After all that had happened, I knew now that the hook that lashes the mind to the heart is flimsier than I would have guessed back at the beginning when I was plotting and planning my life to the fine details. My decision to stay with Patrick had not been nearly the same as an imperative to do so. The attachment I’d felt to this illusion of obligation was voluntary. It could be unhitched in an instant, with only the will to make it happen.
Just having faith that it’s so easy; simply believing that all it takes is a small adjustment of mind-set, nothing but a quick trick of resolution to let it all go—that’s the only thing that keeps the majority of us on the far side of this freedom.
Once faith becomes knowledge, all it takes is a little practice. I’d had plenty.
I’d only ever seen Christine Ames from a distance. She was much prettier up close. Beautiful even. Wide-eyed terror only made her more so.
I stood in her office doorway, dressed in my best suit and matching poker face. “Hello, Ms. Ames. May I speak with you?”
In less than two minutes she was shuddering her shame into her cupped hands, streams of mascara raking black tracks down her flushed face. Annoyingly, she was still lovely. She would have told me everything, in lurid detail, if I hadn’t stopped her from pelting through a heartfelt confession. Once I realized she was desperately and genuinely in love with Patrick, I wasn’t sure I could sit through the broken play-by-play of her remorse. She wasn’t a terrible person. If there was any sort of plot against me, she was completely ignorant of it. In fact, it seemed Patrick had represented me quite kindly to her.
A tickling fear of having been wrong about everything (or right about everything in the times I’d felt stupid for it) crept up my spine again. My head ached with the noise of frantically retallying my “facts” to the point I nearly missed out on the only key she had to my mystery.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
She was hiccuping now, and her nose had finally puffed up. “When?”
“You just said that you only call him now on his other cell phone since he told you to. He has two phones?”
She nodded her guilt-heavy head, unable to meet my eyes.
“How long has this been going on? When did he ask you to use the other number?”
“Maybe almost two months ago. Something like that. I’m so-o-o so-or-ry.” Fresh, bouncing sobs gave the last words too many syllables. I forced my eyes not to roll. I held my tongue between my teeth to keep from telling her that I didn’t care nearly as much as she thought I should.
Instead, I was the Goddess of Patience, the Pardon Fairy, somehow someone who was comfortable patting her husband’s mistress on her pitiful, shaking shoulders.
“Christine, please. I know this is horrible for you, but believe me when I tell you—I don’t hate you. These things happen. I know you didn’t do this to hurt me.”
She looked up; the hope for absolution, and maybe even the fear of it, pulled a trembly smile on her lips.
“I only need two things from you. I have to sort out a few issues, a couple of important things with Patrick. If you can do these two favors for me, and once I’ve talked to him, I won’t stand in your way. I promise. I’m okay. Or I will be. Really. It’s going to be all right. It’s plain you love him. If he feels the same way about you . . .” I finished with a sympathetic shrug.
Her nose ran and her chin quivered. “What do you want me to do?”
• • •
She would have agreed to whatever I asked, but the ghost of any vengeful feelings of mine had faded away in the face of her sorrow. I almost regretted that I was likely only to make it worse in the days to come if what I suspected proved true. Of course he would have said nice things about me. Her eyes dazzled pure sunshine on blue water when Patrick was the hero. He’d never risk her sweetness. In her company, he wouldn’t say shit if he had mouthful of it.
In the end, she gave me Patrick’s alternate cell phone number and promised to play ill, avoiding him and not taking his calls until I contacted her again.
I caught my reflection in a gilt-framed mirror on my way out of the building. I hadn’t felt the look of purpose rearrange my features, and I’d missed the moment when my eyebrow had cocked a gleam into my eye. The calm I felt now fit the new look too well. The sting of surprise was what seemed out of place. I should have known this creature in the mirror. I should have felt her coming all along.
By my own invitation, perpetual déjà vu had slowed time and sharpened my senses. This clarity and detachment made me feel like someone else, but sure as lies in church, it was someone jarringly familiar.
I turned away from my mother’s daughter in the mirror. But I took her with me.
• • •
It was hardly a surprise that a quick Internet query showed that Patrick’s second phone number traced back to Carlisle Inc. The listing saved me further typing by providing the address and a handy map link as well.