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It’s strange watching your husband and children, having their last best day. It’s not as easy as you might think, when you’re the only one who knows what’s coming. I wanted to make it special, for all of them. I thought back on my last, best day. Before I knew the truth about Michael.
Before I realized my life amounted to a bigger lie than I’d thought.
Back when the biggest annoyances of my life were carpool, making lunches, and scheduled sex.
Watching the three of them on the boat, lounging on the deck, laughing at something Hayley has said, Michael looks up, his face scanning the boat. He’s looking for me. He’s thinking I shouldn’t be missing this, and it’s genuine. Or at least it seems that way. I smile, hold up one finger, and finish mixing our drinks.
“This was a great idea,” he tells me when I finally make my way over, and I’m glad for the man at the airport. I’m glad I took his advice. I’m glad I chartered this boat in hopes that we might see whales.
The sky is cloudless, and the day feels like the ocean, like it might go on forever. The girls are as happy as I’ve seen them in recent weeks. The permanent look of wor
ry, or dread, or both, has nearly vanished. Their eyes are once again bright. It pains me to know this is all temporary, that all of life is. That we can only hold on to these moments in our mind.
I take a lot of photos. No one complains like they usually would.
My favorite is one of Michael standing on the edge of the boat, looking into the ocean, one hand clasped in Sophie’s, the other in Hayley’s. At the last second, he looks over his shoulder at the camera, at me as if to say, can you believe this?
He smiles, and then he jumps.
Michael was traveling in a ten-passenger van with a group from our hotel, on their way to a golf course seven miles south, when they were ambushed by the cartel. He was shot seventeen times. Only two of the ten passengers survived. Michael was not one of them.
Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. But only two people will probably ever know for sure. Me and the weathered man from the airport.
The girls and I are lounging when the police find us at the hotel pool.
They escort us to a small office just off the lobby of the hotel. There are only two chairs. A third is brought in, but I have already pulled Hayley onto my lap. On the desk is a porcelain dolphin, on the wall, an aerial shot of the hotel. It looks dated, and I wonder how much has changed in the time since it was taken.
Two police officers enter the room, different than the ones who escorted us in the first place. Water pools on the floor at my feet. Towels are offered, and from there everything else happens fast.
They ask me to confirm my identity, for identification, but I explain that it is all in the room. They ask where Michael is, and when I confirm he is golfing, they deliver the news.
Even though I know what they are going to say, it hits me harder than I expect. All the years we spent together flash before my eyes, snapshots of love and lies. But more than any of that, the countless memories I can cast aside, it is the girls’ wailing that threatens to do me in.
How unlucky can one family be? That is what everyone is thinking when the news hits. Even if it isn’t what they’re saying, it’s what they’re thinking.
On the flight home, later that same afternoon, I am thinking about the other families making the same trip, returning home, with broken hearts, to empty houses. I could ask whether or not I did the right thing, although I know that to do so would be pointless.
Lives were lost. But countless others will be saved.
It’s about balance, I suppose.
There is a lot of work ahead. It makes me think of my mother, of how easy it would have been just to get up and walk away. How easy it still could be.
For now, I am here. The girls are not yet ready to know the truth about their father. It’s not an easy concept to grasp that something can be both good and bad, and sometimes it’s better to lose a thing slowly, rather than all at once.
The time will come, eventually, where I will have to sit them down and explain everything. It is inevitable. Otherwise things cannot go according to plan.
Epilogue
Charlotte
Nine months later
I stop at a cafe and use the bathroom to change and do my makeup. Shaking out the short blonde wig, folded neatly into my oversized Hermes handbag, I slip it into place. Then, I touch up my lipstick, check my reflection, add another coat of mascara, and still unsatisfied, I make the effort to slip the false eyelashes into place. I close my eyes and squeeze them shut, before opening them slowly, carefully checking my appearance one last time. The transformation makes me smile. I look nothing like myself.
When Sophie comes out of the stall, her eyes widen in surprise. Mine too. Her brown eyes painted black, in combination with the red lipstick and super short skirt, terrify me. She doesn’t look like my daughter. She looks like me.
“Should we go over it again?” I ask, glancing at her in the mirror.
