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“I grew up, and I met someone special,” she says quietly.
We spend the next couple of hours catching up, and after a few beers, I’m feeling maudlin fueled, of course, by the alcohol. My thoughts shift to the last couple of years with Tessa. I’ve carried the guilt of not giving Tessa the baby she wanted for four years.
“Tessa really wanted a baby,” I tell Liz. “I wish I’d agreed to go ahead with the fertility treatments.”
She places her hand on mine. “You shouldn’t. In fact, Tessa once told me she was glad that you guys had held off having a baby. It had given her more time to concentrate on her career.”
That makes me feel a lot better. Liz and I drink far more than I had planned, and when it’s time to go home, I’m a happy drunk. I leave my car at the parking lot and take an Uber home.
***
I wake up with a hint of headache, which is a relief considering how many beers I downed last night. I smile. It was good to catch up with Liz, and knowing that Tessa had been glad that we hadn’t had a baby makes me feel as if a load has been lifted from my shoulders.
As I review the previous day, something tugs at my memory, causing some discomfort. It’s the man who had been crying by Tessa’s gravesite. I recall Liz’s restraining hand on my arm. She’d told me to wait and gone to speak to the man. She had said that he was a family friend and Tessa’s schoolmate in high school. At the time, I hadn’t given it much thought as I’d been too overcome with emotion from seeing Liz.
The more I turn it over in my mind, the more her explanation doesn’t make sense. Why would an old classmate cry as if his heart was breaking years after Tessa’s death, yet I, who had been her husband, did not?
She had said his name was Chad, but if he was such a good friend, why hadn’t Tessa ever mentioned him? I don’t like the direction my thoughts are taking, but this doesn’t make any sense. My heart pounds hard against my chest, and nausea rises. What I am thinking is so frightening and so sickening. I try to talk myself out of it. But it won’t let go.
I try to remember the kind of person that Tessa was. She did not have a cheating bone in her body. I know that I should just let it go and keep moving on with my life, but I can’t. I like things to make sense, and that man being at the cemetery crying his heart out just doesn’t.
I reach for my phone on the charger and turn it on. There are several messages and calls. I click on the message from Cora.
Are you still coming?
An hour later,
I guess not. It would have been nice to let me know that you weren’t.
And then another.
Don’t call me.
I should call her and try and explain, but I can’t. I feel as if I’ve entered another sphere where the only thing that matters now is to find out the truth about Chad. Everything else is secondary.
I ignore the rest of the messages and calls and scroll down to Liz’s number. I hit call. She answers on the third ring.
“I need to speak with you about something important,” I tell her after we’ve exchanged pleasantries.
“I can’t,” she says, distance in her voice. It reminds me of when I used to call her after Tessa’s death, and she didn’t want to talk.
“Please, Liz, it’s important, and it won’t take a lot of your time. I’ll come to your place.”
She sighs deeply. “Okay, fine. I’ll text you the address. Call me when you get here.”
I shower and dress at record speed. I make a coffee to take with me as it’s the only thing I can manage to coax down my throat. My whole body is cold as I sit in the back seat of the Uber.
I’m more frightened than I ever have been in my life. One minute I think that I must be crazy to think of such a thing, and in the next, I think it would make sense why Tessa’s family wanted nothing to do with me. It wasn’t because I reminded them of their loss; it would be because I reminded them of Tessa’s guilt.
The Uber drops me at the parking lot where I left my car. I follow the directions that Liz gave me, and in fifteen minutes, I’m parking in front of a two-story family home. I kill the engine and text Liz to let her know that I’ve arrived. Seconds later, the front door opens, and she comes out. She spots my car right away and hurries toward me.
