they needed, but they didn’t require extra time to go over the entire house and property with a fine-toothed comb.

We picked at our food, hungry but not. Each bite was looked at with anticipation, but then took ages to chew and swallow, as if it were made of cardboard and packing tape.

“I admire what you did,” Patrick said.

“What did I do?”

“You told the entire truth. It must have been hard saying those things about your best friend.”

“It was.”

“I respect that.”

Why did his words feel patronizing? I’d always been a truthful person. Even my brief lapse when I’d been confronted with Todd’s body in our swimming pool—telling Patrick he was a stranger, then resisting his effort to call the police—wasn’t a selfish lie. I lied because I’d also wanted to protect Patrick. If the detective believed I was cheating on my husband, they would immediately suspect him of murdering Todd. I knew Patrick would leap to the conclusion that I was having an affair. No one ever thinks a woman and man can have a platonic friendship.

I shouldn’t have done it, but as things unraveled at lightning speed that night, and over the following days, I was overcome with an instinct for self-preservation.

Patrick acted as if it had been a major, life-affirming step forward to tell the truth about Emily. He acted as if honesty was rare for me.

I’d come to our vacation home hoping Patrick would absorb the perfection I’d imagined in Emily and Keith’s marriage. I so badly wanted Patrick to recognize that everyone else in his life took precedence over me. Instead, Emily and Keith’s marriage turned out to be decaying beneath the surface—their devotion only superficial.

Patrick was very attentive while the police interviewed us, while we waited for information and instructions, and right now, as we lingered over dinner and a bottle of wine. Even though we weren’t eating much, the bottle of wine was almost empty.

Still, I felt disconnected from him. I felt as if he was more concerned with helping the sheriff and the detective than he was with me. His desire and instinct to help other people would never change. But could he change enough to want me more than he wanted the appreciation and praise heaped on him by friends and neighbors and strangers? I wasn’t sure. I leaned toward no.

Why had I tried so hard for so long to get this man to notice me? He looked in the mirror and saw only himself—the hero.

But I was the heroine here. I’d been a devoted, caring, and loving wife regardless of what I got back. I’d been a loyal and giving friend until that became unsustainable. When Emily and I first became friends, we thought the stories of our past—mothers who were broken in different ways, and the damaged pieces inside of us—created a visceral bond.

My mother chose my sister over me. Each and every time. Emily’s childhood had been the opposite. Although it appeared as if her mother chose Emily over Todd, her mother was submerged in her own sorrow. Out of that sadness and pain, she rejected her son and tormented her daughter. She refused to comfort Emily when her jealous, hurting little brother stuck pins into her flesh. Her mother loved only the idea and the image of a daughter—dressing her like one of her dolls, ignoring the person who cowered inside that life-sized doll, who breathed and felt her own heartbeat.

It turned out, our experiences were not that similar.

When I met Todd, my life shifted. At the time, I had no clue this man, who felt a connection to Lake Tahoe that was as deep and inexplicable as mine, was Emily’s estranged brother. All I knew was that he looked at me and saw the ways in which I’d been hurt, while I did the same for him. Maybe that’s when I started realizing I didn’t have to be perfect to win Patrick’s love. I shouldn’t have had to win his love at all. I shouldn’t have to prove I was the most important person in his life. Either I was, or I wasn’t. And it had been clear all along that I was not.

“Why aren’t you talking?” Patrick asked.

“A lot has happened. It’s hard to even think.”

He nodded and took the final sip of his wine.

When we returned to our house, Linda was sitting on the front porch next door. She waved at us as if we were coming to visit. After Patrick turned off the engine, she approached. I climbed out and went around the front of the SUV to put my arms around her. She welcomed me with a warm, lingering hug.

“Let’s pack up the car and stay in a hotel tonight. We can hit the road at sunrise,” Patrick said.